middle east. we see it in russia. we see it in india. >> we do indeed. >> congratulations to the task force and the working group for completing this. my government, i think, finds a lot to agree with in this report. we think it addresses a key aspect. implementing it is going to be hard work because i do think that as someone who has worked in the region until recently, a lot of people are afraid of challenging the order because there is such a level of chaos and disintegration around them. in i think that is something that needs to be looked at. but i would go a step back and i wonder if you address this in the report. basicense to me, the most point is, are we doing enough as governments taking an interest in the region but not part of the region to stress human rights? for example, bringing out arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings, these

things that come way he before freedom of association. freedom of association is very important, we would absolutely support that, but the human rights and the rule of law is absolutely fundamental, and that is where we see such grave misbehavior and violations all around the region. albright: i believe we do, or at least we tried, but the problem, having tried it -- i will not say in which country -- we can't help you unless you do something about your laws and human rights. that was kind of the "mind your own business." but i do think we have to do that, even if it is not received well, and it is argued by those who do not want to do it that it adds to the chaotic situation. the question is, and this has come up over and over again --

our human rights, democracy, participation of people, a western concept or is it a global concept? i have argued it is global. we are all the same. people want to make decisions about their own lives and they want to have absence of arbitrariness. but it's not an easy message to deliver. and frankly, if it's not delivered alongside practical assistance, whether their security or aid programs, but it does have to go together and if we do not do it, your country and ours, we are not fulfilling our responsibilities. but it's not happily received. steve can testify to that. >> if i can say one thing that point. an important in those countries that are making steps in the direction of what tammy has talked about, you see it in uae most of all.

you are beginning to see it in saudi arabia. certainly tunisia. it is hard to do that and keep your society together in a benign security and regional environment. think about the environment in the middle east today, and to say to the leader we need you to take a risk of reform moving this direction in a region -- a region that is an many respects melting down -- this is a hard thing we are asking leaders, and we have to recognize it. one of the things we say though, the attitude of the international community ought to be, if you are willing to make those hard decisions, we in the international community will support you financially, diplomatically. and with technical assistance. if you don't, we won't, not because we are being punitive, because in our judgment, it would be a bad investment. that the good investment will be those states willing to make those steps on behalf of their

people because we think they are the most likely to result in long-term prosperity and stability. i think we have to recognize the difficulty of what we are asking and we have to be engaged and willing to step in and make the right decisions. yes, ma'am. >> hi. janet smith. i was a legislator for senator leahy. i worked at the war college and -- and then lived in saudi arabia in 2009. i have two quick comments. one is an issue of trust. my observation, one of the issues to think about is trust among people themselves. they have the freedom to express to each other how they struggle with these issues. so it is not just government

it is that key issue of trust. how do you provide that comfort level where saudi's, jordanians, or jim jones -- egyptians are able to talk to each other without fear. some of the most moving conversations start with the premise of finding the political philosophy foundation within islam, within the region, within the culture that asks to -- 2 questions. what are the values in islam that brings most meaning to you? and that is a conversation. and the second part, how do you want to see them expressed in society? and to me then, when you are grounded in the culture and, as you mentioned, things come from the bottom up, the culture component and the religious component are obviously key to this that those issues i think

are a different take billion what is in your report. >> thank you. just a quick reflection on that very, very thoughtful comment. absolutely, we talk about trust within and between communities. not just between citizens and government. if you are thinking about a case like libya and syria where they have truly collapsed into civil war, you have to think about that. and there are things that can be done even now while conflicts are ongoing to build forums and platforms for dialogue, for trust building, and for conflict resolution. there are programs where communities came together around dialogues so that the idp's did not have to immediately justify themselves and the communities

could feel comfortable with their return. so, i think there are examples we can build on and programs we can do. one half-sentence on the previous point from our german colleague, i wanted to echo something my colleague, general john allen, has set a number of times. which is from his perspective, as someone who spent the last few years of his military and civilian career fighting terrorism -- if we external actors who have invested so much in a military fight, if we do not also invest in the governance peace, we will essentially be playing whack him -- whack-a-mole with extremists on a global scale. because this problem will re-create itself again and again. >> yes. other comments? other questions? >> hi.

i am with a private firm that works in the middle east. my question is on social trust. i think you talked about it well, talking about the breakdown in the middle east and the relationship a government has with its citizens and the expectations of citizen has with its government, that a citizen has with their government. one could argue that we are not just in the middle east but in the united states, we are beginning to have to some extent an erosion of social trust with groups that may be feeling more marginalized or uncertain with relationship to their government. i would just ask if you can comment on what can a citizen do rebuilding social trust and how would that be most effective? >> why don't you take that and comment on the early question, too.

amr: sure. the two countries which witnessed the emergence and the explosion of tribal conflict, multiethnic conflicts leaving to -- leading to civil war, libya twosyria, those are the countries with organizations between governments and dictatorships. there is a big difference between a place like tunisia and egypt. in 2011, tunisia and egypt established civil society. professional organizations. civil societies. we act as human rights defenders. a bit less in egypt in terms of autonomy, but for libya and syria, the dictatorships are

these intermediary layers between the citizens and the state. so in a way, it citizens woke up to dictators did not feel like departing the same, and they had to listen to radical militant ideology. because there was no alternative given to them by civil society actors. there was no challenge. there were no other channels. and that is why theories of what is happening in libya should not be happening elsewhere. the key is not to trust into the might and power of the general twoautocratic authority by and able governments to take government seriously, to enable society to exist. why is it that morocco, for example -- it is a multiethnic society. itis not -- why is

[indiscernible] that is because we do have established civil society interactions with citizens. they feel they are listened to. at least it makes sense. >> other questions, comments? gentlemen way in the back and then we will take the two women here. >> hello. with american university. my question is for amr. i really appreciate your comments on civil society and the need for civil society organizations outside the region to help those inside the region. as you know, especially in egypt, the government portrays us as a foreign conspiracy and will play up the hyper nationalism. and prevent that type of assistance. so, how do you get around that problem, to have civil society in the united states or in europe helping those on the ground in egypt?

amr: thank you. thank you. amr: thank you. very briefly, jack, we do not need to submit to the narrative. they should recognize the failures they have been sustaining for a long time. we should push forward -- not governments but also citizens among different segments and groups and populations. there are cases -- tunisia, other countries as opposed to egypt -- once again, this is a

question of the narrative. what is it? what does it take to fix. is it security? is it democracy? is it enabling societies to exist, to try? demands to be addressed, to be responded to by and accountable government. >> we are running shy on time. i'm going to take the two i pointed to over here and i will take two from this side and we will go through those questions and we will try to answer those and then we will be out of time, i'm afraid. ma'am, you had one. the woman, two behind you. >> hi. i'm larissa. i'm a jordanian consultant. going back to the gentleman's question regarding civil

society, in the absence of the political will on the space is -- on the part of government the space is very limited. we can discuss options beyond for a governess assisting, but also perhaps governmental -- nongovernmental organizations. i will throw another group into the mix. there have been case studies in economic development. thank you. >> and two rows up. >> hi. i'm a concerned citizen from texas. seemscial contract impossible without dealing with the corruption. if you can not trust police are

-- cannot trust police or judges how do you trust anyone? ,i think that is why there is so much discontent. so, how to deal with that. >> yes, ma'am? right back there. three rows from the end. great. >> hi. allison good, u.s. department of energy. you have done a good job addressing political governance issues, but it seems that there are bigger macroeconomic issues that cannot be solved by nations alone. crisis.oil and currency how can the rest of the international community, how can they best bridge that gap to foster better governance? >> very good question. one more from this side? yes, sir. >> i'm elliott hurwitz.

former state department world , bank, intelligence person. i have not had time to read the report. on the periphery of the arab world, the only arab country i have been to is yemen and it is particularly pertinent to u.s. policy. i would like anyone on the panel to comment on yemen. >> ok, we have corruption issues and yemen -- any takers? >> i think amr. >> good. let's do it quickly. one-minute answers. amr: yes, this is one of the key spaces which we still have available in countries where the public space has been done.

