returns for work on executive and judicial nominations and on , the white house historical associations presidential site summit with the panel of historians looking at how we think of presidents changes over time create at 12:30 p.m., former white house executive nature -- pastry chef also speaks of the event. the steamboat institute held its 10th annual freedom conference in steamboat springs, colorado. discussions focused on reforming the fbi, school safety, and the next generation of conservative leaders area this event is two hours and 15 minutes. >> if you read the wall street journal on a regular basis and if you do not, you should. it is my required daily reading every single day. you have no doubt seen some

offense recently, there have been three or four recently written by our next speaker with thet is going on fbi, their well-publicized problems, we want to get some great insight on that today. tom baker isn't international law enforcement consultant. fbi special agent for 30 years in a variety of investigative and management positions facing the challenge of crime and terrorism. he has expense -- extensive experience with management and training issues having served as a management instructor at the quantico,y in virginia. he has been published in many professional journals nationally and internationally and as i just said, the wall street journal. his international experience is extensive. inserved as a legal attache australia where he was responsible for maintaining u.s. law enforcement interests in a large part of the asia-pacific

area. he has been assigned as the legal attache in paris where he developed expertise not only in western europe it also much of africa as well. he has been closely involved in the planning and management of major events worldwide. he was the american representative to the security task force for the calgary winter olympics. in paris, he was the senior u.s. law enforcement advisor to the planning and security management of the world cup of soccer. he conceived and implemented the pacific training initiative, a successful ongoing program to help the police of the plant -- pacific island nations. bachelor's degree from fordham university and a masters degree from the john jay college of criminal justice. here, bothwife are of them this weekend, we're happy to have them from aspen where they live. let's get a warm welcome to tom baker. [applause]

tom: thank you for that wonderful introduction. for the past two years or so, americans have started to lose faith in the fbi. an institution that most americans held in very high regard and it is held in high regard around the world create i spent as you know now most of my adult world -- life in the fbi said this loss of faith really affect me and troubles me. and by the way, that was my first seven seconds, how do you like me so far? [applause] to my friend melanie,

i think a lot of the explanation for the problems and the lapses that have happened can be explained by a cultural change that happened after the september 11 attacks. when america was attacked on 's nameer 11, bob mueller nazi.ler, he is not a he became director of the f a i only five days before the september 11 attacks. was on a tuesday. tuesday morning as everybody remembers. on saturday morning, he was summoned to camp david. davident bush was at camp with his key advisers, the

secretary of defense, the secretary of state, condoleezza rice, the head of the cia and bob mueller was called their to report on what the fbi did. at least that is what he was thought -- what he thought he was called their to do. this tous this and told many audiences. he was exceedingly proud of what the fbi had done because what the fbi did in three-and-a-half days is what they do very well. investigate. and he came with a report to camp david that saturday morning after only 3.5 days and this is remarkable and those of you who have been involved you that havn involved in things like this could realize it. the fbi identified all of the 19 hijackers. their pedigree, travel patterns, financing, associates, where they got into the country, who gave them what, where they had been staying, in

three-and-a-half days. [applause] >> he presented that with a great deal of pride. mueller is a proud man. presentation,his praise and thanks, and president bush looked at them and said i don't care about that, i want to know how you are going to prevent the next one. you can imagine how humiliating but was. -- that was. reasonsback, and for that may have seemed justified at the time, he undertook to change the fbi into what he characterized later as an intelligence driven organization. this is significant. the fbi, almost from its beginning, did have a

counterintelligence function inside of the united states, but the culture of the fbi was always one of a law enforcement agency. we were always taught that was one advantage america had in our domestic agency -- domestic intelligence agency is a law enforcement agency. that is not the case in canada or the united kingdom, or anywhere else in the world. as a law enforcement agency, you operate on the -- under the confines of the constitution and have a certain mindset. the law enforcement agency culture is one of fact-finding. in law enforcement you have to find the facts, find the evidence, because you have to stand up before a federal grand jury or it in an open courtroom or before a judge or magistrate, and swear to tell the truth. agency, --telligence

an intelligence agency, they deal in estimates or best guesses. they operate by telling lies. people in intelligence agencies who have had a career, they tell you this becomes a problem for them because they get used to telling lies. it just rolls off of their lips. as was mentioned in the introduction, i spent 12 years abroad at the end of my career in u.s. embassies. i had to deal with various intelligence people on a regular basis. found, and it was the experience of others as well, we had a difficult time with our counterparts because we lied to our hosts. i was always assigned in an allied country. they lied to other people in the embassies and lied to us easily, whenever it suited them.

in one post i was at, the chief of station, the head of the cia, told me he had no problem lying to the ambassador. me, with my law-enforcement mentality, that was a shocking -- that was shocking. i could not imagine lying to the ambassador, but this is what they do. because of their different business models and different way of doing things, they sometimes do get troubled. i will give you an example. it's called circular reporting and it happens to intelligence agencies when they get information from a contact or allied service. then, they hear it somewhere else, so they think they have gotten cooperation -- -- corroboration.

if you tell somebody something, the information gets passed around, and i you have the french or british telling you the same thing, and you say this corroborates what is really the same information, they just keep rephrasing and rewording it. that happened in the steele dossier and happened twice. i know a lot of you follow the news in some detail. wassteele dossier itself made up of a lot of circular reporting. this has not been emphasized in a lot of news. the information in the dossier, he was reporting second and and a lot oftion the redacted version it's available online. that same information had been flowing back and forth between some of his friends like sidney blumenthal and jonathan winer who works for the state department. second andanged the

third hand stories amongst themselves for some time. the dossier was made up of circular reporting, and when it affidavit,t into the which is now available online, the corroborating information was a new story was cited that provided the same information. now we know from congressional testimony that that information came from steele. he told it to reporters and it wound up in journalism. circular reporting is a problem for intelligence agencies. it should not be a problem for a swear to tell the truth law enforcement agency. especially when you have to swear to a faisal warrant -- two -- to constitute a warned. mueller changed the fbi

structure. traditionally, fbi cases are managed in the field. there is a case agent, field supervisor, special agent in charge. they review the information and then he goes to headquarters and other levels of review and questioning and correction. what he did, he pulled the 9/11 investigation into headquarters which was continued by mueller and comey with the investigation of hillary clinton's emails and the counterintelligence investigation of the trump campaign. what did i do and why is that so bad? -- what did that do and why is that so bad? you then had a small group at the top of the fbi, speeder truck -- peter struck and mccabe, making decisions. if you have the same three people in the room a long time, they will reinforce each other. we all need somebody to correct us.

even the journalists have people to correct them. when you have the same people, they reinforce the same opinion and there is no level of correction. the explanation you get is that these are very sensitive political investigations, and just like the intelligence agencies in virginia, they want to have politically sensitive information making the decisions on top. in the past, in the fbi, he has sensitive at the reactions -- sensitive investigations. abscam was run in the traditional fbi way out of to field offices where all of the decisions were made. , usingvestigation undercover operatives, seven years congressman from both parties, and one u.s. senator went to federal prison. you do not get more politically sensitive than that.

decentralization, which is typical of an intelligence agency, is part of the reason things went off of the track. everybody a knowledge things went off of the track. fisa, the two areas i can talk about that demonstrate this, one is fisa and the relations with congress. some of you probably know this in some detail, but some of you are probably like what does that were mean. it is the foreign intelligence surveillance act coming into effect in 1978. it was a reform to introduce regularity in the way intelligence was looked at and investigated inside of the united states. there had been no guidelines for the fbi or anyone else. it was decided definitively again in 1978 in all of these reforms that the cia, the an essay, cannot operate inside of the united states. only intelligence

agency that can operate inside of the united states. it strictly is defensive on the side of the fbi. here is something that is a secret, classified information. almost everybody in this room knows it, and anyone who has ever read a newspaper knows it, but the american government very closely monitors one or two countries in particular. wiretapping is illegal in the united states. how did they do that? the point of the pfizer act was to provide a legal vehicle for -- pfizer fisa --

act was to provide a legal vehicle for the fbi. it is never meant to be used in a court of law. information from the fisa act. it was not intended for that purpose. under judge webster, he became the director of the f dei in 1978, served for nine years, then served as director of the cia. it was never intended to monitor. americans. if you suspect an american of being an agent of a foreign americanto monitor and -- an american. if you suspect an american of being an agent of a foreign you start an espionage case on them and the information you get from a monitoring --

from monitoring them under the act can be used in court. in the past three decades, there have been over 70 successful ofionage prosecutors and americans -- prosecutions of americans, but only one unsuccessful. that was john martin who ran that section of the doj for a long time. that is the appropriate rated response. things got so far off of the tracks with this that they warrant against carter page in october 2016 using the information in the steele dossier to monitor this american citizen. it is shocking. this could never get by of the previous directors of the fbi. the cias with congress, has had bad, bad episodes, over

