contractors? today play a role in any of this? how did that turn out? mr. carson: it's a total force that we have come active force, civilians, contractors are key part of that. it doesn't directly address much about the contractor workforce. there are some preliminary works that have to go into this. going to be a long-standing project. question that bedevils me often, now appear, is to say -- how many civilians should we have of the department? we have 744,000. is that the right number? is that too many? are they saying that we are overworked and could use more? it's difficult to account for them. is that the right number? too much or too little? it is a philosophy about how this works.

what is the right balance between these things? it allows you to think through whether we have too many, too civilhe right mix between service, contractors, military and civilian as well. the cost for our military. for various departments. they don't have to pay for them in a way. perhaps we should have greater demand for them. what to do about the contractor workforce? the answer is we have to think through the entire labor mix department and come to grips. people say that you are bloated. you are starved. we have the ability to answer that question. for me, i struggled to answer that question. one last question here at the very back. >> good afternoon, congressman. going to have to disagree, respectively, with the general over here. one thing that you didn't

his combat and operations. the military is supposed to be a fighting force. we've talked a lot about freezing eggs in that kind of stuff but it seems to me that the way the military operates has been a little ignored in this. how the personnel system affects the way the force fight. specifically for top rate, with maneuver warfare the way that jon voight explained it. you need to have a cot -- a culture with a lot of moral courage. those bigling to take chances. a big part of the personnel system now is that it creates a bunch of careerist functionaries, quite frankly, in the mid to upper ranks. how much to that factor play into the discussions as you put forward the proposal force for the future? jon voight would be a future force proposal fan, if

you were alive today. i believe that. more he advocate for these kind of radical changes? yes, i believe you would. i don't accept the notion that this today produces career functionaries. i know that it's an easy meme to make. that these guys are yes-men to make it to the part -- to the top. the people that you meet at the top of military service are incredible people. have been away from the families for six or seven years at a time. they have an incredible commitment to the institution. they see themselves rightfully as a link in a long chain that goes back for centuries and will proceed century sense. it is right that there is an institutional conservatism about them. this work is really important.

i don't accept that notion. even the folks who are the most , i admire them immensely. they don't come from a place where they regard their rice bowl and bureaucratic intransigence. it came from a deep-seated view of like -- hey, i'm in a line that goes back to achilles of troy. i think the point you make is right. not aboutges are saying -- you know, it's a 21st-century world and we have to become cutting edge. do they identify distinct problems? egg freezing rose from the fact that we have a retention issue. women are not joining in the numbers they should and they lead in droves once per year. marrymen that do typically marry a military officer. we have this phenomenon of dual military couples and the extraordinary stress they are

under. the question is -- what can they do to remedy these problems? people say that one of the problems we have is raising my children. we will have child centers open 14 hours per day. we are going to have maternity leave, paternity leave. yes, egg freezing. many people find themselves in their late 30's, unmarried or childless without an opportunity to start a family at that late eight. -- youit comes back to know, one of the jobs were people like me is to protect the maverick thinkers. there are many, many people who would be far beyond this. about what we need to do. my job is to protect them, encourage them. when you see these people it is dozens of young officers from every service. people we have tried to mentor, encourage.

they will rise up. thee the senior leaders in department doing the exact same thing. these are people who identify these kind of maverick thinkers. best to protect them. right? i don't accept this notion. he would be more of a believer in the statement i made earlier. i can't come out from my place to say more to change the military personnel system. here are a few edex. implement tomorrow. it's about the way i think about these problems. in the end that's a threat -- that's what really matters. that's what -- carter has done. insisting that we rethink these issues. that legacy will live on for years and decades to come. john boyd would appreciate that. people and ideas. that's what we mean into.

i would call him a fellow traveler. >> with that we will leave it there and i want to thank you for coming. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]

>> you can watch this program later today on our website, c-span.org. "the hill," writing today that three sikh soldiers have been nations toigious, wear beards and turbines while in training today. the reasons that they had sued the army and the pentagon prior to starting basic combat training in may. their turbines will have to be black or camouflaged depending on the situation according to the memo. under a rule change the armed services will accommodate religious requests for the service members. the religious accommodations will be reevaluated after their training, according to memos released by their attorneys.

>> madam secretary, we proudly give 72 of our delegate votes to the next president of the united states. [cheers and applause]

>> in now, forward visors to residents and secretaries of defense talk about american foreign-policy and its grand strategy in the climate of climate paul -- partisan politics. advice to the ex-president, hosted by indiana university. >> all right, looking back. we are beginning with a weighty topic. grand strategy. presidential administrations have long sought the holy grail of having a grand strategy. of being the administration that produces the next containment can't, or to taunt -- d

kind of, and that strategy has been instrumental in building schools like this one. some of the first international study policies were created in the united states and in the 1930's, coming up about because of grants as the department of state to help the government formulate a grand strategy for the united states. this is a place where the nexus between academia and policymaking is strong. what is a grand strategy? achievable in the current moment? or even in any moment? basicare a number of components that we can point to. one is that it is an integration in the parts of strategy that

involve military strategy and also diplomacy, trade, technology, economics, and even humanitarian goals thrown in to a single narrative. a single picture of the kind of world that the united states would like to create. that shouldative resonate or at least appear to resonate with the shared values that would give it appeal both domestically and to key allies abroad. and it ought to have some durability. that would make it last for perhaps more than one administration. not surprisingly, those three traits, integrated policy, one that durable, one that reflects consensus values, it's not

surprising that it's so historically rare that the consensus behind the grand strategy is achieved. one question we might be asking today is whether conditions exist now for creating such a grand strategy. we have a terrific panel of experts to discuss this with us today. all of them are on your program. meant for professor fans danzman who will be joining , ato, james b. steinberg former secretary of state now. he of the maxwell school and the university of syracuse, to ask -- what does the exercise of trying to create a grand policymakers?r

why search out and try to be the next george kennan? why do policymakers want to have a grand strategy? ms. danzman: it's a great question. it's great to be with this wonderful group of people. it's been a powerful impact on getting us to discuss these, in the role of the american world. i'm honored to be -- mr. steinberg: i monitored to be a part of it. there's a linear geographic relationship between how far you are from washington and how much you talk about grand strategy. there have been very many meetings in the situation room where people sit down and say -- good morning, it is an gentleman. it is our strategy for the united states? policy planning shop the they say -- let's have a grand strategy.

the reality is quite different. it is of course first important to ask if a president needs a grand strategy. academy they've may think that this is important and critical to the success of the in achieving its objectives. but as a president either grand strategy before asking the second an equally difficult strategy? is it possible to have one even if we don't need one? you and if we do need something that meets some of the criteria that you have laid out, it may not be possible to actually have one. my answer to the first question is -- sort of, yes. we need something that approaches what you talked about. although i think what the grand strategists would like us to have, sorting out whether it's possible. briefly, first, why do we sort of data grand strategy? isneed something that reasonably integrative and has a

sense of the core objectives and the means to achieve the strategy. it is identifying goals and the means to achieve it for a couple of groups. first, for all of us who either study or practice international relationships and foreign policy, the choices that leaders have to make a difficult. we don't have the tools, the metrics. the things that allow us to know precisely how a choice of particular means will lead to a particular end. in the terms of making trade-offs between conflicting objectives, we need a set of tools that allows us in this world of great uncertainty to make choices and allow us to decide that if we have a conflict, should we intervene or not intervene? we can evaluate the pros and cons, but in the end there are judgment calls the call for broader perspectives that allow for difficult perspectives.

in that sense the strategy and the overall objectives, the best ways to achieve it, it helps to break the tie or provided decision-making principle under a situation of uncertainty. undertaking an intervention in there are lots of arguments on either side. if you have the view that u.s. interests will be threatened if dictators are allowed to suppress their people and therefore we need to do something about it, it will lead you to a different decision in saying that these are messy complex. which ae the places in broad strategy can help decide under considerable uncertainty. the second reason we knew something that sounds something like what you talked about is that presidents and principles in government are very busy people. they can't sit around and decide every little question.

so, there is a huge bureaucracy toision-making mechanism conduct the foreign policy and international relations in the united states. at that level people need to kind of have an orientation about what to do. strategysense of grand allows the whole system to have a sense of orientation. to have some guideposts as they conduct the day-to-day business of government and international affairs. we can talk about it, but perhaps one of the tools that's developed in recent years is the so-called national security strategy report that came as the result of actions by congress in the goldwater nichols act. that require the president to do this. during the clinton administration i remember we had done these things and they were not satisfactory. for reasons we can talk about. you begin to wonder if it was worth it. iran into the assistant

secretary for the middle east at the time at the state department. he said -- this is really important. i said -- why? he said that he had to do this day-to-day job running his bureau. i am trying to think, what are the goals and objectives? here's a set of things i can look to to help me think about how i do my job. equally true for the military and the pentagon, thinking about resource development. a broad blueprint helps to facilitate the day-to-day work to make sure that there is some degree of coherence. the third reason it's important, one that you alluded to, you have to have some kind of narrative that kind of explains how to think about all of these individual decisions that in isolation can seem hard to understand or difficult to see how they fit together. whether it's talking to congress or the american people, or adversaries, having some kind of

narrative is very powerful. both in terms of people understanding what you're are doing but also influencing how you respond when you think about what your goal is if you have a view. for example, when they were whenng with the problems you thought that expanding the view of democracy was a goal that would expand the united states. allowing other countries in europe and elsewhere to see what the overall approach was that the united states was pursuing. i think that for all of those reasons something that approaches your characterization is important. for the reasons that everyone says. when that narrative gets constructed, does it happen after an administration has begun? or should it already be apparent to us? i don't know if my colleagues will agree or not,

the first of all it had the privilege of working for three presidents. i will tell you this. presidents have their strategies. they bring advisors to help them think through how to implement the vision that they have of the world. in the end this comes from the president. even though most of our presidents have not been schooled in grand strategy and international relations, by the time they come to the presidency i have a view of the world. if you think about them all, the grand strategy being pursued, this comes from the president and his views. it's not something but he comes in and says hey, guys and ladies , what should our strategy be? the president comes with a set of overarching perspectives on this. now, the advisors, the senior principles can help to flesh it out, help make sure it fits. the formulation, the kind of

filling it out takes place over the course of an administration. it comes from the perspective the president brings. it antedates the forming of the government. it wouldn't be successful if it didn't really reflect the kinds of values and orientation that the president himself or herself brings to the job. so, i think that this sort of notion of a blank slate that you will write a new strategy on, it belies the reality and would be surprising in a democracy if we were somehow electing someone who doesn't have a view, president reagan, president carter, someone who came to the presidency without a view of the world. the strategy proceeds from those basic premises. values and orientations. i could talk about why it's also hard but not impossible to do. to cullather: i want to go

-- professorow next two.n the i wonder if historically or in your own experience if that is necessarily an impediment to creating a comprehensive vision or useful vision of foreign policy, or whether grand strategy can be made in those circumstances. thank you.: as someone who has drafted a white house grand strategy, i shared to jim steinberg's skepticism from the process. as a historian let me tell you what really happens. what really happens is the president comes in with notions of the world but are not terribly surprising. then things happened that he did not expect them for which the military has no plans. ably or poorly.

then the country is either happy about how it turned out or unhappy. in retrospect they rationalize how it all happened and what the grand strategy was, looking in the rearview mirror. after they have done these good or bad improvisations. we have this legend of george 1947., containment, i was taught this in college. the containment grand strategy doesn't get talked about that way until the middle of the 1950's. well after the korean war was over. if look back and it was george can in. of course, having that sort of story makes it easy for undergraduate teachers and easier for undergraduate students. like liberty valance. so, this is the west.

i'm skeptical about that. .'m also a little optimistic yes, there's all this partisan gridlock. it has to do with those scripts. moment increasingly pretty irrelevant to what's happening in the world. and what is actually going to matter. then they are going to improvise. you see the partisan trench warfare doesn't dictate clearly to them how they are supposed to improvise. remnants of the cold war. faster than us much anyone expected. senator lugar improvised. let's to something about nuclear weapons.

it didn't turn out to be very useful but if you look backwards and say -- you wouldn't be able to do that because a partisan gridlock, none of the parties have been talking about the ideas. he had his chance to make a move. to two constructive points the audience are these. we are entering a new era of world history from the era that i and all the other older people in this room grew up with. i grew up and was trained as a cold warrior. where thein an era primary issues were international. that is between rival nationstates. the issues were does -- defined by the borders between the blocks. since the end of the cold war we

are increasingly in an arab world history where the issues that will shape the world are transnational. rather than international. definedhan the borderlines between states, they are defined by the borderlines in a way within states. turning the first quarter of the -- during the first quarter of the 21st century it will be things like energy and the environment. whether ciber, nuclear, biological. issues of public order. the fate of global capitalism and whether it can be effectively managed. an increasingly globalized world

with global companies. the fate of the bottom billion who live in the 50 broken countries in which they cannot advance. are handled are likely to be the size of variables that they will look back on in determining how we did it in a century. if you think about that there are a couple of implications. first of all, hardly any the political process are focused in the way i just described. thatd, a big difference is when i grew up there was a big dividing line between domestic and foreign policy. all the issues i just described tend to private -- present themselves in every country is domestic issues. although in fact there are causes and the way that we solve them tend to be global and can basically only be addressed effectively in partnership. in a way that what you -- in a way what you then knew the --

what you then need is to develop : russians of domestic policies. to think through the implications of that, for the institutions we built in the 20th century that are increasingly ill-suited for these problems, on top of that we are experiencing one of the most profound economic revolutions in 100 years. since the end of the second industrial revolution. the digital revolution. i believe we are in the early phases of a resolution that will be a strands form it is that one was 100 years ago. with germanic affect. economic, social, cultural and others. hold the first idea in your mind. international, transnational, the blurring of the domestic in the foreign. and although that means. now think about a second concept alongside of them. think about the role of the united states. imagine the moment that everything the united states does will mainly rely on what i will call an indirect approach.

cribbing a phrase from an old military historian. long deceased. that's a little hard. an indirect approach. what do i mean by that? wallace he consists mostly of confronting a bunch of problems. they problems and thin problems. fat and tall. you confront these problems. indirect approach basically means we cannot solve any of these problems by ourselves. mostly the american people don't want us to solve all these problems by ourselves directly. they are kind of disillusioned about them. so, that means to solve these problems, whether it is global waves of immigration, breakdowns in global capitalism, the call of isis, transnational crime in mexico or central america, all of those problems -- narcotics, to work i've got through others. i've got to work to others.

the battle against isis will not be decisively won or lost by the united states troops. it will be decisively won or lost by muslims fighting with other muslims. that's a slight simplification. the outcome ofut those fights, you ask yourself -- how do we raise the odds that the side we want to win in that fight wins? we cannot do it all are selves. others.ave to work to you think -- how does the united states role play in ways that enable others to be more likely to proceed than not in ways that we prefer. if you think about our tools in that way, you look at our institutions. we actually built our institutions for a world that we mostly relied on by doing directly -- doing a directly ourselves. and lots of different ways i'm

suggesting a very different building up. we have other elements of it now, but we are building up a much different kind of skill set. if you think about u.s. policy it is veryico -- important. potentially very constructive. the united states isn't going to invade mexico. the more intrusive our presence there, the less we will be able to achieve. but actually the mexicans need the americans to be able to solve their problems. you think through -- what are the tools there? the roles that we can play? you might call the experience fairly successful in what i thought was a basket case ,ountry when i was young colombia. not a basket case. you look at intelligence issues in mexico. the role that americans can play . you think about the court system. police.

you see how many of these issues were domestic in mexico? and yet the mexicans, how do we enable them to solve their problems in their way more effectively? we are not accustomed to thinking in this way. by the way, you can see the problems in the way that i described. you end up flying over and skipping over most of today's partisan arguments for gridlock and moving the debate into a new place. i find it ironic that we are so stuck in these old arguments. the republican party, for heldle, has for decades this nationalist position. we don't want to be multilaterally tied down to how we handle the law of the sea. the republicans have been stuck. the republican party, much of it, has been stuck in this rut for more than 20 years. today the republican party, but taking that position, is the

biggest out why the chinese government has right now in the south china sea conflict. because it is a significant liability in confronting the chinese over the issue of the south china sea that we cannot use the law of the sea arguments as effectively because we will not ratify the treaty ourselves for reasons that are 20 plus years old. now we are actually really helping the chinese on a crisis that matters a lot to us because we won't endorse transnational rules that would be hugely in our interest. again, because we are following these old scripts. to leavehing i want you with, if you internalize these messages, transnational, indirect approach. a way to able to see get around, flyover, or reconceived a lot of the partisan arguments that paralyze us. i saw theher:

professor nodding vigorously when you talked about transnational. i wonder if i could turn to you to talk about the implications are one element of that grand strategy, which has been stable 50 years or so. the united states has advocated a policy that we might call free trade that has had a pretty solid the best a consensus. are we at a moment right now because of these trends, because of how they manifest themselves in domestic politics or seem to, in which that grand strategy or that piece of grand strategy might be falling apart? ms. danzman: i want to thank the conveners of this one of conference. i look forward to continuing that today. the place of indiana the world, transnational is a as it applies locally as well as.

as a scholar of political economy and international political economy, what i'm struck by in this conversation we talk aboutwhen grand strategy we are really thinking about the ways in which orientationscific to the world that influence the ways in which we deal with crises. what's different about trade policy is that it tends not to be driven by particular events or by crisis. so, there is this important aspect that has been in the background of i would argue u.s. grand strategy. a huge part of what the u.s. has been trying to do in creating more in the world for a long time. i was agreeing with the notion that now what's most important is understanding how trade policies and the ways in which the u.s. attempts to continue to

institutionalize free-trade globally is increasingly about trying to facilitate transnational networks. which is quite different from oftentimes trying to disrupt transnational networks. there are these interesting parallels and crossovers. in particular i view that one of the important things that the u.s. needs to continue to maintain is our centrality and prominence in trade and financial networks going forward. one of the ways that the clinton administration has been trying to do this is through the transpacific trade partnership. but you now need to achieve congressional approval to be implemented.

i think that the tpp really helps to pivot us more towards asia in important ways. especially in terms of helping or createmore ways multilateral negotiations and structures. also, i think most importantly, creating specific regulatory advantages that allow small and medium businesses in the u.s. and also in the asian pacific sphere to integrate into global value teams more easily. i think that in particular a lot of what we have in talking about over the past 12 days is -- how does the u.s. maintain leverage in this devolution of u.s. power . when you build affinity networks, the need for leverage becomes less important in some

respects, because you create shared interests. so, i think that this is very important to understanding the ways in which trade helps to facilitate the strategic objectives of the u.s. more broadly. to get your portable -- your point about what's happening domestically, i think that what is happening right now in the -- with ther presidential primaries on both sides of the aisle is an understanding that there is a sense among a percentage of the electorate that this is not working for some portions of the american public. theink that in a large part concern about globalization is a bit misplaced. but i do think that it reflects problems that the u.s. hasn't dealt with. their trade policy and terms of selling it to the american

people and understanding the ways in which need to to allow people who have been hurt by be retrained.to fore is good overall economies. it also creates this is where the u.s. doesn't really address that part of trade, the downside . putting ourselves at a disadvantage. one specific example is that when the senate authorized the fast-track motion, they did so without attaching as well the particular bill that would allow some trade adjustment. packages that would help those who lost jobs because of the tpp. i believe it's important to

understand how those sorts of policies interact with our global foreign policy as well. the great strategy will -- mr. cullather: the great strategy will require some adjustment. ms. danzman: otherwise we won't be able to push for institutionalizing trade more broadly. mr. cullather: that's something that professor zelikow highlighted as well. in a thorough way, empowering individuals for good or ill, but at the same time creating situations in which governments like ours cannot keep secret their most secret secrets. i want to turn to professor cate right now.

in this terrain is it even possible to think in a grand strategy to confront that or do we need to react to developments as they unfold? mr. renaurt: -- mr. cate: let me echo my panelists by saying what a great distinction is to be with these colleagues in the audience. for me it is a special pleasure. if you will indulge me for a moment, in addition to a distinguished military career, service and engagements around the world, also carrying out the sacred duty of tracking santa claus on christmas eve as commander of cap, -- commander that's thethcom, highest call to public service. i think it is possible to have a grand strategy. in which i think about it, which is the role that cyber plays in every aspect of our lives, to maybe abandon the word land.

i think any strategy would be incredibly helpful. if we possibly could get a rational strategy, that would be superb. even if we just use the unmodified word strategy, i think it's achievable and necessary. let me take a moment to say that i'm not an -- wildly optimistic person when i talk about these issues. we have created a world in which digital technology undergirds everything that we do. every communication that we make. of our economy. our cars rely on computers. if that's not good enough, we want driverless cars. by the way, we will have drones overhead to be sure that we are living in a totally digital world. if we do it right it will be gone and be digital technology enjoying the planet. global warming won't matter to these technologies.

we are in a situation where we have built into everything, you buy something at target -- there is only one on the shelf. the moment the bar code is scanned the order another that comes in by truck. it will be automated within days. use a supply chain that is entirely digitally based, controlling all of our most basic utilities. from stuart -- storage treatments to the switches on the railways. every bit of that controlled. go look for a wheel that we can stand up there to change the flow of water and natural gas. you cannot find it. it's all digital. are all carrying devices that digitally track us, digitally record us. our every thought is captured, whether sent by e-mail, voicemail or text or anything. used technology for years we decided it would be a good idea to put it all under the

same technological backbone. namely the internet. 30 years ago you drove around looking for that little symbol on the back of your card. i need a serious network. no longer. banks figured out that we don't need to own networks. networks are expensive. we can just use the internet. terrific. this is the same internet that connects the rest of the world. kenexa drug dealers, pornographers, and terrorists. you have to remember, air traffic control used to have handoffs between airplanes from sector to sector on dedicated networks until some bright person said -- we can save money by doing this on the internet. now that control is handled on the internet. the same internet our kids are playing games on. even when you think about an airplane and flight, that's the requirement. a critical flight system, a

redundant system. what is the backup for the 380? the largest one flying? an ipad connected to the wireless game network on the plane. that's great for the airline. they save a lot of weight and money. but it means that at the end of the day the whole plane is no more secure than that network is. get this technology from? every bit of it comes from outside the united states. it's beyond the capacity in any economically affordable way of any industry or government agency to make sure that the routers it is using, the equipment it is using, it's not a question that they can't do it. it's that they are not even trying to do it. we are so excited about the money we are saving, the convenience we are adding, the new toys been built into our lives. the federal government has been busy replacing thermostats.