--" -- closed off. how do we do this in a way that does not undermine the legitimacy. the question is how to do it away from government relations? i trust it is more powerful if it is done with nongovernmental actors. finally, once again how to justify the interests not from , the moral perspective but how , to get interested in what is happening in domestic countries. you need to fashion a narrative. this narrative cannot be opposition. narrative tort push it forward. this is one of the key spaces. >> sure. the headline out of the report i would say is sunshine is the best disinfectant.

focus one reasons i transparency is because it is an antidote to that kind of behavior. more broadly, corruption exists typically because those in power are trying to grease the wheels of their own lives. or the people about them in the chain. -- above them in the chain. so you have to look at how to fix the political dysfunctions that create incentives for corruption. whether that is paying policeman higher salaries or making sure there are expectations from outside as well as inside and this gets to the point on globalization. just to highlight for you, there is a sidebar in the report. economic globalization and the impact on state sovereignty. it is a problem for every state, but there is a reason why arab states were and are in positions -- not well-positioned to deal with the effects. ms. albright: i'm not an expert

on yemen. in many ways, it is a country that is the victim of all kinds of meddling. one in terms of north and south yemen being united when they were not very excited about it , but there was pressure coming from the neighbors, and then the fact that it was on its way in terms of looking through some governance work when it became the playground of a proxy war between iran and saudi arabia. that is what is going on now. it is a victim country. that is the only way it can be described. very hard for the outside powers that would like to do some good there to get any purchase on it in some ways. it is not big enough and it is absorbing a lot of the problems that cannot be dealt with somewhere else.

>> we have come to the end of our time. i'm going to thank you, tammy, for a great paper. thank you for coming and your questions. please join me in thanking the panel. [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] [inaudible conversations]

>> a russian sociologist examines public opinion and approval ratings of the russian president in his own country and how that data can be manipulated. live coverage today from the wilson center. and discussion of the ongoing protest of the dakota access pipeline project in north dakota. it is hosted by the institute for policy studies. ♪ >> c-span's "washington journal" is live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up this morning, reuters washington columnist will discuss the potential pick for treasury and other economic posts for the incoming donald trump administration.

a news editor will join us to talk about his book "obama's legacy." be sure to watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern this morning. join the discussion. this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, saturday evening, from president lincoln's cottage in washington, d.c., we will have a discussion about "lincoln's generals wise, for women who influenced the civil war for better and worse." women have ae that means of reinforcing either the best in their husbands or the worst. the 1953 film american frontier. their to the central

office in oklahoma. day and night, our little telephone board was lit up like a christmas tree. calls from new york, california, houston. we began to realize how big of a thing this was. >> the film promoted the financial benefits for farmers of leasing land for oil exploration. sunday at 11:00, analysts discuss the legacy of jack london and how his novel "the influenced wild" generations of writers. >> he always looked to the land to center himself and find relief and release from the rigors and depredations of the

city. >> at 6:00 eastern we visit the military aviation museum in virginia beach. basicallyrplane taught all of the military aviators, army, airport, and navy, how to fly. saw anys never even airplane. the first airplane they saw was this one. >> for our complete schedule go to c-span.org. presidentialmp's transition senior advisor kellyanne conway spoke in new york to media representatives. > meetings. -- excellent meetings.

the top executives and the anchors of the major networks. abc, cbs, nbc, msnbc. an unprecedented meeting. [inaudible] >> he has days filled with meetings. these days are over scheduled. they are giving him his advice and counsel. some of which will result in appointments, and some we wish to be helpful. we are excited to have new leadership in the country. they understand the country very well. efforts wonve against her party early on. you're hearing people like tim ryan of ohio reaching concerns. bernie sanders today was quoted as saying that he thinks they

should soften identity politics in the democratic party. i think there is a ofommendation -- recognition this. there are a lot of voters that feel like this against the party. there is no need to mention it. very cordial very productive. , it was very candid and honest. from my own perspective, it is great to get the reset button. it was a long hard-fought campaign. donald trump proved that he understood america and now he will be president to all americans. [inaudible] it could come this week. it could come today. we are not in a rush to publish the names because everybody is looking for the next story. we know we are ahead of schedule compared to previous administrations.

>> do you feel like he needs to address the concerns of many fearful aboutare hate crimes, racist attacks against people who were not trump supporters. >> he addressed it many times. he has addressed this many times. and he said he will be the president with all americans. i think we can use your help in that. the election is over. a lot of americans are having a hard time accepting the results of the elections. i think it's incumbent upon all of us, the trump team and certainly the press and others to follow president obama's lead in telling americans that this is your president. this is your vice president elect. respect them and learn to work with them. [inaudible]

>> is there a question in there? [inaudible] >> i am here. i know it's not as exciting, but i'm here for you. he is up there taking calls from across the world. he will have a press conference in due course. i think in the meantime it would be a great idea in the spirit of thanksgiving, i attended mass with the president-elect and vice president-elect yesterday in new jersey and the sermon was about having a grateful heart and being thankful, and we need your help doing that. [inaudible] >> there are reports that he

continues to conduct his business well transitioning, is that appropriate? >> i'm very confident he's not breaking any laws. he has many lawyers and accountants and advisers telling him what he must do and what he can do. workingbusinessman also in the transition. he is the president-elect. we are in an unprecedented time with someone who has always been very successful. caffe both be president-elect and run his own business? you suggesting that he is doing something illegal? >> i am asking you. >> i have said he is not, but you are presumption is that he is. you operate from from a presumption of negativity. it sounds like you are operating from that presumption. [inaudible] >> not that i am aware of. i don't believe that he is

-- has spoken today. [inaudible] >> that was not addressed. the week before that, president-elect trump had great practice in meeting with president obama. exchanged bars from the campaign trail days earlier. everybody agrees that they love this country. [inaudible] >> how much is he thinking about diversity and gender and race? >> he is. and if you're talking about the diversity he has met with women and people with color this past weekend. he has met with them here. we are really very heartened and touched by the number of people,

and diversity of people coming from across the aisle coming together and wanting to offer him advice. but willing to give him counsel and willing to share experiences and have candid conversations about their views and their backgrounds. [inaudible] >>'s nominees have all been qualified to do the job. that's criteria number one. -- or apartto that from that i should say, everybody will be qualified to do the job that they are asked to do from day one. they have been very straightforward about the first 100 days. and they represent his thoughts and america. he is interviewing many different people. you cannot sacrifice the first criteria for the other ones. i was there when we were talking

others, a mother of three -- the highest ranking women in the house of representatives right now. the first woman to give bursts. the former labor secretary for eight years under bush. those just off the top of my head with no notes. dozens and dozens of people who represent all walks of life, different backgrounds and it is very exciting. >> when is he returning to new york, and you expect any announcements prior to tuesday. thanksgivingng with his family.

it is yet to be determined when he will return. his appointment will come out when he's ready and not a moment sooner. these are big decisions and they should not be rushed. we are weeks and weeks ahead of president carter and reagan. even president obama had not made his appointments by this point nationally. nor should he be expected to. i don't think so. to be determined. [inaudible] >> it is not a hindrance at all. he is the guy that connects with america. he is the guy that that gave voice to that. during this election. he will be president of all-america. he is a successful businessman

and billionaire. he understands what the success story looks like. he understands what successful job creators bring to the table. he is happy to take their counsel as well. we have had people of all different socioeconomic backgrounds speaking with him. that was difficult on the campaign trail. that was difficult before he ran for president, and that will continue to be the case as he is president. he is somebody who talks too many people during a given day. [inaudible] jobs.y know how to create they understand the value of pursuing the american dream. they are very counted but i'm sure they also got lucky at some point. it is a combination of the there two. are folks that understand tax policy and trade. you look at trade and immigration in the past.

