libertarian party convention in florida. >> this week on q&a, senate -- shean betty koed: talks about the work done by her office. host: if you had to choose a character that you have studied over the years, who would you choose? betty koed: it would probably be a tie between charles sumner, two very different people.

the more i learn about them, the more interesting they get. it seems to be a bottomless pool of interesting facts and passions and contradictions. they are both fascinating characters. what makes them so interesting? part of the interest for me is that there are parts that are famous and very well known. they have heard of the infamous caning. thing they the only know about. his career came after that. he came back in 1859 and the het important part was when

becomes a dedicated advocate for civil rights laws. he was contradictory and ordinary. he was arrogant and most of his colleagues hated him. he has left a lasting legacy that i think is quite profound. he was from a different perspective. in 1969. he was probably the most effective minority leader we've ever had. this is the time of heavy party dominance. he managed to shave every bill that came through. he was entertaining and clownish. the voters loved him. behind the clown was this very

serious legislator. he just had endless layers that you can keep peeling off. how long have you been the senate historian? june of 1998. i've been the senate historian since june 2015. host: what is your daily? betty koed: they are very rarely the same. you don't really know what you're going to be working on. the phone rings and something happens. statementrs make a and then you immediately get pulled into other directions. they want to know if that is ever happened before. has this building pass before? you quickly go from topic to

topic. funke that and i think it's . when did you first get interested in the senate? betty koed: when i was in graduate school getting my phd in political history. particularly the workings of congress. so much is focused on the presidential story so i became interested in how congress had a role to play and that is how i got into the senate. i did not get into senate history. host: how often do you say that

they had all these promises that everybody was making and they don't have a clue. i think that is true for the voters and the candidates sometimes. there are so many promises made but when it comes down to the daily nitty-gritty it is a complicated and often contentious project. with lofty come in goals because it takes lofty goals to achieve accomplishments but it is a system built on incremental change. i got on your website and you know everything that is on there? i can't say i know everything. there is a lot there on history. we have a lot -- about 10,000 pages of material.

, it consisted of a few pages. said one of my first jobs would be to populate the website. i came into the senate and quickly began to approve these reports and oral history reviews. we did a lot of massive lastoading but over the 16-17 years we saw how we could fill homes in the stories. how it really operated. at what we knew and did not know.

my colleagues and i will say if we know anything about that. it will end up on the website. what was your best source of information when you need to find out about someone that has served in the senate or something that happened? you are looking for basic information, you would go that we do maintain. that is included on senate.gov, that gives you service dates and community chairmanships. if you're looking for something fulld that, it is a as well as a guide

to the whole research collection. that is a tremendous research for scholars and then we also have a lot of feature biographies on the site. there are senators that have played a unique role and we keep building that connection. host: here is a video of a senator from 1952 that i that you know something about. >> there is a lot of money that is being spent. the only way that i seem to have a protest showing what can be done without such means. and i canbe focused assure you that i would like a little tv and newspaper ads

myself. i think there must be a time when we get back to campaigning and person-to-person campaigning and a reasonable amount of television and radio. host: how is her frustration doing? betty koed: that was margaret j smith, a long time serving senator.n applied --en great she would usually campaign in

, she was sort of the old-style handshaking politician. it worked well for her. she was an extremely important figure in senate history but in and she was changing refused to do it. her refusal to spend money on that campaign in combination with her stance on the vietnam really spelled defeat in 1972. she was the first woman to serve in both houses of congress. by was especially elected her husband clyde smith. -- she ran for a seat in the senate.

when she ran and 1948, it was out of her balance. handedlyhat election with large margins and did very well up to 1972. she broke a lot of the barriers for women serving in the senate. she was an extremely forceful woman in many ways. she was very strong on national defense and the space program. person of great curtilage and not afraid to speak out. first woman to ever serve and the house or the senate. the first woman to serve in the senate came in 1922 and that was rebecca of

california. she came into the senate through 87ointments who was then years old. remember women got the vote in 1920. the governor of georgia had a vacancy to fill. in augustbeen a death and he wanted that seat for himself. he decided he needed someone that could hold the seat as a placeholder until the general election so that he could get a chance to be elected to the seat himself. womanmarch, he chose a who was 87 years old by that time. she was also sort of the grand old game of politics. her husband had been a and she has been a