was it that big of a deal to have someone to go room to room to change the thermostat? now we can do it from one location. the same in that take up temperature can record voices. we have now digitally connected to the internet a microphone in every government office and conference room service switch has been done. now we are reverse engineering it at great cost, replacing those with digitally secure thermostats. medical devices. we will all be wearing one somewhere. i have an insulin pump that controls my life. you can have a pacemaker and any number of devices. all of which were convenient and made wirelessly addressable. open up pure chest and touch her pacemaker anymore. they can just attach a bluetooth connection to it. did anyone think about securing that? that would have been expensive. that would have used up

additional battery life. something that we were not required by any regulation to do. so, we haven't. here is where we are today. living in a world where we are dependent for absolutely everything on an infrastructure that is fundamentally insecure. there are no meaningful ways to make secure. there are episodic things, moments where you see them paying attention to something specific and we go back to using .hat insecure infrastructure i think it's important to think of it that way. even when we use security, there's a lot today about very strong encryption. a good standard 140 bit encryption key. characters tof remember. what do you do with it? you store it on your iphone that you protect with a four digit password. your fancy encryption key, u.s. dod standards -- they should --

it's very high level of encryption, it's utterly worthless when you put the password under the protection of a four character password. it is especially appreciated when you write it down on the back of laptop. surveys have shown that the majority of laptop users at companies do. so, this is the good news. we are relying for everything, for our lives, economy and safety, national security on an infrastructure that is incredibly insecure. addressable to the entire world. to dealsome strategy with this as a national priority . today, for many perfectly understandable reasons -- and i don't for a moment caston aspersion at the people intimately involved in making these decisions, we don't have that strategy. we know how to do something in the military. when we invade iraq, in iraq knows it's been invaded. we spend billions of dollars to do it.

command structure in place. when we deal with cyber security , we have a coordinator. the highest-ranking official for ciber ready in the u.s. government. a coordinator. then tell you that if government is anything like a university, coordinator is not the title to get a job done. commands no resources, no authority. no budgetary authority. trying to use moral persuasion power. in many ways this has been a good thing, but i think it's a good thing that has gone too far. we have stayed away from regulation in this area. despite the fact that we know that there are significant reasons that markets don't work here. they've become the problems of misplaced incentives. amazon says -- of course we would require multifactor authentication requiring you to bave a key father -- key fo

if only our, competitors would require it. they would abandon the transaction if it was for even a few seconds. we can't be the only ones to do it. if only the administration or congress would require the use of this technology. or even incentivize it. but literally outside of health care and finance, highly regulated industries like power and so forth, there are no broad-based cyber security regulations applicable in the economy. i think it's not surprising that we don't have a strategy. and therefore the rest of the world, which to be honest does look to the u.s. in areas of leadership like this, is baffled by what they see we are doing. let me give you one example that we will finish on, relating to current events. we would have been locked in a struggle of europe for centuries.

for the past decade over the question of whether the u.s. provides adequate data protection. europe keeps threatening to ban exports of data to the united states. we keep putting together solutions designed to make it look like we have the standards of data protection and privacy protection that meet european works requirements. it's been an uneasy relationship. it has threatened trade and security, if we don't have adequate protection. we had a safe harbor agreement under which companies voluntarily agreed to this perceived disagreement and would be able to move data back-and-forth. after those disclosures it became very hard for u.s. companies to say that your data will be well protected. it doesn't matter what the company does. the company says that we share your data with no one, but if the nsa intercepts it from us, that will be a problem. the u.s. has worked mightily and effectively as a matter of fact

with the national security committee -- community moving it back and forth, explaining the steps that we take to protect data, to stay out of corporate and personal data. if it is a suspect in a terrorism offense, of course we have the apple fbi contra in which the fbi winds up toouncing to the world really astonishing things. one, we know how to break into american technology and as of this morning we know how to share this with our state and local partners. thereby eliminating this intense diplomatic work with europe to say, really, we are a restrained government. oversightprocess, and board, foreign intelligence surveillance board. has none ofhe fbi these officials. they are out on their own making this announcement. by the way, apple, the world's largest operating system has a

vulnerability. for those of you who have nothing better to do, you might want to go look for it. we have a copy of it on our website. security people around the world are astonished. it's about whether the way that we as a government chose to deal with this incredibly sensitive issue that has a norm is trade in a norm is diplomatic relations and effectively, enormous security regulations. [indiscernible] [laughter] mr. cullather: gene steinberg is catching a plane at the end of the panel and i could sense he was getting uneasy. [laughter] renuart, whoeral has a long history of making and , whether --rategies

this is a regional question. is there a part of the world where you think americans strategizing are particularly weak, where we need to step up the game in terms of strategy? it gives me a panoply of directions to go. again, like my fellow panelists i want to thank the conveners, the dean, the school for an extraordinary couple of days and the opportunity to interact with leaders on are truly some of these issues. i'm going to get to that question in a two-step process. steinberg makes a great comment about brand strategy and can we get there. i think that as a military planner and operator, for most of my career i tried to pull the

statements of national intent, ethics and values and relationships down to a level that you could distill from a national security strategy to a national defense strategy. as was mentioned, the dod hangs that on its budget. it is my worry sometimes that we tonslate national strategy next years presidential budget as it goes forward. that wes us in the way view and pursue strategic objectives. jessica matthews made a great comment yesterday. i have used this in a different set of words. we are 100% wrong at predicting the future. we can create a grand strategy, as you mentioned, philip, that has specific goals but understand that tomorrow something with occur.

nine/11 is a great example. the complete restraint -- changes strategy. when the bush administration came in, he had a vision, truly of transforming the department of defense. too cumbersome, too big. it was caught in history. then nine/11 happened and it changed his framework for what transformation might already be. so, as we go forward we need to try to return a little bit to a view of what america should do around the world. for me, i go back to the four elements of national power that were sort of -- not beaten into me, but sort of exposed to me from the time i was a lieutenant to the time i was a four-star general. the combination of diplomatic, informational, economic and military elements of national power, really allowing you to

achieve a strategy, grand or practical. i think we have gone away from that. we have allowed ourselves to consumed.sodically each of those has a strategy. potentially none of the strategies yet. we have to understand that that's the strategy we are going to be in. it is less bipolar and more transnational. so, now to get ta region, i think that there are probably two that i would say have not quite gotten this right. mentioned inhilip central and south america. transnationalhe criminal activity that occurs in that region is something that we are in a. of containment. solution.ive

part of that problem is the demand signal for much of that transnational criminal activity is here. it's drugs. its games. it's not immigration, illegal immigration. i think we have got to go back and look at those elements of national power and decide, how do you take this problem on with all four of those elements of national power effectively utilized? mexico is a great case study. ice and three and a half years focused on mexico as the commander of northern command. i had a wonderful relationship with the ambassador to create the strategy that we could engage with the mexican government on. lots of success. lots of setbacks. obviously they changed governments much like we do. that does create some challenge.

i think we have to understand that in places like mexico -- columbia is another good example, where the military was a part of that. but it was diplomatic. it was economic and informational. it was the message of the united states being a partner with a country like colombia and continuing to interact. people talk about, you know, we've been in afghanistan or iraq for ten years. i think we've been in colombia for a couple years more than that. we're still having discussions with the government on how do you solve this. not simple solutions. it took us arguably 25 years after world war ii to create the kind of stable model in europe that they are certainly benefiting from today. so, i think we've got to really focus on all those elements of power in central and south america america. now at a time when some of those countries are very vulnerable.

we see significant investment by russia and by china in that region. and they're not there to buy them military equipment. they're there to buy influence. and we see some of that influencemanifested. on difficult issues when interestingly some of these countries come out publicly in favor of a position that china or russia supports. truly, it's in many cases because of that economic input that has been used there. and we don't do that well. the second region of the world and i'm going to use the term maneuver in the global commons. sounds like a military term. by the way, digitally, i just sent a signal to move fred from the naughty to the nice list so that santa will get to him next year. [laughter] amazingly, the power of these military commanders. talk about how you move military forces. it is how do you as a nation lead in areas that are

transnational. phillip mentioned a number of those. one he didn't mention that i'll make a strong point on is access to water. we will fight another fight somewhere in the world over access to or limitation of the flow of water in the countries. and so i think we have to be present in each of those areas. the global commons certainly in the sea. the law of the sea. as a military four star commander, i was arguing in favor to republicans about passing the law of the seas. i think it's critical that we have a seat at that table in order to solve some of these things diplomatically. not militarily. yet we find ourselves having to use that military tool sometimes too often. the global commons certainly are the international maritime environment where we move arguably 90% of the world's

economy every single day through a number of choke points we don't always control. space. cyberspace. i was in annapolis yesterday morning at a board called the energy systems network. is really focused on how to become a leader in energy systems. we have a great presentation by a gentleman talking about autonomous vehicles. and when you think about how that vehicle operates, everything it does comes from the digital world. gps, laser, radar. camera images. all tied together in a computer that tells the car how to drive and they demonstrated it driving from the east coast to las vegas for the ces last year. so i think that is a common space we have to lead in. and if you think about movement

of goods, good goods and bad goods. we have to lead in how do you secure the movement of trade and how do you secure from the movement of illicit traffic across borders, across regions of the world. how do you influence nations to become a part of a coalition to take significant action there. i differ with some folks who had spoken that say the u.s. is -- we're clearly in a diminished role of leadership in the world. i disagree. i think we have the opportunity to continue to be a leader in the world but in very different fashion. i don't have to put the largest investment in to a particular activity if i can get 12 of my friends to put in a lesser investment and we solve the problem. but i spent a lot of my time

just as an anecdote post-9/11 i was the director of operations at u.s. central command. and so that was planning and executing all of the operations in afghanistan and iraq. we couldn't do that as the united states. we had a coalition of 70 nations. some as small as estonia. some as large as our most significant partners. what you find when you operate that, and our diplomats do this every day, is that you've got to create common sense of purpose among each of those nations. and they all have to feel like they contribute to that. so as we circle back to can a grand strategy be effective for the united states, i think if you can look at those core elements of national power, and you look at where nations can contribute and the u.s. leads that effort, i think you're successful there. one final point that i think is,

you know, maybe a good anecdote about why we've got to really pay attention to this, in another job in the pacific, i lived 2 1/2 years there, and part of my role was to be one of the key planners in how do we defend taiwan. if china chooses to, you know, return taiwan to the fold. and as part of that, we studied chinese military strategy. what was striking to me is that our strategy literally deals with the next five-year defense plan maybe. their strategy deals in the next 50 years. when you look at the things the chinese have done militarily over the last ten years, i can look at that study of strategy and they're right on track. they believe they can challenge the united states in those global commons where we are most vulnerable.

trade, economy, information. certainly military. we see that with direct dissent. we see that with air bases being built on atolls in the middle of the south chinese sea. the united states can't allow that balance of power to shift in that way. we're slow to realize that. i think part of it is because we don't look at a long-term view of how we, the united states, should be involved and lead in those regions of the world.

>> for our students, i'd like to -- i'd like to connect this to actually what happens in policy making. about the generals comments. gives us a chance to look at a particular problem in how strategy can make a difference. i've been thinking about the president's decision to go to cuba and to build more normal relations. there's a question about when you go and if that undermines your defense of human rights and democracy by giving credibility to this regime. but one of the things, you know, phillip talked about indirect means and the general talked about the importance of cooperation in this hemisphere is that for me strategy helped resolve this question. one of the big barriers we've had to deal with these transnational problems in our region is the fact the united states have become marginalized by fighting over cuba's ability to participate in hemispheric matters. every time we went. it was a significant barrier to getting cooperation from our partners on a range of issues which are important to us. i think in the end strategy helps you decide, well, yes, there are arguments for or against dealing with a repressive regime in cuba. work being closely with mexico

and others who don't like our policy and find it harder to cooperate with us because of our cuba policy. you say, okay, hereby's a framework to help decide this argument where we have policy arguments on both sides. for me, that was -- a strategy to help did the president do the right thing. i think that's the place where strategy can make a difference. if you have your ideas focused on the kinds issues. you say, how did it fit into the broader framework. it is the thing that allows you to at least come to a set of rules to help you engage in the process of policy making. >> that's interesting. i think what you're talking about there is just the need to have a kind of intentional process for reconsidering the old threats. the ways in which foreign policy can be rooted in habits. there was a house -- i think they now call it the international affairs committee.

hearings in 2008 on grand strategy. one of the comments that was articulated at that was the united states doesn't have a grand strategy. what it has is a lot of habits. i may just throw that out as a question to the entire groups. what old scripts do we have right now that are worth intentionally discarding. prof. zelikow: let me tackle that a little bit. remember i argued to you if you accept it if this transnational hypothesis is right, that the old line between domestic and foreign policies is blurrier. so actually a lot of the foreign policy issues are really domestic policies.

so right now, there is a huge global struggle under way over the character of domestic governance. there is actually a hostile block of powers. let's call them iran, russia, china. they're not formal allies in any sense. they're not united what they're for. what does unite them is what they are against. interest all against in domestic governance. they are all against what we think of as classical liberal ideals of governance. that is, there are against freedom of thought versus dogma. they come down on the side of dogma. when it comes to open participation based on merit and opportunity, instead of hereditary or faith driven or criminally driven oligarchy or aristocracies. they're in favor of oligarchy and not in favor of opportunity. when you look at the opportunity, basically do you prefer an open economic system

with maximum opportunity for new entrants or do you prefer monopolyies in league with the government. they tend to prefer monopolies in league with the government versus opportunity. all the things that go with this. this is an old argument about how to rule societies that goes back now more than 200 years. notice now for example right now what's happening in central and south america on these issues. look at the domestic issues in brazil. where you have a brazilian government that's on the verge of being impeached and replaced. look at the domestic governance issues and what's just happened in argentina. where an anti-liberal government has been overthrown in preference to a liberal government. look at the tension that's going on right now in the country of ecuador. look at the tremendous conflict

that's now unfolding in venezuela. with a totally anti-liberal government moving towards complete dictatorship in a country undergoing full economic collapse, fighting against people who are trying to clamor for the restoration of liberal ideals. that is a domestic struggle that's also occurring all over everywhere else in the world. whether we're talking about the recent elections in indonesia or we're talking about struggles in india or in burma. if you think about that, the struggle does not fall neatly into the category of a foreign policy issue. so then you ask yourself though of course the united states should care about how the struggle turns out. we don't want the anti-liberals to win. if we want generally to foster what i would call an open civilized world. so if we don't want the anti-liberals to win, how do we support the people who favor

liberal ideals of governance? it's not as general renuart pointed out, the use of military right and left. it might be thinks like defrost the difficult environment in the americas. the problems with cuba were interfering with our ability to rally liberal causes in latin america actually and kind of paradoxically. but think about the positions that america would adopt in a lot of different controversies around the world in order to align itself or strengthen these causes in these domestic struggles. do we care, for example what happens when the anti-liberal elements challenge norms in europe in places like hungary or now even a little bit in poland? i don't think the united states

is indifference to that but it's not as if we can intervene in hungary. how do we wield our instruments? how do we exercise an indirect approach to simply tilt the odds a little bit that one side comes out on top instead of another? take china, for example. this is where i'll close. the great issue of china. yes, there are surface encounters with china in places like the south china sea. but the fundamental issue of china is what is china going to be when it grows up. the chinese themselves do not know the answer to this question. and they're deeply uneasy and anxious about it. right to the level of the top leadership. and, by the way, any american who claims to know what china's going to be in ten years, one way or the other, is someone whom you should not listen to any further. so, but then does the united

states care how china resolve these great domestic struggles? of course it cares. it will have enormous effects on us. ask yourself, how then, if the u.s. cares a lot, does it foster one outcome over another when obviously direct intervention in china is out of the question and not feasible. that's where you come in to ideas of you foster certain kinds of norms, create certain kinds of incentives. whether it's a broadly shared consensus law of the sea that unites everyone around china but china, that chinese notice and see. whether it's other kinds of norms where you make global capitalism and the digital revolution look like it could work. et cetera, et cetera. this is the place where we need to figure out how to advance our conversation on how we foster these sorts of transnational advances on all the issues we care about while increasingly

not relying on blunt force direct intervention which the american people mostly don't support anyway. gen. renuart: can i piggy back on that for just a half second. another great example of how combining elements of national power can create political change. to the banda aceh region and others. you'll also recall maybe that that was the hotbed of the revolution in, with the government in that portion of indonesia. subsequent to that infusion of international aid and development, the rebels agreed to peace talks, not without the

understanding that this influence, this infusion of global good through the use of military and later civilian activities maybe provided the opportunity to negotiate an internal political discussion that could lead to peace among rebelling parties. i think that when you think about solving a problem in that multidimensional way, it leaves a strong impression. interestingly, relations with cambodia and vietnam considerably warmed after that, and they were observers. they just watched what happened. so so, the united states is the only nation that has that ability, that unique ability, to incorporate each of those critical elements of national power in a way that you don't paint the picture of military, you paint the picture of a nation with compassion, with values and with the willingness to help.

and i think, to sarah, the importance of trade in this is critical. i think, philip, maybe we have a better opportunity to influence directly via trade than maybe we do in all of the other areas because both countries are critically dependent upon each other for their livelihood. dean cullather: i'm going to leave plenty of time for your questions, so, if we could have the microphones come down here on either side. let's see, we already have one person with a microphone, good. mr. wilson: am i on? keith wilson from the political

science department here at iu. thank you for the extraordinary panel. i wanted to maybe get back to the original question about grant strategy, and i guess i'm struck by maybe some disconnection between the principle of a grand strategy and the practice of it. dean steinberg had mentioned the usefulness in certain context where there's a lot of murkiness going back to the grand strategy as kind of a framework for solving problems. my own reading of the national security strategy, if we were to take that to be an example of the grand strategy, leads me to believe it's a great articulation of a variety of different principles, but then, general, you may know better than anyone, when it comes to actually facing challenges, a lot of times you can go to the national security strategy and the grand strategy at large and you can find solution -- you can find a number of different courses of action that can result from that. i just wonder if you could articulate maybe some of the weaknesses to the grand strategy, and ultimately, if, in fact, the grand strategy leaves you in a situation where you're not able to get to some of the very practical solutions i think that professor zelikow alluded to. again, what really does it accomplish?

gen. renuart: let me just very quickly, and then i'll let the others mention. the important element that dean steinberg mentioned is that it's a framework. it's a document that we look at and helps us sort of figure out what the vision, the interest -- those principles are of the president. from the military perspective, we then take a national defense strategy review that tries to translate that into each department of the armed services. but it's also a document that other nations look at to understand where's the u.s. mind in all this. one of the failure -- one of the pitfalls with becoming too specific -- that may not be the right word, but too direct in a grand strategy, is that you now limit yourself. so, you really want the overarching national security

strategy to outline those key principles, but not limit your response. recall, we're 100% wrong in predicting the future. and so, what you want to be able to do is below the level of that grand strategy create the framework that allows the u.s. to be agile in some fashion as it applies itself to unique problems anywhere in the world. and i'll stop there and let others --

prof. zelikow: i'll add this. one thing that you can do is, it is -- and let's not call it a grand strategy. but one thing that leaders can do is describe the world they're in, and basically, offer a diagnoseis of the patient. as i tried to do in a small way. and then you can ask yourself after you've heard it, hmm, does that offer me any insight that i didn't already know? and by the way, around the government, if you can describe the world in a way that kind of maybe adds a little clarity or a little focus that wasn't there before, then you've advanced the ball. that's actually a very important thing that you can do. that's actually a very important -- i remember when franklin roosevelt was giving his fireside chats, he wasn't laying out a roadmap. and before pearl harbor, he didn't lay out a roadmap for how the allies would win the war. mostly, the purpose of the fireside chats were just to tell americans, here's the world

you're living in today. in fact, in one fireside chat, he asked them, please take out a map of the world. and the newspapers printed a map. so that he could simply tell them about the world that they lived in today, so they could basically understand the diagnosis that disposition would call himself dr. win the war, dr. new deal giving way to dr. win the war. this is what the doctor was saying is going on in the world. and later, you'd hear more about prescriptions. and the other thing -- then if you want a grand strategy, grand strategy really just begins to provide a roadmap that offers some sense of direction of which way you should drive. maybe very detailed directions, but usually not because you don't want to tie yourself down and you don't want to annoy anyone. so, these doctrines are often just terrible bureaucratic things that are cures for narcolepsy. but -- or induce it. what you should ask yourself whenever you hear an important strategic statement, or read one, is did this tell me anything about what the united states wants to do that i didn't already know before i read this statement?

or if it says, like, the united states wants peace, strength and prosperity, gee, i could never have guessed that. all right, so, then that tells you really nothing. and then it's basically, these are just placeholder documents that are designed to allow you to do whatever it is you actually need to do and make sure it's consistent with the strategy. so, but occasionally, rarely, the government does say something that actually tells you something you didn't know before you heard it about what it's going to try to do, and then that can be important about overall goals. adam: thank you for the opportunity to ask a question. my name is adam lift, professor of international relations here in sgis. i have a question for the entire panel, but was inspired by some of the things that philip was saying. and i extract two important themes from what you were saying. first, the idea of the scripts being old and being in need of an update. and second, a theme that was echoed in the remarks of several other panelists, the unpredictability of events.

i think a key part of strategy, grand or otherwise, that is often left out of the debate, perhaps because it's less sexy, but is arguably essential, fundamental, is the importance of designing institutions to effectively, efficiently and expeditiously achieve those objectives. this is very much in my mind these days because two of my major research projects today are on looking at the rationale behind and the likely consequences of both china's and japan's creations, establishment of new national security councils in late 2013 and the implications those likely have for crisis management with the hook of a possible east china sea low-level incident. so, how do we, how does america need to reform or restructure the key institutions in the government and in the military and reallocate resources effectively to maximize the flexibility, adaptability and rapid response that this new 21st century, the challenges we face require? thank you.