these are 2% and 3% issues that he brought to the forefront and he ran on them until the last moment he was in grand rapids, michigan. whether you are a billionaire or somebody who thinks you have been treated unfairly because your job has been moved to mexico, you are relating to the donald trump message. thank you. absolutely. therrow he will be with "new york times." as invitations come through we will build a go through the the city will be sending it. i am all for it. [inaudible] mayor gave a speech today saying the city would stand up for all new yorkers. >> fearful of what? >> fearful of the idea of a

muslim registry saying that they would not enact -- >> are you aware of what mr. trump has said many times about the muslim registry? >> what did he say? >> look it up. he said many times in the campaign trail. anything else? [inaudible] >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was greeted as a public service by america's

cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. obama awards the presidential medal of freedom to michael jordan and kareem abdul-jabbar today at the way has. include roberts de niro, bruce springsteen, and bill and melinda gates. eastern onge at 2:55 c-span. the family research council on providing better instruction on the history of western civilization at noon. up next, a conversation on the legacy of president obama. we hear from a republican political consultant and a former faith advisor to president obama. the harvard kennedy school conference on race and justice

in the age of obama posted the event. hosted the event. >> well, it is now my pleasure to introduce the moderator for today's opening panel. kelly is the host of under the radar airing sundays from , 6:00-7:00 pm. her commentaries air monday bh's weekend edition. she's a frequent commentator, local and national television and radio programs posted in "the new york times," the politico and "washington post" and has appeared on broadside, cnn reliable sources on the media, pbs news hour and take away. she appears weekly on wgbh tv, examining local and national

coverage and frequently hosts current events considering communities of color. she's also been the recipient fromo harvard fellowships the nieman journalism and the john f. kennedy school of government. forwas also the producer eyes on the prize, america's civil rights that found her an oscar nomination, national emmy and the dupont columbia award. with that, i'm going to turn over to the moderator to introduce the panelists. thank you. [applause] >> i will start by introducing the panelists and we will talk , about 45 minutes and then there will be time for each of you should ask a question so you can be prepared to do that after we stopped speaking here. every one of the panelists was a robust biography. you will not hear it now.

i'm going to give you the one sentence on this page. the geraldine siegel professor of american social thought, history and african studies at the university of pennsylvania. [applause] joshua is the founder of the values partnership and former head of the white house office of faith-based and neighborhood partnerships. [applause] assistant professor in the department of african american studies at princeton university. [applause] and michael singleton is the republican political consultant, writer and political analyst. [applause] i know our panel title this day is opportunity and

opportunities missed. we will start on the uplifting side of the equation. i want to begin with someone who has much gravitas set of -- in civil rights professor , berry. he worked with several presidents, so when we talk about race and justice and at the age of obama you can bring up a context i think few others can and i want to ask you what is the opportunity that you see from the policy perspective that president obama has been able to make happen? much.hink that i know too i should stopink talking to anybody about anything because i am a cynic. i am a cynic because i served in some capacity in every administration since nixon, republican and democrat. so when i look at obama when he was running for office, i was

excited about it, i looked at him in the context of all the other administrations that i knew about and never believed in hope and change to begin with because i knew too much and i also teach policy history, so i know too much. but obama not to be too cynical , because i don't like to discourage people, but the opportunity that he had was to show what joe biden said about him was correct that he was clean and articulate and would always be that way. that he as a black man coming to be president wouldn't be frightening to anybody and he had all of the right credentials and have been all of the right punched the right tickets, and he was engaging as smart and nobody had to be embarrassed by what he did in the day-to-day and the way he behaved with his wife and children, his mother-in-law and

all the things he did that he would engage in the model personal behavior which he did do. we also knew from the speech he gave at the convention that he was a wonderful orator and i , happened to have written a book about it about all the , speeches he made in the background of all of them so you knew he was incredibly lucky because the senators he ran with and against collapsed in the illinois race which gave a leg up and he was incredibly lucky because he was from chicago, and the iowans look at the chicago tv and everyone knew him and people came from chicago in the .irst primary which he won and when i told bill clinton and hillary was going to lose they should stop running and bill got mad at me. [laughter]

obama had the opportunity to show when you are black and have been the first person to do something, and i've been in that position a lot of times when i saw some people say you are going to mess it up so much that people can never do it again i -- again. i don't think anyone can say that he messed up so much that nobody black can do it again. capitalism is intact. racial inequality has been touched, but it is intact. the people that got still get and get more, and not only that but the article the other week about people that are educated , black folk who have college degrees and come to places like this in the job market they don't get the same opportunity to move up. so capitalism is safe to. inequality. we have protests and that.

we haven't had a widespread whiteson, and the poor who have been mostly ignored, the deplorable as i guess they are called are still out there. they will likely move on. i think the opportunity is to show a black man with the right credentials, the right kind of man can do the job and he's done the best he could with what he had. >> is there a specific policy that he was able to take all that you just said and make that work in a policy that you think exhibited his use of the opportunity? >> i think that obama didn't use his policies and opportunities in the first term as effectively as i would have liked to see. i was present at the creation of the affordable care act, and i know that lots of people come advocates try to ask them to put

a public option in the affordable care act coming into and the democrats had control of congress. they could have done it, but the other thing that is a more grievous failure is they left a whole wide enough for a truck to drive through so the court could find medicaid didn't have to be expanded. and millions of more people who live in the poorest states in the country, mississippi, of work black folks, his constituents and all that all across the country are covered because they were trying to hide what was in the bill from the republicans, and they didn't let the staffers that had the expertise read the bill. as nancy said, congresswoman pelosi lots of people, they , didn't know what was in eighth it, but they got it passed.

and they had the majority. you can't blame the republicans. they had a majority. the other thing i say he should have done better i would have hoped in my opinion is the race to the top using that discretionary money for the untested, untried, unevaluated program. that money that could have been spent on programs for kids who are out on the streets now stealing and robbing and shooting each other and for them to be in school and training and job programs while they are in school like they did at one time and andhe 1960's 1970's, afterschool programs and vocational programs to get them off the street which are tried and true. they are not just pie-in-the-sky . they are tried and true. the other thing is. >> i'm going to stop you there

because you are going into my opportunities missed. michael i approach you on this trepidationith some because you began when president obama came in by saying he wasn't on your plan but i want to ask you to dig deep and find the opportunity that he was able to make happen in terms of policy. >> i think, if i can, the president has done a relatively decent job. i think in particular if you look around at the country at a lot of african-american youth even hispanic youth and poor , whites who share the same communities as those groups, he has given a lot of hope and inspiration and i think for a lot of minorities who believed of course you can accomplish whatever you put your mind to an -- in in america. that wasn't quite fully realized

until you did see the minority become the first president of the most powerful individual in the world. that is something i don't think any number of case studies, you can't quantify with something like that, what it can do for community of people and if you look at places like chicago and baltimore, new orleans, other cities, and my grandmother happens to be an educator in new orleans and i visit often and , talk to a lot of the kids there. they live in an environment i could never imagine. when i ask them what you think about your future, how do you see your self and would you want to do once you're done with high school and going to college, etc., more often than not they say i can do anything now. when you ask why, they say look at president obama and michelle obama. i constantly reflect on what that means and it's puzzling. i'm not quite sure how to figure out what his presidency has meant to so many black and brown people.