40 or 50 years with congress, where they have lied to congress. you are not supposed to lie to congress. they set up a group in congress where he -- where you could tell the secrets to, the gang of eight. they are people from both parties cleared to get information. briefly, for three or four years of my career, i worked in the office of public affairs at the fbi headquarters. the fbi always responded promptly to congress under judge webster, we got things back to congress. the most important people or the appropriation committees that give us our budget, but the house intelligence oversight asmittee, and buddy something, you get it to them as quickly as possible -- anybody adds something, you get it to them as quickly as possible. the congress subpoenaing

fbi for information it's incomprehensible. that congress would have to subpoena the fbi to get information. we now know, this is well documented, a lot of documents particularly to house intelligence oversight committee wanted, they delayed for six and nine months before getting it. they still have not provided another redacted version of the communication from july 31, 2016 that initiated the counterintelligence probe so we still do not know the actual reason why that probe started. they have been holding that back. to me, it would be inconceivable that this would happen under past directors. the gang of eight exists to get this kind of information. comey didn't even tell congress that there was this counterintelligence investigation.

it started on july 31, and it wasn't until march of 2017, when he was asked about it that he told congress about it. he said the reason he didn't tell it -- tell them was because the case was too sensitive, but that is what the gang of eight is for. the origin of that is still being held back. what do we do about this? it is a cultural problem. have already been changed. we have a new director. we have a new deputy director. we have a new associate deputy director. --ock is going to be fired struck is going to be fired. mccabe has been fired and may be prosecuted.

the head of congressional affairs at the bureau was fired. the chief of staff has a new chief of staff. that is a beginning. after the inspector general report, director ray and knowledge problems and is going to introduce training about bias and he is appointed the new associate deputy of -- deputy director. i know paul and the new deputy director, and most people have a lot of confidence in them. there has to be a cultural change. when i was a special agent, the constitution and the importance of following the constitution was drilled into us repeatedly. but, now in the fbi, you have a segment of about two dozen people since september 11, a new position held in equal regard

with a special agent position called intelligence analysts. ias. but, they do not get out, meet people, or hardly ever in a position where they would have to swear to something in court or go before a judge or interview people, or conduct a search, so they do not get to train how the special agents get that training in that regard. i think they will have to ,einvigorate the attitude change the culture, get us back to a law enforcement agency. we can still conduct counterintelligence operations with the mentality of law enforcement. number one, reform. no more fisa warrants. that is just awful. [applause] the fbi can do a lot about that internally.

congressman nuñez has said that is something he will look at after the next election. that has to be done. the fbi itself has to reform its relationships with congress. under mueller, a lot of non-agent people were hired into key positions, and one of them was the assistant director in charge of congressional relations. mueller hired an outsider, might have been a nice person, i think he was a republican, a state senator from the middle of the country because they wanted a politician dealing and -- in their dealing with a congressman. the congressman, they are looking to hear from the fbi, they do not want to hear from another politician appointed as a go between. specialast, we had agents, most attorneys, running congressional relations. i think that is a specific

personnel change that can and needs to be changed. the key thing is training. getting back to the constitution, judge william webster used to tell us and repeatedly in every speech, we have to do the job the american people expect of us, but we have to do it in the way the constitution demands we do it. [applause] that needs to be reiterated. went through new agents training, and that is not something you should say, because of my day, but the fact is, i'm not an attorney. about half of the people were attorneys. lot, over 14ul weeks, on constitutional law and federal, critical law -- criminal law. i found it fascinating, enjoyed it, loved it and the soaked it up like a sponge -- and soaked it up like a sponge.

at the end, we had a legal instructor, and this went on for years, who would give us a gift and that gift he gave us was this copy of the united states constitution. he told us to take it and put it in our breast pocket and keep it with us, and always remember that is there. when you are sitting in that interview room and knocking on the door to exercise a search warrant, remember the constitution and you will never get in trouble. a lot of us, and i did for a while, actually kept the constitution close to our heart. it may sound like a simple or corny thing, but i think they need to go back to giving out the constitution and give it to those analysts who are sitting in the back room making best guesses. [applause]

at some point now, phil will start asking me questions? ok. want me to move this away? >> we would now like to welcome philip, who is commentary writer for the wall street -- for the washington examiner and he will do an interview with tom baker. welcome. [applause] philip: can you hear me now? mi on now? i on now?ow -- am

after listening to agents baker speak, i'm grateful for your remarks because for anyone who has been following the news for the last year and a half and anything elated to the fbi or russia can definitely make your head spin. this has been more than helpful. take you much. mr. baker: i'm particularly honored by being interviewed by an award winner. [applause] first interview in your position -- new position. philip: because of your experience in the office -- in the fbi and working with congress, i wanted to ask you about their relationship with congress post-9/11 and after the sort of culture shift put in place by miller -- by mueller. do you think the fbi is starting to see themselves as a distinct agency that is, for whatever

reason, needs to be beyond the purview of congress? do you think that is a new culture emerging? mr. baker: to be on the purview of congress is new, and this is a new problem. unthinkable tos us and was not an issue that needed a subpoena. it was, how fast can you get them whatever they asked for. that was the way we were taught. the fbi always has, and there is a virtue in this, thought of themselves as an independent agency. there were times where there was a little rub with the department of justice itself, but this difficulty is new. philip: along the same lines, what is your reaction and the reaction of some of your more old school colleagues when you what the deputy assistant director, peter struck, was saying when he texted lisa page that he "loathed congress."

is that at risk of metastasizing and spreading through the ranks? mr. baker: i think it is disgusting. that is how a lot of us reacted to it. texts,ole series of which is available online as well including the second batch of them that the inspector general found that could not be found, and you read those, if you have the stomach, it is really disgusting. it is very clear they were biased against trump. there is no question about that, removed is why mueller him from the special counsel investigation. the fbi had its own counterintelligence investigation. madeinto 2017, when it was and taken over as the special --nsel investigation,

investigation. there's a total lack of character and the use of portable language, which is not blocked out. a lot of things are redacted, talking about members of congress who are concerned about the unmasking of americans, talking about the working agents in the fbi and the field office. the disdain they showed for them, that they don't think strategically like we do, they kept reinforcing that, and their love affair with mccabe and lisa page to the point that we are so wonderful and we love everything, it is people reinforcing each other. peopleght seem too many like a minor point, but i will say it. when janet reno was attorney general, she was attorney general 2001. there had been rules in the fbi about the use, for personal

reason, government property like your cell phone, copying machines, whatever you can imagine. as a lot of things were in the fbi, the punishment for these infractions were jacobian -- dr aconian. you place yourself in jeopardy. janet reno came up with the rule that -- reno said the occasional use of government property for personal reasons would incur no jeopardy. what she had mind was the situation which happens particularly in the fbi or dea where people are working late at night and are supposed to pick up the kids from soccer so they have to use the government phone or text on the government instrument to take care of this problem. that is what she had a mind. the people who enforced it in the fbi, that is how they viewed it.

i'm sure janet reno never had in mind, if you read them, these thousands of disgusting texts between these three characters. so that is another thing in the reform. we had to reinstitute the reno rule. philip: one of the things i noticed you did not mention in your list of potential reforms or actions to be taken to clean up the fbi, is something that, in my world, i heard a lot about. last month, there was a pushing , and impeachment petition introduced on the house for that did not go anywhere. it was by a group of conservatives that thought because the deputy attorney general had been dragging his feet when he was supposed to be turning over some of the information, that he needed to get the boot. do you think that we are at that point yet, and do you think that if it was to come to some sort of impeachment, we would be

jeopardizing any sort of sources or information? effort, thatat actually was passed as a resolution i think. it was to express congress's displeasure as this would dragging, stonewalling, use whatever word you want, as regard of the origin of the counterintelligence investigation that began on july 31. as you know, and some people here, i wrote an article a to go about this in the wall street lotnal talking about with a of people were telling me, let the people i was talking to. they have knowledge to this. the origin in the originating communication was being held back to protect sources. that is the reason. that is a legitimate reason. however, the gang of eight

exists to hear those things. the gang of eight, i should explain, is a group in congress. this is a reform that happened about 30 years ago. it is a people, the majority and minority leader in each house. the chairman and the ranking minority member of the senate intelligence committee and the house intelligence committee. . that is up to eight people. they have in-depth backgrounds and have signed agreements so they are supposed to be briefed on any particular ongoing sensitive investigation. there is a quarterly briefing set up with both committees where they can be updated on what can be going on. that has never been done and the origin is still being held from them. this is really unheard of. i know for fact that inside of the fbi right now, there is a big argument as to whether to reveal the last piece of information, which is going to be very embarrassing.