>> adam, you stumped them. >> no, i think we could spend a semester on this, and we do in many different contexts. i mean, i think that first of all, it's important folks understand where institutions get value, but not to overstate it, because i think this is, like grand strategy, architecture gets a lot of attention in the academy, and you know, is often kind of more of an academic exercise than a reality, that somehow, if we just move the blocks around, things are going to work out. and there's no doubt that institutions, both domestic institutions and international institutions, can solve some problems that are difficult to achieve in the absence of institutions. the fact that you can have repeated interactions, lower transaction costs increases predictability, knowledge, dependence on each other. so, there are plenty of reasons to do it. but it's also true that the institutions have to work with the underlying forces that are

taking place. and they are the substitute for it. so, when we think about all these architectures, whether it's reorganizing the government, if we had a different nse or a different state department or pentagon or a different interagency process, yeah, there are different things duked on the margin that would mirror things phil talked about the margins, the trends, do we have ways of talking about the transnational domestic things and whether our institutions are, you know, surface those things and bring the right people to the table. but i think for me, it's always been substance is more important than the formalities in the organization. it's understanding the points that philip and others have raised here and their importance. the process can adapt to that and will adapt to that. and we've seen this over time. you can make changes in the organization on the margin, but it's only when you get the insights about the substance

that you really begin to then make the adaptations and get the commitment that allows the organizations to adapt. gen. renuart: let me -- you may know, this is the 30th anniversary of the gold ae goldwater-nichols act. and currently, senator mccain and the armed services committee are undergoing kind of a review of that, and should that change in some way. and you know, i'm -- here i am as a military guy saying we need some more government involvement in this, but one issue with respect to goldwater-nichols is while it drove the national security strategy process, it really then focuses attention on the department of defense and how it was organized and created the joint commands and the regional commands. it didn't say anything about that whole other behemoth out there that is the rest of government. and we don't have right now any instrument other than the national security council and the consensus that it reaches through the principles to the president to drive the rest of government to be more interagency focused.

a number of us have sat in deputies' committee meetings and principals' committee meetings and national security council meetings, and i think all of us probably have the frustration that so often you spend great national resource in terms of the people that are involved in i think part of it is we still need to connect the other half of what a goldwater nichols different the department of defense so that government -- and you talk about these old rusty things we have come up -- minutesr: the last few of this are available on our website at www.c-span.org. live now to the u.s. house.

announcer: members continuing to

debate funding for the federal administration association. see live senate coverage on our companion network, c-span2. >> this monthly showcase our student cam winners. this year's theme is wrote to the white house, and the students were asked, what issues do you want presidential candidates to discuss? one of our second prize winners oklahoma.nks, wants candidates to discuss because the medication in his video, "the price is not right." >> every morning, my dad wakes toand begins his drive

langley, oklahoma where his pharmacy is located. i was taught the pharmaceutical industry was boring. though no prescriptions, dealing with customers come but then i learned about the dissension that is between the pharmaceutical industry. >> imagine waking up the next morning and finding the price of the exact same bill jump to some hundred $50 overnight. it is time to deal with skyrocketing out-of-pocket costs and runaway drug prices. >> millions of people take these drugs every month and in many cases can't afford them. monopoly ina near which the government says everybody has to have insurance, everyone's insurance is to cover certain things, and drug companies take it manage of that. >> the pharmaceutical industry in this country is charging the american people, by far, the highest prices in the world for

prescription drugs. >> to better understand this issue, we must look at why the cost of medication has been rising. >> one reason is due to competition. you are buying your competition out, and you both at the same medications, that means you have a monopoly on it to you can charge whatever you want to charge because there are no limits. drug,it is a brand name they can make it as i is they want because they are the ones who have the patent for that particular medication so no one else can produce that medication. so, they can make the price as high as the need to because they know people need it. >> we also have some newer companies behaving differently from companies in the past when they buy the rights to manufacture drugs. then turn around and try to the fund their purchase of that product by skyrocketing because overnight. amountaid a very large

to buy unprofitable medicine, we can't continue to lose money at that price, so we went to a price where we can make a comfortable profit. pharmacy $15, saying, and the insurance is only going to pay the pharmacy medication and the pharmacy lost $30. decision tost has a make, or did he tell the person that you can do this because your insurance is not reimbursing me. no business can stay in business losing $30 each transaction. >> it is hard because the customers think it is us, personally raising the prices. that is not how it is. was a customer buying cholesterol medication and it was four dollars for several years and out of nowhere it spiked up to $50. they were very shocked and confused and angry, and wanted

answers from me that i could not give. ande hear from pharmacists our legislation is computed by the process of america. their desk,ehind behind their counters, and their hearts are broken when senior citizens cannot afford the products that their doctors are prescribing. when people are dying in people are suffering and we have the queue are right in front of us here. >> some people who have no insurance coverage have seen their cash prices for their medications rise significantly. >> iowa's look at medications with two things in mind. they have to work and they have to not cause problems. years ago i first started, we mostly were talking about problems in terms of medication side effects or allergic reactions. now we have to consider that one

of the problems might be patient cannot afford the medication. it might be the best medication but if the patient can't afford it, it is like the right medicine. if you are on a couple medications, that adds up. >> they have to decide if they are taking medication every day as prescribed, or maybe every iner day or every third day order to stretch it out longer. that way they can afford to pay for food or bills that are due. that way they can have a choice. >> nothing has changed, is going to keep going as it is and it will get worse and you will see continued cost increases. continued availability issues, continued problems were agents have to switch their medication is working just fine because they can't afford anymore. >> if it gets better enough i think people will start going to mexico or canada.

i know people are ready do that, i think that will increase. peoples are going to countries together medication because it is cheaper there. every time i am selling a customer prescription i know is i, i just hold my breath because i know they are going to be like, what? control myhing i can pharmacists, it is a rough situation. >> despite these problems, there are still those that justify the cost of medication. >> the reason you gave was in order to give research and involvement in order to give a better version. i just got up the phone with an hiv version -- dr. who says they do not need a better version. what are you doing here? >> that is not true. basinst study showed two die due to toxins. >> not every product will be approved by the fda. out of maybe to all compounds,

it may take 10 years plus to research that compound. will be approved by fda. that is a lot of money the industries have to pay to research those 12 compounds. >> i live in a house divided, with my mother saying that the rise of cost is necessary. my father on the other side, single rise of cost is preventing people who need to use medications from receiving them. i understand my mother's point of view, i can't help but sympathize with my father's. after researching the topic, i recognize my dad's job is much more than counting pills and filling out positions your i recognize the importance of his position. i recognize the importance of the firm's vertical industry. announcer: to watch all the documentaries, visit student

cam.org. a look now at the winners and finalists of this year's goldstein prize for investigative reporting. the stories range from shootings and climate change to slave labor. universities insurance eye center, this is about an hour and a half. shorenstein center, this is about an hour and a half. >> good morning, everyone. i'm tom patterson, the interim director of the shorenstein center. this is the follow-up to last evening's goldsmith awards program. i love this part of the event where we have the finalist for the goldsmith investigative

reporting award take us a little bit behind the story. how they came to it. some of the difficulties they faced, and then we can all have a conversation about these stories and investigative reporting generally. i would like to thank the greenfield foundation which underwrites the goldsmith awards. they have supported it through its 24 years unfailing. it would not be the type of program it is without that marvelous family. so, what i am going to do, i will introduce you to the panelist. i think i will do them one at a time when you are up, rather than going down the line. because by the time they come up, you sometimes forget which one they were. so, i will attach a little biography to the introduction. so, we will start with robin mcdowell, who was the goldsmith part of the team that won the goldsmith investigative reporting award last night from

the associated press for their terrific story, "seafood from slaves." which documents the extensive use of slave labor and the harvesting of seafood in an area of southeast asia. that resulted in the freeing of more than 2000 enslaved fishermen as well as arrests, legislative action and the like. robin is representing that team of four. 20 years in southeast asia, covering virtually every country in that region, not only looking into abuses of this kind, but also the difficulties of for instance -- in myanmar, the transition from military rule to civilian rule,

governing tsunami. the whole range of things in that region of the world. give us some insight. robin: i guess as part of living in that region for such a long time, we had heard stories and seen stories for a long time about the fishermen who had gone and basically been abused at sea. it was so common to hear the stories, it was something we almost did not want to look into. it is like looking into the mafia or something. everyone knows this, it has been written about. but at a certain point, we decided -- like, ok, this is such a common story. everyone in southeast asia knows about it, why is there no outreach? and so, that is pretty much where we started. we ourselves felt like

if we do not look into it and try to make the rest of the world care, we were not doing our jobs as journalist. that is where it started. we started talking to -- my colleague, margie mason said what if we link it to the american dinner table? that seemed like an easy, obvious way to do it. but as soon as we started talking to the groups -- labor rights groups and people who had been working with the fishermen for years, they basically said it is really almost impossible. everybody knows that this is probably linked to the u.s. government -- but because the documents were falsified -- even if you found someone on a slave ship, that ship is put onto a refrigerated cargo ship at sea that gets mixed with clean fish. that fish goes to the market and get auctioned off in bits and pieces. it is hard to find one fish and

say, that fish is actually -- so, it was kind of a slow process of just, keep trying, keep trying, and i don't know how much more you want to go into this. but in the end, we found an american company that said there was a specific species of fish that, while they pretty much felt they controlled the product that was ending up in the -- in america, they were concerned about this one particular species. the thai fishing fleets which were notorious for their use of slave labor had control of the waters where the fish -- the migratory pattern of that fish. so, our goal at that point was to find someone catching that fish, and then we can probably make the link. that kind of fell to the wayside when we find the island.

except i spent the first four days interviewing guys who had been horrifically abused. and my main question was, did you catch that fish? at a certain point we realized, a, they were catching pretty much every fish. and eventually we were able to track it to thailand. then through custom records to america. tom: robin, thank you. another of the finalists last night, one of the finalists last night was the guardian u.s. for the counting. after the killing at ferguson, it became clear that coming by data information on police killings was very difficult. the official records were spotty. and there was not, in fact, a good record on these killings.

"the guardian" began to put that data together. they created am enormous database to document these killings -- the circumstances of them. and that reporting along with similar reporting by "the washington post" prompted the fbi and the justice department to change the way that they are collecting data in this important area. representing "the guardian" team is john swain. he joined "the guardian" two years ago. before that, seven years with "the daily telegraph." mostly in the u.s. reporting from new york and washington. john? john: i arrived in ferguson a few days after michael brown's death. i really i wanted -- catherine is in the u.s., she is the

editor and chief of "the guardian," she was disturbed by the fact there was no records of these deaths. she said if the government is not going to do this, then we should. it was a daunting task. i didn't think we could do it. but we set off at the start of 2015 reporting the death. the project became bigger. the problem was wider than no database. claims by protestors that police were racially biased cannot be tested against statistics. there was no comparison available between death rates in different cities, states, and counties. this live debate that was going on seemed to be of great national importance was restricted to speculation and wild claims from either side. so, we started this project. we recorded account. by the end of the year we felt we had an accurate rate of death

caused by law enforcement in the u.s. we told stories of people who died in troubling circumstances and of the officers who killed them. we presented analysis exciting trends in the data on who was killed, how they were killed, and why. by the end of the year we had a tally of more than 1100, about 2.5 times greater than the total reported by the fbi volunteer program. the fbi director said in light of these findings, said it was unacceptable that we at "the washington post" had better data than elected officials. we agreed. he and two senior staff announced by the end of the year that they would overhaul the system and begin counting more than just shooting deaths, as they had been.

the justice department bureau of justice statistics, which is a little-known division of the department of justice said they would restart a separate program that would draw on our data and other public data and follow our methodology that differed drastically from what the government was doing before. the fbi system, as it had been, was voluntary. it relied on every department in the country, if they chose, reporting deaths caused by officers that year. many did not. instead, we had a proactive system. we searched social media, public records, we made calls to coroners and police departments and found these deaths ourselves. the new department of justice will proactively contact these regional authorities to confirm

deaths that they themselves had spotted. rather than relying on the voluntary system, which just wasn't working. finding the 1100 deaths we produced investigatory articles to go with the project. analyzing the findings -- there were troubling trends. there were 30 people by the time we had reported, shot dead in moving cars, despite contemporary police. all sorts of experts saying, that is not what you do. there is no need to shoot into a moving car if you're a police officer. you can get out of the way. it is not worth shooting a burglar or a car thief. seven killings were officially ruled suicides, despite actually having been shootings by officers. this was obviously a conditions area, but not explored properly.

people had died from being shot by tasers, despite manufacturers insisting it is almost impossible to die after a tasing. these trends were emerging from data that had not been collected before. we found that all of these issues around the use of lethal force by police were worthy of more examination than had been given before. a lot of these trends, there were stark racial disparities. by the end of the year we found that young black men were killed at nine times the rate in 2015. once you adjust the violation size of other americans, they were twice as likely as white people in the database. each entry in our system presented crucial context information on whether the person killed was armed and what threat they pose. we decided this needed to be outlined. the challenges faced by police are considerable. one and five in the database was

unarmed. and obviously those stories gather more headlines. another one in five shots of their own officers. six innocent bystanders were killed, eight police officers were subsequently killed by the officer's colleagues. at the end of the year we identified tara county, california with the county of the highest rate of killings by law enforcement. we produced a five-part series examining the criminal justice system. another examination of how it was being investigated, we found that 87.5% were investigated by prosecutors who usually work for the officers involved. producing the article -- we persuaded the district attorney of omaha, nebraska to produce information to the public. so, really, through this project which lasted for a year and continued

into 2016, we just wanted to provide solid information. facts and proper findings to a debate that was heated and that was ongoing. and it had reached the top of american policymaking. the fbi and the department of justice has promised to implement reforms. while we are waiting for those, we will continue to hold them to account. tom: thank you. inside climate news was a finalist for a series, "exxon, the road not taken." they report that exxon, with their internal scientific study found evidence confirming or supporting the climate change thesis. but what they did publicly was quite different from that. helping to create doubt about climate change. representing the team will be

lisa song, who has been with the organization for five years. she reports on climate change, environmental health, natural and she was part of the team that won the pulitzer in 2013 for work in this area. lisa: so this story came about at the beginning of 2015. we were at a staff retreat when our publisher, david sassoon, was very excited and decided to pitch a story idea. his idea was to look at oil companies come and see if any of them had known about climate change science before they started funding various efforts to undermine the certainty of that science. he wanted us to see which oil companies had known about climate science, and when did they know it. the way he got the idea to do this was back in 2014, he had been to a conference where daniel ellsberg was a speaker. daniel ellsberg was encouraging

the journalist in the room to look for whistleblowers, instead of waiting for them to come to us. by the time he pitched this idea, we thought it was impossible. we had no idea where to start. we did not have connections in the oil industry. we sort of went out there and try to see what we could find. eventually we figured out that exxon was the best place to start. my colleague, david havemeyer found a retired federal scientist who had worked. he said that the federal government had worked with exxon in the early 1980's on climate change research. this was pretty puzzling to us because the general public did not understand, or had never even heard about climate change and to the late 1980's. exxon had been tracking the science 10 years earlier, that was significant. nila found a document showing that a exxon scientist had

appeared at a conference of the aaas, the american association for the advancement of science in 1979. that was a meeting about climate science. the point of the meeting was to get top experts together and try to understand the current state of climate research. this exxon scientist, henry shaw, was the only representative from industry. everyone else was from the government or university. with those clues we started seeing what we could find about exxon in those years. it was a lot of shoe leather reporting. nila was calling people, driving around, meeting people at their homes. she tracked down a lot of former exxon employees from the time. many of them had passed away. there were still some alive and willing to talk. eventually she found the key documents. we got thousands of pages of

internal exxon memos and letters from about 1976 or so through 1986. those documents showed that in the late 1970's and mid-1980's exxon had a very good in-house climate research program. they started out by putting sensors on one of their supertankers so they could measure co2 in the ocean and in the air as the supertanker was going around the world. after a while they even partnered with columbia university on that project. they really wanted to do good science, and they were working with some of the top experts. eventually they cut funding to that research and started doing her own climate modeling, which was cheaper. they recruited scientist from academia. they recruited a scientist from

and some from new york university. they were doing computer modeling. they got the same result as the scientific consensus of the time. while independent scientists were protecting that doubling co2 in the atmosphere would lead to a one degree to three degree warming, exxon research showed the same result. i thought one of the most interesting memos that we saw was a letter from their manager around that time saying, our research shows the same result as that of independent scientists, but if we publish our results in a peer-reviewed literature we might get bad media attention because everyone knows that fossil fuels are contributing to the problem. our core business is fossil fuels. he told his scientist, we have to publish anyway because scientific integrity is very important. this is what the exxon research team was like back then.

they were doing quite good research. by the mid-1980's, that program, again, they cut funding. a lot of people left. they turned around and they were undermining he certainty of the science. they turned around and did something completely different. tom: lisa, thank you. another finalist was "beware of the fine print." it was a new york times series that looks at the fine print in consumer and employee contracts. they seriously disadvantaged those that fine those contracts, that forces them into arbitration, often loaded, and also prevents class-action suits. that particular series has led to legislation being introduced that will stop some of these practices. representing the new york times

team is jessica silver greenberg who is a reporter and covers banking and consumer finance. she was the pulitzer prize finalist for her series on debt collectors and a finalist in toy -- and a finalist in 2014 for her series on how the nations largest banks prey on older americans. jessica: sorry, our story started when my colleague, michael corkery and i were working on a story about how military members whose homes and cars have been illegally seized by banks were finding, when they went to try to do something about it, when they went to sue under this key federal law, they were blocked from court. they were sent to this system among which at the time, we had no idea about this thing called, arbitration. it seems harmless enough, it seemed boring, in fact. you say you want to do a series on arbitration and people literally go to sleep in front

of you. we started trying to look at what this private system was. what is alternative to court was. at the beginning of his challenging to figure out what happened in arbitration. in part because the system is designed to be incredibly secretive. that is one of the advantages for the companies who bring cases there. nothing may do or that happens there ever makes it out to the public. even if it is a case of wrongful death, which we found cases that went to arbitration over wrongful death. people dying in nursing homes over neglect, or actually somebody who was murdered in a nursing home by her 98-year-old roommate. even those cases do not make it out. michael and i looked around to try to figure out what happened in arbitration.

by doing a lot of legal research to see who was trying to appeal decisions that had happened in arbitration, we started to get a glimpse of the nature of the cases that went there. what we found initially was shocking. there were things like nfl cheerleaders who are bringing labor cases against the nfl for unfair working conditions whose case was in arbitration, going to be heard by the commissioner of the nfl. we heard of plaintiffs who brought cases who were -- who lost and were told to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on the other side's legal fees for things like private plane travel and hotels. there was a story that developed simultaneously. we wanted to assess -- it was not enough just to do and anecdotal look at arbitration in these horror stories. we wanted to see how people fared in comparison to court. they are not public arbitration records. we went to all arbitration providers. we asked for the data.

of course they would not give it to us. that's a lot of calls. we would be shuttled from -- someone would be like, we will get that right away. i would get a telephone number that was not their legal counsel at all. it was -- one person sent me to a fishing company. to get data. we eventually got what amounted to about 25,000 arbitration records. we had no idea what to do with them at that point. that is when my other colleagues, rob, stepped in and started analyzing how many people went to arbitration against various companies. that is when a second story started developing. that was not just about what happened in arbitration, it was also about the nature of certain claims not going to arbitration at all. we started looking at say -- sprint. a company with 65 million

customers. in four years only for people -- only four people went to arbitration against sprint. we had to imagine there was more people. that is when we started realizing that the arbitration -- while it was a system very slanted against plaintiffs, was almost beside the point. arbitration causes, which are the fine print -- clauses, which are the fine print, which all of you, if you pulled out your credit card right now, it says the company can elect to take you to arbitration instead of court. you signed it away, without realizing your constitutional right to a civil trial. in that clause there is an even more powerful thing -- a vehicle. the clause says you cannot file a class-action lawsuit. for any of you who have gotten in the mail, that coupon that says you have been enrolled in a class-action lawsuit, here is

that $20, for your checking account or something like that, you might not realize the real power of eliminating your ability to file a class-action lawsuit is. all the corporations that put those clauses in there do. what a team of corporate lawyers realize was by banning class actions you pretty much disable lawsuits. most people will not go to court over -- certainly not over a $10 fee, or a predatory practice. they will abandon the case altogether. once you get rid of class actions, you pretty much disable all threats. what we saw was, and what we had to go about trying to figure out was how these businesses, how corporate america had basically written themselves out of the legal system altogether. they had done it with these

seemingly innocuous clauses that are in, as i said, everyone's wallet. we basically had to go to law school to figure it out. my colleagues and i puzzled about it for days and weeks. what we started to realize was without really anyone noticing, this group of lawyers, working for a credit card company had engineered one of which really we think amounted to one of the most audacious coups in corporate america. they wrote themselves out of the legal system. they did it in such a complex, legalistic way that anyone who had tried to figure out what they did have been dissuaded from going into it at all. it was not drama on the high seas.

the coup did was not on a battlefield, it happened in a bunch of boardrooms, starting on park avenue and washington, d.c. we then set about trying to get people to tell us on the record, how they had done it. and how they had basically, in trying to exempt themselves from the court system, gone all the way to the supreme court and gotten the blessing of the supreme court in 2011 and again in 2013. almost no one noticed. we set about trying to do that. yeah. that is it. [laughter] there is a lot more. tom: good. jessica, thank you. another finalist was "failure factories." the tampa bay times discovered

,hat in ellis county, florida they had starved the black schools of resources to the point where they were awash in violence and academic failure. that reporting led to substantial changes in the handling of those schools in that county, additional resources, special oversight, major change. representing that team will be michael laforga, a reporter at the tampa bay times. part of their investigative reporting team in 2014. he was part of the team that won the pulitzer prize for local reporting. michael: our story arose from questions that came out of the education beat. principally questions that were surfaced by my wife, the education reporter at the newspaper. she was going over standardized test scores year over year since 2012, when we started at the paper.