very prominent figure. she wrote a newspaper column and was a strong suffragist. two is very well known across state. governor appointed her he made history by putting the first woman into the senate views was also hoping he would help with histo election. when he appoints sir, the senate was out of session. it was expected that she would never be sworn into office. that she would never be served, it was a purely symbolic move. votenow have the right to and most of them were opposed to him because he had been a very strong opponent of women suffrage. seat andointer to the

her service begins in october. she doesn't have a chance to be sworn in but over the next few weeks, women across the u.s. began to position a special session of congress and they call for her to be sworn in so she can really serve as a u.s. senator and eventually that is what happened. .he special session was called felton comes to the senate. the governor of george's plan does not work out. butoes not win that seat walter george kindly steps aside and allows her to be sworn in november 22 of 1922. she served for 24 hours and gave one speech on the senate floor.

she says the time for women has come and then goes back to private life. it is a very short tower -- term. it is an important turning moment because it is the first time a woman had been sworn in the senate chamber. rankin sworn janet in? betty koed: in the western states, a lot of the western states were allowing women to vote. to vote for women came incrementally across the country. some states that allow them to vote in school and local elections. and the western states, a lot of them were writing constitutions. national. become

she came in with the full support of the women. how many women are in the senate right now? betty koed: there are 26 serving right now. host: is this the highest ever? betty koed: yes, we have been stuck at 20 for the last two years. host: what guided them into senate seats? betty koed: throughout margaret's career she was able to serve for 24 years. for 15 years, she was the only woman in the senate. other than that it was mostly women who came in for short-term appointments. not until 1992 to we get more than two women that served simultaneously in the senate. that was a long time to get to

that point. there was a few turning points in the story. gets to be the first woman elected to the senate. margaret smith has a huge impact. she was a very high profile woman and got a lot of attention, she runs for president for the republican nomination in 1964. that opened a lot of doors for women in politics. you get into the 1980's and there is tremendous progress for women all over. it built up to the state. it takes a long time and it takes a long time not only -- theythey have to for to overcome hurdles

campaign finance to build the organizations they need. that is a big task and it takes a lot to build that kind of infrastructure. a lot of this is random because i am pulling out small items. you have one page items on your website and you also connected to current affairs. this is not exactly currents. let me read the first couple of sentences. this is june 17, 1930. the senate passes this and there is a picture. it starts out this way. a scene from the movie ferris bueller's day off has a high school teacher vainly struggling

to get some response from his dazed students. let's look at that. >> in 1930, the republican-controlled house of representatives in an effort to alleviate. the..."anyone? nyone? in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. does anyone know the effects? it did not work and the united states sank deeper into the great depression. host: did you write that by the way? he loved that movie and remembered it very well. you get all these bills with

names attached to them and people often get the names wrong and mixed up. the real stories behind this legislation have been lost through history. people just remember the names and never get them quite right. take a veryto serious issue and make it approachable and accessible to an audience. host: the u.s. constitution establishes three requirements for service in the senate. betty koed: nine years of citizenship and you have to be a resident at the time of the election host:. for nine years? no,y koed:

host: why nine years? betty koed: that goes back to the founding fathers. people who were born before there was a nation so they were looking for ways that they could grandfather into audience -- office. they would have stricter qualifications for the senate. 30 euros versus 20 years for the house so they were trying to separate the two bodies of congress. the president has to be a citizen. now he has to be born in the of -- child ofen a naturalized citizen.

there might be. i am not sure about that. limit go back to the senate going back to vote -- that was religion. he was from utah and of mormon. by the time utah became a state it had to disavow itself from some of the mormon practices. there was a lot of religious bigotry against it. there were a lot of people who did not want to accept him because of the religious belief. he had been part of the religious hierarchy of the mormon church and there were a lot of people that did not accept that. a bright moment in this otherwise ugly episode came in a floor speech by the committee's ranking majority member, who

testified that smoot stood out among his colleagues for having no vices. because he did not do all that but his religion. betty koed: people would not accept him because he was a mormon. it is not because they disliked they were not in agreement with his religious practice. betty koed: the senate voted to see him regardless of that. host: here is one from 1954. betty koed: he had an unusual career in the senate.

promisingnto office to only serve a few terms. office and aleaves he goes to runp, for that office. only too late so he is the the only case up until that moment. host: when did you know you are interested in history? i was very interested in archaeology when i was a child. i grew up in iowa. i went to high school in colorado and went to california for college and graduate school. i had a really strong interest in ancient history.