it is going to be embarrassing not just for the fbi, but the origin of the investigation clearly goes back to the united kingdom. the other thing that is clear about the origin, and there was a good piece in the hill written wast a fellow i know who the assistant director of the intelligence division until about two years ago. to initiate a counterintelligence investigation, under these reforms going back to 1978, there was a protocol set up called the "attorney general guidelines." you had to have sufficient, predicate information, articulate facts, to open a counterintelligence investigation. if it was against an american, , the trump entity campaign committee in this case, thereody looking at this,

is no way, by the standards we used to operate on, you cannot say there was enough predicate to open an investigation. comey and his memoir out, he cites only the conversation that this fellow, papadopoulos had in london. you look at that and other things revealed to congress, papadopoulos was relating a conversation that he had with an academic a monday to -- a month or two earlier in britain where that person told him they had dirt on hillary clinton. papadopoulos relates this to the australian ambassador to london in london at the time. you have carter page meeting with the other academic in england. everything points back there. the original information, most likely, came to the fbi from the cia.

we know that almost for a certainty. the former director, john brennan, has bragged he drove the fbi to open this investigation. he has ignored that. he said he gathered -- he has a knowledge to that -- acknowledged that. in the normal course of events, how that information should have came to brennan or the cia was from one or two british organizations. that is still the most likely explanation of what happened. but, what is also the most dangerous and most embarrassing to the united states, is that it did not come from mi5 or mi six 6 in britain, mi but that it came directly from the cia operating in the u.k. as an informant. this has been identified in some

press reporting as an fbi agent which he may have become after july 31, but he was in the u.k. in the spring talking to carter page, and talking to papadopoulos. it would be highly unusual for the fbi to be operating on maintaining an informant in the united kingdom. it is for more likely -- far more likely, very likely, the british intelligence would be in touch with both of these people because they were students, academics and certain with russian mentors -- academics concerned with russian mentors -- matters. we knew at least one of them worked for the cia. the dangerous origin of the case is that it is bad enough information came to the british, as flimsy as it was, john brennan passed it to the fbi, and then we go back to september 11. , based on the past

that open investigation in -- on an american entity, they would not have opened it a summit opened it based on that information. if i can digress a little bit, websenrector websense -- was the director and the bureau was about to start an investigation, often a criminal one, against a federal or local judge or against a member of , you got this "woah, boys. let's talk about this one more time." if you're going to investigate a judge, or a member of congress, the staff will look at this again before you involve them in

this investigation because you are treading on the constitution. you are investigating other coequal branches of the government. when its an extra pull involved public officials and it should be that way. we still went ahead with a lot of those investigations. here, they went ahead, why did they? because there were some in the fbi after september 11 that thought a referral from the cia was enough predicate to start an investigation. when you look at the facts of the referral, we don't think it is. philip: it definitely seems the president trump is in the same opinion as you. he tweeted brennan started this entire debacle. tying it back to the fbi, do you think one of the reasons why the fbi had dragged their feet in certain circumstances is because they are trying to avoid the embarrassment of showing it was the cia that pushed this

forward? mr. baker: yes. at a minimum, that is part of it. the bigger embarrassment is this, if i can give you the summer 30 seconds of background, many of you may know this, but there is a long-standing agreement between the united states and britain, and actually five nations in total. they called them the five eyes. we will never spy on their territory. the other half of that agreement with the cia is that they are the hand on the arm of the cia. 6 tocia tasks mi5 and mi do things. that is the agreement. they will never do anything in canada and the canadians will consider doing what they are asked to do by the cia or whoever. the canadians will usually do

what we ask them to do. and vice a versa. versa.ronclad -- visa to the fbi, cia, and the leaders of mi five and mi6 in britain that the cia was directly operating these two individuals at this cambridge institute. effect comes out, that will be very embarrassing and very outstating -- if that comes , that will be very embarrassing and devastating. philip: i want to see if we can zero in on brennan. i was looking back at a news reporter who first broke the news u.s. intelligence was probing the trunk campaign. he wrote a book in which he said it was clear that "brennan had an all tear your motive." -- and all tear your -- an

alterior-- an motive. do you see brennan as a political actor here? mr. baker: that is a key question because, after the case was open on july 31, 2016, that summer, brennan went to harry reid who is the senate minority leader and told him that he a turned this case over to the fbi. that is now seen by any observer as an effort to get the fbi moving on this counterintelligence case and investigation of the trump election campaign. and because oft, that leak from brennan, not leak but briefing, it's been leaked

to cnn there was a case which apparently was the motive all along. brennan has been open about his motivation and takes credit for having pushed this whole thing. we are not exposing him, he exposed himself. philip: finally, with the last few minutes, you brought out your pocket constitution a second ago, and it is clear the department of justice falls under the executive branch. why don't we see president trump -- or would you see -- prefer to see president trump order the cia or fbi to turn over relevant casemation about the fisa to congress? would it be preferable to light a fire for congress? mr. baker: that is a judgment call of the president. that is a political call as well. legally, he has that authority, no question about it. but, he and his advisers would

make a judgment on that. philip: ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much and thank you mr. baker. mr. baker: thank you very much. [applause] mr. baker: thank you, jennifer. >> thank you tom baker and phil, that was a very enlightening conversation. we would like to move into our next panel so we can stay on time. with schoolncerns safety and keeping our kids safe, we have put together a panel that can address these issues and provide some concrete ideas for improving cool safety -- school safety and keeping our kids safe. i want to introduce the moderator and they will all come out here in just a moment, but the moderator is erica anderson.

she is the digital media director for the independent women's forum. that sheso very proud is the digital media consultant for the steamboat institute. erica is also a very talented writer. she wrote the book called " leaving cloud nine: resurrecting a life from the poverty -- from poverty and mental illness." it is a fascinating true story of the life of her husband. if you're looking for an inspiring read, please buy a copy and erica will be signing books later. let's welcome to the stage our panel on protecting school safety and keeping our kids a safe. ♪ [applause]

>> hi everyone, i think we will be starting with a clip if it is queued up. >> i think the media treats us unfairly. they came to our towns expecting us to go to rallies in march for our lives, and lay on the ground with posters. that is not what we are doing. we don't want to sit around in protest for change, we want to change, but we do not want outsiders coming into force it upon us. >> it was a boy who stole his dads gun. i know some of them are advocating for people to lock up guns, but i feel like locking up guns would go against the second amendment even if it did not help.

i think it is an infringement because if you have a burglar coming, what will you tell them? hold on mr. burglar, let me go get my gun out of the safe. >> most of everybody here has grown up with guns or seen the gun, or shot a gun. most everybody here knows had to shoot a gun. the number one rule is to never pointed at someone and act like it always has ammunition in it. yes, they can do some awful things, but guns don't kill people. people kill people. if there is a bomb that went off, you blame a bonner. if there's a drunk -- bomber. if there is a drunk driver accident, you blame the driver. but, if there is a gun shooting, he blamed the gun. >> you don't have to be ok with

guns, but you have to respect the people are. fora: thinks everyone joining us today, we note that you know how important the issue of school safety is. so many of you have grandkids and kids in the public school system. i have two little kids that will soon be in the school system, so thank you for joining us for the conversation today. i will introduce our panelists now. they are not in order, but i will start with laura carnot in the middle. is part of an organization that trains the school staff members to be armed on campus and raised private funds for this. kelsey to my right is the senior news producer and the cohost of the problematic women's facebook live show. she has interviewed everyone from teachers and student to have been affected by school shooting and cover the issue of

media bias and misinformation. we will see a little more that in a moment. scott shafer is the headmaster of liberty common school as well as a former colorado member of congress. she -- he has also recently written about prevention and preparation tactics schools can safe focusing on pretzel response ability. we will focus on several topics including the realities of what it means to be an arm school, the media bias on reporting a school shooting, and what other things schools and parents can be doing to keep kids safe. i will get -- kick it off with laura. someone who has founded this organization training teachers and getting education out there about how we can keep school safe, what are some of the myths that are out there regarding army schools and

teachers? i feel like people do not know what that means and they get scared. let's clear up some of those things. laura: some of the biggest myths out there are, number one, teachers don't want to be armed on campus. the second myth is that anybody would force a school staff member to be armed. you hear this in the arms -- in the words of "you can't make teachers carry guns." where ae anywhere concealed carry is legal, it would be the same as saying concealed carry is legal, everyone must carry a firearm. that is ridiculous. nowhere in the country is that happening. the other myth of teachers do not want to be armed, and i will take a step back. in our experience between colorado and ohio, the program that we have here with over 1600 school staff, a pretty decent sample size, about 60% of the

folks are actually administrators and not teachers. when we think of "arming teachers" think of arming the school staff that does include teachers, but also coaches, janitors, principles, so forth. those would be the two big myths that are not true. ericka: a lot of people don't realize there is already 14 states were teachers and administrators are also able to be armed and you don't know about it. there are about 32 states where they are not -- they are on the path to lawful arming. this is happening and nothing bad is coming of that. they are keeping students safer. there was a story in maryland where a teacher or guard stopped a school shooting from happening. to touch on some of the other prevention measures, in my home state of indiana, there was an

attempted school shooting with a teacher, a former pro football player, actually stopped the shooter through physical force. there is things we should be thinking about. laura, what are some of the most common fears you are hearing from those speaking out against this? laura: school safety is an interesting topic. some people think this is political, and maybe on the two ends with the left and right among people who pay attention to politics, it might be a political field. i will tell you from talking to dozens of parents, for a couple of years, but specifically a lot of them since the parkland shooting, parents just want their child to return home to them alive every single day. not, most days. to these parents, it is not a political issue for them. it is a matter of safety.