she realized that african-american kids in ellis -- in pinellas county were doing worse at reading and math than african-american kids in any other county in florida. she covered schooled in four other school districts and had never seen anything like this -- these ratings of failure. it is a large, relatively affluent county. the crime rate is about average. the rates of poverty, single-parent homes, reliance on food stamps, it is all about the middle of the road when it comes to florida counties. there was no good explanation for why it was happening. it made us want to dig in as a team into the story with the other education reporter. i have to tell you, if you have never teamed up with your husband or wife -- [laughter] on an intense 18 month-long

reporting project, i don't know what you're waiting for. [laughter] it is not to be missed. we are still married. [laughter] one of the things that made what we did a little different from how other people that approached the story in the past, we focused not on the phenomenon itself, but on the policy decisions that led to it and the people that made those decisions. there was a vote shortly after federal oversight that had stemmed from a desegregation lawsuit dating to the 1960's expired. there is a moment where the school district and the school board had to decide how they were going to assign students to schools. how do they dictate the moment dictate theey enrollment patterns.

previously there had been racial quotas and busing. they had a decision to make. they could continue doing a system of choice and make an effort to keep the schools integrated, or they could revert model,ighborhood schools which would amount to de facto segregation. they opted for that. that is where we began the story, at that moment, in 2007. we traced the difference decisions and policy failures that the school board made over the subsequent years. some of the challenges there -- it is a big, broad topic. we went from school zoning and the intricacies of analyzing student test score data to discipline. rates of suspensions for african american kids versus non-african

american kids. to teacher personnel records. we pulled the results of every teacher certification exam and inteacher certification exam the state of florida. we knew how many times the teachers and the schools had failed basic teaching test. we were able to use that is one measure of the quality of teachers the kids were getting. we also looked at data that was generated as a result of assignment to special programs like magnets and some of the most desirable schools in the county. we found that african-american kids were basically shut out of the best schools in the county. as a result of our reporting, three of the five schools have been singled out to be turned into magnet programs. the u.s. secretary of education at the time, arne duncan came

down and accused the school board of educational malpractice. they hired an administrator and put him in charge of the five schools that we focused on in an effort to turn around. the state department of budget -- the state department of education had an investigation on the use of federal funds if they were using the money properly or using it to spend global money they should not spend. tom: thank you. they last finalist is the washington post, "fatal shooting by police." the ferguson shooting as it did at the guardian, triggered the post into action, pretty much on the same mission. that was to tabulate these killings. one difference with the post is that they made an effort to capture them in real-time so the data would be as accurate and complete as possible. the reporting of the two

organizations prompted the fbi and the justice department to alter the way that they are collecting the data. kimberly kenji from the washington post will talk from that team. she is a national investigative reporter for the post. she has been there since 2008. we have one of the billionaire owners of these papers here in boston, john henry. kimberly has worked in newspapers associated with two of them. one of the post with jeff bezos, before she was at the post, she was at the orange county register. aaron kushner had a part in that newspaper. kimberly: thank you. by now you know what our project was and as a result. i think what i will do is cut out some of what i was going to say and skip right to how we did it and the challenges.

as was mentioned, one of the things that we wanted to do was do it in real-time. i should start with what the biggest challenge was. no one had ever done this before. it was not as if we could look around a newsroom or look to some other newspaper and say, they did a project like this, we will model this after that and start from that. we started with having no notion of how we were going to do this. with this huge challenge of trying to do it in real-time. the way that it really began was our researchers julie tate and jennifer jenkins -- they started searching every single day on websites and other places to try to learn about every fatal police shooting. fortunately we live in an era in

which an officer shoots and kills somebody, there is usually some sort of media mention. rarely was there a lot of details. what they would do from there was log it, and then see if the police department has released additional information. one of the big challenges here was that things did not come rushing out. there was not all of this information out there. one of the things they had to do was, keep going back because information would get leaked out a little bit at a time. was the person armed? sometimes they would say, sometimes they would not. obviously with michael brown and him being unarmed and that an outrage to many people, that was something we wanted to know. sometimes they would say they were armed with a gun, turned out sometimes it was not a gun, it was something that looked like a gun, replica, a toy.

those researchers were continuously going back and checking the record and seeing what new things are coming out. at the same time three new, on average, three new shootings were happening a day. imagine this -- you are building a database, constantly trying to back fill it, at the same time, things are marching forward and you're like, we didn't know this. the fbi was not doing it. there is really an average of three fatal shooting's a day? while they are doing this, the reporters are taking a look at what they are tracking. ultimately they tracked more than a dozen details copperheads ugly about every single fatal -- more than a dozen details comprehensively about every single fatal police shooting. as we went about, we would see things like, it looks like a lot of mentally ill people are

dying. we thought, we should track that. by killing 300, we finally are like, we should be tracking that in a comprehensive manner. they would have to go back and check and see what each of those old cases whether or not a person was mentally ill. they did this for every single thing that we wanted to, that we thought should be a major finding. that was one of the greatest challenges. doing that, overcoming the obstacle that investigative reporters -- the way they tend to turn to things, they try to do things comprehensively is, you file and then bug people. in the year, 2020, when you have the information, you can tell people what happened in 2015. the minute we decided that was

not going to cut it, all of these challenges i just presented were what we were wrestling with on a daily basis. it was ugly. we had to constantly realized we needed to reevaluate things. police officers would say, this person was driving a car and he tried to kill the officer with it -- were they armed? with a armed with the car? were they not armed? these complicated ways -- things that you need to wrestle with and understand and tackle so you can have a data set that is reliable, something where every single killing you are tracking things in the exact same way. in a way in which police can challenge you, and it can hold up. the aclu can challenge you, and it can hold up. these are the things that by the end of the year, we were exhausted, that we felt like we had really that our jobs.

-- we had really done our jobs. it produced some great things. we talked about the fbi and the bureau of justice statistics stepping up and saying, this is embarrassing. you and the guardian are doing a better job than us. finally coming around and saying they would do it as well. that was fantastic. it was fantastic last month when police chief met at a national conference and pointed to the post work and said, this is valuable. we need to know this information. we need to know how these incidents begin. we need to know how often people are armed, and what they are armed with. we need to take a deep look at why things are going sideways. we need to look at our training. what are preventable? thankfully we saw something that

we were seeing, this is not only dangerous, the lack of proper training and handling some of the situations properly, it is not just dangerous for civilians, it is dangerous for police. when you chase a guy in a dark alley, by yourself, and you had no idea what they did, they just ran away, you are endangering yourself. not just that person, who you might need face-to-face at a dark corner. you maybe think you see a gun, and you don't. that was an actual case. someone was shot, he was unarmed. the officer got face-to-face with the person, by himself, in a dark alley, it happens a lot. some of our findings that prompted change, we found that a quarter of the people shot and killed were mentally ill. we found that most of the departments that shot and killed someone who was mentally ill were not using state-of-the-art training that can help them de-escalate the situation and bring people in safely. a quarter of the suspects were fleeing in a car, or they were

running. sometimes they were shot in the back. sometimes officers were shooting into moving cars, turning them into multi ton metal missiles, unarmed, shooting into traffic. we found that one in 10 people were unarmed. of course we wanted to find out, and get a realistic idea of what it looks like. michael brown was unarmed. every media accounts that really got a lot of attention, people were unarmed. how often were people really unarmed? most of the time they were armed. we also wanted to take a deep look at what the unarmed like.tion look liked unarmed black men were seven times more likely to be shot

than unarmed white men. we wanted to make sure that we were balanced. we wanted to look at the dangers that officers face. we found that a majority of time, officers, at the time they pulled the trigger, were under attack. it is a dangerous job. we wanted to make sure we were fair. i think that is why the fbi and police chiefs have come around. we understand they will have better public discourse and training if they realistically can explain to people, the dangers, and separate out the shootings that are justified, from the ones that are unjustified and change things. the last thing i would like to say is that we are going to continue to build our database in the next year. we will continue to have growing pains because we are talking about how to expand the data set so we can tell deeper stories and continue to shed more light on what is -- when things are going sideways, why they are going sideways. looking forward to rolling out some more stories on that in the coming year. tom: kimberly, thank you.

i think, as i mentioned at the start, this is the 24th year of the goldsmith awards program. i think this is the first time ever we have had two finalist with such similar reporting projects as the washington post and the guardian. also i can tell you that when they finalist were looking at all of the submissions for the goldsmith award, there were a number of other submissions that were triggered by what happened in ferguson. having these two together, i think we would be remiss if we did not ask each of you, when did you find out about the other news organization's program. did that lead you to speed things up? did that lead you to make adjustments in the way that you were collecting data?

>> we did not know it would be similarly national or perhaps regional, or if it was going to be like, are there shootings or deaths? we did not coordinate. people asked if was a joint enterprise, it coincided. tom: any changes? any speeding up? >> a little speeding up. we published our first story off the data before they did. they pushed out their database before we did. kimberly: i think that we were kind of neck and neck in terms of pursuit. it only helps because that the guardian was on this as well. you can maybe dismiss one media organization, but when two take something like this on, and they both prove that in some measure this is doable, it is harder for authorities to look the other way.

i feel like it was fantastic that we both did something. we both did things slightly differently. i don't think we changed anything we did. the only thing that i would note that we did that was similar -- we had a smaller data set. it was triggered by a question from ferguson. one question was, how often does this happen? what do these situations really look like? that led us to build similar data sets. another question was, what does it take for an officer to be criminally charged when they fatally shoot somebody? more and more we are seeing videos surface where people feel like you're looking at a shooting unjustified. we decided to build a database looking at that. looking back at officers who had

been criminally charged going back a decade. at the end of the year, going back and looking at that database was really interesting to see a difference post ferguson and what is happening with officers being criminally charged. because we got the database in the beginning of the year, we knew that on average only five office is, we now know it is about 900 plus, if last year's is to be a standard, 900 plus are being shot and killed every year. five officers on average are criminally charged over the last decade. by the end of the year, when we look at 2015, compared to the prior nine years in the decade, it was 18 officers charged last year. we are seeing a real change in terms of prosecutors feeling pressure to really look at these cases. they try to hold

officers accountable. we are seeing video play a huge role in challenging and providing an alternative narrative to what the officers say. that changes in that dynamic as well. john: i think she is right. one thing our database does that is slightly different is each case lists the status. whether it is under investigation, and indictment, whether the officer has been reprimanded by his or her department. that actually proved, surprisingly to me, one of the most difficult things to keep track of. as can really set, each death usually stimulates a media mention. keeping track of the case is a different matter. especially cases in which that might be less noticed by media, it is hard to keep track of these stories and let out the message whether the officer has been charged.

that, more than anything else perhaps took more calls to regional authorities. just to get information out as to what happened with the case. they were so reluctant in many cases to actually say, we have actually quietly cleared this officer, but we did not announce it. here is the information. several times we had come across cases where the officer has been cleared and the investigation finished, no one noticed. that was a concern. these cases, there is a sort of flash of media interest, and then nothing. to keep track of that was the thing that we found -- we were determined to do and to do in 2016. -- determined to do and continue to do in 2016. our database is real-time as

well. both databases were updated every day with every case that coming to our attention each day. as can really said, about three a day. tom: all of you touched briefly on your overview of some of the challenges you faced in the stories. i'm wondering if you could go a little bit deeper for us and what was for you the major obstacle that you faced in getting to the bottom of your investigation. robin: i think i touch a little bit on it was that there was -- it was difficult to prove that the fish that was being caught was ending up in america. that was finding men who were actually, instead of people who have been rescued or who had escaped but were active slaves. who are currently thing forced

-- currently being forced to work. that was something that we did find a slaveo island. that is kind of what we did. from that point, it was almost easy. you had a huge group of men who were so incredibly desperate and so eager to tell the stories. a lot of times when you meet victims, they are afraid to tell the story or they want to have their identity protected. these guys felt like they had died already. they had been stranded on this island for 20 years. some more like five or 10. they had no contact with family members. they had been left for dead. they had no contact with the outside world.

when there was a journalist there, their stories were pouring out. in a way, one of the biggest challenges then was here are these men who are being incredibly brave, telling their stores, willing to risk their lives. graveyards with their friends who have died and kind of disappeared. how do you honor the bravery of these men and use those names, videos, faces, but at the same time protect them? , we did not want to use their names and faces and video, and then have them be killed. they were with their abusers and we were no longer there. the main challenge for us was how do we do both?

how do we hold on to the power of the story by using their own voices? and protect them. fortunately, we had a very good source with the iom. my colleagues worked with him very closely. we showed him the video of the guys in the cage. we told him what we wanted to do. he recognized the importance of it. basically, we gave him a list of the eight men we used on video or whose quotes we used. he worked to get them off the island before we published the story. at the same time we had the new york times on our tails, so

there was the competitive nature. the people there, the people in control of the slaves must have been suspicious of what you were up to. was there any sort of sense that you were there and could harm felt in therefore you danger? robin: they had been doing it for so long time, they were not afraid. it was myself and our cameraman and photographer we told them we were doing a story about the fisheries ministry. how rich the marine life was. they were happy to show off the fishing. it was a pretty big fishing business. it had been there for about a decade.

in the beginning, they were happy to show those guys around but they had a government minder with them. you can look at the factory, but we are going to come with you. i kind of broke off at that point and pretended i was more interested in teaching english at the school or visiting the market or going around the island. i was free and they were stuck with the government minders. at a certain point, when my colleagues wanted to follow up what i came across, like the graveyard, those government minders started getting really nervous and angry. they basically kick us off. i was left alone and my burmese colleague came and we were ok for a couple of days. after while they hated us.

that is when they chased after us in the boats and threatened us. tom: jon, challenges? john: the biggest challenge compared with the scale of the issue, the small team that we had, the department of justice's team that is now doing the same thing with 20 people as two supercomputers. my colleague oliver, he and i started together. ae two of us hired researcher. later in the year, we hired an intern to allow us to do the more investigative part of it. the database was designed by producers and people who can code. it was a small team. we worked day in and day out all

year, weekends, late nights to match institutions and organizations with more resources. to keep up with the new cases and the cases that had already happened, to keep track of the status of each case. it is much more than just there is a new case a day. so many different issues that we had to keep track of with google alerts and calls to authorities to keep the information coming. it was exhausting. as a small team, we at times and thought why are we doing this? tom: lisa? lisa: one of the main challenges is finding people who are still alive and willing to talk. there were some former exxon

employees who still depended on the company for their pensions so they were not going to talk. another challenge is the inside climate is very small. we had eight reporters while we were doing this. four of us were on this project and the other four had to keep the website alive for months. we were willing to put in a lot of resources, half the team to do the story. we are a virtual news organization so we are not in the same place physically. we have some people in san diego, the rest of us are on the east coast. we are trying to do things by e-mail, phone, google hang out. we met a couple of times in person. that was fun. tom: jessica? jessica: we had two primary challenges. the first was, i mentioned these

two supreme court decisions. there was one in 2011 and one in 2013. both received almost no attention. they were dense, legalistic decisions that basically said, they were premised on this idea that it was fine to ban class actions and say you cannot go to court. you are waiving your right to file a class-action, and that is fine because there is this other great system called arbitration, which is a perfectly fair alternative to going to court for people to resolve disputes from any kind, small dollar or larger, and that had been largely untested. this incredibly important basis for these two decisions, no one had gone about seeing is

arbitration a fair alternative to court? there are a couple of reasons why. one, there is no federal requirement that arbitration decisions be disclosed publicly, so no one had looked at how many people were actually going to arbitration. that was the first thing. with my colleague, between 2010 and 2014, about 500 people went to arbitration for disputes of $2500 or less. this whole notion that millions of people could fairly resolve their disputes through arbitration, we started to see that was incorrect. it was a huge challenge to get to the point where we could quantify the number people going to arbitration. that was the first thing.

what our reporting showed is that we ended up with this idea that corporations had killed the class-action, but it wasn't enough to just stop there. the next huge challenge was trying to figure out the way they did this, because as i said, this amounted to a huge power-play. you as a corporation can get out of the legal system entirely, opt out, but how did you do this? the reason that i think people had not figured this out was because it was a very technical process, so what had happened was about 10 to 20 years ago, state court judges, when they were getting cases where companies were saying you can't file a class-action, they were saying they will strike the clause and overturn it and allow you to go to court because this amounts to having a get out of

jail free card. they actually said that. discover credit card company, if you ban people from forming a class-action, you are exempting yourself entirely and getting out of jail free. so we saw that state court judges were striking down these clauses, and then suddenly that changed. the state court judges, what happened was a case where a state court judge in california had struck down a clause made it all the way to the supreme court, and the supreme court said to the state court judges, no, you are overstepping your authority and have no right to strike down these clauses. we will uphold them. we set out to try to figure out how that happened. in order to do that, we needed to learn the law, and also to win the trust of the architects

of the arbitration clauses, who were a bunch of corporate lawyers who had no interest in telling us how they had engineered this incredible coup. the big challenge was learning the law almost better than they knew it or as well as they knew it, to go to them and say, look, i understand the genius of what you did. regardless of whether we think class actions are good or bad, we can disagree on that, but we can both agree that you have killed them. by saying that to them and then actually walking through with these various lawyers how they did it, by saying that this is the legal argument that you engineered in this instance, and this is the one you made to the appellate court in new york, and this is the one made to the appellate court in california, that began to help us, because

we were winning the respect of the people that had done this. to just say to them, look, i know what you did and i think it is rather remarkable was a powerful thing. then, i had learned in the course of reporting that one of the key players behind the scenes in his legal coup was john roberts, who we now all know as the supreme court justice, but when he was a private litigator, he represented discover bank in a case that the supreme court refused to take, but the basis of that case was arbitration should be allowed to ban class actions. this was a contentious idea. the supreme court did not grant certs, said they did not agree to take the case. fast-forward eight years, justice roberts is no longer a private lawyer. he is a supreme court justice, and suddenly the supreme court

agrees to take a case involving the very same kind of issues it had previously denied to take, so we knew he had made this legal petition on behalf of discover to get the supreme court to take this case. i went to talk to one of the lawyers who was an architect of the decision and asked him what do you make of john roberts now being on the court? it seems like it would be to your advantage since he had written this brief in 2002 petitioning the supreme court to take the very same case they ended up taking eight years later, and i think the lawyer i was talking to was so shocked that we even knew about this that he was thrilled to talk about it, so he was like, yeah, no, we thought we had a really good shot of winning the supreme court case because actually, you know, i helped john roberts craft that brief, and he helped us later on.

that was a remarkable turn for us, because it showed just how concerted this effort had been and how it had involved the highest levels of the supreme court. that to me was one of the biggest challenges. tom: michael? michael: just wrangling the data that went into producing these stories, we did five stories at the end of the day, it was a pretty big task. it was the most intensive data-type work i have ever done on a project, and basically we took databases on test scores, student discipline, teacher quality, we had possibly four different datasets on teacher quality, and data on assignment to special programs for kids, and we analyze them in a way that if we had wanted to, we could have produced five separate investigative projects. we rolled it all into one.

just knowing what to leave in and leave out took a long time and was something we had to think a lot about. the other thing i would say is a mindset was a challenge. the mindset of the officials we were dealing with, and even the reporters and editors at the paper. the first part of that is when you have something like poverty or failure at school, it is tempting to just write it off as this immutable, unchangeable, true that exists in the world, and to avoid looking at how it evolved and became this way to obscure the accountability that you could bring to the situation. if you just ask the questions, why does this situation exist as it does today? when a group of disadvantaged kids does well in school it is

because the school district did a great job. when they fail, it is because they don't come to school wanting to learn or they have bad parents. convincing people that that was not the case with a challenge for us, but at the end of the day i think we pulled it off. tom: kimberly, before you start, we will open it up for questions from the floor. if you have a question, we have a microphone here and a microphone there, and if you would walk up to the microphone if you would like to ask the panel a question. kimberly? kimberly: surprisingly a lack of resources was a problem here as well. it looked like we had a huge number of people, and on some stories we did. we had a group of people doing amazing things like videos and graphics, but when it came to writing the stories, i will give

you an example of how alone it felt at the time. i decided that we needed to do something on body cameras, like the truth behind them, because they were being promoted as these tools of transparency and accountability and i had a sneaky suspicion that that was not what was really going on, and so i started to do some digging and decided that the best way to do this was to identify every single case in which there was a body camera video and go to the department and ask them not only for the video, but ask them to tell me exactly what their policy was on release. would they release immediately after the event? was it not until the investigation concluded? what investigation? the administrative investigation or the criminal investigation of the officer? and i also wanted to take a look at all the body camera bills that were being introduced in state legislatures, because i was hearing that the police unions and the police chiefs

organizations were strongly lobbying on these, and instead of them being tools of transparency and accountability, they were changing the language in the bills so that they would be exempt from public records laws. i had to call 50 police departments multiple times in order to get the data for the analysis on what was really going on with release. i had to analyze over 200 bills. i had the help of julie tate who called 20 departments because i thought a was going to drown, but otherwise, i did that all on my own. the post had a lot of resources on it, but at the end of the day it was one of five investigative stories i did last year. it is the kind of thing most investigative reporters would have spent a year on and that was just one of my five stories. so basically at 6:00 a.m. when

my boyfriend would wake up, he would see me staring at the computer and say, are you already at it? thankfully he likes to watch sports on the weekend. when he was watching sports, i was working. i worked all year long last year. it was worth it, but the lack of the pain was shared. so hard to get anything from the police departments. you did not just called them and they gave you something. you called and called and e-mailed and e-mailed and went to the city council and county council. you did everything you could to put some pressure on them to squeeze a little information out. imagine you have dozens, hundreds of departments you are doing that with. it is daunting. we could have had 100 people and they still would have been working all the time. lack of resources, police not answering your questions, those were the obstacles. tom: we will take some

questions. ted: if i had a hat, i would take it off. it is so impressive. it restores my faith in the field. i thank you all. tom: would you identify yourself, please? ted: my name is ted gupta. i used to be an investigative reporter. i don't know if i can claim that still or not. my question is kind of broad. it goes to all of you. we live in a different political climate and i am wondering to what degree that change of political climate affected your reporting in this way -- in terms of either the sources of the problems you look at, the accessibility to officials, the responsiveness, their attitudes towards the press, the willingness and appetite to follow on the judiciary, gubernatorial level, congressional oversight,

whatever -- how was your work changed by that change in the american political climate? i guess that is what i would ask. tom: you don't all have to respond. [laughter] >> i will make a brief response to that. maybe one of you can go into it a little more. my impression is that a lot of investigative journalism in the past was looking for things that are legal, and now you're looking for things that are legal. abuses and things that have been legalized, so that was the case in our situation, and it sounds like a lot of you have the same, aside from the exxon story maybe. [laughter] >> i think that climate change is now a huge partisan thing. it's hard to find anyone in the republican party who believes in the science.

what our story showed was that back then, the 1970's and 1980's when exxon was doing this research, it was not a partisan issue. exxon really cared about doing the right science because they wanted a seat at the table when regulations came down the line and they were expecting that. after our series came out, we had politicians comment on it. hillary clinton and bernie sanders both said it unwarranted some kind of federal doj probe. there have been democratic members of congress calling for more of the federal probe into this. i think with the elections coming up and how sensitive this the doj, i'm not sure is quite eager to get into this.

has been pressure on them to get them to look into lookede way that they into the tobacco industry. >> all of these shootings have been deemed justified. all kinds of things people have seen for themselves. people are starting to realize, what they are doing is legal. uncovered, the first challenge is going to your and not with the police shooting stories but with lots of other stories, explaining it is outrageous even though it is legal. and you have a threshold with readers explaining why they -- outragedt ride even though it is perfect justified under the law.