and again, i think that's something that you can't quantify and maybe you can theorize a bit, but for me that's not a policy, it's beyond policy. it's something that i think and i hope will potentially uplift an entire generation of people . so that is an opportunity for me. >> ok. joshua, you start from the position of faith, but i know that at the selma 50th anniversary, you connected the civil rights movement, the revered civil rights movement with president obama's legacy. you saw the connection and spoke about it. so i'm wondering if you see that as his opportunity. >> i am a person of faith, but i would love to talk about the president's work and concrete policy achievements that we've seen over the last eight years,

and then we can look to the more cultural context after that. first, the african-american unemployment rate at the height of the great recession in march 2010 was 16.8%. last month it was 8.3%. because of president obama's intervention, and i was there at the beginning when he wrote down pennsylvania avenue to switching arms on capitol hill to make sure that we got the stimulus act passed and he made the moves on the auto industry that he did, and so forth, the black unemployment rate has been cut in half. the second thing i would mention is the affordable care act. certainly much more could have been done. i think the public option would be ideal. was very much immersed in the negotiations with congress over that. a little known fact, a black woman graduate of harvard law school and the first cabinet

secretary drafting a lot of the language even with the flaws in the affordable care act some are non-seniors unemployment -- uninsurance has been cut in half since the beginning of the open enrollment period. that is a big deal for their real-life individuals that have health insurance because of president obama. the president has permanently banned the use of solitary confinement for juvenile offenders. that's a huge deal. i used to work at a juvenile facility in cambridge and interacted with the number of spend weeksat would or months in solitary confinement. that's not allowed anymore. not just with solitary confinement but with juvenile detention in general we have 30% fewer juveniles in secure detention today than we did when president obama started in 2008. he's begun to shift towards the

community-based programming in a very specific way. let's talk about teen pregnancy. in the bush administration we had ideological approaches and interventions that didn't focus on contraception and evidence-based intervention. we had the african-american women teen pregnancy rate around 60%, and last year it has dropped to 34.9%. that is a big deal because the president has invested in the evidence-based intervention particularly related to contraception and also community-based programs as well. i could go on and on and you could look at the number of black folks and black women on the federal bench, 26 appointments to the federal bench more than any other and states have their first black woman judge. that woman will be there for the -- their lifetime.

that is because of president obama. i think there is a disconnect between the way the folks i interact with for example in my second home which is my barber shop on the 11th and eighth, and the perspective of president obama in the more elite african-american circles, i think even in my own family there is the sense that he did everything he could and there were some achievements made by the way we take a look there is more disappointment. i could go on with more but -- >> i will let you circle back later on. [inaudible] >> if i might ask you to answer the same question what did the administration get right about using an opportunity to make policy? >> i think it is a very

complicated question because i think when you look at the level of expectation and hope that existed at the beginning of the obama administration where in some circles at least in the news media there was a discussion on whether or not we were entering into the post-racial period and there was a majority of african-americans who believed the election was dream andement of a , if you look at the end of those things and the level of expectation that came in where we are now, ironically it was during this administration you irruptionruption -- uption of black lives

matter and it raises a serious question i don't think is posed justified that he leads and we can see that question into the complications hillary clinton has right now in terms of mobilizing the voters. we have to grapple with the fact that 44% of the black voters between 18 and 30 voted for bernie sanders and when president obama is saying that hillary clinton is a continuation of his administration, what does that say about almost half of young voters and what is the disconnect there? that is borne out in their own experiences in terms of dealing with police violence and is borne out in the enormous amount of student debt that the black students in particular have incurred, and it's borne out in the complete uncertainty about what the future holds in terms of having jobs that can respond or get rid of that debt and the ability to have a secure future in general.

so i think that there is a big question. there are policies we can pick out that say this may have had a positive impact for this group of people that when we are looking at the overall assessment in terms of where the expectations were, and i was the -- will say quickly when people talk about expectations it is unrealistic to waste all of this -- hoist all of this on the president i think we have to look at how the expectations were cultivated. barack obama wasn't the first political choice in 2007, 2008 , it was hillary clinton. but there was a concerted effort to try to transform his campaign into less of a political campaign and more of a social movement. i had never heard a presidential campaign in a mainstream presidential race in both the legacy of the abolitionist

ofement, invoke the legacy sitdown strikes in the 1930's and the stonewall rebellion in voke the movement to say his campaign as an expressionisan expression of the grassroots mobilization that can stand up to the status quo that's what a lot of the disappointment rise on the disconnect between what candidate obama ran on and what president obama ultimately became. that is the complication in the history that we have to deal with. >> let's move to the opportunities missed. [laughter] >> somebody said nothing is more expensive than an opportunity missed. what did it cost us, americans,

african-americans? race injustice is the theme of this conference so in terms of , race and justice, what did it cost for these opportunities to be missed? have been handed in at three. we can see all of the cancers that are in our lives as a country right now. that is a destabilizing thing. i agree we do not have the level of hope and change, the shift in public discourse, the sense of unity as a country that president obama so beautifully articulated so beautifully in 2008. but i think we may be missing something important about that. i think the reason we have not achieved this that blm and others have done a great job seeingg out is we are

white fragility and white supremacy, that is out for everyone to see. we can see the trump supporters and the tea party movement in 2010, and the issues with race and bias in policing now. we can't do surgery without the x-ray. i think it probably took the country too long and maybe even the president too long to identify what a lot of folks in the room knew already. but now because of the tremendous work of these activists around the country pointing this out keeping the , issues at the forefront now we can do something about it and can talk about the implicit bias in the presidential debates. we are having serious rigorous conversations about shifting but policing probably and the way that it affects other areas of american life, so it is on the table now along with the missed opportunities and the fact that

it took a while to get on the table even as other policy achievements came to be. now it is there. now we can do something about it. >> you started off with a number of things that i want you to target race and justice and to say what do you think is the chief opportunity missed from this administration? example ofthat for black unemployment rate that joshua mentioned was 16.9% or something. i spent three years trying to get somebody in the white house to target programs toward black unemployment and at one point, black women's unemployment. it was high. people's houses were getting foreclosed and there were stories in the paper, and people that had jobs were getting laid off in school systems.

all kinds of bad things were happening. finally i had to resort to getting a reporter to raise this question at a white house press conference. when the reporter raised it, finally the other reporters started raising it. then there were stories about it in the press. maybe 8%,saying is if whatever amount, it is twice the rate of everybody else. it always is. term youma's first have this suffering going on in the country and the point is you , could target some of those resources toward trying to do something there. i know the stimulus was passed but it wasn't big enough for targeted right and there were problems with it. i only say on policy we can criticize if we must and i said , he did the best he could with what he had. for what they did when the democrats had total control,

they had a year, almost a year when they could have passed they had the votes. his problem is not just the white deplorables, the poor people that are white, the donald trump people. the problem is the democratic party has become too much the party of the managerial elite and professional classes and isn't the party of the poor anymore. that is a major problem. since it is not, people on the hill have to worry about whether they get campaign contributions and the people say, reason they did the affordable care act and kept the insurance companies and there was because of that. the woman that was lobbying for the insurance plans, she was the best lobbyist, now she is making money doing something else. she would laugh when people would criticize the industry because she knew they were going to get a big cut out of this thing but now they say give us money because we are losing out. my point is it's not just obama.

the problem is not obama deep. the problem is the democratic party and what it does as a party that no longer represents the people that wants to vote for it every time. they want us all to go out and vote. and what do they do, scare us. donald trump is going to put you back in slavery. or this is going to happen to you. you've got to vote. forget about the policy part and what we didn't do and what we are not going to do. what are we going to do that and how did you us accountable you is accountable you us accountable though we don't hold them accountable. what we do then is go to sleep until the next time they come back and say vote for us people like us we will all do our way -- all right no matter who is president. we are not going to start. but i'm talking about the people that are down. that's who i am talking about.