when it is their kid or their grandkid involved, i'm a grandma down so i think about it differently -- grandma now, so i think about it differently, they will say i might've thought about gun control differently now that it is my kid, what will keep them safe and not lose their innocence in school. i would see the fear -- say the fear, is my kid going to be safe or less safe with staff is the biggest fear. based on what we know, somebody there, on campus, to stop the bad guys as soon as the incident starts, as opposed to waiting for law enforcement, that is going to keep kids safer. that would be the biggest fear. people want to know, is my kid going to be safer or less safe. one powerful statistic i found is that 90% of mass shootings

are placed in a gun free zone. that is such a telling statistic that once me to keep schools are safest possible by using armed guards. ericka: kelsey, let's move on to you. actually showl the second clip of your documentary before we answer -- ask you questions. >> i think everyone knows that the media portrays a certain political agenda that they choose to go with. it is not a political agenda that the majority of santa fe is interested in. i want all school safe. we can agree to disagree on how to go about doing it, i'm open to different solutions. our schools have to be safe. >> i think we need to lock doors . the door that he came in was an

interest that was unlocked -- an entrance that was unlocked. >> i have thought long and hard about the arming of teachers. i do not think that is the end-all by any stretch. i do not think it is the magic answer. truly wantedis, i that pistol in my hands. just speaking generally for me, i will do whatever training is involved, i would do that. that would not be an issue. quite frankly, it can be done in a very safe manner. i think the weapons could be stored in a safe manner. all of that would have to be it, it islet's face another line of defense against the people. kelsey, you went down to santa fe, interview teachers,

schools, administrators, students, and have been in the middle of this. we were talking about hearing so much about the park when shooting, and you went on to santa fe and were talking to people there and said why did you read to santa fe? you said because no one was talking about it. talk a little bit about what you learned from talking to people involved in that particular situation. kelsey: first off i want to echo the issue laura said. this is not a partisan issue. everyone wants to keep our students safe. many in the media and left are calling for gun control and gun reform, they are trying to put a wedge between both sides where nobody is against keeping's -- keeping students safe. we just have different means of doing that. i have been reporting on this throughout the past year. one of my first trips was for colorado to learn about how the process of arming teachers and

staff, administrators, actually worked. through that, i was able to meet laura and learn about the amazing program she is spearheading in colorado. sadly, after that, another school shooting happened in santa fe, texas. it was interesting because everyone knows about parkland and knows about the student activists there. when i told people, friends, that i'm traveling to santa fe for my next documentary, they said why are you going to santa fe? nobody realized there was a school shooting their. it hardly got any media attention -- shooting there. it hardly got any media attention. you did not hear from the students or teachers. because i view my role as telling other people's story, i wanted to bring my phone and let some of the students speak for themselves. gotead a text message i

from one of the students describing what happened in the video and how she wants to be an advocate for change, but is not able to have a voice because nobody in the media will listen to her. this was just this week and i asked permission to share the text with the audience. she said if i can do it kyle does, from one of the loan -- do what kyle does, then santa fe won't be forgotten like we already have been. i tried working at the local level but it is not working because i'm young. no one is speaking out for santa fe. we kicked the media out and that was because we did not want to talk about politics or change. they only wanted videos of us crying. that broke my heart. it absolutely broke my heart because when i was down there, and you can watch the full -- a 15 minute video i put together,

and usually my videos are about four or five minutes long, i had to make this 15 minutes because they have a story to tell and no one has told it. luckily, i have a news organization behind me to support that. it is a long video, but it is worth watching because the story is not out there. she told me, as she was in reaching outad cnn to her, found her location on twitter asking to explain what happened. as soon as they were evacuated, she walked past dead bodies by the way and stepped on classmatess blood. absolutely traumatizing. as soon as she got out, bombarded by media for the next week or two wanting their sob stories. then, they left because the media learns quickly that santa amendments the second

and do not blame guns, they blame the shooters. what is so wrong about that is that we can disagree on guns, but the students and teachers from santa fe are calling for a lot of change. they have platforms, started nonprofits, and nobody knows about them because they support the second amendment. there is so much media bias out there. these students are being ignored, and there is his -- it's so much misinformation about arming teachers and administrators actually working -- and there is so much misinformation about arming teachers and and mrs. traders teachers anding -- administrators actually working. one school district decided if you are forced to pull out your gun in a school and that's above

situation, you're not the normal police officer. you have a backup of students who did nothing wrong behind you. they want those teachers and administrators to have higher standards than even a police officer, but no one knows that because the media will not report it. ericka: for both laura and kelsey, and if you have a in, we talkase jump about how teachers are going through training through your program, that nobody wants to talk about it or out themselves, so to speak, because there could be consequences from their communities. kelsey, you said it is hard to get the stories out there for that reason. can you talk about the personal side of the teachers and staff you are speaking with that are doing this and why they are doing this? drove up this morning and we have a class going on right now. i'm driving back is soon as we

are done right now to join the class. there is no shortage of these folks who want to be able to say to kids they are already willing to die for their children. everyone of the people say they will take a bullet for their kid. what they're not willing to do is have your name out there. some schools, we would never know that they have arms staff -- armed staff. some schools have huge four by ed foot signs -- four by eight foot signs in the parking lot saying we have armed staff as a deterrent. they run the gambit. for the most part, in a school that publicizes they have an , the campus, most of that vast majority, do not reveal the names of the staff members. they don't want those individuals to be on a kill

list. word onheard a lot of kill lists with these bad guys. an exception was with our class in june, one of them did national media. i said what was did -- what was behind her decision to do this? hereid if someone comes in to kill kids, i want them coming to me first. for the most part, they don't want their names out there. the other thing, if you want to think about it this way, the fact that a person is armed at all isn't really popular conversation in the teachers lounge. not every person that works in a school campus is in favor of the policy. have anks that already armed staff program, they do not want to talk to other people on the compass -- campus that are not part of that team because

they don't want to get the slack back from what the people might think about the fact that their school took the policy. ericka: we're going to transition to a little of the things bob has been focusing on. arming teachers and staff is one safe, butp school there are a lot of other things as well that people are not talking about. this is such a hot topic and i think there are other -- the other prevention area measures that schools and parents can take are getting swept under the rug. can you talk about some of those things you have written about regarding what parents can do and what schools can do outside of this? bob: sure. first of all, every table is an article i wrote about school safety for a school safety publication. but take itt now, with you. that's about prevention,

preparation, response, and recovery. those are the four main areas we talk about when we talk about school safety with the principal or administrators. my bottom-line message is this, it is a harrowing experience for kids to drop their children -- parents to drop their children off at a school that someone else owns, manages, and runs, to go to school. when yoube terrifying drop the little child at the curb and say go in there and we will see later. it is another thing to be confronted with the emotion and stories, and pictures we hear from time to time when something goes wrong and there is a violent episode at school where you are not there and somebody else is in charge of that facility, and you can't help. this is a terrible proposition for a great number of things. the messages, there is no

government worker, politician, administrator, teacher, school security officer, that has a greater responsibility to protect your child than you do. this is your child. this is not someone else's responsibility to teach them. you may hire someone to help teach your child, that is what teachers and schools are for. in the same context, it is not someone else's responsibility to keep your child safe. you might ask them to assist you in the school or out on the street, but it is your responsibility. as a parent or grandparent, you need to be unwilling and a legitimate american here. you need to be unwilling to do that authority to some government worker. [applause] defer that authority to some government worker. [laughter] you must translate --