i cannot get much encouragement from school. i sort of drifted to other things. i studied music for a while and got my bachelors in english. i feltfinished college that it was history more than anything. about the time i got out of high thisl we were celebrating bicentennial and i started to read american history. going to the time of the constitution and i started to pay attention to that. in iowa, i had never been to the eastern seaboard. i came over to the east coast and took a trip down and went to washington in philadelphia.

interesteally strong and went back to graduate school. you were a poster child for someone who started in a community college. did, yes.: i i transferred to the university of california for my final two years and i was a working girl all the way through. money to gove the to a fancy school. you could go to uc for a very low price. in those days it was very affordable. linkedin of all of these things that you were involved with. this is the one i wanted you to explain. the young woman's drumming empowerment project. i am a jammer.

i play the west african drum and i have a good friend who is an amazing musician and she has a project that she started in washington dc and she takes old toirls 12-18 years gain confidence. organizationrful and i help out with that. host: how long have you been a drummer? betty koed: four banger five years now. that is a related project. she is from ghana and goes back where they make the djembe drums and he teaches the boys in the home village how to make the drums.

they go back to bring those boys out of poverty. host: back to the senate. 2015.s a moment back in i don't want to ask you the politics of this but mostly how the rules are. here is senator cruz on the floor of the senate. i cannot believe he would tell a flat out lie. based on those assurances. what we saw was an absolute know onlyion that what he told every republican senator but what he told the press over and over again. it was a simple life. -- lie.

how he is talk about disliked. can you do that in the senate? betty koed: you are not supposed to do that in the senate. it takes great slide -- pride and its to quorum and respect in the chamber. on, there was a set of rules and procedures and one of them is that you do not speak ill of another person on the floor. confrontations through the years, this was mild compared to many of them that come along. they have built a set of rules and expectations that are geared towards having respectful debate in the chamber. what is the rule on something like that? betty koed: whoever is sitting

in the presiding officers chair would preside over it. in that particular case, they came back into session a few president and the read out rule 19 which is the the way it isrns managed on the senate floor. brian: here is an item from your website. 19 oh six, webster had trouble with his personal finances. he maintained a busy law practice to supplement his congressional salary. he took clients into the senate chamber to watch and he advocated their legislative interests. he reminded the thanks president that it was time for his retainer to be refreshed. is at the famous daniel webster? his career, heut

often argued court cases in front of the supreme court. he was not adverse to taking monetary brides gleevec often es.ay -- brib there were no senate ethic rules at the time. there was nothing that was considered sort of an abuse of power to use your senate seat. ity really didn't start change it until the 1960's. there are moments where they start to add other rules in the 20th century. all of that comes into play in the 1920's, but not until the 1960's to we get an ethics committee to set forth rules. brian: this one is from 1912.

1873, senator pomeroy handed $7,000 to secure his vote in the upcoming state legislative balloting for the reelection. charges of bribery were heard increasingly over the next 40 years. was a guy named senator pomeroy. that ultimately led to the establishment of the direct election senators. in the late 19th century, there were a lot of cases of bribery of state legislators at the time. senators were elected by state legislators, not directly by the people. there had been a reform movement

underway to write a constitutional amendment to change that system but the senate always balked at that. the senate would not pass it. in the 1890's and early 20th century there were several cases of people who were alleged or convicted of taking bribes or offering bribes to legislators to get seats. passed what senate became the 17th amendment to establish direct election. brian: here is some video. i want to show this because this is all about the impeachment process. how many times has the senate convicted after impeachment by the house a judge or president or justice? betty: we have had 20 impeachment trial so far. half of them have resulted in conviction. brian: samuel chase? betty: he was acquitted.

the first to be convicted -- the first impeachment ever was a senator from tennessee. the time he got to the trial he had already been expelled by the senate so they expelled the case. the first to be convicted was in new hampshire judge name john pickering. from office.d samuel chase was a very politicized case. thomas jefferson had a lot to do with that as president. it was an effort by the republicans to remove federalists from the bench. chase was an outspoken federalist. he was not removed from office. brian: what happened to andrew johnson? betty: he was impeached by the house in 1868 but he was saved from conviction by one single vote. brian: and in the second