>> one other issue is the impact of being affected. there is very little chance. the republican majority seems to think it is too much to mandate that officers report this information. i think it is perhaps, quite surprising. there is very little prospect.

the fbi in the doj has had to work around that. us was tryingfor to understand that this report that we would all like to .elieve is free of politics scully is death, maybe it's not true. -- the roberts report that people have begun to show a court that seems to be very pro-business. even though there was this huge uproar about citizens united and this move for thinking about corporations and giving them writes as if they are , they weren't looked

at as if they were -- for what they really were. we had to show that this was a very political decision both in 2011 and 2013. i think it gets villain eyes -- eized.ized -- villain i thought about it as ambulance chasers that file product liability cases that have to do with medical malpractice.

a whole range of cases. the method of bringing them. whether those are ,exual-harassment cases antitrust cases where people are trying to fight a monopoly. we show it is a big advantage you give business. was a political entity and what kind of came down was part of reporting in this climate. -- ihen this decision basically can die now.

>> next question, please. it is good for different journalists. i think it is great you have both been nominated as well. one did not preclude the other from nomination. something that you have talked about today is the issue of competition with other outlets.

there were other new stories about when it was best to go with that and i wanted to ask all of you, when did you think you have the story and when did you not have the story? >> we running short on time. safety, the was second was making the link to the dinner table. it was a very complicated process that a colleague concentrated on. and for a few weeks, we thought we can only link it to the domestic market in thailand. do we go with it? or do we wait while we have

other competitive pressures? >> we're determined to publish the database for the first time once we had several months of data. appearancessleading and trends. we launched on june 1. the post a couple of days before that had published their findings. we could have that evening rushed out. we decided it would carry on. always a challenge to know when to press the button. we feel like we did the right

thing. >> we had the key documents by may or june and one of the work is likely as possible. one of our consideration was the paris climate talks. we wanted stories to not get and in the paris coverage we ended up publishing in the middle of september. a month after we published, the times released their own story that basically came to the same conclusions. they used different documents. most of them were public company archives. i had not known there were working on that project the same time we were. it was nice to see these independent projects reaching the same conclusion using different documents.

nobody wanted to look into arbitration. this national regulator at put that wouldd rules prevent financial companies from banning class actions and they put it out i think in september, something? may. and being the jittery crazy reporters we are, we did a small new story about the proposed i was afraid it was going to spur a whole host of coverage. my editor assured me i was being crazy and i was. hadn't been in paper for a while because i was working on this and i got a lot of e-mails

saying that 500 word story was your investigation? one of you been doing? anyway. i think it's slightly different. >> in terms of knowing when to pull the trigger, we did not set out to write a story about resegregation. the longest-serving reporter had been at the newspaper for three years and we were short on institutional knowledge. we were looking at student test scores and we noticed there was a drop in reading and math scores around 2008-2009. mr. is saying, maybe something happened. let's check the clips. and there was a decision to revert to neighborhood schools. that's how the story came about. >> after we had a few months of

data and trends that were reliable. we started planning a story and i spent a lot of time looking at the database. after several weeks of staring at it and doing my own math on , it becameaper pretty clear that half of the cases were incidents that involved people behaving erratic we. about half of them have a legitimate criminal stuff going on. and once we spotted those trends, we knew how we were going to write it and pull the trigger on the first story. i think when there is competition, you are worried

about it but i'll think anybody cared about who got it first. america was super glad there were people taking a look at it and publishing stories and putting pressure on authorities that they would start tracking. i'm pretty sure there's 20 people between the organizations that cared about who did it first and the rest of america doesn't really know. it is closing time but i will take one more question. it would be great if it is something they could all get a thoughtful soundbite answer. >> hard work and putting your marriage is on the line.

how do you keep the motivation going? book published in 1967, the book was called "death at an early age. them destruction of the minds and hearts of students in schools. how do you keep your motivation going when you know the best you can do maybe is a short-term result. i can say i began working on the story in the march of 20 13. and basically just stopped working on it. this is the one story that i never got tired of doing. it was that important. so many different facets and new wants to the different things we were bringing to light. it was an endless supply of stuff to keep you interested and

it was an outrage, you know? that this was going on in the community and nobody really raising any questions about it. in this case, it wasn't hard to a committed to it. once i shut down an entire state agency because it was touch a boondoggle and i was super proud. i moved away and it is up and running again. you're easily discouraged. do it long enough, you know the most you will be able to do is create a small change and you hope it holds and that some other reporter comes along and more small change happens and it continues. and over time, maybe we are dead before you can look back and see that because of 20 reporters and

activists and all this work people have done, they constantly put pressure on important moments. over time, things changed and improved. it is discouraging. maybe when you look back at what the education system looked like a long time ago, maybe you can find almost every school district look like the one that they wrote about. >> i think that is perfectly said. you're part of something much rotter and it is an honor to be among so many journalists trying to do the same thing.

it socause kimberly said articulately, i don't think i need to go into why i am heartened by other people's work , but another big thing that sustains you is your family within the paper. andd a brilliant editor amazing colleagues. it is also going home and talking to your friends and having them tell you that you're not owing to go totally crazy. michael's parents are here today, which is awesome. i draw a lot of sustenance from the people around me who believe in the project even when i forget to. >> it is axon.

story was really easy to stay motivated because the documents were so exciting. we knew we were one of the first people outside of axon to have ever seen them. it was great. our editor had been reporting on climate forever and if he was completely shocked, the rest of us knew that we have something really good. haven't stopped and we've had some follow-up stores claimed as well. >> we have seen the reaction from leaders. they are sending information. they have people saying, we are reading what you do.

>> this one was kind of easy. covering a lot of tragedies and interviewing people that have been abused again and again, all you can say to them is the story. pretty much what you are. we're over time able to do something. in this particular case when we met those man, we saw that staggering level of desperation. i felt confident being able to tell them that you're not going to get stuck on this island. it was kind of a mixture of gratuitous events, the defense minister was a kick asked woman that would not let this happen on her watch.

a way, we were disappointed happened soak with a because we had a bunch of great stories. >> this morning's panel demonstrates why we have that oh words program for investigative reporting. this is really important work. it is inspiring work. it is also somewhat evolving work. i kept hearing words like data analysis, data collect ink. maybe 10 years ago, that would -- that word may have been less prominent. congratulate all the finalists.

debate times, the washington post. in particularly to jessica, michael, and kimberly for representing your organization so well in the whole investigative reporting field. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> he talks about that neutrality, the subsidized phone program, regulation of the internet, and privacy. mr. wheeler also discusses how he views the future of telecom

and the internet. by brian fong, technology reporter for the washington post. >> what i was fortunate enough to be able to do is be involved as they were bringing great change to the american economy. and that's what we're dealing with with the fcc because we are in the middle of one of the great revolutions of all time. >> watch the communicators tonight. >> newsmakers this week, mark warner is a democrat that serves on budget, financing, housing, urban affairs. thanks for being with us. let me introduce my guest.

cq roll call focuses on the senate and his writing about congress. >> things for joining us today. position forunique a really hot button issue right now. a member of the select intelligence committee but you are a technologist by trade. interest in a deep that. there is a national debate about encryption. legislation, can you give us an update on that legislation and where you view the efforts? >> i think it will start to circulate in real time. the norm us respect for richard and diane.

this is an area i've spent a lot of time trying to think through. a person was chairman of the homeland acuity. we started looking at the question around digital security. encryption is a component part of that. is going to be minor compared to the debate that arises as we move to the internet of things. we start thinking about everyday appliances having cameras and sensors. and raising a whole host of policy and security issues as well. , i know we'veion got to go after criminals and and recognizing the nature of the network has changed dramatic the.

do isat we are trying to that we have checked on one side, law enforcement on another that ever treated to absolutist positions. until we can get everybody forced into a room and come up with a common set of facts, i'm not sure we're going to get it right. it would take a year to sort through this. tack,forcement, cryptologist. the complexity of this issue is really important. what i afraid of is that if we rush to judgment and end up with an american only solution, we could end up resulting in driving criminals and terrorists foreign-based hardware and

software. day, overnew apps a half of the new apps are being developed internationally. most of them are encrypted. really, it will require collaboration. ago, we hadw weeks the apple and a ei case. it sounded like this was near crisis proportions. is there a sense of urgency act oh >> absolutely. there has to be a sense of urgency. one particular case was dismissed. there will be other cases that arise. those be going to the litigation process and will take some time as well.

commissionting this stood up sooner rather than later is terribly important. the former homeland security director and mike o'connell have then endorsed by the chamber of commerce. we have been endorsed by the wall street journal editorial board. quickly, we have to ignore it on the front-end , we have tried to model this commission after the 9/11 commission were there did eat emerge a consensus. we set up the commission that would require agreement of 12

members. two thirds plus majority to have a recommendation come forward. if we move in advance, it could make americans less safe. everyone agrees encryption is critically important. you got to make sure law enforcement and intel have tools to sort through that. push about guys to foreign-based hardware and software. concerns that whatever congress is doing or andcommission would develop the courts could jump in?

>> the litigation process will drag out for some time. will we have tried to do is set up a one-year timeframe. get the rightou people in a room, a lot of this as been litigated in previous reports. them not said that you got to get a set of facts, congress needs to do its job. as someone who has spent a career in this field and the last five years digging in from the intel side, it is extraordinarily complex. i'm not sure if there is enough technical expertise in congress at this moment and you got, for example, apple taking a position -- an absolute position and the fbi taking an absolute position. it did not come to pass because there was a different way around this problem.

i mentioned the police chief has endorsed the commission as well but if they don't get legislative very shorty -- shortly, it loses ability to get to solutions. >> in south by southwest, i know you addressed a panel there. i was there, with president obama, where this issue came up. made,e of the comments he that i think people were struck by was, as you said, you cannot have an absolutist view. if we end up adopting the apple and some of the technology companies, even in the your leagues senate, like senator woodien, maintain strong encryption and have no back doors, the way president obama was we would be, quote, fetishizing our phones above all our other values. what do you think of that statement? was that a good way to put it?

to parse theing president's individual phrase. i do know this. got everybody to the head of national intelligence, of the c.i.a., all saying is encryption is, one, here to say. it protects our information. still wrestling with the data breach. encryption makes americans safe. time, lawe same enforcement and the intel community has a need to be able follow the communications and movements of terrorists and criminals. aquestion whether building in back door, which in a sense, sends a signal that you're going have a vulnerability, that no matter how carefully you guard be, i think,ld exploited. a solution set

that really makes us safer, i will be other tools. obviously there was another methodology and i've not been but there wass, another methodology used around the apple known in san bernardino that -- the apple phone in san bernardino that worked through that. this is a level -- remember, debate takes place on the device, in terms of software, at the network level. one of the things that i would is if wed about mandated a back door, two things could happen. one, you'd have smart criminals and terrorists simply buying a phone that wasn't subject to american jurisdiction, or two, a smart criminal or terrorist would simplsimply import from the clod encrypted software on to the phone, even if it had a back door. so there are challenges around this. part of this as well, this is not just a debate taking place america. there's similar legislation in the u.k., in france.

require, i think, type solution. i think american can lead. you'vethis point, when got tech and law enforcement in opposite corners, candidly, the intelligence community has been more leaning in, in terms of approachthe commission than some in the law enforcement community. i'mn the flip side, i guess probably breaking this news to you, since the statement came alljust moments before we sat down here, but the aclu has of thetly gotten a draft feinstein legislation and they're quite critical of it. a clear threat to everyone's privacy and security securityres economic and technical reality. is that -- what do you make of that? that a constructive view? >> i think, one, i need to review the legislation.

you know, i think they have -- it is theyeard about have a goal that i'd love to have us all get to, where legal warrants can be enforced. but i'm not going to criticize until i've hadn a chance to review it. and i do worry, though, that take their intent and, in effect, lair things that are not in the -- layer on in thethat are not legislation. endidly, we're not going to up with a solution set that every entity is going to agree on. balance ofo be a interests. i do believe there are rights of privacy that can be protected. law enforcement needs, canlligence needs, and we create an ability to maintain technology that americans and for that matter world consumers want to purchase. again, i point out the apple san bernardino case. sides said there was no

solution. short of a back door. the other side said it's not gonna happen. there was a solution. work throughs to these issues. but if congress -- you know, i'm hanging on by my fingernails in terms of staying up with the 20 yearsy and i've got background in this space. if congress tries to legislate setout, you know, a common of facts, i'm concerned about the outcome. up appearing to be making americans safer, but in reality, not actually accomplishing that goal. >> we are already at the halfway point. we have other issues. niels? >> i wanted to transition of something of interest to your constituents in northern virginia as well as everyone who sort of lives and works in the washington metropolitan area. which is the state of the public transportation system that we metro around here. and somee been reports discussion that there may be

entire lines that may need to be timedown for weeks at a for massive repairs. its -- in is now at its 40th anniversary. and what do you think is the of whatrole in terms needs to be done, and also, what -- one of the issues has been with the state governments. governor inbe the virginia. what does everyone need to contribute, and is there any happen?hat's going to >> let me take this in two bites. first of all, as a longtime beenrter of metro, i've really disturbed and frankly angered at the failure to enforce a culture of safety. years back,mber of the horrible tragedy in maryland where a number of individuals killed, a little over a year ago. we saw the incident where at the plaza.lled as we dug deeper and deeper, we saw that actually a lack of

appropriately trained personnel control center for metro and we would beat on the and board,nagement you've got to get this fixed. thectually changed some of jurisdiction of oversight of toro from the federal level department of transportation in terms of some of the oversight unprecedented -- we brought in federal transit to the safety audits and actually put personnel in that the ridership would have that level of security. new generaltly the theger actually shut down system for a one-day basis theuse of the potential for kind of harm that fires in the tunnels that could create smoke challenges. i think we were all a little shocked at that. think it sent a

good message for this general manager, safety first. on that.end him i think that some of the -- i heard just recently as well that that the comments possibility of actually shutting extendeds for an period of time was not on the table. but it will require perhaps less the weekends and evenings so they can do the kind of renovations that are needed. think we're seeing a movement in terms of the culture of safety move forward. the new g.m. time to put his team in place and move forward on it. piece, youncing know, let's face it, we have the brightest, shiniest newest metro in america, 40 years ago. that system has aged. do think there have been challenges around ongoing maintenance. unfortunately, this is not just a metro problem. deferred maintenance is a all across much of our infrastructure. the national park service has billion of deferred

maintenance and we're celebrating the 100th anniversary of the park service year. so how we make sure that we maintain the funding for metro is critically important. houseseen members of the want to cut the federal government's commitment that was number of years back actually by former republican angressman tom davis, who did great job, $150 million the feds in. going to put if we were to cut that, you potentially put metro into a semi-death spiral, because that means metro then has to increase the fares and requiredship has gone -- ridership has gone down. that means less people ride. in morens you're financial duress. so holding the line and honoring the federal government's commitment to give $150 million least a year -- this is the nation's metro system in terms visiting our national capitol region. at the same time, making sure and the localities

chip in their share as well, i think it's going to be an ongoing debate. part of making the case for additional revenue, whether it's dedicated revenue structures or making sure we keep the federal money or increase the regional contribution, those arguments are harder to make when you don't have that culture of safety. so i do think the general signal has sent a strong about safety and maintenance. i think shutting down of the system, while an imposition for that one day a couple weeks back, was in retrospect, right shot, both to the ridership, but also to the employees that an inappropriate beety focus will not tolerated. i think the more he can continue that, the better we'll be able financingore up the that is necessary. >> seven minutes. >> senator, you mentioned dedicated funding. assuming the new general manager footingthe safety

cracked, has the time come for the region's jurisdictions to together and do a dedicated funding source, whether it's a or...tax >> as somebody who got my tale whooped -- tail whooped when i affidavit kaited for a -- for a tax off the sales tax -- now, that was 10 10 years, more than ago actually, i'm not going to -- virginia has done it now. we now have a regional sales tax. >> based on the approach, he a step in the right direction, i think, in terms of additional transportation funding. but whether there would be a metro-specific, i think it's too early to judge on that until we see candidly, continued of thements in terms safety culture. coolinghink that the congressionals --

delegations need to play a role? gone afterarly have metro in the past, that we keep to thiss commitment infrastructure. candidly, this is how the country in the world sees washington. >> we have six minutes left and two big topics. start withto presidential politics. >> what does bernie sanders's success on the campaign trail have to say about the future direction of your party, for someone like you who have a antrist reputation and is capitalist, frankly? >> i think bowi bernie is tappig into a lot of dissatisfaction. i believe that the best policy extremes ofon the the left or right, but it's actually made with some bipartisan consensus. with that is we've not put a lot of points on the board in terms of that in the lastonsensus years.

>> i also argue that almost equal to the challenges around income and equality are challenges around income know.rity, you i think americans haven't minded folks being successful but when in their personal lives the kind of income they're seeing at this point in time, folks have a right to be angry. i am somebody who believes in our free enterprise system. modernon't think american capitalism with its focus on short-based quarterly doing well enough by the vast majority of americans. i'm working on a project through the aspen institute that's looking at this issue. actually mitch daniels, the former indiana governor, is my coach here. make capitalism work in a 21st century way, in a way?er how do you look at the whole

fiduciary duty so that a company can look not just shareholder-term returns but returns to its employees and the community? tax code -- ive a think we are going to need to make, you know, in effect, capitalism work in the 21st a broader group of people or the anger that bernie is tapping into in the left and a degree that mr. trump is tapping into on the right, can undermine a system that's worked pretty well for us. >> i'll take on the budget to the best that i can. that the -- that we're seeing and what we're hearing doingnate is going to be is that the majority leader, mitch mcconnell, says he's going withve forward appropriations bills debate the fact that they can't necessarily a budget resolution this year. but number one, in the immediate do you think that can get

done, that the appropriations process can actually work in an and more broadly, since you've been involved in these broader fiscal discussions over many, many years now, what do you think it's going to take, and is there any hope of any of that, with however the election turns out this year? >> you've hit my hot button. biggest disappointment since i've been in the senate is that we didn't put our balance back in order, that we didn't do a variation of the took on entitlement reform and tax reform. we have for this region managed to avoid the stupidity of sequestration for the last year two. i'm hopeful that leader mcconnell puts those on the floor. going to through is require two things. one, not having that extreme recutin the house try to the deal that was made last year in terms of the top line number. and two, to make sure that these

appropriations bills don't layer a whole series of what's called riders, social issues. to debate immigration, if you want to debate other social issues, have at it, but don't do it on the appropriations bills. speaker ryan and agree to those, we'll get those appropriations bills done. and that will be better serving, because it's a more rational way to manage our government. bigger issue of our balance sheet is coming back, know. sequestration comes back into process a year from now. we've now run up $18 trillion-plus of debt. responsible.are one thing to give folks ingestion this morning is when go up just one point, that adds on an annual $120 billion dollars of additional tech service every and that trumps every

other payment. medicare, youy, name it. that means that's more each year just on that piece of the debt than we spend on homeland security. we're talking about encryption earlier. spend onre than we homeland security and federal department of education combined. i'd also add all of the projections say that the again.s start rising this big looming problem, it's require both parties to make compromises. the democrats are going to have theealize we have to make promise of social security and medicare available for folks 35.r that means recognizing that people are growing older and the math doesn't work. have to recognize that we need a tax code that's more streamlined and frankly generates more revenue. we're 31st in terms of total tax collected. most folks don't want to hear that, but you've got to look at the facts. news is that slight

adjustments, getting our revenue ineam back to where it was the 90's, phasing in some changes around social security medicare over the next 10 years, nothing immediate, nothing more people currently those benefits, we can get this fixed, because if we discretionary the spending, investments in education, in infrastructure, in thearch and development, investments in our military, those are on a path, on a steep decline path. as a business guy, somebody who has been a business guy longer than a politician, if you cut education, infrastructure, that's not going to keep america competitive. >> senator, really quickly, combining those last two things, i don't know if you've been theowing the race across potomac. getting senator holland hit for even suggesting cuts to the social security or even -- the cuts butesting participating in the talks.

what do you make of that? what does that say about the party?of our >> i'm not sure. of van holland. i'm not sure that helps him as a supporting a marylander. but i gotta tell you, what i appeal to everyone is, don't absolutist with positions, somebody that says they're never going to raise or never touch entitlement parameters. all you're -- entitlement programs. going to get is gridlock. everybody in congress needs to come with an open mind. the fact that you can't even discuss the math -- today there working forople every one person on retirement, these are great programs but the changing. >> thank you, senator, for being with us this week. back to newsmakers with our two guests, mike debonis and after ouriewski, conversation with mark warner.

niels lesniewski, i want to start in reverse order. comments about the budget process, which was one of frustration. >> yes. warner has been engaged long-term about the fiscal challenges since really before he even arrived in the senate. was sortwe heard today of in that regard more of the same from him, about his frustration, but it really is really a lot of -- there are a lot of questions about whether any of this can ever be going toor if we are reach a point where social security reaches the point of unsustainable, whether the medicare costs really get too withme for anyone to deal and where we're going to end up, you know. camp of dwindling number of democrats and both parties who actually would probably vote in that wouldproposals

perhaps doom them at election time. critical particularly of the hard line house republicans and talked about a no socialat needed contract riders and to make sure they didn't add things to the legislation that would make in the long run. how likely is that? that's my question. the houseeen republicans can pass a budget. talking about riders. they can't even get the appropriations process started. we'll see perhaps next week if there's any hope. what struck me about what that,r warner said is right at the end there, i think you could sense a concern that perhaps the same thing is the democratic side, when he was discussing the maryland senate race. he worked with van holland on these deals and i that if's concerned democrats start getting simplyed on the left, for being part of these grand

fiscal talks, that it bodes ill. time spent a good deal of on the encryption issue. you talked about the necessity of dealing with that now because of cases and the courts getting into this. how amenable will the political to a 16-member commission idea? >> you know, you say the world commission. think most americans sort of cringe and say, what do we need a commission for? we elected you guys to work this out. think he makes the strong case that you have such a now on thisod right issue between the national security and law enforcement, on one side and the digit privatists absolutist on side.her he said it really might be the only way to get the facts on the table and proceed from that foundation. >> but is there a likehood of passage of the legislation in aering the commission,

political year? >> it would seem very difficult for either -- perhaps the commission has a better chance than actually taking action on substantive legislation that would actually make some of these decisions before the election. that, ofther point is course, when you're dealing with perhaps more specifically with the senate when it comes to an issue like encryption and technology is that it's always good to remember, frankly, how not at technology a lot of the people serving in the senate actually are. senator warner's unusual in the fact that he has a background in the technology sector. and he even says that things are since he wasch actually in the business. but there's a lot of senators or at least there's a handful of still use flip phones and don't access e-mail on mobile devices and couldn't iphone.an so, you know, you're dealing with a sort of subset of the upon laition. it's rather -- population.