[laughter] to walk translate that through a and look at things common sense. if that school was built in the 60's or 70's, it has hiding places, and you need to ask at some point in time, is anyone going to do something about this and can we get a mirrors up there to eliminate some of these kinds of things? has every phone in the school been tested to make sure that's dials- that when someone 911, the address of the school pops up on the dispatcher screen? these are common things. you go through the article and find things to ask your school about. you need to be proactive to make sure the school is safe before you are willing to hand your child off to the government institution. if it does not meet your satisfaction for your own sense of school safety, my gosh, you

are an american. send your child to a school that earned your trust. you don't have to accept the school your school district assigned you based on your address. [applause] some of the other things you have written about are about having the adult volunteers and tip lines for passing long string of behavior. are you seeing people doing these things -- strange behavior. are you seeing people doing these things? bob: yes. schools should be crawling with parents. schools that give reasons for parents not to be involved, are creating a vacuum that invites negative things to occur. we should be creating cultures and schools. this is a part of good administration. mega campuses are dangerous places typically. smaller schools where the

teachers and administrators know the names of everyone of the children are imminently safer. should be ass knowledgeable about the school that they recognize when a child's behavior is different that would suggest they need follow-up questioning to make sure johnny is not a danger to himself or let alone other people. schools get way too big and we too bureaucratic, if that happens, you missed that exchange with children and. families the culture within the school -- and families. the culture within the school is important. ,ou look a discipline policies not just celebrated on the wall, but practice x greg liam -- practiced as curriculum. children care about one another, and you need that culture within a school. they are only at school for a certain part of time communicating with each other on social media and texting one

another. you have to create a culture in schools where children are inclined to realize or educated well enough to realize when they have a dangerous conversation is taking place and kids are willing to come and talk to their teacher. even a parent. 10, when lawt of enforcement or school administrators are able to intervene and prevent a dangerous episode, it is usually that kind of environment which has openness of communication of say -- last year, in the middle of the hallway, it was final exam week. one of the students says that he did not want to go to the next class because he was not prepared. this was right after one of the school shootings. he said, jokingly, stupidly,

this would be a great time for a school shooting. right? ids raced to the principal's office and named the kid and said here's what he said, i do not think it is serious, you are the adult, ticket -- take it from here. we knew the kid was joking, but we take it seriously. [applause] bob: the policy is a nice thing and the police responded beautifully and the parents were in the school. the question is, what was it that created the scenario where the two friends knew it was important to come down and tell us, even though they suspected it was a joke, that those words had been uttered in the school. the answer is the culture created in that campus. this is not hard to do. you must make sure that kind of culture exists where you send your kids to school. [applause] ericka: if you questions, please

put them on the notecards. that,: to add briefly on i will ask the audience a question i do not have the answer to, but i think it is one that is not being asked as it is inconvenient and uncomfortable, but why are all of these most recent strings of school shootings happening in public schools and not private schools? do you want someone to answer that? kelsey: just to build on it, i do not have the full answer, i think everyone in the room might have ideas when we talk about bureaucracy and accountability. i think an important read to the whole conversation about school safety is school choice, and empowering parents to be able to pull their children out of the school they do not think is capable of keeping their children safe. a lot ofopic i've done reporting on is the issue of school bullying.

a lot of people think it is a cultural issue, but there are policies handed down to the obama administration that basically built in quotas and discouraged administrators and teachers from reporting bullying because they did not want minority students to be system and -- to be suspended at a disproportionate rate as compared to white students. as a result, through statistics, bullying has gotten worse and worse. parents are being forced to pull their children out of school. i interviewed one family in maryland. because ofs suicidal bullying. no one is holding them accountable. when it comes to arming teachers and school, if you are a parent who is uncomfortable with that idea, you should have the right to choose a school that isn't arming teachers. if am a parent chooses not feel comfortable -- parent to does

-- if am amfortable parent who does not feel about sending my kids to a school that does not want to do it, i shouldn't have to. [applause] ericka: i'm going to go ahead and go to questions. can i add one things to the parents discussion because i talk to an awful love the parents about this? if you think about what we saw on tv and the day of sandy hook and bartlett -- and parkland, the media loves to show the look of utter anguish on the looks of these parents faces -- parents' faces. they don't know if their child is alive or dead but they know if their child is alive, they will never be the same.

they were have lost -- they have lost their innocence forever. parents in my state, when they called after parkland to say how do they prevent this from happening, we have the exact conversation bob was talking about. they feel like when an administrator says to them our kids at our school are safe enough, we do not need to talk about the policy of arming staff, and some of the parents say what it my going to do to the superintendent. i say, do you know what you do? that is your charge -- your child. you are responsible for their education and safety. if they are not open to having the conversation and not willing to answer the questions, you take your kid out and bring them to a school that meets your standards. period. sometimes, it is the first time a parent has heard the words that bob said.

this is your kid, you hire people to educate your kid, but it is your job as a parent to do that. it has turned into cuba for some parents who have never thought about it this way. it is pretty fascinating to see this issue get people thinking about "oh, my kid, my responsibility." even though there has been decades of government schools telling us differently. one thing that stood out to me is that it can take up to 20 minutes -- kelsey: one thing that stood out to me is that it can take up to 20 minutes for police to arrive at the scene. ericka: what do you hear from opponents that are meant to arms schools when the hear this kind of reality? are you hearing arguments against that or anything like that?

up to sometimes it's even 45 minutes in some school districts. most of the events are over in three to five minutes. you are not immune in a suburban district or urban district either. the math holds. i offer to debate anyone on this topic, that is one of the things they have difficulty with. we have the question, would you rather somebody stop a massacre from happening right on scene when it starts, or would you like to sit and wait for law enforcement to come whether it is three minutes or 30 minutes? it is one of the tough things they don't have an answer for. usually it's talking about more about mental illness and not allowing people with mental illness or young people to get firearms. we all agree on that. nobody wants an underage person

having a firearm that they are not equipped to handle, i'm not talking about hunting with one's family. everybody agrees we do not want mentally ill people getting firearms. we can all agree, but please address the issue. ,here is a statistic out there when you average these out, that one person can be shot, not necessarily killed, but shocked every 17 seconds -- but shot every 17 seconds. if it is your kid in the cop is sitting in the parking lot, how many 17 second intervals are you ok with? if it's my grandkid, i go with zero. i want somebody right there and then. it is a tough thing the other side does not have a good response to. ericka: on that front, we have talked about the issue of fairness. one thing i think is really unfair when it comes to the is thef arming teachers

conflating.ing -- kelsey: the truth is, you do this for a living and you wish you did not have to do this for a living. i wish i did not have to report on this for a living. school shootings are happening and they are problematic and we need to solve them. ofing teachers is one piece this very complicated puzzle. talking about it is part of that. not everyone has to agree that that is the way to go, but that is the reason we are talking about it. let's get into questions and this is for anyone. what are your thoughts on campus carry on college campus and how do we get states to allow it as well as private schools? laura: i will take it from a colorado standpoint.

we have allowed campus carry on college campuses for a great number of years. there have been zero negative incidents. these are adults. if you are over 21 in colorado, you can have a conceal and carry permit. there are lots of things that say what if this happens or what if that happens. none of them have happened. it is one of the things where you say do you trust law-abiding citizens, ordinary citizens, not law enforcement, to be in charge of their own self-defense, and does that change when they walk onto a college campus whether they are a student or go there for an event. is that ok with you? do you trust them or should only be members of law enforcement? time and time again, every situation where ordinary people can make the decision for themselves, we are not seeing bad things happening. on the contrary, we see crime go down because the bad guys don't

want to die in the course of their life. when they know there is a place where folks can be armed, they are much less likely to commit their crimes. the weekend the nra had their , there is always a report a week or two later saying record low crime. [laughter] laura: you know why? the bad guys go somewhere else. ericka: next question. this may be one for you, bob. what can students do to ensure their own protection and how do we make sure we have a voice even though we are not able to vote essentially? depending on the age, college campus is one thing. you are adults, off on your own, responsible or your own safety and security. any institution as well, to a reasonable degree. when you are a child, as you get

older and mature, you acquire more and more ability and the wherewithal to think about and defending or self -- about protecting and defending or self. children should not have to think about this. children should know they are safe. schools have to take the efforts to project that. the question was asked, how do you answer that? there is great debate about this . when somebody asks, are there armed teachers and administrators in your school, there is great debate on how to answer it. i tell you -- i will tell you how we answer it, he avoid it. this is america, same answer for the school, same answer for you. assume everyone in the room is armed. an armed society is a polite society. i'm willing to protect what is mine and myself, and my family wherever i am. assume what that means. don't mess with me, please.