president? betty: william clinton. brian: here is some video from senate mitch mcconnell in 1986. [begin video clip] >> you were guilty of defrauding the government on your tax return and you are now serving a prison term for that. me,nt you to state for judge clyburn, the best possible justification this senator could that criminalurn conviction. and allow you to continue to serve as a federal judge. why you cannot perform the duties. >> if you feel that i got a raw deal and should not have been convicted and that i in good faith and is closed all of my andme to my tax preparer

they made brutal errors in my returns for which i was not therein is the choice you have to make. [end video clip] clearly, they thought he was guilty. he went on to practice law. betty: that was harry claiborne. in thethree impeachments 1980's which is interesting because there had not been a single one since the 1930's. by the 1980's, they had no personal knowledge of impeachment trials. they had to start from scratch. there are several things they can do. the main purpose is to remove somebody from office but in the senate can vote to often disqualify that person from serving in any future office and they often do hold those of us separately so they can connect someone but not disqualify them

from future service in that is what the case with hastings, for instance -- he served in the house after being convicted. brian: judge clyburn committed suicide before it was over. the audience did not see the hastings clip. [begin video clip] 5:00 a.m. being tried for the exact same thing that i was trying for before and i don't know how to call it other than double jeopardy so when congress says that the standard -- that is standard for impeachment not the same standard as in a criminal trial. i kept waiting to see what the standard of impeachment is good the reason he never said is that because there is no standard. the standard is in the feelings of the particular senators

sitting at the time. [end video clip] brian: is he right? betty: he is. high crimes and misdemeanors have never been well defined through the years. with each trial, the senate is faced with hurdles to get over in one of them is to decide if that particular crime committed by this individual reached the point of impeachment standard and do they somehow qualify as high crimes? the only guidance they have from the constitution. they have to define and redefine impeachable crimes over and over. brian: overall, no supreme court justices have been convicted, no presidents, and most of the judges have been district? betty: we had two presidents, one cabinet official, one supreme court justice, and the

rest have been judicial. the senate ase in an assistant historian when bill clinton was impeached? betty: i had just arrived in 1998 as a new minted historian. my colleagues said to me, it is going to be quite, we have an election, you will have time to settle in. within a few weeks, the house to impeach bill clinton and we got very busy very quickly. we had to do a good deal of research on impeachment trials. we had not had one since 1868. the senate leaders at that time really wanted to follow historical precedent as much as they could. we did a good deal of research into impeachment trials, particularly the johnson trial to see how the chamber was set ,p, with the prosecutor said who were the house managers, the

defense lawyers, we even went to the point of looking at how the didets were printed and similar gallery tickets for the clinton trial. guidey was a very strong throughout the process. you to sayfree are anything you want to say? betty: we try to be cautious that we are dealing with current members. we have never been censored so to speak. we are pretty free to speak about former members. we have a policy in the office that we do not comment on current members or current issues. we wait for them to become history before we do that. the secretary of the senate, our chief bus, has been very supportive of our office for 40 years and has been very helpful in letting us get information

.ut to reporters and the public we are cautious but we are not restricted. do you have to call the secretary of the senate to get permission to say something? betty: not necessarily. if i'm going to do an on camera interview like this, i will make sure they are ok with that. reporters, and the public all the time. byrd, senator robert deceased for a couple of years, here is something he used to do all the time, put this into context. [begin video clip] >> spring has arrived. haha, how sweet it is? how sweet it is? spring has arrived. after a long gray winter, made ,arker by the specter of war

and with that confidently upon us it is heartening to be reminded of the great rhythm of the seasons, and the renewal of the earth and the life opponent. now, nature hangs her mantle green on every blooming tree and spreads her seeds of daisies light o'er the grasses. so wrote the poet robert burns. [end video clip] [laughter] brian: put him into context. was theenator byrd model of the senatorial decorum in so many ways. he was a great student of history, a great master of and was very tuned into the constitutional role of the senate and the important role it plays in our government. when he went to the floor he

usually went to the floor well also with information, but attempted to put the debate into a broader context. and he often did that by doing history lessons on the floor. like youquoted poetry saw there. he also would bring an element of camaraderie, an element of friendliness to the debate. i will give you one example. in 1964 when the senate was in the midst of his filibuster against in 1964 civil rights act -- the very last night. given as speech to be part of that filibuster came from senator byrd who did a 14 hour speech opposing the civil rights act. on overnight, senator humphrey who was the democratic floor leader came to