>> let me move for broadly. senate look like between now and the conventions? >> well, gee whiz. know, they're on the f.a.a. bill now. that seems to be going well, although we'll see what happens next week. senator mcconnell is talking about doing appropriations. they're going to be doing appropriations without a budget in place in the house. derth ofps even a legislative vehicles to even do the bills with. so it's really unsettled right now. then add on top of that the supreme court battle which is of -- a very partisan and nasty tone, which even in an election year is unusual. so i would say that the general mood right now is not optimistic for major legislation. >> and niels lesniewski, will republicans be able to hold firm on the senate on the process?ion >> it sure seems like the senate republicans aren't planning on

changing their tune anytime soon. every time that the white house to pretendf its way sort ofr there is some changing of the tide, you immediately here from senator mcconnell and grassley saying exactly the opposite. isdoesn't look like anything going to move on that, probably at least until after the election. >> thanks to both of you for being on newsmakers again this week. nice to see you! >> as a recruiter, and as an you know that these standards -- you said you were year.good shot until last what stopped you from being a

good shot? >> i was convinced that i wasn't a good shot. i told myself that i was going to hold my recruits to a higher standard, i said it had with me. so i forced myself to go to the electronic policy range for a so that i could begin more confident with my weapon. and it worked. shothe first time, i expert. so it can be done. >> 20 years of service and it that long, at the basic school, and you know -- we went through the basic school together. we all qualified right then and there, and there was nobody that time that you couldn't shoot. >> so clearly you're not familiar with language expectancy -- you can roll your womensir, the point is if are told through language, well, women can't shoot, well -- >> i was never told that, through my entire four years. >> you may not have been told that. is, if you look at the decades of shooting results, it's very clear that was the case. dynamic, weged that

saw the results. >> and we'll have more tonight into combatng women situations beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> this week on q&a, boston school professor mary sarah bilder discusses her book "madison's hand," which takes a critical look at the notes james madison wrote during after the constitutional convention of 1787. >> mary sarah bilder, you have a book out called "madison's hand," revising the constitutional convention. what's it about? a biography of the notes madison's notes. madison was the only framer we

know of who took complete notes summer. the book argues actually that the notes weren't written in the summer they wrote the constitution. but madison's record is the most important account of that summer. >> when did you get this idea? >> i thought i'd write a narrative of the notes, a sort of what it would have been like from madison's perspective. and as i began to investigate them, is and read realized there were a lot of mysteries. i had weren't quite how expected them to be. and as i spent a lot of time with the notes and really access at the library of congress, it became evident importantmost document wasn't really what we thought it was. >> where are the notes at the of congress, and how hard was it for you to see them? >> they're in a big vault at the congress. and you need special permission. most people don't need to go far. you can see them on the library

of congress's website and the websitehas a wonderful with many of their documents, including madison's notes. importantook, it was to look more carefully at the notes. it forafter working on about two years, the library decided that i could go down and see it. but i kept my notes -- my hands behind my back the entire time only they touched them. >> why did that take two years? >> i think they don't want who is just a regular person to wonder in and see it. are considered a national treasure. they're actually labeled as a treasure. and the library is very cautious about it. after a while, i think they that some of the questions i raised about the notes were probably worth investigating. it took them a little while to be persuaded of that. does the vault look like? where is it in the library, and where did you actually look at notes? >> that was actually the best part of the project.

ofe of the notes -- some madison's letters, they hold in the reading room. and if one is very careful to explain why you don't need microfilm, you can use them in the reading room. you go inside the -- sort of the inner sanctum of the library, the elevator, around the corner, through two locked doors. where theye vault hold everything. and then inside a conservation lab. things i was very interested in was in seeing matched,he pages whether the water marks looked the same. theso one of the things was we putnd i did all the pages on a little table allowslight on it that you to see what the water marks on the pages were. >> had you not been able to see speak, the flesh, so to what difference would it have made to what you were able to write? a lot of my book is based on sort of old-fashioned

textural evidence. so i was pretty confident without looking at the actual paper. a lote paper confirmed about what i had sort of suspected, particularly was the notes -- madison took the notes on sheets folded thosehe sheets in half. so he writes on the front, across the middle, on the two pages and on the back side. allome point, he sewed these little pieces of paper together into a ma manuscript. things we wonderful noticed when we were down there was that the last quarter of the manuscript, the holes he had sewn, didn't match with the ones.r this confirmed my suspicion that of the manuscript had been written later. you spendg did looking at these notes? >> well, the library doesn't long.ou to be there very we looked pretty fast. i think i was there for maybe an

two hours.me or and then again another time. but the library was just wonderful. they have -- they took some extra images for me. took a number of water mark images. they keep all that for probably but itto look at now, was wonderful. it's a wonderful group of people there. >> how long have those notes been at that library of congress? >> after madison died, in the 1830's, he left his papers to dolly madison. his wife -- his wife. and dolly madison sold them to congress. behad thought they would worth an enormous amount of money. congress didn't think they were so much money. so finally, friends of his in congress agreed to buy the papers. and he -- they sent those papers to washington along with the notes. for a long time, they were in department's library. the state department eventually moved them over to the library

of congress itself. they were --y, they have sense been disassembled. how modern people preserve them. >> when were the notes first made public so that anybody them?read >> not until 1840, after madison's death. published, they were published as madison had left them. a had carefully prepared revised copy of the notes. he wanted them published in the thate of a collection included all of his letters to famous people. the government first published them, they published within three volumes along a lot of these papers in 1840. >> what credentials did you to this whole project and was that part of the reason why said comey eventually on in? >> well, i'm a lawyer by myfession and also have ph.d. basically in american history. i think one of the things that i hadbrary knew was written about madison before.

i had written about madison as a law student. and in doing that, had worked with some of the library's thatials, actually arguing something that had been cataloged as jefferson was a missing manuscript of james madison's. decide ibrary finally wasn't a complete nut. >> where did you get your undergraduate degree in? >> english major. then harvard law school. my ph.d. is from harvard also. a ph.d.id you get both and a law degree? >> well, my last year of law school, i had planned to go and be a regular lawyer. and a good friend of mine told person, professor beylen was teaching a history of the constitution course at the law school. and even was going to take it. i didn't know anything, but i thought if everybody was going to take it, i'll take it too. i was captivated. i had spend all my life in law

school learning about the constitution and all of a finallysomebody was explaining to me why it was the way it was. after that, i clerked for a federal judge, and he said i should go back and do a work in history. so i started off in that direction and really haven't looked back. who want you to tell folks bernard beylin is. >> probably the most imminent american historian. won the pulitzer prize, won every single prize you could win and trained an enormous number generationsnow two of historians now. and really was incredibly it clear howmaking interesting the struggles therding the founding of country were. >> what are you doing now, besides the book? law teach at boston college school. and i teach full-time. year propertyt course and i teach trust and

american legal history and american constitutional history. >> i want you to set up, in a the whole constitutional convention and what happened. 2005, thereack in used to be a historian of the house representatives. he now runs the bird's center up in virginia. ofwent with us to the hall statues at the constitution center in philadelphia. here's just a little bit talking about james madison and george washington. standing next to -- even though he's only 5-foot-4, a giant. >> yes. giant. a >> do you think he's gotten his due in american history? >> i think he has. but perhaps -- you know, the funny thing about it, if you become president and, of course, standing next to the two people in the room that did become president of the beted states, you tend to looked at from the standpoint of the presidential administration. i think that james madison's greatest contribution to

american history is the work he constitutional convention and then the work he congress. first he served in the first five houses of representatives and in met inrst congress that 1789, he is the one that pushed through the passage of the bill of rights. >> he looks like he's comfortable there with james madison. >> yeah! yeah! >> tell us what you can, in a few minutes, about james madison. and all that?rom >> that's a wonderful place to go visit, because when you walk around there, you realize a lot shorter than you think they were. washington.r george >> except for george washington. there's a couple people who were but not tall by modern standards ch he was from virginia, the eldest son of a person.t he held a lot of slaves, his father did. he had left virginia to go to

college. he served in the virginia and then in what we call the confederation congress. born in 1751 so he wasn't really old enough to be a big the revolution. madison's time will come with the generation that really helps the country, not with the generation that fights for independence. was quiet. fairly studious. >> what about what he learned at princeton, which was caused -- what did he study? >> well, he studied very quickly. everybody talks about how he tried to get through pretty quickly. he studied political thought, a lot of political thought. the college was very much run by that momentere at interested in the scottish enlightenment and interested in european political philosophy. and madison really seems to have loved that a lot, although unlike a lot of people, he

doesn't have enormous numbers of of what he read as a young man. i think there's only one book of -- commonplace books where he what he learned as a young man. >> i read somewhere he learned brew. >> wouldn't surprise me. not thomas jefferson, though. madison tends to read pretty quickly. not -- you know, he never held a great library like jefferson. different kind of person. >> i wanted to put on the screen, this is a group of people at the constitutional convention, and just show you the ages of some of them. you can talk about any of them when you see it up on the screen. let's see here. 29.e got charles pinckney, alexander hamilton, 30. 32. lancing, randolph, 34. morris, 35. and george mason, 62.

>> and you're missing franklin, early 80's.is georgemadison -- so mason, who is on the screen, but also benjamin franklin really the movers and shakers at the time of the revolution. mason certainly was well-known out of virginia for having drafted the virginia bill rights. very important. madison is okay with him. at the convention drives him crazy. he's in his 80's and he thinks everything should still be like it was in the revolution. madison's competitors a little at the convention, the isple he's captivated with that younger group. pinckney, who was a little bit drove himan him, crazy. as i read the notes, there's a desire foretitive credit, a little jealousy with pinckney. fact, after the convention,

pinckney writes this wonderful letter, not because of wonderful because of what it says, but because it really puts you back in that moment. pinckney had this enormous handwriting and he writes sort of crowing about how he's married and enjoying a big digfe and then towards madison sort of like, but, of course, you're not yet.ed and he and madison, charles pinckney and madison, were quite ways.itive in some >> you even mention in your book -- i can't remember her last name. kitty or somebody he was pursuing at the convention. was 16 years old. >> well, james madison was longested in kitty floyd before he went to the convention. she was very young. he very famously scored out the letters where he talks about her with jefferson. >> a lot of the biographers have really focused on kitty. think he was quite enamored

elisa, whosenamed mother ran the boarding house whoson had stayed at, married a person who had been in prison and then died. of letterstes a lot to her. my own guess is that he was quite close to her also. thatu tell us in the book he was 43 when he got married to 25, anddison, who was that was in 1794. actualant to show the physical room at the independence hall where the convention was held. tell us, when were the dates of were they inside this room? >> so that's independence hall. there from mayet of 1787 through the end of the convention, which was september 17. and the delegates we believe sat voted bybecause they state, one each state.

each state had a vote. of the president, who was the -- of the convention was george washington, would have sort of governing the entire situation. >> where would james madison have sat? know for sure. madison said different things at different times. said he sat up close. one would assume he sat with many of the virginians. to voteinians needed together. he was very close to people at the beginning of the convention, like randolph, the very good-looking governor of virginia. your book that james madison was for openness more trance pattern ti, but that room was pretty much nailed down when they had the debates. of the things that we sometimes forget is what we take legislativethe conventions, that they be open, true back then. when congress opened, the senate

1790's. close until the havee thought you should the right to know what congress did and to have the sort of didn'troduct but they necessarily yet believe completely that you should be able to watch all the deliberations as the public. people would have liked to have known what was going on, but i think sometimes historians have thentrepted it, as if convention was some kind of wrong secret proceeding. pretty much normal. only after the convention, when >> how many delegates were there weree convention and how they chosen? >> they were chosen by -- each people.nt different madison actually wrote legislation in virginia that elected.le should be then he was elected.

the state sent different numbers people to philadelphia. i think the number is something elected.the 70's, are most of that summer, there's less than 50 people who actually are in that room. end, they're down, i think below 40, in terms of who is actually there. convention is a much number of people. >> i want to put down on the a breakdown of the ages. thosen see there that between 25 and 29, there were four. and 49.en 40 eight between 50 and 59. five.ween -- i mean and then there is benjamin franklin. >> holding up the tail end there. >> are you -- i mean, is that a young group? thinkon't -- i actually it's not a young group at all. writing the're constitution, because we can

look back and see it. theydidn't really know were writing the constitution. the year before, madison and had gathered in annapolis to try and try and write a constitution. miserably. the convention basically stops and they have to send to congress, hey, you should have a better convention. so we know they're going to write a convention. they don't know that. a lot of important people go but it'snot clear that completely the place to be. my own sense is that's pretty the age we would expect. a huge number of those people have political experience. serving inm were congress at the same time. many of them had been governors. it's a quite impressive group of people, if what you want are practicalh day-to-day political experience. >> how did james madison first politics? >> he begins in virginia. hes elected -- i think

serves very locally in the beginning. but probably most importantly, in the virginia legislature. it's during those years that he thomas friends with jefferson and also becomes very likeantagonistic to people patrick henry and the lees in virginia. theomes to really dislike virginia legislature during those years. >> why? >> he felt that the virginia legislature was counter to national interests. group ofs part of a people, including washington, who want the government to move stronger national power. and they want to be respected by the european countries. want to have the revenue sources to be able to pay the soldiers off. commercial regulation. they want all sorts of things. and they see the virginia legislature and other state againstors as working those interests, solely for the sort of individual interests of state.

>> so i don't know whether you directly do this, but i get the impression that george washington and hamilton are on andside, and james madison thomas jefferson are on the other at that time. i'm not sure that's right. thed you tell me, what's difference between hamilton and jefferson or hamilton and think? and what they >> so at the beginning of the convention, actually madison, allington and hamilton are on the same side. at least according to what i think. is inomas jefferson front, because -- in france. show up again until 1789 in the united states. basicallyon is offscreen for the entire convention. and madison and washington, with people like james morris,governor alexander hamilton, they all want a strong national government. go to they all convention looking for a strong national government. whoat that time, the people are opposed to them aren't

jefferson and those people. people who are worried are people from small states like new jersey or connecticut, who think a strong national government where elective power likeld by big states virginia, they will all be swallowed up. madison's foes at the convention are initially people from small states. that same room that has the back, and we have videos, there are three not voteere that did for that constitution. you write a lot about them in your book. thatan see, on the screen, jerry, and then in the middle, you've got evan randolph, and on the right, mason, and randolph and mason are both from virginia. thehy didn't they sign constitution? >> well, people disagree about sign.ey didn't

edmond randolph drove madison crazy. randolph was young, good the openinges speech. madison is very close to him. then randolph suddenly goes off his own, saying we should have a president who is three presidents. so randolph sometimes is with madison. sometimes isn't with madison. kind of sort of vacillates back and forth. extremely irritating to madison. and at the end, randolph decides not comfortable with the government. george mason says that the government is too powerful and he wants a bill of rights and there's no bill of rights. so george mason refuses to sign it. an iconoclast,of very hard to pin down what actually he believed about anything. it's true at the convention that some of the things he complains about, he worried

about slavery and national power. them refused to sign. edmond goes back to virginia and pretty much decides he's in the constitution. he really went back and forth a lot. >> in all of your research, who character?orite >> well, in terms of a character, you'd always pick ben franklin because he had more one-liners than anybody else. i think for myself, out of book, governor morris came across as the most interesting. he's the only person at the who speaks passionately about slavery. there's speeches that madison records in which morris basically says we're going to between the north and the south over the slavery issue. so he's really quite a remarkable person in that regard. >> he's 35 when he's there. he has a missing leg.

do we know how that happened? tellll, he liked to various different stories about them. certainly the other delegates lot of stories about him. he was one of the people who was of a little bit -- people loved to tell a story that he off of a second-story window and that's how he got his involvedut i think it a carriage accident. he's just a wonderful person. the modernfit politics. he was very much against slavery. but he was intrigued by what wealthy would do. one of the most interesting moments i think at the convention is when he gives a the wealthyng that will be so likely to run american politics that we ought two houses into the wealthy and the not wealthy and then everybody would at what the wealthy people were doing. quite he's his own

interesting thinker. >> if james madison could have inten exactly what he wanted the house of representatives and the senate, what would he have gotten? of thehe beginning convention, it would be a government that we can't even imagine. he wanted the incredibly strong national power. he wanted the senate to be based on proportional representation, states wouldn't be represented. and i think most shocking to many people, he wanted congress able to veto all the laws of the states. it's a word that was called the at the time. we don't have that word, because it falls out of the system. whatt was very similar to the british government had over the american colonies. actually wants a far more nationalistic system we can ever imagine. it's in a funny way, because he loses that we have the system we have today.

>> madison loses that. at a crucial moment, he decided this,es so much about that he tries to build a new political coalition. the threehe can link large states, virginia, massachusetts and pennsylvania, with the three states that have slavery. south carolina, georgia and north carolina. and he suggests that the bicameral, basically embedding slavery into the nation. he loses that also. he left the have -- convention quite disappointed. he was happy there was a constitution. a lot of things were not necessarily how he would have liked them. >> you write about a man named 21 yearswho was here ago, talking about james madison. you don't agree with him on some things. to a little bit of

what he said back then and get your opinion. >> it's an unimaginable effort he was making, really. he not only made elaborate but because, in the course of making those intorations, he had looked the histories of the of ancient days and the modern confederacies and find out moreould about those that could be found out. create a chance to a new government came along, he thought we, his posterity, would be interested, in having better records than he had himself. so he not only took it upon himself to play a vigorous role in the proceedings of the constitutional convention, but even while doing that, he took shorthand notes of the proceedings. to then when he went back his rooming house at night, he spent a good part of his time writing those shorthand notes

into longhand. heyou say in your book didn't know shorthand. >> right. he didn't. is a greatce historian. that's pretty much the standard story of the notes. dolly madison said had happened. my book argues that's just not true that madison didn't know shorthand. he wrote his notes during the day in abbreviations. ton twice a week, he tried copy them over. vaguely remembering what had happened. my book argues, for example, that the great speeches turn out been givenlways have on saturdays, because on sunday, madison didn't have to go to the had plenty of he time and a good memory. he could write up what happened the day before. but many people may have said wonderful things at the convention, but if it happened thursday, it's much less likely we know about it. >> how many people took notes? have, in 10 sets of notes

by various people at the then there are some other people who said they took notes but we have never found them. charles pinckney, for example, said he had notes. money if youot of could find those today. they would be very interesting. but madison's notes looked the most complete, because they covered every single day. everybody else has notes that erratic or incomplete. in part, that's because madison -- i argue that madison taking the notes as a political diary for himself. who was for jefferson, in paris. i suggest he didn't finish them that summer. and very busy.k but two years later, when jefferson is coming back from sort of scurries and tries to complete them. >> so the 10, where are they? >> the 10 other sets of notes? scattered all other the united states at various libraries. notes by king that are

in new york. the alexander hamilton notes are library of congress. there is all sorts of different notes. things abouteat digital websites now is lots of of peopleand a group are working very hard to try and get more of those up on the web people have access. >> did you get to see the alexander hamilton notes? the library, they microfilm.k at the >> really? >> i quit while i was ahead. i had a lot of access to james who thisand that's book is mostly about. >> how many of the other notes did you read? >> i read all of them. they're all collected in a volume done in 1911. but i didn't look at all of them. one of the things that i hope the book really produces is a work on people looking at these other notes, seeing to weredegree those notes written years later or were revised. think when we i

covered an event of yours in i think you talked about the portrait when he was it onrs old and we'll put the screen. you?s this of interest to >> i love -- i actually love this portrait. there's some debate over whether library ofwhen the congress states it, which is the itly 80's, or whether represents him as a younger man. with thene, i'm going library. i think it shows him, the way he looks. of the things that's very clear is he looked small and shy and young. i suppose this is the part i'm most sympathetic too. younger than i'm thought of. does that -- what has that done to you, people thinking you're a lot younger are?you >> i mean, i do think i had an

enormous advantage writing this book. of people who work on the framers are men. and i think that because these interesting, it's very easy -- sort of seductive thinking, what if i had been there? who would i have been like? women wererse, excluded for the entire proceedings. was really helpful. i had a little distance that i quite helpful as a historian. >> so give us some of the in.ronment that you're here's a finished book. we have no idea what you went through. give us the number of years you and where didn it you do all of your research? itso i started working on about eight years ago, which seems a long time ago. andve two little daughters i'd actually originally thought i wouldn't have to take any research trips, which turned out be completely wrong. work a lot in my office at my