ok? [laughter] [applause] bob: let's be friends. that is the way we conduct ourselves as individuals. we have the same institutional answer at our school, we are prepared to fight back on behalf of our students. are we armed? not saying. just assume every school is. that is the way it ought to be. on an airplane, did you have a federal air marshal on the plane? you don't know. you assume you might have. that would be a good thing for everyone in society to think about when they think of schools. unfortunately, the laws in schools, you know this already. 99% of schools in america are gun free zones. it is unlikely somebody will fire back on most school campuses throughout the country. it will be better if all of us, students included, project the notion that this is a school

where we are safe, our teachers will defend and protect us, or defend ourselves. i don't know if curriculum matters. if they are under educated they don't appreciate the value to other human life -- lives. are pushing out of the school a conversation that is very important on kids relating to one another, protect and defend one another, and so values,, fight for virtues, open conversation in your school campuses. third-graders, you're not understanding what i'm talking about. just need to look out for one another. that is the best way to protect one another. bereft of -- kids are

a good solid curriculum to train them about the value of human life, about epic stories whether it is a tragedy or triumph, if they do not know those sorts of things, they cannot imagine, quickly, how to respond to a student in crisis or violent situation that unfolds in front of them. k2 are well educated and intelligent, they know what to who are well educated and intelligent, they would know what to do. [applause] kelsey: to address it from a meteor perspective, there is a dire need for more students to -- media perspective, there is a dire need for more students to speak up. we look at parkland and the marches they put on, you're not in the culturally popular point of view. i give the girls i interviewed here so much credit for their

bravery and being willing to put themselves out there. i sadly read the comments on these videos, and we have people commenting about their weight. this is the type of thing they put up with by putting themselves out there. for any students willing to get in the fight, we need voices. some of the ways i would suggest doing that are getting involved with some of the organizations like turning point, which you will hear from after us. also get involved with the nonprofits that students from santa fe are starting. just get on twitter and be a voice and put your self out there as someone willing to give a different perspective to the media. we do need to hear from you. laura: i would suggest you all --rt by grabbing ericka: i would suggest you to all-star by grabbing kelsey's book out there. it's up to us -- you all start

by grabbing kelsey's video put out there. it already has a million views. it's up to us. thank you everyone for listening. [applause] >> what a great panel. what a great panel. [applause] there we go. video aboutkelsey's the high school on the steamboat institute website. you can find it on facebook as said or you- ericka can go to steamboat.org/update. while you're there, there is the red donation button the corner -- button in the corner. if you have been inspired by

what you have seen, we would appreciate your support. it is a priority and a huge one of the steamboat institution to empower our next generation of leaders, like all of these young people here scattered around the room. our next panel is doing an absolutely amazing job of inspiring and empowering our generation of leaders. you know two of them really well, and you have got to know the other one over the course of the last year through steamboat institute events. we are really pleased and excited to have here with us in steamboat springs today, charlie canvis owens. it was back in 2013, a year startedis young guy has this organization out of his garage in illinois that a lot of people had not heard of yet.

we heard about him and brought him to our freedom conference. that is where many of you met charlie kirk. it's amazing what he has accomplished in six years. the millions and millions of young people he is affecting and who are learning about freedom and free markets and personal responsibility. his newest addition to turning owens, many of you has seen her -- have seen her. i will introduce them and bring them out. let's bring out the great panel and give us -- give them a huge steamboat welcome. [applause]

♪ >> thank you guys. >> here comes our moderator. [applause] charlie: you can hear me? nice job on the selection of the song. it was refreshing in the last panel to hear people talking about how to keep students safe from actual violence and not safe from mainstream conservative ideas. [laughter] we would do, we have 45 minutes and i thought we would begin by having carly -- charlie and candace talk about what the organization is how their personal life led into tpusa.

charlie spoke here roughly a decade ago and a lot of people are here for the first time. why don't we start their? charlie: first of all, thank you all for having me here again. i did not bring any protesters with us today. [laughter] charlie: it has been a long month this week to say that much. you can't eat breakfast in philadelphia without drawing a small crowd. i first want to say thank you to the steamboat institute and the people in this room that are played such a critical role to turning point usa's growth. i sat on this stage four years ago and turning point was a lot smaller than it is today. there were a couple of hundred campuses and an idea that was still in formation. here we are four years later and six years in, we are on 1300 college campuses, have thousands of activists passing through the

program, and it is amazing. [applause] charlie: jennifer, thank you for the generosity's and platform you have given myself, candace, and our organization throughout the years. thank you to tom, donna, david, and i could name everyone in this room. it has been a blessing that has poured out from this conference in this gathering of amazing patrons here at steamboat. for those of you i do not know, i started turning point usa six years ago in june of 2012. turning point is now the nation's largest and strongest, and i would say most innovative youth organization. we stand for free markets, limited government, and american exceptionalism. live accomplished a lot this last summer. we have the largest young women leadership summit, young latina

leadership summit, a chapter leadership summit and brought our top 100 liters -- 120 liters -- leaders to meet the president. we have had an interesting summer and we are involved in a culture war in an important way. candace always is politics float from culture. i hired candace five minutes after i met her. she says the rest is the future. candace: i started my journey on youtube. for me, i was never politically inclined. i was working at a private equity firm in manhattan. when donald trump announced his bid for the presidency, i thought i did not want him to be the president of the united states for 10 of reasons. i think he made a lot of people uncomfortable. he was definitely not and was not -- he definitely was not and still is not the most oppressive politician. i was impressed by the rhetoric coming out of the media.

they were saying that he was sexist and a racist, and he was transforming. at one point they said he was incestuous for feelings of a banca -- ivanca. i grew up in a household everyone was sitting poolside at mar-a-lago, he was the symbol of status. the second he became the president of the united states they change their mind and said he was racist and that didn't impractical or true. wondering, is it possible that racism is now being used to turn black people into single issue voters? and of course the answer is yes. i have this brilliant idea that i could be the person to shake everything up, i would quit my job and start making youtube videos and i was going to have tremendous success, it could

have been a delusion but i suppose i got lucky. i worked really hard and saw such a clear path in my head because i understood how it was possible that i thought i had to be a democrat, i understood what was going on and on my third video i had 29 million views. thank you, pretty vague. [applause] >> the video was dubbed in portuguese, spanish, french, and that was surprising because i thought i was hitting at an american sentiment, that the media was trying to wrap us into our emotions but that particular video let me know i was hitting a worldwide sentiment, that something wasn't adding up. it inspired me to keep going and led me to charlie. people ask me, why don't you have euro show? if i was serious about reversing the mass brainwashing,

they had to understand how it was brainwashed. there were three main things we had to attack, the first his family. the firstsociety act, thing. number one issue facing the black community, it is father absent. the second, culture and media. that found meople found me through kanye west despite i have been on fox news millions of times. and the third is the education system which has been turned into liberal indoctrination camps and charlie was already fighting that so we linked up. he's not being funny when he said he hired me in five minutes. charlie said, what do you want to do? i said i want to leave the black revolution against the democratic party. he said you are hired.

[applause] not bad, the best. it's interesting to hear you say your video when viral in other countries. one thing i've noticed in the last few weeks is the extent to which the ideology of social justice and identity politics really has an international reach. when i watch brazilian news and i hear people speaking in this aim terms a lot of humanities professors in american colleges do. it's an observation more than anything, it's not clear to me how that particular way of inking has spread to the degree that it has. >> it is not organic, it is .uite strategic by george soros there is an ideology that everyone should familiarize this off with called postmodernism,

but it is really cultural marxism. get started in 1970 philosopher in france, shock derriere. then it got introduced to the yale humanities department, almost every humor of -- every horrific idea starts ideal. it comes from this idea that there is no such thing as absolute truth, that you are what you say you are, that's where transgender is and comes from, the challenging of absolute truth. postmodernists say no, and they blew up the paradigm of the bourgeoisie versus the proletariat and reconfigured it more specifically based on racial identity politics. left would look at us and say i am the oppressor, candace owens is oppressed. there is nothing she can do to break out of that mold unless she sells her soul out to the lesser, in the only thing i can

do is to apologize and to pay tobute to societies reconcile the sins of the past of white males against black women. defiance, in direct cultural marxism is being taught in every university because george soros is spending over $30 billion to make sure that happened. it almost gives a badge of righteousness and a badge of honor to victimhood and this is where candace comes in. there is nothing honorable about being a victim. olympics, --n but i'm black and woman, i'm black and a woman and gay so i'm super oppressed. up, shirleys get

and i sit into chairs, there is a sign behind us that does we believe in free markets. and people are shouting and screaming and protesting and playing beyonce music so they can drown out the sound of our voices. they are angry and bitter because i am saying that i believe in you, you don't need government handouts, you can do it. that has become a point of contention because they have been led to believe that there is value in being a victim. the idea that there's value in being a victim is what led the black community to disintegrate. >> let me tell you a fun story. here's a factoid. candace and i are the only conservative duo to speak at uc berkeley, ucla, and stanford and lived to tell about it. [laughter] [applause] we were at ucla, and this was one of the moments where candace

confronted the black lives matter protesters, actually they confronted you and it went well. that is what triggered kanye west to send a tweet. my favorite encounter is when a young black woman who goes to ucla was trying to convince us she was oppressed. she goes to ucla, so give me a break. put that aside for a second. candace had this wonderful speech about self empowerment, believing in the individual, saying i believe you can do anything you say you can do. this young black woman was programmed to oppose everything she said no matter what she said. she said that's a horrible thing to say, that's racist. she said, i believe in you. stop saying that. she said, i don't believe in you. thank you. [laughter] >> you can't make it up.