byrdloor and asked senator if he knew when he would finish his speech because they had scheduled the vote for 10:00 the next morning. senator byrd sent, i have enough material to go on for another 14-15 hours but i promise the senator from minnesota that i will finish by 10:00 in the morning. and then he went on to quote poetry, talking about roses red theis neighbors find it in end, humphrey's fate and forth 10:00, saying he would -- in the next morning, 9:55, senator byrd did finish his speech just in time for the closure vote and hubert humphrey's showed up and handy red rose to his lapel so there you have a case of two people on opposite sides of the issue one part of the filibuster against the civil rights bill in one bed for manager to pass the

civil rights bill that are coming into the senate in his various senatorial way in this very decadent way that allowed them to have a personal connection despite their political differences. brian: if you are going to recommend one book about the united states senate to people listening or watching now, what would it be? baker'sy colleague dave book which came at a couple of years ago. is the most comprehensive history that you will find in one volume. i often say to people when they ask me back, which era are you interested in? because if you want to capture the senate of the 1940's-19 50's, i might recommend one book in the senate has evolved a great deal through the years and so, even from the 1960's until today, it is a very different institution to i would ask them that first but if you are really looking for a one volume comprehensive history, i would go to richard baker's "the

american senate." if you want to capture something from the mid-20th century, look at citadel."ite's "the it really looks at how the senate existed in a club atmosphere way, going through the types of people who become senators and other really to each other. it is a time capsule of the mid-20th century senate. if you want to look at the senate of the 1950's with lbj, go to robert carol's "a master of the senate." you are looking at the 19th century there has been some the 1850ently on compromise that does a wonderful job of exploring that pre-civil where debate in legislative compromises were the rule of the day. robert carol when

his book came out sitting in the taj mahal room where lyndon .ohnson used to set [begin video clip] the lyndon johnson had so much space that they used to call this thing johnson ranch east. on the floor above us he had the entire western end of the building, six floors for his various offices, and down here he had this room and in office over there where his secretary set. he had various hideaways in the basement. this was his favorite office. what was going on in this room was the exercise of power. this is where he would talk to people about their committee assignments, about important , and they would not be put

to get past unless lyndon johnson would get it -- would put it on the calendar in their wicked enough to cap -- [end video clip] brian: anybody like and have that much space today? betty: the leaders have a lot of not that much, the leadership suites have expanded and back in the 1980's they created sent leadership suites for both republican and democratic leader. takedo not come in and space the way johnson did. he did take over a lot of space. he was also a much larger than in personality as well as space and was very dominant, domineering, had the senate under a strong heavy hand of control in a lot of ways. it is hard to compare him with people today. that is partly because the leadership has changed, it works in different ways, by the senate has changed a lot since the 1950's and so a lot of the

come ashat johnson did a means of making progress that johnson used would not necessarily be accepted today. brian: i know that you have been senate on the old chamber and we have some video that when we did our special on the capital show, the old senate chamber, why are you interested in changing -- betty: a lot of tourists see this place and a lot of staff take tours of the space with constituents that visit. i'm interested in taking a new look at this room. for 40 years, my colleagues and i have been giving talks and tourism in this room and talking to the yankees and guests -- talking to vips and guests. the stories have not changed. people get the story of the great check number eight of clay, webster, and calhoun. ofthe great triumvirate

clay, webster, and calhoun. our knowledge of the senate of the 1840's-18 50's has grown. we have a much larger history ogilvie than what we had -- oriographygust -- hist than what we had. with the old senate chamber, i have been giving talks to people that focus not so much on the but theiumvirate debates that led up to the moment, and the diversity in the changer. even though women did not serve as elected members as senators until 1922, in the 19th century women wear a very visible presence in the old chamber. they were in the gallery, there are diaries and letters and

articles about that. and so i have started to make the story more inclusive of a much broader array of audiences and partly to make it accessible to modern audiences but also to show that the senate even though it was a white male membership was not necessarily an all-mail environment. environment. brian: i want to know what kind of impact shows like "house of spacey.- here is kevin i'm sure you have an opinion. [begin video clip] --22 years in congress >> jim matthews, former governor , now they area about to put them out to pasture

but he looks happy enough, doesn't he? for some, it is simply the size of the chair. linda vasquez. check, andman, latina, check, and as tough as a ,wo dollars take, check, check check. as for me, i am just a lonely house majority whip, i keep things moving in a congress children by pettiness and my job is typically do the pipes and keep the sludge moving it i have done my time. --. i have done my time. welcome to washington. [end video clip] brian: what impact has that had? betty: i was speaking to a large group of foreign scholars a few weeks ago and one of them raised his hand and said, i know absolutely nothing about the u.s. congress, the only thing i