work. my a lot of it was done at little kitchen table. i have a little tiny house and a table, andck kitchen at my daughters' music lessons while i waited for them. >> howled are your daughters? -- how old are your daughters? >> 10 and 13 now. think think i should write a book for kids about the constitution that also has penguins in it, so... hardest part of doing the actual research? >> i think the hardest part of book tells that the both a story of the fact that the manuscript, this national isn't what we thought, tole also trying to co chronologically think about, what was madison encountering at time? keeping those two narratives straight was quite tricky for a while. and i wanted a bo book that wast the day. at the end of i still like books in print, so

heavy ifget kind of you carry them around. i wanted the actual text of the pages, be under 250 which it was. i worked really hard to get it that way. withu made some people mad this book. i didn't see a lot. but i'm just going to feed here's -- i don't know if you know this person, a guy named gordon lloyd. remember this one? >> oh, yeah. >> from pepperdine university. i'm just going to read one whatraph here and ask you your reaction is. this is a book that claims it has no thesis but, rather, is simply presenting a way of reading primary text. by the end, however, the author leaves her reader with the thought that there was no primary madison text worth on its own terms, intentionally or not, she has written a book to doubt the of the founding. >> i actually disagree with that. tnk that one of the

things the book really tries to show is how remarkable it was to be in philadelphia that summer. but how they weren't magicians how much they struggled to try and figure out what the right answer for the country was. and the thing i loved as i went back and read madison's notes, and the way that he wrote them that summer, was it really brought it all back to life. of the hard decisions, the compromises, the things that people were uncertain about, you could get back to suddenly. it wasn't as if it was all etched in stone. youack ricco is somebody know. he endorses your book. let's go back to 2014. historian, a madison historian, jack ricko. to point this out. so you see on the right-hand gap. you'll see a big between the top seven or eight lines, the bottom. young colleague named mary bilder, a legal

finishing a book called "madison's hand," which is mostly about how madison of debate.s notes but she has a theory which i provocative but so far don't accept, that madison wrote the second part, beginning midway on the page, in the summer of '77, when he was at the convention. pause it'sortant from this -- because it's from wholeart on -- the argument about faction. this is its first draft here. did madison write this out before the convention or during the convention? isyou're a historian, this an interesting question. >> what do you say? >> so jack and i still talk a lot about this. we talked about it last week. much that those are the notes -- that those notes were partially written in summer but they were working notes. one of the things madison loved what he wrote.ed

and he went back during the andention and after it added sort of a new thing that he had thought, this very famous idea that becomes part of federallest 10, that simply the country will be so big, we don't about a faction taking over. i argue that he was working that through in the summer. other people, governor morris, alexander hamilton, were also that same idea. and madison repeatedly at the anvention wanted what i call structural solution. that is, he thought there would wanted the but he government to be able to do something about it, to make sure that the factions wouldn't take and he kept coming up with different political mechanisms. the state hasif got -- if the states got out of control, congress maybe should them.e to check he had all of these different ideas and none of them are adopted. when hamilton asked him

to write the federalist project madison writes this es 10, -- essay, federalist and he sort of just says, whatever. they're unlikely to be a problem. think madison really believed that. i think federalist 10 is a like, well, it didn't work out, but hopefully nothing will go wrong. think he would have hoped to have solved the problem. >> when was the first time lived on this land wanted to change the way we were governed? at the time of the revolution, the same congress that wrote the declaration of independence also wrote a therning document known as articles of confederation, in 1777. that's really our first constitution. everyt constitution, state -- there was only one branch of government. and every state had one vote in government.of and there was no judicial branch

and there was no executive branch. president, but the president was just a chair of the committee of congress sat to run things in case of emergencies, when congress wasn't in session. in that group? >> madison didn't work with the confederation. there are some men in philadelphia, in 1787, who did. john dickenson is one of them. but madison thought the articles was terrible.on and he actually wrote notes explaining all the problems with it and what he thought were the problems was that the states weren't sufficiently controlled. like lance said, he started to read around to figure out what kind of governments and he -- jefferson had greatim these two encyclopedias and madison read those two and came up with a lot examples where heroically, confederations had collapsed. writes that the only thing

that kept confederations together was jealously, and jealousy is not a great cement a country. >> so how did he find himself in the middle of even proposing a thing or being involved in it? >> people debate whether or not the mover and shaker completely behind it, but i he s thereon who thought should be a stronger country. involved. was very washington actually gets the together.elegation >> what year? >> 1785. calledton has something the mount vernon conference. to -- hamiltono comes down but nobody else shows up. congress let's have another convention. in this time, they pick philadelphia. the virginians are going to show up. pennsylvaniare delegation just has to wake up

in the morning so they'll have the pennsylvania delegation. congress says to everyone we're going to have this big time, you and this guys try and write a document that fixes some of the problems of the articles of confederation. >> was he still at that time a british -- >> no. long after. this is all during the time when the united states is trying to ofure out what kind government does it have. it's not going to have a royal a monarchy, but nobody knows that the kind of government that we have today is going to work. we often forget, we're the first country in the world to have this kind of government. of people watching probably go, ah... eyes glaze over. are theyhe world talking about? when were the federalist papers written, and how many were there and what did they do? federalist papers, incredibly important today. theander hamilton left convention.

he went back to new york. going to be awas terrible fight over whether or not to approve or ratify the new york and he decided he would start this massive plan and write editorials, newspaper editorials, working through all the reasons that people should convention. he asked john jay and governor morris. governor morris turned him down and john jay got sick, so madison was like the third choice. and madison agrees with alexander hamilton to write papers. and he and hamilton madly wrote papers. hamilton had the whole plan laid out. congress.ites about that's what he was interested in. and they wrote incredibly quickly. were very influential in new york. virginia andt to were published but we think were less influential there.

one thing historians debate is, at the time, how influential were these editorials outside of new york? what is clear is that since then people have decided that they nicely sum up many of the ways that people in general at the time of the framing thought was a goodution idea. >> there were 85 of them. over what period of time were they written? >> i think hamilton begins in the fall of 1787 and i think done by thely following year, but i'm not sure about the dates exactly. video.nt to run some this woman's name is amy pickard. books aturator of rare the buffalo central library. here.a lot of history this is talking about the federalist papers. i want everybody to keep in mind was inomas jefferson paris during all this. let's watch. >> this was one of thomas jefferson's three copies that ine sent to him while he was

paris. so it has these unique inscriptions. reads, for the honorable mr. jefferson, from servant, john jay. and then next, stewart, the for mr. jefferson. so thomas jefferson gave his to stewart, the scottish philosopher, and mr. stewart i was told by mr. jefferson that the greater part of the papers in this collection were written by mr. madison. >> so that's a wonderful book they have there. at the time they were published anonymously. but lots of people in the know suspected that they were madison jefferson's. and madison actually, i think, sends some of them down to sort ofon and friends like, hint, hint. you'll know who writes this. and afterwards, as they became increasingly famous -- washington used to say that they

were important -- madison and hamilton eventually disagreed which ones they wrote. death, ithamilton's was discovered that hamilton said he had written some of them and then madison said, no, i of them.e and so for many years, there were some that historians disagree on, even today. nowadays, most historians agree on most of the essays. but some of the ones in the beginning were written by both them together. >> check these numbers out. i looked it up and i don't what the source was. but hamilton, 51 of them. madison, 26? probably about right. madison -- hamilton wrote most in the beginning, before madison joined on. and madison writes very -- only think five before he writes his great essay number 37, which problems facing the constitution. and then madison writes a whole congress, about the

house of representatives. he gets to the senate. didn't interest him all that much. and then hamilton goes on and writes almost all the rest. so -- and it was hamilton's idea. so most of them are hamilton. madison really wrote the part that he was mostly interested in. he getses a few, then sick. >> then 18, 19 and 20 are supposedly collaborations and hamilton?n >> right. and even federalist 10, which famous, is ais so federalist --of essay of federalist 9, which is large you governor a territory. hamilton clearly wrote federalist 9. clearly copied over some to do federalist 10. it was his first attempt at such and he was probably racing for time. >> in federalist 10, which they much -- i don't think they use the word special "interest."

what do you think madison would think today or hamilton if they toked at what's happened this country? >> i actually think that a lot of it wouldn't surprise them. mean, i think they'd be sad that the thing hadn't worked out better but they were fascinated politics. one of the things that they constantly worried about was the had that all of politics involved the struggle and greed andon sort of greater motive. and that you were always trying balance those things. to make always trying government that would somehow work, even though you knew that human beings themselves were deeply flawed and that people wereanted political power often motivated by not always the right reasons. and madison and hamilton i think particularly wouldn't have been surprised, in some ways, because through the 1790's. after jefferson comes back, the is almost divided into

two groups, between jefferson and madison on one side at that and then hamilton and adams and washington on the other. almost divides in the 1790's, with people sortsng each other of all of things. >> so did madison change his views about the states vs. the national central government? >> yeah. madison -- when jefferson comes in the fall of 1789, at first jefferson is even friendly with hamilton. jefferson later wrote that it took him a while to sort of get his feet on the ground, so be blamed for things he did early on. but as jefferson stays longer in begins to think that, while he was gone, everyone had become very interested in a monarchial government. reads he sort o of everybody who wants national power as wanting to create a

again.y and there were people, like john adams, who said things that wrong. a little bit john adams wants the president know, his supreme excellency and everybody needs titles. jefferson andent, then madison begin to pull away, country ist the turning to have something that looks like a monarchy. saying nobodyps monarchy.ts a mo but madison does join jefferson in worrying about this. the earlym comes republican party. >> that's not the current republican party. >> no. it's the same word but it's political science, if you follow it out, it doesn't work out to be the same group of people. use the word republican because the idea of republican, jefferson thought, was incredibly important in terms of kind of a political government you had. and they didn't believe in democracy. thought a republic where

the bottom were sort of -- people at the votes were sort of filtered through. >> how did you -- i'm not sure but howthe right word did you protect yourself, when you wrote this book, from having itsole lot of people after written saying you have no idea what you're talking about? in other words, the historian live in.t you >> yeah. you know, people, i think, have been quite interested in the book. talked a lot about the book as i was writing it with people. very important historians have been incredibly generous with their time in working it through. thingsain, one of the that really became clear as i wrote the book is that the story book was plausible. that is, in the end, the book madison haveould carefully taken notes all summer writing --working on working on creating a government? so the story i tell, where madison was taking notes the way

everybody takes notes, to keep track of things for himself, to jefferson explain to what happened. then he gets so busy that he stops taking notes. try to goes back to create a better record later on. i think, in many ways, that's a plausible story for people than the notion that he sat participated at the same time while taking these quite elaborate notes. a time sequence here. in september of 1787, the convention is over. >> right. old,e lives to be 85 years until 1836. during the time from 1787 to 1836, he lives 10 years after adams and jefferson die. thesech does he spend on notes and when? >> right. so i argue that he finishes the manuscript in 1789. he borrows the official journal from washington pretty elicitly, because washington wasn't supposed to give it to

anybody -- a minute. where is that today? >> the official journal, with archives.al >> go ahead. >> and you can see it, i think, on three. he borrows it. off.hes it then he starts revising it to sort of fix it up, clean it up jefferson. jefferson makes the copy. i argue that the manuscript it does today in terms of the pages by the end of 1790's. 1796, 1797, madison probably manuscript aside. he and jefferson are going to become president and so they it for a longout time. it's only after madison retires from the presidency that he goes and starts thinking about publishing his ma manuscript. starts, again, fixing it up a little bit. madison worried most of his life about other people with notes and we know that he kept track the convention was

still alive. one of his problems is that two of the people who had pretty notes, the secretary, william jackson, and rufous king, live a long time also. eventually madison just gives up to publishm going them posthumously. when he got near the end of his politics had changed again. 1790's.he regretted the he -- jefferson regrets the 1790's. regrets the 1790's. as old men, they all look back on the 1790's, this period where the political world got so out control and they all sort of feel bad about it. madison then also was sort of flabbergasted i think by the fact that young men from the south particularly come and and they all want him to vouch that their side, the side, the highly sectional side, was the true side. won't do that.

so as he got older, as he got into his 80's, i think he began to worry again about sort of what legacy he was going to leave. >> did madison have any friends besides jefferson? jefferson.losest to i think once he married dolly was exceptionally close to her and he sort of peoplento a circuit of that she runs. he was very close to james monroe, who eventually becomes another president. down toou go montpellier, they have a take atl tour you can montpellier, and they show the dining room at montpellier and how they loved entertaining people. they loved entertaining people with whom they didn't necessarily agree. so they had lots of very lively political discussions down there. you sayof the things was that when he was unmarried, he tended to become sit. jefferson, he was not a

collector. more than anything, he loved politics. revolution had ended only four years earlier. he loved politics. i can go on and on. >> right. >> how sick was he, and how did he live to be 85? how sick heeading was. >> so he perceived himself to be sick. of people,d lots basically every biography of has a different theory about what actual kind of sickness he had. that's something that people debated. i don't think it mattered that much what kind of sickness he had. got sick easily. he does seem to have gotten sick he never seemed to be terribly, terribly ill. he was the only person in that generation -- not the only but one of the few who never went abroad, so he never goes to to france.ver goes he -- in some ways, he lived a life.f quiet but it's not surprising he lived a long time. his father lived a long time and

his mother lived, i think, to be 97. she dies, i don't know, eight years, nine years before he does. so it was in his genes. had good genes. >> didn't travel but was secretary of state for eight years. >> yeah. traveler at big all. he does take a famous trip with jefferson to go up north to when they're both sort of single and a lot of historians -- there's a big about whether that was a secret trip to build political interest or not. both wrote they felt a lot better after their trip north. >> our guest is a lawyer and at boston college. her book is called "madison's all about the notes from the constitutional convention. guest's name is mary sarah bilder. and we thank you very much. >> thank you very much.

transcripts or to give us your comments about this at q&a.org.it us >> this month we showcase our student cam winners. c-span's annual video documentary competition for middle and high school students. year's theme is "road to the white house." what issuese asked, do you want presidential candidates to discuss? one of our second prize high school central winners is from oklahoma. brandon burnett wants presidential candidates to medication.cost of in his video, titled "the price

not right." >> every morning, my dad wakes up, gets dressed in his work the one-hours drive where his pharmacy is located. thed always thought pharmaceutical industry was rather boring. aroundht my dad just sat all day, dealing with customers, but then i learned about the in theion which lies industry. >> imagine popping a pill before $13.50. costs about up, finding that the price had jumped up to $750 overnight. deal withime to skyrocketing out of pocket costs. of people take these drugs every month. in many cases, they can't afford them. nearcompanies have a monopoly in which the government basically says that everybody insurance, everybody's insurance has to cover certain things. so drug companies take advantage that.

>> the pharmaceutical industry in this country is charging the american people, by far, the forest prices in the world prescription drugs. >> to better understand this issue, we must look at the cost ofwhy the medication have been rising. >> one reason the cost of rapidlyon is increasing is due to competition and companies buying other companies out. you're buying your competition out and you two both thatthe same medication, means you have a monopoly on it so you can charge whatever you charge. >> the drug manufacturers, if it is a brand-name drug, they can want,t as high as they because they're the ones that have the patent for that particular medication so no one medication.duce the so they can make the price as high as they need to, because they know the people need it. also have companies, some newer companies, behaving differently than companies in they buy then rights to manufacture a drug company., another

they're turning around and trying to immediately fund their that product by skyrocketing the cost overnight. amountaid a very large to buy an unprofitable medicine. we can't continue to lose money at that price. so we took it to a price where we can make a comfortable profit. >> the medication cost the pharmacy, $50, let's say, for the pharmacy to obtain the medication for the wholesaler only goingustry is to pay $20 for that medication, the pharmacy lost $30 because the industry doesn't recognize that that medication has increased in price. decision to lose $30 on it, or do you tell a person, this, because your insurance isn't reimbursing me much? can stay in business losing $30 each transaction. >> it's hard, because the it's uss think personally raising those prices and that's just not how it is. customer who had

been buying a cholesterol medication. it was $4 for several years. and out of nowhere, it spiked up to like $50. so they were very shocked and confused and angry. yand wanting answering from me give. couldn't >> we hear from pharmacists in is legislation -- that it supported by the community pharmacists of america. their desks,hind behind their counters, and their hearts are broken when senior citizens cannot afford the products that their doctors are prescribing, when people are dying and when people are suffering, and we have the cure right in front of us. who have nole insurance coverage have seen theircash prices for medications rise significantly. >> well, i always looked at medications with two things in mind. havehave to work and they to not cause problems. years ago, when i first got into mostly were talking

about problems in terms of effects orside allergic reactions. anymore, i have to consider that the problems might be that the patient can't afford the medication. it may be the best medication in the world, but if the patient can't afford it, it is not worth it. couple ofare on a medications, it adds up and they have to decide whether they are going to take the medication every day as prescribed, or maybe every other day, or every third day and noted to make it third in order to make it stretch out longer. changed.g has it will keep going light it is -- like it is and they are going continued availability issues and patients having to

switch their medications. or they cannot afford it. >> if it gets bad enough, i think people will start going to mexico or canada. i know people already do it, but that will increase. time i am selling a customer of prescription that i know is high, i hold my breath because i know they are going to be like, what? i know it's something that i have no control over it. you guys it said the reason you increased the price so much was in order to do the research and development to develop a better version. i just got off the phone with an that says they don't need a better version. >> that's not true. there is a recent article that two patients died due to auto

immune. >> not every product will be approved by the fda. out of every 12 compounds, it to switch0 years plus the compound. maybe one will be approved by the fda. that is a lot of money that the pharmaceutical industry has to pay for to research those 12 compounds. >> i live in a house divided with my mother one side with the rising cost of medication. my father on the other side saying the rising cost of medication is preventing people who need these medications from receiving them. i understand my mother's point of view. but i cannot help but sympathize with my father. i recognize the importance of his position. -- recognize the

significance of the pharmaceutical industry. >> filmmaker ken burns' documentary about baseball player jackie robinson debuts tonight on pbs. we interviewed ken burns a couple of weeks ago. [laughter] is a documentary that you have been leading about the charleston shootings. i want to go back when jackie color barrier the in baseball. remind is where race in america

was. where was civil rights was when jackie robinson came along? >> there has always been a civil rights movement in america. in 1619, people who were held as slaves wanted to be free. there'se civil war, attempts and reconstruction to make that happen. reconstruction collapses and the 20th century has great black leaders. but when jackie walks out the first base, martin luther king is a junior in high school. truman has not integrated the military. there has not been organize counters in restaurants. brown versus board of education making school segregation illegal has not happened. rosa parks is a decade away of giving up her seat on the bus. realize that as dr. freedomd, he was a

riding before freedom riding. jack johnson and boxing. joe louis in boxing. jesse owens and track and field. there had been an active republican, liberal left-leaning republican mayor of new york pushing for it. the owner of the doctors was doing it. but jackie had to actually do it. host: you mentioned the martin luther king quote and there is a quote from jackie robinson's wife same baseball was a bridge to the civil rights movement. baseball and jackie have to come first? guest: in retrospect, where baseball seems but one tiny fraction of our entertainment spectrum, it was the national pastime. there was maybe college sports as a fly buzzing around, but

baseball was it. there is important social significance of jackie coming up and breaking the color line in baseball. that is what the story is about. unfortunately, it has been smothered in myth. bs and less several years producing and directing a documentary about the life of jackie robinson, that i think liberates him from the superficial mythology. but his birth and his death, and his premature death at age 53. this is a complex story, a multi generational story of an african-american family and a spectacular love story when you realize his widow, rachel, who .s 93 is caring on his legacy she is carrying the torch and the most impressive and inspiring way. host: we're going to be talking

about this for the next hour. ken burns is our guest. democrats, you can call us at 202-748-8000. republicans call 202-748-8001. independents call 202-748-8002. he mentioned rachel robinson. in some ways it is much her story as jackie robinson's. i wanted to show the viewers one of the clips of the documentary. [video clip] >> we really never had a honeymoon. we were bumped two planes getting there. we were bumped in pensacola, florida. white passengers were put on in our place. i had never seen signs on restrooms,ondo --

water fountains. i'm into the white ladies' restroom to recover. i walked in there and did what i had to do. .he ladies walked out we finally took a bus to spring training. in jacksonville, on our honeymoon. bus,nt to the back of the and went it got dark, i started to cry. because my husband, who had been a dignified person, had been reduced by discrimination and by segregation. in to what of caved society wanted in the south. but, the fried chicken was great. robinson,el 93-year-old, rachel robinson.

talk about the role she played to make this film possible. guest: this film would have been impossible without her. she started the jackie robinson foundation that the scholarships with young people here they have done amazing work. archives.hold the we benefited for having access to the archives. one portly, we had access to her. more importantly, we had access to her, she is an incredible human being. she said, he deserves stand-alone treatment. david mcmahon and i finish the .ilm we realize jackie -- we realize we had an opportunity to do it. without her help and without her unwillingness to share, not only

the triumphs, but also the struggles of her life with jackie. i don't think the wood have had the film -- i don't think he would have had the film we had. host: for viewers who want to watch all four hours on april 11 on pbs and 9:00 p.m. let's get to the calls. charles is up first, a democrat from columbus ohio. good morning. you are on with ken burns. guest: good morning to both of you all. comment and a question. jackie robinson's premature death. [indiscernible] leagueh did the negro play in jackie robinson going into the majors?

waziristan shoot in terms of -- was there a down shoot in terms of going into the negro league yet go great both of them are questions. the negro leagues were a separate but athletically equal leak. we know from the experience of many players that they were equal to not better than many major-league players. after jackie arrives, even in the national league, there were certain quotas for african-american participation.