the people who are missed, the people who are going to rise up. somebody like bernie sanders. he wasn't my favorite guy but at least he talked the talk. even if he doesn't walk the walk. obama is fine. thatd great, and the fact you compare him with donald trump, that is the reason his approval ratings are so high -- people love in. people love them. we pray for him every sunday in church. [laughter] trump is so bad that when something is bad even it looks good. [laughter] ask me aboutdn't all that. [laughter] >> this focus is about president obama and his administration and you made the point the party also had a part to play in that. shermichael earlier made the

point that though the hope and change was important in terms of the cultural response but certainly black americans it still didn't translate into policy that he could pinpoint. a lot of the criticism for president obama was in the rain he could dowhat regarding policy. there was no emphasis on targeting the policy for african-americans specifically. none. i know you've been a chief critic about this, so for many is paramount in opportunities missed. >> he said in the midst of 2012 in the second run for president , just to clarify i'm the , president of the united states, not the president of black america. in this period which there was disproportionate suffering and impacts of the economic crisis in black communities and again and part of the reason why the

tide turned for obama among black voters was that you at whether or not he made specific promises you can't pinpoint but the idea change doesn't come from washington. it comes through washington. yes we can. all of that. that was the idea that the election would result in particular attention paid to the problems in black communities that were front-page news when the economic crisis was happening. not only did not that not happen but it's important to point out how the president also while not paying particular attention to black communities policywise, was also preserving the species

for blaming black communities for the problems that existed. what i mean by that is that at a time when the occupy movement is exploding and the entire western world is talking about the economic inequality the problems , of capitalism, the reckless behavior in wall street as having a direct implication with the economic crisis in what 2008, is he talking about, black men need to act like fathers, black parents need to stop feeding their children friday chicken and need to turn off the tv and read to their children. going to chicago and bemoaning the lack of a role model. all of this kind of language that was taking the spotlight and emphasis off of the systemic problems that everyone was talking about and redirecting the attention back into the behavioral or the morality of

black communities and basically preserving that space which was shrinking in effect and keeping it alive, which i think was destructive. fair, the presidency though it is written large is , limited in the powers of what it may do. the expectation he would target not one that should have happened giving even everything he said. >> the expectation is that if you go into black communities and talk about your candidacy as a product of the civil rights movement, if you go into black communities and try to demonstrate your campaign as the trajectory of social movements that have been unfolding since the 19th century, then i think it is unfair to then come back to those communities and say

where did all of these expectations come from? president obama who spent most of his administration until black lives matter distancing himself from talking about race and dealing with issues in the community then, a month ago they said if black people don't vote for hillary clinton that is a , slander against my legacy. >> you forgot -- >> a seminal moment. >> i will come back to you. your job is to look at the political process and direct so given that we understand that the presidency is limited, can't get the strong reaction, you created the expectation.

explain to me from your perspective race and justice and how he may have even in his administration taken an opportunity to exchange that. >> to no one's surprise i'm not the biggest fan and in 2012 i worked for governor romney and speaker ryan. i traveled all over. they were my preference to be in the white house but as it pertains, he's probably been president of all attempting to get legalized marriage, they advocated for that. they advocated for some type of comprehensive immigration that these are specific initiatives hisargeted during

presidency. for the most part he didn't say anything as it relates to greece and injustice. i want to talk about two come education and criminal justice reform. andon a news show, typically i'm the only republican and we talk about these issues weekly and it baffles me when you look at an education called the pell grant. went tomy friends historically black colleges. the rules are drastically changed. that impacted a lot of african-americans. the rules for creditworthiness were absolutely changed. that theye mothers

can't send their kids to college who may want to go to school. you might say they can play at predominantly white institutions. most wouldn't qualify. it would give them an opportunity to excel but if the parents can't find a loan to get them through the door they can't go see you have kids on the street. you see of chicago, baltimore. doneresident has nothing. the president had a meeting with congressional black caucus members. the president for the most part was dismissive and disputed that it was quite clear. clear theit was quite president was out of touch. should have higher

rates and this and that and so they say we get those things. i remember in college i had many of my friends that came from destitute backgrounds and they didn't perform very well. moorhouse being more house, they kept the students there. i was on a and getting a story during a commercial break at a young lady underfunding and couldn't afford to be there. they said got to let her go. we can't do that. she's not performing academically. no, no, no. we're not going to do that. we're going to keep her. this young lady is now an attorney. now, if the president has his way, they will continue to cut

funding for the people that voted 90% supported you, extremely loyal you can work on comprehensive immigration but for the people that gave the majority of their vote both times in and in my opinion have not received anything for it if you ask me, you mean to tell me you cannot focus on making it easier for them to have access education?y let's talk about criminal justice reform. i believe there were 600 individual see commuted. lyndon johnson i believe commuted over 200. that. give him it costs between 18,000-50,000 dollars per prisoner per year depending on the state. andral costs between 20000

$30,000 per year. our prison system in the country is at capacity. we have the largest prison population in the world, the largest. it is absurd. i'm saying this as a republican, it is absurd. 90% of the people imprisoned are in for nonviolent offenses. 90%. we have mandatory minimums which disproportionately impact african-americans and hispanics. in the president has not focused on these issues. it is absurd to me that you have the first african-american president and he does not focus ofthe issues of the majority the people who gave them support. he ignored these issues. so if you ask me the president , hasn't been a very effective job and those are two things in --isproportionately impact black people. my grandmother is an educator.

i talked to people from new orleans. i see how these impacts affect communities. that's an example one example just one. where the president has failed. callie: because you are in the white house with the president, he curated the expectation that more would be expected but because he is the first african-american, are we treating him differently than we would have another on how they treated race and justice. >> i mean this in a specific way to address a couple of important points that have been raised. one, criminal justice reform. in terms of where president obama has been and aggressively on that issue.

and aa cp convention last year and then major speech he did a vice special where he was the first president to tour a prison and then went back to the hill and the white house has been on an all-out push to do criminal justice reform. let's get specific. let's talk about specific policies. we want to talk about specific policies and the president addressing race. i would love for someone to study the apparent disconnect between all of the speakers on the list reacting positively and then a couple of weeks later, the same folks can say i have been there for many of them. obama in 2007 when he was in some of the first time and gave

his joshua generation speech and i was there when he gave another he right after that speech walked over to the reverend and grabbed his wheelchair and pushed him across the bridge and talk to him privately and ways that folks would never know. i was there in philadelphia when he gave his race speech there on the campaign and on the day after martin luther king was killed he went out to the rose garden and said, "if i had a son, he would look like trayvon." then after the acquittal he went down to the briefing room and looked at systemic issues. let's look at that speech. let's keep going. i was there in charleston when he said, 7 feet above the coffin. it could have been a regular eulogy but he spoke about black people in this country and i was

sittinghat man died, right behind his family when the audience, the congregation, rose to greet him when he started singing amazing grace and his voice was shaking for and if you did not know if he could go on it so they lifted their voices to sing with him. i could go on. >> please don't go on. ] ross talking public policy.in you heard some of the issues he also put in. the big names like eric holder. like our current attorney general. but you never know people who have dramatically expanded

neighborhoods around the country in her tenure. yes, he has a tremendous and amount he could've done but there is a reason. i think when you pulled most black americans, did he do as much as he could? yes.ast majority would say the vast majority in the circle would have questions about that. my grandmother said, a pretty good assessment of president obama and she knows which is talking about. >> i just wanted bring it to and i know you want to respond. what we have had the same expectations of a different administration. >> i hear this a lot energize me not. the president gave great speeches. kudos to the president, he is a good or a tort. that is not results. wait a minute, i agree with you

senator chuck to grassley, i do not agree with the fact that he is holding up criminal justice reform. i would have expected the president to have a more robust policy initiative. i would want it targeted at specific issues. works,'s not how d.c. you know that. you force republicans to take it up or down vote on that issue. then you go from there. >> there is a reason he did not accomplish these things and i am pointing it out. ] ross talking >> i want to push back on the notion that it's only delete