know about what i see -- still nothing i know that it is what i see on house of cards and i say, that is not accurate vitriol and, you will have to recognize that is not an accurate portrayal. what i love about house of cards is that it creates a variety of personalities in congress -- the senate and house -- are made up of personalities and some of them you like, some of them you don't like. some of them are completely honest, some of them are not necessarily -- not -- and it has been the case in 17 89 and i do love that variety you get but it is not a very accurate action of politics and i think largely the public a view of what it is like to be a u.s. senator is not very well informed and that is -- that type of show does not help. brian: so, ima student somewhere, could be college, high school, phd, and i want to get the best -- absolute best information i can about the senate and i don't -- what would i get if i came to your office or came to the senate that i

couldn't get on the internet? a lot of the senate history is not yet on the internet believe it or not. even though we have a lot of a lot ofsenate.gov what you look in on the internet is not necessarily factual so you have to be careful what you get there. if you come to our office you will get in addition to the thousands of research files we have in the office that are available to researchers you will get a staff that is very well-informed and trained and well-schooled in senate history so anybody you speak to in the office would be able to guide you to this source is unique, archival sources and secondary sources and would help to find photographs you want to order the documents you are looking for -- we help the public on the time with those kinds of requests -- brian: what kind of credentials you have to have to see this kind of stuff? betty: anybody can come into the

office. we are in openoffice but if you want to come in and use our resources to get to the national archives and the sources and that kind of stuff, you have to be a serious researcher, you need recently who was a scholar or somebody working on a phd dissertation or even if you are working on an honors project for high school project or something like that, we help many people. brian: how many oral histories you have on file? betty: we have done hundreds through the years. of the about 50 transcripts online but in addition to those we have another 60-70 volumes that are not online for a variety of reasons -- some are just not open to research it. year, we have done it at 70 interviews so it is an ongoing process. she is the associate historian. so, what part of this job

didn't you expect? you were sitting over there for as 16 years -- not the historian -- now that you are, what changed? betty: the demands on your time are tremendous when you're in a historian's position because when you are the assistant or the associate you are dealing with the day-to-day operations of the office but you don't necessarily get all the calls from senators of the senate office -- that usually goes to the historian and i have a newfound respect for dictator guy ritchie and how they handled all of those calls and i get a lot of requests from senators to the special projects, special tours, to come talk to their staff, to do research for a speech in my writing, to help better to speech they are writing, and in it and have to deal with that so much when i was an associate historians of there is a lot of demand on-time, but, fortunately, i have a wonderful staff and it has all been working very well. --an: u.s. senate john

betty: brian: brian: and click on our history that will bring to our page. te.gov -- think brian: you very brian: betty: much for joining betty: us. thank you, ryan. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. q&a programs are also available as podcasts. announcer: if you enjoyed this

week's interview with betty koed , here are some other programs. a two-part interview with donald richie and raymond spock on the smock. -- raymond senate historian richard baker talks about recorded phone calls between president johnson and senate republican leader everett dirksen as they negotiate the voting rightsnd bills and a two-part interview with robert carol on the fourth volume of his biography of former president johnson, the years of lyndon johnson, the passage of power. you can watch these at a time or search our entire video library at c-span.org. announcer: next, the british chancellor of the exchequer stands in for prime minister cameron at the house of commons.

then, speeches from the libertarian presidential nominees. after that, another chance to betty koed. announcer: washington journalism live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up on memorial day, we will spend the program talking to viewers and members of congress about the legacy of the vietnam war, the experiences of those who served him what it was like coming home. during our program we will be joined by three nevada -- three of the current 10 members of congress who served during the vietnam war. with british prime minister david cameron in japan for the g-7 summit chancellor of osborneequer george answered questions in his place pretty talked about the european union referendum, education, and job security. this is 40 minutes.

primeer, questions of the minister. maria colefield. >> wait a minute. >> duetting ahead had of himself. a process to be followed. ladies turn. >> thank you very much mr. speaker, prime minister is defending japan i ask on his behalf meetings to addition i'll have further such meetings today. >> maria colefield. >> members would agree would the first priority of government to have the security of our country. that's also the chancellor outlying to me that this government is taking to a place -- [inaudible]