m.v.p. nine out of 11 years. that just tells you what they were missing. plays one year in the negro league. he gets a chance and hated it. he did not light that this organization of it. but he got a chance to play with some of the other great players and taught them a little bit about his own sense of discrimination. it was not something to be accepted but push against. from that moment on, the negro leagues sees to be exactly what they were before and become an extended farm system for the major leaks. pretty soon, it is a bittersweet moment for them. they begin to decline. hank aaron is the last negro

league or who played in the major-league. we know the accomplishments of hank aaron. there are many people believe that jackie had died from the load he carried. i am on the 53 years old. jackie died at age 53. 10 to 20 years older than he actually was. many people believe it was the load he had borne on his shoulders turning the other cheek. all his life, absorbing and working to help the lives of others. the death certificate says he died of congestive heart failure and the symptoms of diabetes. i think his widow woodlike to believe that -- i think his widow woodlike e to believe that. -- i think his widow would like to believe that. course, there was a great

burden that he carried, but he was willing to carry it another 50 years if he had been given the opportunity. host: teddy, good morning. robinson, host: mr. burns. guest: oh, ok. for us topportunity learn more about rachel. they tied the rags on their feet and helped carry the supplies through the snow to fight the british out of here. once begin the british out of here, president george men free forid his helping the british. the other generals had different ideas other than the american constitution that all men were created equal. after.lled their slaves

the slave said george washington set free carried a very heavy heart because the comrades they helped fight the british fought alongside, were called slaves after that. now these other generals other than george washington had different ideas. they did not want the people to have the power to vote on the things that the generals wanted. the generals wanted to keep that power in congress to be able to put things on the floor of our ones tond then the only vote and pass things. look at the civil war that could have been prevented. if they did things right in the beginning -- bring up an extraordinary quest in the history of the united states. wasge washington's example ignored. let me just amend a little bit

what you said. the constitution did not say all men are created equal. the declaration stated that. more importantly, he did not see fit to free any slaves in his lifetime. it is not just the general spirit in fact, the constitution of the united states tolerated slavery in the african-americans 3/5 of a person for the purpose -- you have enshrined at our founding, and essential contradiction that we are a free people pertaining -- clinging to the world that all men are created equal. in 1861, 4 million africans -- americans are owned by other americans. that just could not work. we are still trying to figure out how to escape the specific gravity of this great, original

sin that many historians call it. our original sin was for claiming to the world that all men are created equal. but even the guy who broke that -- but even the guy who wrote that -- when we are seeing even today with all of the in senior windows -- with all the innuendos of race and having a black president subject to criticism, not just for policy or content of character, but for the color of his skin. we still have a long way to go. host: ronnie is in oklahoma city, oklahoma. good morning. burns.good morning mr. i love your documentary. i love civil war documentaries. i love everything you put out. i appreciate your scholarship

and your scholarly work. know, i amwanting to getting more well that in my research -- i am an african american, and i was just wondering, why is it do you history isn'tican taught outside of slavery? knowing that african people existed long before slavery started, why isn't it that morean history is taught inclusive, so people have a broader idea of what africans may have contributed to civilization, other than just that african history started as slaves? host: that's a good point. guest: that is a hugely, essential point. we have black history month. it is our shortest month.

we think of african-american history as a politically correct agenda and not a part of it. we have an argument with regard manye confederate flag in aspects of our complicated history with regard to race. a lot of people complain that we keep away history. i think what you are suggesting is how do we expand history? how do we tell history that includes everyone? for the long time, the only history we knew was the western one. everything began in ancient greece and christianity happened, and all of a sudden, we created the united states of america and it is white and european and excluded asian and african history and other people's history. the more you know does not mean the less you care of the others. the more you know means the more you know. the fact is, we are impoverished if we don't include everyone. i was just in charleston talking about race after the terrible tragedy there.

and trusted is a place where 48% of africans who were stolen from africa and brought to the united .tates, light ellis island as we talk about the confederate flag, people were saying, you are trying to take away my heritage. but be want to do is expand that the history we all know includes all people, all americans. let's remember that the first place came to the united states in 1619, a year before the mayflower. it is really entwined, intertwined with our history, and you can sell -- and you can segregated, but it should be integrated fully. integration means expansion. the more we know, the more we know. host: the debates over the confederate flag is something jackie robinson dealt with. guest: history is -- history completely repeats itself. host: we want to show the

viewers one more segment from the jackie robinson documentary on this topic. [video clip] >> monday we had a birthday party -- one day we had a birthday party. we gave him inning, a card and sang happy birthday. ande the lights were down someone brought up a small confederate flag in his honor because he was from louisville, kentucky. -- we went to the clubhouse after the game and jackie is irate. i mean, he was livid. who would ever let jim crow back into the ballpark? >> i think it is very difficult for many people to understand the indignities that a black person had to indoor and jackie robinson was met with an incredible amount of race pride.

host: from that in the 1950's to the article in the "new york bans" today, a cry to confederate flag is altered. guest: it is not surprising. it is one of the reasons i conversation of , oh, isn'toes beyond that sad. let's remove the confederate flag. now, we don't need to talk about it. sales of thet is confederate flag been spiked. race,this conversation on the talk you had -- have been talking about race. washingtonat george university.

we want to have a conversation with all americans and talk to them about what we can do. what i think is the path -- the past can help us put out -- pull out the fuel of the future. i am interested -- we need jackie robinson. his story in the past has all of this stuff. the confederate flag was one battle flag of the army of virginia. it was not the official flag of the confederacy. it all came into prominence in the late 1890's when there was a surge of white supremacy and the collapse of reconstruction and game that again after 1954 when the brown versus board of education -- and came back in 1954 after brown versus board of education. what we want to do was telling

more inclusive history. it is said that there is 1800 monuments to the confederacy and -- confederacy around the country. we need to understand the way in which all of us relate to it. host: our conversation with ken burns about the jackie robinson documentary. bill and chicago, illinois, the line for democrats. good morning. guest: good morning. i met jackie robinson here in chicago when he came because of site. i was assigned to him as his bodyguard. -- ie the mistake of picked him up from o'hare.

i did not get a chance to speak to him privately liked i want -- privately like i wanted to. don't speaktell him for the teamsters, just the moderator. host: what you mean by that? -- what do you mean by that? guest: when the crowd rushed him, and he was very upset. [indiscernible] there is a wonderful thing about jackie robinson. even though i felt light i knew learned more of him and got to strip away a lot of the mythology and made him a complicated and dimensional person. the one thing i understood was he got up every day to make the lives of other people better. he understood that that was his

work. a lot of us talk the talk, but he walked the walk. he dedicated his full likely to the sacrifices of other people. he was so dedicated to the quality, which is an american birthright. just recite the pledge of allegiance and you will understand it. he was willing to work for that. his own tombstone said, life is not worth anything that i measured by the effect it has on other people. he worked every day of his life to do that. it is a powerful story, a christian story. jackie robinson was a republican. he was continually disappointed when candidates liked nixon or goldwater seemed to betray the original birthright of the republican party, which was founded to end slavery in a country that was withering. culver city, california.

good morning. guest: first of all, ken burns, you are one of the finest filmmakers in the country. i got to tell you this. your documentaries -- you don't seem to try to persuade or push an agenda. put out facts and people can deduct what they want to from your documentaries. your documentaries are outstanding. the meter you will quickly story. -- the only appearance he ever made at dodger stadium. he came out on the field. , ands an old timer's game they were going to retire jackie 's that day. i was there standing right behind the dodger dugout. fieldwere players on the

and right on the field before the game. signing autographs and talking with people and things liked that. when jackie robinson, the last one to walk out on the field, he on the field with a local sports writer in los angeles. brett had to help amount. -- he had to hold brett's arm. he walked on the field, and trust me when i tell you this, it was a royalty walked on the field. is absolutely right. we cannot diminish what a powerful for stuckey robinson was an american history. this is not just a good sports story, this is a story for the ages. this is an extraordinary human drama at the highest level to be able to have a feisty competitive person for three years was asked to turn the other cheek and did it against

all the abuse he would face as a baseball player. george will miss -- look what jordan anden michael could not hit a dollar $.80. after his first year, he was more popular than dwight eisenhower. more popular than eleanor roosevelt. more popular than frank sinatra. that had a lot to do with the sacrifice. the other part of us, the part that is resistant to this sort of change that cannot see beyond the color of a person's skin would make his life incredibly hard. when we see in jackie is our best selves. looking at the better angels of our nature. in 1993, there was a jewish family in billings, montana and someone threw a rock through their window.

printed,ngs newspaper minorities and christian windows put up in their as a show of solidarity. we are feeling that we are losing a little bit of touch without america. it is easier to gravitate toward is tob mentality then it do the harder, more difficult, more christian thing to turn the other cheek, or to appeal to those better angels. is, whate's example the crowd felt in 1972 if you must before he died, there is the embodiment of our best selves. host: alvan is on our line for democrats. good morning, you are on with ken burns. guest: i want to talk about the biggest cover up in american history and that's when they

kicked all the african-americans, not all of but many of them playing baseball today, and the media, and even some of the african-american players liked grady jackson, dusty baker, hank about hank not sure aaron, but they knew what was going on when they kicked all the african-americans out of baseball. , as soon asd was they went down to the minor leagues, that is when they cut the investigation out because they knew they were cutting all the african-americans out from the minor league and just getting rid of them in the major-league sp. guest: there was a time in the late 1800s when there was a handful of african-americans in

the equivalent of american major league baseball. and a gentleman's agreement, it was instigated by a number of , basically banned african-americans and it wouldn't be several decades when asked can americans were included. african-americans have had enormous opportunities. they represent 75% of the national football league and even more in the national basketball he. we noticed there are fewer african-americans in baseball. all many of us, including the current commissioner, want that to change, we nonetheless realize it has to do with a variety of choices that african-americans have choosing to go to football or basketball or other sports.

i don't see a conspiracy there. i will certainly look into what into what youk said. we have to be mindful when wasn'tcame in, it inclusive. interviews,the president obama and first lady michelle obama. here is a bit from that interview. [video clip] >> i think any time you are involved in an endeavor, it involves an overstressed. to be able to go back and have with someone you know who love you and has your back, that is priceless. ♪ >> just being able to find that solace and that piece to withstand all the negative energy. it is hard to do that alone.

so, there is nothing more important than family and a real partnership. made him such a great man because he had the judgment to find a partner. that is a sign of his character that he chose a woman that was his equal. i don't think you would have jackie robinson without rachel. that moment in a documentary, a question from a file clerk on twitter. that jackie robinson would be happy with how president obama has handled race relations in this country? isst: i think the president frustrated by the fact he has not been able to change the division we have in the country. part of that has to do with race. the satirical magazine, the --on, said, when all of us

black men given were stopped in the world. that was their headline. in some ways, that has come true. it was interesting to watch jackie and rachel try to negotiate the shoals of this. he goes through the door. we have another couple in a different space and time. the president and first lady and you begin to realize how much they needed each other. they are ordinary couples trying to deal with what we all know if we are married, marriage is did it sod, and they magnificently. it is very clear that without rachel, there would have been no jackie, and perhaps without know michelle, there would be no president. they are both struggling to understand as pioneers as incredibly moving and funny and incredibly transparent. anybody who has been married knows that looked you give

between couples and the nervous laughter. hopearger thing is, we that we can escape his burden of race. it has not happened. the president is not to blame. the cellsere has been that are interested in the -- those have had their soil fertilized by the presence of an african-american president. what we need to do is stand back and realize who we are as think really hard about the angels. it is so easy to tell the other how they should be. it is a lot harder to tell yourself and a lot harder to measure who you are. tend to save them and the other americans is just that, an expanding than

family. our strength has always been, and alloy is much stronger than the berries constituent parts. there are a lot of americans that think we should only be wanting of the other. in fact, what is been our strength that has gotten us through the most difficult of times is when we have mixed and created a much stronger alloy. i would encourage you to tune in 1:00 p.m. on c-span. we will be covering your national press club event. a conversation on race in america appearing with henry lewis. we have 25 minutes left with ken burns. walter in butler, indiana. you are up. guest: thank you very much for taking my call. it is interesting when we talk about race in this country and we talk about the injustices on both sides of the fence -- white, black, hispanic.

ann you speak about african-american. that is actually incorrect. you are not an african-american, you are an american and have ancestry from africa. what happens when we try to say on one hand we want to assimilate and become the fabric of this country, which is a beautiful thing, then you turn around and have things such as , black miss america, save asgazines, and ecology for minorities, that puts that puts that particular group in a special class. it puts him in a special little bubble and says to the rest of us, whoever that is, the majority, that these people will be treated differently. greatest injustice for the african-americans in this country is just that. we don't say, what happened in the past was a horrible thing,

but we are not going to treat you differently. guest: this is a hugely important question. if you wenter that to butte, montana in 1880 in the mind, you would find every sign in 14 different languages, including croatian, 14 different , includingschools croatian elementary schools. if you look at the mayor of new york city who got us through 9/11, he would call himself a proud italian american. every ethnic group comes in wishing to both assimilate, but protect and cherish that aspect of their heritage. it is very understandable. we have done a pretty good job of doing that. the one place we have not been a good job is africans who came to this country from 1619 until the

mid-1960's when we could say that at least the vestiges of jim crow had been released and there was a law of voting rights. those magazines, some of those beauty pageants were created because they weren't allowed into those things. so, when we talk about affirmative action, we have to be very careful to understand that you do not just say we do not believe in discrimination says, and chris rock i don't know if you are black or says i'm achris rock multimillionaire, but you would not change places with me for a second. meaning, there are very few people who can talk about equality in the abstract, but would not want to live as an african-american with regard to discrimination. kidr rice, a 12-year-old was dead. if he was white, he would not be dead if he was a white american. there are differences.

say, everything is equal from now on. equal.rything is not however flawed affirmative action might be, also don't until -- they had the experience u of being unfree in a free land. other americans have been discriminated against. you can go through parts of chicago and still find croatian american things that are happening. we have to only to ourselves that the special bird we have -- we created this institution of slavery and perpetuated it for a long time. we fought a civil war that killed 150,000 people. the vestiges of that is still with us, good and bad. we still struggle and still look

to that slave owner that a banded what he did. there are a lot of americans who are still in favor of discrimination. i think we americans ought not to focus on that moment and say that is now reverse discrimination, but how do we make ourselves whole? the emancipation proclamation liberated not only slaves, but slaveowners. who wants to be a slave owner in a country that is celebrating individual liberty? who wants to be a slave owner? how do we free ourselves of our history? out, as dr. king said, the true meaning of our decree? to understand, it is very different than the catholic americans were discriminated against. i made it come about

prohibitionists. -- i made a film about prohibitionists. -- catholicsed have been fully integrated for the most part into american life. that is not to yet for african-americans. richard is waiting in missouri on the line for democrats. richard, go ahead. caller: i was listening to your program about race relations. i thought we had come a long wait until he got a black president and there was no tea party until he got a black president. that kind of upset me. old and my first thought about slavery was my asond grade teacher read ."ncle tom's cabin it is unfortunate that a lot of

lewis, thetes -- joe --liams sisters, the golfer they have created quite an impression on what we can do in this country. guest: i agree, it is very, very sad that we still suffer from these things. there are reactions elected president said, questioning whether you should be there or not. he said there is nice to have someone who love you and has your back. when we are able to see somebody for their accomplishments and not for the color of their skin, when we don't do as i said earlier, describe the person who looks different, sounds different, then we will be able to live out the creed our founding fathers proposed. what is so extraordinary, after criticizing implicitly thomas jefferson earlier in this conversation for writing come on

that are created equal, he did have the vagueness that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," he met all white men are property free of debt. we don't mean that when we say are createdwomen equal. with talk about children, elderly, the unborn, the handicap -- america is always in good shape and expanding the notion of what all men are created equal means. in pursuit of happiness. we always focus on what is happiness? is that the pursuit of material things or lifelong learning in the marketplace of ideas jac? we ought to be a nation and process of becoming something else, something better. i would suggest borrowing from

lincoln, our better angels. this is the heart of what america is striding. once in a while, we hit a roadblock. we want to come back and protect what's mine. our obligation is to realize -- for example, we are convinced that we are in a terrible saying. we have a car industry that is vibrant and making lots of profits. too deeply.rash wages are fairly stagnant, but are beginning to,. other countries that are running rings around us are having huge environment and censorship problems. our economy is relatively stable. mexican in this country is negative. more mexican or leaving the united states than are coming here. creating do say are

crimes one third the raid per capita of americans who are here. we need to address the facts of our circumstances and not permitting mob people who stay. host: a lot of calls waiting this morning. dieter, good morning. guest: good morning. good morning, mr. burns. i am so sorry, moderator. i want you so much and i do not know your name. host: it is john. go ahead. guest: good morning, john. is, in america, we are always going to get the history of slavery wrong because first of all, we do not mention the first lays in america who were white.

they were coming out of england. .hey came here because the name of indentured servants to hide the fact they were slaves. until we get that right, we are going to have a problem. second, it is not mentioned in our history of the christian love that was given when the did understand that's laws and love and changed over -- god's laws and love and changeover to christianity. you make a great, great point. this is hugely important. and with indentured servants, there was a time release. africans were there for life until the end of slavery. in fact, they changed the wedding vows for slaves for

life, or distance. unchristian kind of position. they came and adopted christianity wholesale and began to represent the finest of christianity, which is forbearing, affirmation in the face of adversity, which is turning the other cheek, which is patience. all of the african-american experience can, in some way, be a lesson for all of us to understand and essential aspect of christianity as well. i think it proves my point, the more inclusive we are, the bigger history we have here it beginning to add some of the points that you make. but it permits us to see those that we see as other, as her brothers, sisters, as people who share our faith or share a

different fate, but had a common objective. believing in the united states of america. there is a scene in the jackie robinson film that yes to testify against an opera singer who made statements that he was sympathetic to the soviet union and black americans would not fight in the case of war against the soviet union. jackie was asked to testify. one of the first casualties, first deaths of the american revolution was crispus att icks. african-americans have fought bravely and every single war we have had. supporting the ideals of freedoms since the second arrived. that is one of the burner transformations. host: james is waiting in houston, texas. good morning. you are on with ken burns.

guest: thank you for taking my call. theknow, i was born in 1940's and grew up with a lot of this. i am not a racist by any means. we know amongst ourselves that some people automatically look down on other people. it is basically by the way they act. there are white people who act stupid, and same thing with hispanics and same thing with blacks. i play golf with a black group and i have been playing with them for years. with otherproblem discriminate they against themselves face-to-face. if i were to do that, they would call me a racist. that needs to be emphasized more. they need to start treating each other better. i think other people would treat them better. guest: jeanne, you make a good

point. let's remember that if there are no cycles of history, what is their? the bible says, what has been done will be done again. there is nothing new under the sun. that means that human nature remains the same and superimposes itself over all the random chaos of events. you can hear those rhymes that mark twain said about history. my job is to listen to those rhymes. nature remains the same whether you are black, white, green, whatever it there are people who are good, bad, criminals, people who would turn the other cheek and sacrifice themselves. it is always there. the problem is, i was interviewing shall be for the civil war series. he was talking to me about race. he says, if you are standing on

a rainy street corner and a car comes by and splashes you, you go, i got wet. if the car happens to be filled with people other than you, and the car comes by, you tell the was standing on a street corner and a car came by filled with black people. when we ared time dealing with other. we may observe a group doing something, but we need to look back in our own societies and own collection of folks and understand that same commonality, or racism toward one another takes place. that is just human nature. that is as old as the old testament. there is nothing new under the sun. akin, good morning. guest: mr. burns, thank you very much for the work you did. i always enjoy your programming.

i have three questions to ask you. host: i don't know if we are going to get all three. give us one of them. guest: ok. what were the contributions of the africans and african to slavery? the book i read did not mention when the whites came to get africans? guest: this is a good and important question. we were continuing this conversation about race. is af the things he says tough about the number of african americans murdered by police. we don't have about the violence that african-americans commit on one another all the time.

it is really true. the complicity of other africans in the slave trade is not just bad white people went there and did it, but africans were very much a part of it, which proves my earlier point that human nature remains the same. it is not liked black people are all this way, we are all the combination of those things and even within us, we are subject to temptations. we know we do good things. we know we do that things. the purpose is to learn from it. you have to tell the complete story. there is something liked 15 million africans were stolen from africans into slavery. only 400,000 came to the united states. rest went into the caribbean and south america, brazil. you suddenly go, wait a second, we are talking about one 30th of all slaves taken from africa

actually came to the united states. by the time of the civil war, that grew to 4 million people and now that is 50 million americans. able to have a conversation, which we look ourselves in the eye. using many candidates talk about political correctness, which as -- which is an excuse to perpetuate -- we have to be very careful. people who are laboring under false understanding. they believe in some conspiracy. one gentleman thought that certain african-americans in the 1970's and 1980's had been banned from baseball because they were african-american. we need to be careful about what we say. there are many african-americans who believe that aids was a cia plot.

one of the most abhorrent aspects of human nature is colorblind in terms of the perpetrators. let's be honest about that as well. we have toay, see, just understand. none of us who are white have the experience of being a slave in the united states of america, born under the idea that all people were created equal. two or three minutes left. from democrats, nathan, go ahead. guest: i want to thank c-span for the bible wisdom we are hearing this morning from mr. burns,, who i think is a national treasure. much. thank you very public television, in addition to c-span, otherwise it would be a vast wasteland. guest: i want to ask the

questions about jackie robinson after he retired from baseball. i grew up in new york in the 1960's and i remember mr. robinson coming to our high school auditorium, grea gray-haired speaking of drug addition because of the son's addiction with drugs. can you refresh my memory. guest: that is a really good place to end. immunek celebrities are to the pacific to that effect -- that are immune to the problems that affect all of us. talked to dr. boyd about jackie crossing the color lines. but he spent his old life doing that. to thes sun succumbed

ravages of drug addiction and got himself clean, he went around. you can see in the film that jackie was incredibly honest. just aboutnest, not the other person, but about ourselves. the reporter was trying to sympathize with him. he says, you change the lives of so many people. going to your high school and urging you not to get into drugs. he said, i don't know about that. if i can't take care of my own family, how can i take care of anyone? he was able to go out and speak. if we do that, for ourselves, each and every one of us, we have the possibility -- we would liked to say that man is made in god's image. there is nothing in our behavior that is true. in order for that to be true, we

need to latch onto people liked jackie robinson, my cube or him making, who actually point us in the direction of what it might be liked to live in god's image. not to use it as a weapon or shield or force field against change, but convince other people they can change. mark twain said i think your point is that jackie robinson was able to link us up to the difficult experiences because he was experiencing them himself. robinson airs on pbs april 11 and 12th at 9:00 a.m. today, the conversation continues on the national press club. you can watch that here at 1:00. ken burns, come back again. thank you. pentagon recently lifted restrictions on women serving in combat roles. we