-- quote unquote elite blacks who criticize the president. any way youil rated want. thele would not criticize president and partly because of the sexual impediments and all that. if you think the people on the streets of ferguson were the elite, then i am not sure i can help you. or the people on the streets of charlotte. or ordinary black working-class people who have been on the street for two years because of the absolute lack of change in the issues of police violence and abuse. talking about justice and race and missed opportunities, i believe we are living through one now. all number of things that appeal cultivatets and to

the idea that something is happening. you take the commission. the police commission that came out of the first wave of in ferguson and then nationally in 2014. monthsbeen almost 19 since the 58 recommendations of that report came out in march of 2016. since then, another 1300 people have been killed by the lease. we can talk about the constraints of federalism and the lengths to which the federal government can go. and leasing is local. a end those are not -- we cannot dismiss those. on the other hand, there is a problem with the lack of accountability with policing. the continued attempts to have an evenhanded approach to this which of course the president

probably has to do. but this is the reason i think the movement has continued tuesday stay on the streets. part of that lack of responsiveness. dismiss that as, a couple of black professors have an issue with the president but everyone else thinks he is great. it makes no sense to the current political situation. black lives matter. it makes no sense in terms of the rejection of hillary clinton. those things have to be accounted for. you cannot just blame it on professors. >> you have 30 seconds. we're going into questions. you will get to answer questions from the audience. . >> the speeches, which are wonderful. he is good at. they build up a persona like i spoke about at first.

that is a role of a president that is good at and can do effectively. it comforts not just white people, but it makes other people deal great. ok? that is what the speeches are about. it is not about policy. the policy is implemented after that or before. the second thing is part of the problem is we do not know enough history. there should be more history in policy making. there needs to be more because most people do not know, for example, when we talk about policing. there have been so many police commissions, commissions to look , our parents looked at them and made recommendations. and usually what happens is, nothing except you get more money for police or whatever. that history

before, it might be useful. and the third thing is, obama has not had the pressure put on them that other presidents have had. when some black folks have tried. ton they popped up and tried get him to do something at the white house, they get crossed out. you know. is,republicans love democrats love is, why don't you shut up? there and take care of all these problems. you know, stop and don't be bothering the president. so they know we love obama said they have not put pressure. if you had a white president in with 16 point 9% and all these other things, you would have more people complaining then complain. we just wanted him to get through the eight years and go home and be happy and life can go on.

if you could just do that it would be fine. >> questions. over here. you.ank two things. i was struck that no one mentioned anything about foreign policy. just two connected to this, most of the people that the united states has killed, the hundreds of thousands have been people of color around the world. second, is the fact that this is maybe more of a comment by -- >> please give me a question. >> that no one has gone to reason. wall street, and police. >> i will respond to that. i will respond to anything. first of all, yes indeed. obama, i i like about don't like all those people

getting killed, but i like his foreign-policy has been to not send a whole bunch of troops somewhere to fight and be killed or to get maimed which is what they do now. lose their limbs and come back as amputees. so i think that is good on the foreign-policy side. obviously, on wall street, capitalism is intact. you don't expect wall street to go after this people and put them in jail. then wall street would be worried. wall street people, they don't care how much you find them. they've got enough money left after you find them. it's going to jail they don't like. [laughter] mrs. dubois this is to you, but anyone can answer. you have a relationship with president obama and there's been

talk about how he presented himself as a community organizer and presented his campaign as a social movement. see there has been a lack of policy to support communityorganizing, initiatives at the federal level. can you speak unto why you think there was a disconnect within obama's organizing experience and his lack of support for community organizing. >> great question. a few things. of of the great failures community organizing or -- in the obama administration was the lack of transitioning of all of that goodwill, all of those networks around the country, all that enthusiasm after the 2000 election into a movement and

2009 and 2010. a movement that could have helped health care reform. president i think has mentioned that but i certainly believe there was a significant gap there and much more could have been done. more that would've kept democrats in office and congressional districts around the country's i definitely think that more could have been done from leadership across government and all those mechanisms of the credit party there. i want to say there are a few bright spots in terms of community organizing both relational.d more on the practical side, i mentioned black neighborhoods. the president could of regularly engage with community organizing groups and brought them into conversations about policy initiatives. i was at the white house recently in the same room as some of the others you heard

from last night and across generations, they provoked a conversation about where we were with organizing in the civil rights movement and where we are now. what a want to say, i think this is an achievement not of the president's first day but of the moment we are in. it is the best thing that has happened since the civil rights movement, the black lives matter movement. i think he did not create the black lives movement but after ferguson, there is a conversation. they do haved say a robust and ongoing conversation with the white house. that in and of itself is a unique thing. yet the folks you heard from yesterday, other people around

the country who will say, i am the very real dialogue with white house with community organizing and activists and the federal government. am i getting everything am asking for? no. but the conversation is being taken seriously. >> you mentioned that there was a lack of specific targeting in terms of the american -- african-american community. but in terms of voting, mobilization was marked as revolutionary in terms of getting young voters to the polls. my question is why was that mobilization machine not present in the implementation of policy or could it have been used to actually encourage popular participation? >> well, i mean, i think that the president was brilliant in clinical study and i have worked , allthree presidents

republicans of course. at the rnc we wish we could have presidentd what the obama did in terms of his ability to mobilize young voters. i think at that same strategy was used you could put a lot of pressure on members of the congress and republicans to have to answer some of these questions. tabling an option, no choice but to vote for it. they're getting thousands of calls a day. trust me i've seen it on the other side. if you're getting thousands of calls a day, you can say carmina what? we cannot table that. toi think it is also easier promise things as a candidate and mobilize that way then it is which is,pass policy you know, the first year or so congress. had

if you cannot get anything passed then, it speaks to the applications and also speaks to political will. theink that is part of problem. when people talk about all of the discussion about race and issues of criminal justice now attribute that's only to the presence of the black president has helped bring these issues and discussion of race and issues of criminal justice every day. i think what is missing there is how the movement has actually forced the issues into the open and then none -- in an unprecedented way. so we look at the moments when this happened around the 2011tion of troy davis in 100s of black students marched around washington dc hoping to get the president to at least

make a statement. no one was naive enough to think you would interject directly. just to make a statement. these were the reasons we voted to have a black resident and the white house in the first place and nothing happened. and the next day he just said this is a states rights issue. even with trayvon martin, it took the mobilization of people for 45 days to try to get him arrested which is what brought that issue into everyday people's living rooms. had been the president erected to these things, which speaks to his intelligence, that you cannot ignore these issues to black constituency but has led to on them. i think for some of the reasons air he mentioned which has to do with the constraints of the party, that he is not interested

in having a mobilized, enraged electorate outside of the four-year voting cycle and midterm elections. >> i see you over there but i'm going to go over here. yes sir, in the back. >> if i tell you i'm a dangerous driver you're not going to think of my part of just being dangerous driver. now we were told in an implicit , and explicit ways from the inception of president obama's candidacy that he is very different. he is not like us, he is a very different person. so how much of the things he has done as president that were different or outstanding or were outliers were overshadowed by what i would call the sort of negative expectations that were created. this negative framework told around them from the very beginning. and other words how much of what

he has been able to achieve has been lost on young african-american voters? how much has been lost in the fact that we are told from the beginning he is going to be very different. so when he does things that might be different or scary they are not seeing that way because of the negative expectations. grants well. >> i know that make sense. >> no, i understand. would say from what i understand of your question, people who make those issues based on what changes in their lives. i do not think people only for their political opinions based on the news media. combination may be but it is also based on your own experience so if you look at adoptedfor example, the hometown, the situation for black colonials in chicago is aggressive.