-- until you are there and you understand what we are talking about, you can get a crowd of people protesting you, always these people have blue and pink hair. remarkable, people will be with me on campus, and there will be a white girl shouting in my face, telling me i am perpetuating white supremacy, that i am a white supremacist. they are that delusional. they have no idea, and it will be the same thing over and over, how could you let down your sisters? what about your sister angela davis? i said, i don't have a sister named angela davis. and then you are talking about angela davis and black feminism. the idea that i can't inc. differently is a fundamentally racist concept, because it's not -- [applause] i have a student who said the

notion of objectivity was what the premises. they think science and math are constructs created by white men to help white men continue their power struggle. a feminist spin on a scientific discipline. >> two directions. first, are there any elements to your personal story that you haven't shared that might be of interest to the audience and getting us to understand how you came to do this? what motivated you? >> how many of you have seen my praeger u video? i did a video, my biggest motivation has been my grandfather. he started his life on a sharecropping arm in north carolina and worked his entire life to give us a better opportunity. growing up in his household for the formative years of my life, he put god first, his wife

second. although he would tell you he was a democrat, he's a conservative with conservative values. if you believe in god and honoring your wife, if you believe in structure, those are conservative principles. he ended his life, he and my grandmother retired, he purchased the sharecropping farm that he started his life on and owns it. that really is the american dream, that you can start anywhere in your life and end up somewhere else as long as you are willing to not play the victim. my grandfather is the ultimate non-victim, believing he can do everything, and he still believes that he can. i credit him with everything that i am today. [applause] for those of you who have did

following the journey is turning point, one of the most interesting developments has -- this some people happened under the evolution of donald trump. if you look at how turning point has defied political gravity it is quite remarkable. what troubles candace and i, and this is a good lesson, is we have some wonderful allies on the conservative side. first and foremost, the first family and the president. they are unbelievably loyal people, they understand the value of the culture war. we have done our part to defend the greatest president of the modern era, if not the greatest in american history. [applause] but what gives us so frustrated, and this might come as a

vicious, the most most hostile attacks come from fellow conservatives. some have passed through the ranks of this conference, but i won't say any names. i don't know. it's really troubling, because we never differently fire. but it seems as if we are fighting to much, conservative on conservatives. the enemy is the last. to gett have time involved in crossfire or to get involved in friendly fire, because we abide by the 11th commandment, thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow conservative. i'd rather have an 80% ally than 20% enemy. this is something we need to get not beat as a move and driven by whatever motivation puts kforce. >> obviously we could talk all

day about what the left does wrong but it is more critical to assess what we do wrong because it might feel like we are on top but if we can have open dialogue about the things we can change -- we saw this a lot during what we call connie week, where kanye tweeted out i love the way candace owens thinks. it was a huge moment and i don't know if this might be his crowd but he has single-handedly been the most influential hip-hop designer, one of the most influential people in the entire world will stop he tweets one thing and within a week black support for donald trump doubled. that's how impactful it was. what he did as he gave black people the permission to pursue different ideas. everyone that follows kanye west

wanted to know who is candace owens, and there were a ton of debates, some people hated me, some boycotted kanye. is, he did something for the conservative movement that will be spoken about years from now, seven words. he ripped open a hole in reality that allowed people who had been so caught in a bubble, so within this monolith, that they were suddenly willing to pursue different ideas and listen to different people. the following i gained after that, it was more significant than the donald trump tweet. a lot of people said ignore kanye, culture is that, stay within the box of politics because i guess there's an idea you should stick your nose up to culture and save that's the way the left goes. this is why the left has been winning, it has a stranglehold on culture and hollywood and

hip-hop and music. it is why don lemon pretends to care about lebron james opening of the school, all he cares about is the five second soundbite when lebron james says of the against the president. the less they understand this, that is how much it matters. when those kids are growing up in the project and they don't have a father, they look up to these idols. they put on a jay-z track, want to be like lebron james. culture is an incredibly important aspect, and it is something andrew breitbart understood. he said the quote that politics is downstream from culture, and it's important that we as conservatives embrace that. [applause] it's interesting to hear you talk about how the right, in your opinion, is cannibalizing itself. that is something the left often says about itself, they often say that the right is so good at being cohesive. if the left is cannibalizing

itself, or at least if they are it would seem to me it could either be for petty and the reasons, because they agree with your views but disagree with your tactics, or because they honestly disagree with some of your views. without getting into names, what's your analysis of where this disagreement -- >> i will not attribute any weives, i will just day could be going after liberals and leftists, but there is still a segment of the republican party, and many house leadership and senate leadership, that hate this president. yesterday, everyone is complaining about bob mueller. it is house republicans that authorized this is a prosecutor. they keep reauthorizing his funding.

they are supposed to exercise oversight, they are doing nothing. i am sick and tired of hearing about democrats this, democrats that. if the republicans that are giving them the sword to kill president trump, and we are just supposed to do nothing? it is the republicans that refuse to declassify these memos, thank god for devin nunes. that is in defiance of house leadership. i know this to be true because we spend time outside of america in washington, d.c. every so often -- [laughter] there is a bipartisan cartel to destroy this president, and the lines are very clear. you are part of the establishment in both parties that would love to see the president failed, they want to to dock to their swamp whatever they want and no one would call them out for their deep state tactics, or you can support this president to recalibrate and realign the

country back to serving government and first principles. we see it firsthand. i have never seen a group of people hate another group of people as much as they hate president trump. we are not going to back down just because folks want us to stop talking. [applause] >> if you are familiar with you on brooke, he was here yesterday. i don't think you mentioned the name donald trump, but i think , i don'td, he thought want to mischaracterize him, but he's a libertarian, he very much believes in what you stated, the philosophical core of turning point usa, hard-core capitalist and libertarian.

the republican party is losing sight of those principles. it seems to me he might have been suggesting that trump in particular does not really promote the principles to the degree you would like. he cited things like protectionism, trade policy, and he made the argument that capitalism is inconsistent with strict immigration controls. >> why weren't we hear? how did we miss this? >> i know where he's coming from. it's a randy and objective critique. do you want to take this? >> this is the most conservative president of our lifetime, i don't understand -- what is trumpism? free markets, capitalism, putting power back to the individual as opposed to the government, where it has been siphoned, which controls 90% of the country's wealth and they do nothing? i don't understand what the argument is. it frustrates me, they come up with these terms like trumpism,

we are winning right now, he is slashing 22 regulations for everyone regulation he finds and is encouraging entrepreneurs to go out and believe in the american dream, yet they are upset with the fact that he tweets. >> tom cox told me don't let perfect be the enemy of good and it is so true. donald trump is off the charts more conservative, more successful, then anyone running in that republican field and he is committed and did everything he said he would do. you think some of those moderate republicans would have moved to the embassy to jerusalem? george bush didn't. would he have gotten out of tpp? they were arguing to stay in the iran nuclear deal under bob corker. do you think anyone would push through the greatest indle-class cut, opening up ways that ronald reagan failed

to do so that every republican president since eisenhower tries to open up the resources? judges, one out of eight judges have been confirmed by president trump, one out of eight. >> there are some lows about this presidency. black unemployment, all-time low. woman unemployment, all-time low. [applause] >> and here's the thing. let's come from the premise that we don't like tariffs. he said ok, europe, let's do none. bush never said that. george w. bush never said we have subsidized your entire constant rebuilding since world war ii, why don't we do know tariffs? by the way, you have a pipeline to russia, which i love them that they called him out, right in the face of those german

two-faced globalists. he said you are trying to critique me for russian interference? you have a multibillion-dollar pipeline going into your country by russian oligarchs making billions of dollars and you are trying to tell me i bought by the russians. he said, all right, let's do free policy trade. no, we have to do protection for our cars. he's willing to go with free-trade, but he understands that they can be a mechanism to bring people to the table. if we start to understand the geopolitical consequence of how trade deals are formed, they were created out of balance, to try to subsidize the advancement of europe after world war ii. china is still declared as a developing country. they are the second-biggest economy in the world with the largest population stealing our ip, hacking our cyber grid, building islands with a standing