so there is no amount of political spin that can form that reality. and so that i think is what many ordinary people, whether it is recorded in the polls or not, are reacting to. what has actually changed in our day-to-day lives. 40% of black children live in black -- in poverty. in chicago men 30-44 are unemployed and out of school. not all of this can be laid at the doorstep of president obama, obviously. but when you are the leader of the free world. when you can direct drum strikes precisely in yemen in pakistan, it raises the expectation of what you should be able to do in this country. and we cannot just talk about we havecomplications,

seen the american government move very quickly on things that it is determined to push through and very sporadically on other issues, particularly the social issues that have to do with poverty and inequality. >> i think people put very specifically a set of expectations, negative viewpoints, would have the case may be and when those are worn out they should be pointed out and i think it is important to look at even marginal progress. decline inargest deep poverty rate for african americans since 1999. to 1.2%. some hundred thousand overall, 400,000 are above the poverty line right now. that is important. it is not everything, not even close to everything but important. some of that can be traced to very specific bureaucratic interventions that progressives

and president obama put in place across government and moved forward on. i think there is is kind of broad expectation that inks would get better. but things did not get better at and in some ways things have gotten more terribly worse or at least we can see the albums now and i agree it is not that enough to put did those problems among the table himself, i think the causal chain here is that a lot of white americans reacted to a president and office and then african americans, especially young activist mobilized to respond to that reaction. the president had a role in provoking the reaction in theand he has had an ongoing role in responding to it but it is the environment created that now has the issues at the forefront and

i think that is an important thing. the question is, where do we go from here. what do we do now that the issues are on the table? >> what specific race-related pieces of legislation would you like to seem past in the past administration the past eight years and how likely is it that you think is what have been passed? >> you know, that is a hard question. goodn't say it was in the question, it is a hard question. for the simple fact i don't know how much the president would of been able to get past with the partisanship in congress today. i think as having a friend to wass in the white house, he giving me some pointers if you

would to make sure i boosted the president and i said, i will try my best. lol. laughter] >> as i said, i wanted to see president open a lot more on education, specifically as it pertains to black colleges. i think criminal justice reform should of been more targeted versus how he won the policy initiative. and under this congress, it was a level of partnered -- the level of partisanship we see, i am not sure if it would've passed. i'm saying that as a republican, i'm not even sure. as i think it is an question but it is the wrong question. what specific legislation where i've liked to seen that would have affected positively the black folks i am talking about who are left out. don't have jobs, unemployment

rate, all of that, if yes that , for a long time i sort of thought with some other people that what you need to do is propose a piece of legislation that targets people in geographics where the highest poverty rates are and therefore you would get the black folks who were in the area i'm talking about. and by the way, josh, when you look at declines in poverty rate you have to look at where it started from. back way up even before 1999? so anyway, now i hear that there is a proposal from the progressive black caucus that hillary clinton talked about in her campaign. jim clyburn's thing. you could have propose that the first year at that they were there. you would not have had the same rates so you would not get into all these problems.

like, is it for black folks? i want to get away from black folks. just staying in their own areas that are race-specific. there are a lot of issues you groups.ess on those you can target them without saying, i'm here today to talk about what folks. well, that is all i will say now. >> to the professors point, there are a lot of pro-life's that vote republican that would benefit. >> which i cannot describe very specifically but has some formulas which take many resources to the level of poverty. >> how about the second year when the unemployment was 16.9%. and for hillary clinton's campaign, ask yourself [cross talking]

>> the first thing they did was a knockdown jug out fight over the stimulus where the republicans and not one at all. he fought for as much as he could. he had a whole lot of energy. i wish it was the case that you could pass whatever you want but you can't and you can look at the legislative records. i'm good move on telfair, get the best health care. by the time that is over we are at 2010. and critical to that, the political disaster. this is not an infinite. economicd with the recovery. then what the election in 2010. could he have put up comprehensive immigration reform? yes, but we also have a hemorrhaging economy on the verge of the next depression.

you can talk about the decisions he made but i think it is important to not just get into one because no one would say even if the stimulus or the epa we have was izzy. >> i know that. that is not the point. that is not the point. the point is not that we should of had stimulus, everybody knows we need that. the point is that when you have control the legislator and you have an overwhelming majority and you can do what you want because you have an overwhelming majority, you make choices about to do.ngs among that grab bag of things you make choices about is if there is something absolutely essential to your 90% electorate vote. atbe you could take a look it or mention it or discuss it or see if somebody else might agree with you. that is all i am saying. >> hello.

one of the issues i have been concerned about, quite frankly, is the devastating effect that foreclosures had on the black community and it affects everything else. now in many right cities with gentrification. many black families forced out of their traditional neighborhoods and forced out of community. it affects educational achievements, it is linked to every issue you can thing about. mental health status, and health status. one of the things i'm curious about an of course the banks have been able to strengthen their position and this is in the context of growing wealth and inequality. so i want to know from you, what do you see as opportunities that could have been taking care because we talk about health care but how big is just a soldier as a -- how big is just ? shelter and would at some of things that

could still be addressed? i still think we have not dealt with that issue in terms of the policy. >> it is a great issue and the lack of accountability for wall street is something i disagree with. i think people should have gone to jail, period. the department of housing and urban development has done so many good things. moving out of substandard quality housing and moving into better houses. i think they did everything they could between hud and treasury with the most urgent for closure cases i don't think there was a robust enough effort programmatic and policy of vote to addressing foreclosures. >> 244,000 african-americans lost their homes as a result of that. and the fallout of the

recession. that was 2008. so, i think that the issues about debt forgiveness, once it was discovered that many of the loans that had been made to , subprimeericans loans that were often pushed in ways,ory and fraudulent that there should of been some kind of debt forgiveness as a result of that. things, in some ways, if we want to talk about the obama or the obama administration, it really tries fixate on what this or that individual could do and we are talking about huge, systemic issues. of course, when goldman sachs person runs the treasury department, it is very unlikely that people with goldman sachs in the finance industry going to be put in jail.

it is the same things with the of the real estate industry and hide and all of the rules and regulations that are fixed and such a way so as to not be as beneficial as they could to ordinary citizens but in fact they are beneficial to businesses. this is not something that is peculiar to the obama administration. but in some way goes to the continuity with obama and previous administrations as much as people may want to talk about how different this administration was calm i think with the housing crisis in particular, you see a vast amount of continuity and it just how typical this administration reacted in terms of defending the financing or sector, for the real estate industry. in and for the banks themselves that were shown to have engaged in duplicitous practices that

result in a black people taking fraudulent loans. again, fines. you get some fines for the banks. no one is seriously punished. the process begins to replicate itself in other ways. wells fargo, which was implicated in baltimore for pushing get a loans, it now wells fargo a new admission. it is because none of these people have been punished and will not actually account for their fraudulent, sometimes illegal deceptive practices in the first place. so with that respect, the obama administration sort of fell into line with how most of these operations are. >> i think it is right about the first term, is firstly the first part of the first term. is important to at least mention the consumer

protection bureau. would not know about the wells fargo current issues if not for aggressive scary interventions that have been undertaken over the last few years. so i do not think that is as important or significant as some work that should of taken place in 2009. ruled it hasge has too much of authority and now become her station is about rolling it back and it is under attack from republican since its creation. that is a real advocacy on behalf of the commuters. >> has anybody on to jail? >> hopefully a well. recovery? >> that is the next great issue.

my hope is that the conversation justice reform and police abuses continues, becomes robust and reaches an important conclusion and it same time we talk about lack wealth, being able to pay teachers more. homeownership, and so on. >> the question was about black recovery. right here. to give you handle? >> hello. my name of reference is i am a bilingual school psychologist. boston public schools and now i'm in a large urban district in massachusetts where students are primarily undocumented immigrants. i guess my question for you all is, do you feel like president obama replacing no child left behind with the every

student succeeds act is an opportunity? >> mayor francis berry? leftthink that no child behind, some teachers got up and they called and called it, "kiss my behind." they stole a trademark from the children's defense fund, we all know that. student has --a i think he probably believes, they were making some progress by passing the student succeeds act. but i think the mere title of the act, my students tell me right away that it is not real. is going every student

to succeed and every student is not going to succeed about what happens in school. shared byelief is not education policy people. not in the university where i teach. that is the only thing you need to worry about is what happens in school. that is just not true. you need to worry about all the structural issues that you were talking about. socio-economic issues. but the act starts from the remark that if every student does not succeeded is because something did not happen at school. i also don't like the provisions oft give the opportunity public money to go to places i don't think it should go because there are no studies that show that pays off. firste had that since the

bush. we are fed succession of education policies put into any kind oft fundamental research support by scholars who work on these matters. to say that we should do what ever it is an and set of doing it, as one of my kids told me in my undergraduate seminar, why don't they do for poor kids what mike parents did for me? he went to a fancy prep school and all that other stuff. if they really want to help them, why did they keep doing all these things and putting all these labels on him as if what would happen in the school would give him the opportunity i even had in school. i said, it is largely a matter of money, that is one thing. we wish something would happen. so starting with the title of it, starting with disconnecting. al shanker was right on

something. i used to fight with him all the time but he was right. don'td, the reason why we want a department of education is because education is everything else and it should stay in the department of education and welfare. i tried to help get it out of health, education and welfare but he was right. the more we do these things and disconnected from the idea of what kind of work do people have? what kind of environment to they live in? what is going on in the communities and what additional resources you need in the schools take care of the kids you have, not every student is going to succeed. >> that was the former head of the teachers union. yes sir. >> with the events since trayvon martin and in ferguson and other dones, has president obama

anything in the field of executive action and scaling back the material given by the department of defense, police departments, in order to cut on? on what is going >> he did and he did not. >> yes. >> i don't know if you want to continue, but the answer is it yes. he has made funding available backithdraw and pull funding on the military is a show inside and incentives for -- incentives for police departments and he has done something and the department of justice has done something when it comes to federal defenses for the local please department. i think we need to have a much more robust conversation in

combination with local communities about how they can police accountable when he does not have a authority. very bunch of rigorous investigations and we see one almost every other week where they are sending justice officials or black attorney generals. -- ourck to each remote black attorney generals are and detailing which police departments in which communities. i think that is another tool, another mechanism. the question is, can be president do more to impact local police? i am sure there are some additional things he can do but there are important local components to take them as well. ad this is the last thing, lot of folks wanted him to go to dallas and not talk about

policing because of the tragedy. he went to address, just the tragedy, memorialize those officers, but also talked about policing. when he does something folks don't say, a my goodness he could've done this but in fact he did something much more inust than anyone expected speaking to implement. when he does not do something, that is more no caps on. ask i think the reasons for that is because of continued issues with not just police violence and abuse but the lack of accountability for that which i think was crystallized for many people in the movement, particularly with the way that the death of freddie gray was handled and the fact that the coroner in baltimore can say that freddie gray steph was a homicide and yet all of the officers who were -- freddie

and's death was a homicide yet to all of the officers who were involved will not be held to account. this is two years later, countless meetings in the white house, this is a commission, several reports and investigations later and still the police officer who killed a policen is still officer. the police officer who choked eric garner to death was not indicted. the police officer who killed becky shaw in south carolina who was held without bail has been given bill because the judge said he felt bad because the officer was removed from his family for so long. so this is part of the frustration. thatn have lots of reports narrate the experiences of people who are victimized by the quite accurately

document the illegal practices of police and any given city and yet nothing appears to happen that actually has and impact on how we interact with black and brown communities in this country. the last thing i will say is that in the heat of a social signedt, president obama legislation to restrict the amount of military hardware that goes to local police departments but then in the aftermath of dallas said he would look back into that and see about allowing police departments once again to receive this type of military hardware. this also contributes to the idea that there is a whole lot of talking and not a lot of action. we can go through all of the difficulties and complications of the enteral bureaucracy on a

local level. but at the end of the day, when nothing happens to actually impede the ability and to treat black people as second-class citizens, then the first reaction is anger really. demonstrated every time there is another killing in a city in this country. it will continue to be on display. >> i think the president could certainly have pulled federal funding. every state receives a couple billion dollars of federal funding that pertains to police departments. i think that funding could have pulled. i think the militarization of place departments across the a concern.uld not be i am all for small government and a bothers me significantly that there is a government

entity that has as much power. let's say someone were to take over the government for example. you have a military that can out power the people. is anti-federal. i find it extremely perplexing that republicans have been silent on this. racism, not perplexing. >> well, i don't what ago that far. you have a lot of loose associations that we shall say, we are normally outnumbered. so it is a necessity. x if it was happening to white people, the republicans would be all over it. they are happening to elect people so they don't care. >> i don't want to get into that. i want to finish my point. weot of people would say, need to look at the numbers. not every day people are walking

down the street with rocket launchers. it is a rare occurrence. that argument does not hold a water. again, i think it is a threat to our civil liberties. i think it is something that we should be at the forefront of. they are not. there are a lot of variables i'm sure have something to do with that. i think it is something that drastically concerns me and i have to say i'm not very proud that my party is not taken the right steps on that issue. >> walter scott was murdered in cold blood, no question of my mind what so ever. walter scott killer is also out on bail. in between, particularly as we rigorously look at these issues, it demand's that. what is the president's role? what is the president's role and would he agree that he should not have bail? int is the federal role

that? that is an issue of racism. i agree with you completely. i don't think or anyone that connects the decisions that are made by local prosecutors in local courts to bias and violence and racial communities. the question is, how can you impact that. there are some levers. federal funding. training. i think those ways are sometimes more limited than we would like. maybe that is something that needs to be changed. required toe are ask the question, what is our black residents role in these decisions. >> you have to leave it there. that is race and justice in the age of obama. this is an opportunity, opportunity missed.

[applause] know, --you [indiscernible] >> here is some of our programs on thanksgiving day. american values, the founding fathers, and government. >> there is a huge single-mindedness in american history but it is not compelled through the government. a rise of food and childhood obesity in the united states. ask everything from monster cheeseburgers with 420 calories and 107 grams of fat up to 20-ounce coke's and pepsi's. 12-teaspoons of sugar. an epidemic of childhood obesity. wikipedia founder

jimmy wales talks about the evolution of the online encyclopedia and the challenge of global entries. there is another 20-30 that no a little bit. i am thinking this is a community. i'm announcer: a little after 7:00 p.m., a look at the year-long effort to repair and restore the capitol dome. at 8:00, it justice elena kagan reflects on her life and career. drugs than i did my senior thesis which taught me an incredible amount and also taught me what it was like to be a serious historian and to sit in the archives all day every day and i realized it was not for me. >> followed by justice clarence thomas at 9:00. a $20 idea on a two dollars sentence. twos a $20 idea on a

dollars sentence without any loss of meaning. then presidentd obama will award the gold star medal of honor. watch on c-span and c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio cap. announcer: washington journal is next on c-span. take your calls him look at today's news. later this morning, a look at russia under president vladimir putin live at 11:00 a.m. eastern on the wilson center. then a look at the dakota access pipeline project. president obama awards the president medal of freedom to recipients at the white house today. live coverage at 2:55 p.m.. coming up, washington columnist on donald trump's economic

policies. in philadelphia daily news editor about his book, "obama's legacy: what he accomplished as president." is a ♪ welcomeod morning and to the washington journal on this tuesday, november 22. donald trump spoke directly to youtubeican people in a video about his agenda for the first 100 days of his administration. he said a core principle will be putting america first. we will begin this morning with your reaction to his policy plan. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. and independents, your line is (202) 748-8002. you can send us a