army that could take over asia, and they are still filed as a developing country. that's what he is fighting against, yet i find the people that are part of this establishment via, it got reaction is guilty until proven innocent. people, whenof the he says the enemy of the people is the media, he's correct. on top of having to fight all of our enemies overseas, president trump also has to fight enemies here. he's the strongest leader we have had in my lifetime. i am very proud to have president trump as my president and will continue to support him in every regard we can. [applause] the illegal immigrant thing -- >> exactly. he's the only president in american history that gets attacked by the media for doing what he said he would do. he's the keeper of promises. you put forth a list of judges

to confirm from, he said he would move the embassy, the world doesn't want me to do it, i will do it. withdraw from tpp, get out of the paris climate accord, keeping a promise after the other, energy deregulation. what i find most flow mixing from the left, the left hates trump more than they love america but establishment republicans would rather see donald trump fail then america succeed. they know if the donald trump weublican party succeeds, are going to do what our instincts tell us to do and they are always on the benefit of the pro-american worker and the citizen and the voter -- >> we stand up against the illegal alien thing, if anyone is paying attention, they have been a threat to the black community the most. the community heard the most by illegal immigration is the black community -- do you think black

people should have to work for less than minimum wage? what do you think happens when people coming over the border, competing for those jobs? you talk about low-wage workers and the group of individuals impacted the most, it is young black men. they are competing with illegal immigrants, illegal aliens coming to this country, and they are committing crime which has become an epidemic in this country that this administration is also working to fight and when you say the kids are in cages -- when you commit crimes, you are separated from your family. that's not new. that's not a novel concept. i'm crying for all the kids whose fathers are locked up and in prison, are you crying for them? that's what happens on their father's commit crimes. if i was to put my two kids in the back of a car in saying let's go rob a bank and the cops arrested me, there's a chance my kids would be put somewhere

until they commit a crime. there are consequences. i don't understand all this emotion. that.about >> how much time do he has? [laughter] oh, good. ok. i have a lot of questions, we probably just have time for a few. i thought this -- i didn't read the back. i will just read the front. conservatism is about ofnciples, should we be wary of hitching to a celebrity wagon. we just addressed this, we talk about the cultural war. yes, if you are willing to open

the conversation, to inc. sayically, kanye didn't everyone has to vote for trump, he said i like trump will stop you gave people permission to like trump. he also didn't say i hate hillary. the idea that we are hitching to a wagon is false. we are embracing the fact that there are people who have hitched their wagons to celebrity culture and we are trying to let them know it's ok to be an individual and think differently. i embrace that completely. [applause] do you think the left is losing or gaining momentum in the use phrases like antifa and black lives matter as a poster child? >> losing. you saw thesome of incident this week. let me describe what happened in .ne sentence

white liberals screamed at a black conservative for defending a black police force against white liberals trashing the city that is 44% black, how did i do? white, calling her a white supremacist. calling her a nazi. >> and calling the police force, a bunch of black men, started screaming race traitor. i asked them, whose rates are they the training? we have 10 black police officers and a black female, and every person in antifa, it is a white gang. excusee racism as their to be violent, as their excuse to do whatever they want to acquire political power. they don't care about was happening to black america, no one talks about the 71 black people shot in chicago over the

weekend. but they did want to discuss boycotting laura ingraham because she talked about the changing demographics, because she has a third rated show across cable news. they want political power, they want to take down fox news.they don't care about black lives matter . inre was black lives matter in chicago last week? 16, 16,cotted because were shot, .004% of the black community impacted by police and i have a higher chance of being struck by lightning. but silence, has anybody heard from black lives matter? has anyone heard from black lives matter about last weekend? 71 black people were shot and they were silent. there's no way they can pin it

on donald trump. >> last time there was a republican mayor in chicago, 1931, all democrat alderman, congressman, monopolization of political control. rahm emanuel was barack obama's chief of staff and it lamented his policies in chicago. >> 4000, the same amount of black men died in the southside of chicago as in the iraq. silence. >> absolute silence. it is all about political power, they will use black people to gain political power, they don't care about black issues. they want to make sure black people continue being dependent on the government so people are forced to defend the government. it is about keeping them on welfare.

the black caucus stood up and clapped when obama announced more food stamps. when presidentt trump announced black unemployment was at an all-time low. they clapped for government in -- dependence. >> democrats need people to need them. >> that is correct. >> i don't know what the question was. >> these are some fascinating questions. this is about wikipedia. one thing that is interesting that is happening right now that all of us have to think about is that there are these private sector lifeforms that in effect monopolize our access to information. if they are politically biased, that can have a significant effect on political opinion.

one libertarian principle is that private sector that are not monopolistic can do whatever they want and have whatever biases they want. the questions about wikipedia but i would say, to what degree do you believe that the political biases of online platforms that made it hard exceed and what is your position on what the proper response for these rabbit sex or monopolies are. -- response for these private sector monopolies are. have a wikipedia page. they took down my wikipedia page. it is so fallacious, they take articles that they quote unquote source. lies.rom total we try to edit it. we tried to get people within

wikipedia to edit it. we tried to get new chapters at colleges and high schools in the -- inry at her said, i the administration say we don't want to, you embrace white supremacists. but we have candace islands. -- candace owens. >> they say i'm anti-black, anti-semitic, every anti-in front of my name. i read this stuff and say i hate this person. stories, onvorite wikipedia, my age number changes. i finally went to wikipedia and said, i'm not 22. he said, you are not 22?

you wrote that three years ago. it's something you logically know can -- you logically know is going to change. i'm going to get older. it still says i'm 22. >> the tech companies are a more serious issue. i think you know. yesterday on twitter, gavin mcinnis got banned. they were banned on apple, facebook, and spotify and youtube. same time. that shows the coordinated effort which is the most alarming thing in the entire world. it doesn't matter what you think about info wars. situationat the objectively. do we believe in free speech? was info wars using their platform to go out and kill people? no.

is scary that the biggest tech companies in the world are coordinating to shut down far right companies. yes, it's alarming. yesterday, info wars it can be me and charlie a month from now. it is scary. it's something we are not doing enough to talk about. we don't want more government regulations. it's tricky. to good questions here. what people prefer a question about me to or a question about black identities? >> this sounds fun. >> maybe we can do both. maybe really quick answers to both. said that me to his

about victimhood and political power but aren't the victims overcoming accusers? isn't that the opposite of victimhood? isn't -- how was it about power if both parties have asked politicians? been told i have to be a feminist because i'm woman and i have to be black lives matter's because i'm black. the me too movement has become a witchhunt. useds been hacked and been as a tool for the left to take down people who they want to take down. i was the most ideologically consistent person for saying i don't support me too for the same reason i don't support black lives matter. it's a silly conclusion to say -- that i like

black men getting shot because i don't like black lives matter. it's not that i don't support women who have been sexually assaulted. what i don't support is a witchhunt against men. these articles sound like bad dates and they are able to successfully and careers. it's something that condoleezza rice and gayle king spoke out about. it takes away due process and that's problematic. if a man is able to prove it was just an allegation, he's already been ruined. he's already had to step down and step away. i believe in due process. i also believe that you don't need a #to talk about issues that matter. i think when anything begins to

trend, he begins -- the begins to give the power to women to take down people without due process. [applause] please join me in giving a round of applause. [applause] >> thanks, everybody. >> c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up tuesday morning, a look at the latest from the c-span psp research survey on the supreme court. the national education association president on the calvinist ration's consideration

of proposals to armed teachers and schools. also, education policy. and the former federal elections chair talks about his op-ed that questions if payments made to women by president trump's attorney are violations of campaign finance laws. be sure to watch washington journal live at 7:00 east turned tuesday morning. join the discussion. live tuesday on the c-span networks. at 10:00 a.m., a pentagon briefing with james mattis and joseph dunford. at 2:30 p.m., a senate commerce subcommittee hearing on the dangers of out-of-control algae blooms. on c-span2, the u.s. senate returns for work on executive and judicial nominations and on

c-span3, 9:00 a.m., the presidential site summit with a panel of historians looking at how we think of presidents changing over time. executivete house pastry chef also speaks of the passive -- also speaks at the event. following opening remarks, richard haas took questions from students on a wide range of foreign-policy issues. this is an hour. >> hi, my name is colette and i'm the director of academic programming here at the society. thank you for everyone who came out to make this event possible and a special thanks to dr. richard haas --richard haass for coming to speak today. prior to becoming dean of the