live every day. coming up saturday morning, britney shepherd of yahoo news will talk about the latest campaign 2020 news. then washington examiner country bitter naomi schaefer will talk about her article looking at efforts to dictate how terrible foundations spend their money. be sure to watch "washington journal" live at 7 a.m. saturday morning. join the discussion. >> our guest on "newsmakers" this week, we are joined by stephanie schriock, of emily's group. working to elect pro-choice democratic women to state and local elections. thank you for being with us. we should tell our audience that you had a big announcement that you are committing $20 million to 20 races to flip state legislatures in 2020. we will talk about that and lots of other electoral politics questions. let me introduce the two

reporters asking questions. dave is the national political correspondent for "the washington post." thanks to both of you for being back again this week. dave, you are up first. dave: starting higher up the sure you've interacted with a lot of donors that worried that the woman cannot win the presidency. heavy detected any shifts and that over the past couple weeks or since the debate? >> we can't walk away from the presidential race. i always tell folks that is part of our culture. everybody's focus. has, will say that there particular since the debates, i think that debate on both herts, elizabeth warren in strong showing on the first night in, let harris did -- a phenomenal did jock on the second night, put aside a lot of the fears of

whether or not a woman would be president trump. there were presidential, strong, they had good ideas. they were able to talk about the things. i will fully admit there have been plenty of conversations about whether or not a woman electable and that whole concept of electability which, frankly, we're not very good at deciding who's electable anyway. but, what was happening is folks, because there are so many people running on the democratic side for president, just trying to figure out who can beat trump . what i've been telling everyone, the person who can beat trump thise one who wins primary. what we saw last week was a sign that, wow, we have got a number of really strong candidates, including women who can put this together. >> in 2015, emily's list very early on endorsed hillary clinton.

can you schedule what would happen in order for emily's list to make an endorsement. that is a good question. i have to remind everybody that emily's list is committed to electing pro-choice democratic women for 35 years has only ever endorsed one woman for president. twice. so, this is a really new moment for us. one we're very, very excited about but it is a complicated moment. our strength as an organization has always been to ultimately potential pool of presidential candidates of women who have served who could run for president. and here we are, we have got six women, five of which emily's list has supported in the past. this is a new world for us. what we're doing right now is we are trying to fight to ensure t hat there's a fair playing ground ahead of these women.

there are still different obstacles. we think some of the coverage has gotten better. is still not at the level we would like to see. we think everybody's voices need to be heard. i think everybody is still surprised about these poll jobs after the debate and how well elizabeth war in and-- warren and kamala harris have done, but it was the first time they saw them. we are monitoring the situation. if we down the road make a decision, it will be one in which we think we can actually help get a woman to the top of the ticket. i'll tell you right now, i do not want to be in a position to choose one or the other. and there could be another moment. amy klobuchar, neighbor to iowa, i think is going to have a really good path in iowa potentially. sure could. and senator gillibrand. she's been running on a really strong women focused campaign. we have got a long way to go

here. theoving down ballot, democratic house campaign committee recently announced a policy that -- puts primary challenges to incumbents. why do you disagree and could you see emily's list taking a more active role in working with pro-choice women in races against the comments -- and, to may not be solid on that issue? ms. schriock: we don't always agree on everything and this is one of these moments, but the truth is we're committed to ensuring that democratic majority stays in place. in fact, emily's list last election cycle in 2018 helped usher in that historic number of women that are serving in the house. we could not be prouder of the 24 women who picked up red to blue seats. but emily's list has a different mission and our mission is to elect pro-choice democratic

women. we historically have not gone into races against pro-choice democratic incumbents who are me n or who are women, for that matter. the truth is it is about resource allocation for us. we've got so much opportunity in open seats and pick up seats. where are we best suited to make gains for women? d, if there issai an anti-choice democratic and, you had better believe we are going to be there. you next question is about marie newman running against dan lipinski. we are thrilled to be supporting her in this race and feel that in this election cycle she will be the next member of congress and that is exactly what we feel that district, folks in illinois deserve, someone who will stand by the values of reproductive justice. >> any other members of commerce you could see emily's list getting involved in a primary? ms. schriock: the truth is the

democratic party shares the values of access to safe abortion in this country. and so, the vast majority of our democratic incumbent are in fact pro-choice, as are, by the way, seven out of 10 americans, who believe -- so, we certainly monitoring the situation really closely because there are really fabulous women stepping up to run against incumbent. 2018. that in we did not engage in those races because of our policy. we are thinking through what is the right next steps for us? said, we still have a lot of work to do, even winning in safe open seats and picking up red to blue seats across the country. that came to mind was henry clay in texas. what is the difference between that race and a race like lipinski's? ms. schriock: we would consider him in the same category as dan

lipinski. we've had some conversations with some women in that district about that race. >> he's a candidate in that race. ms. schriock: we think it is not completely finalized. so we're taking a really hard look. we'd like to get in on that one. you look for in a candidate besides being pro-choice? how do you determine who is the best fit? there areck: in multiple women primaries that we have -- top of the ticket and all the way down. this is 30 years of success of emily's list. 30 years ago i called our founders had been the president for 25 years and said i think we had four races, maybe five congressional primaries were there were more than one women. it's great. i said to ellen, how many of

these did you have to deal with over 25 years? she said, something, i could count them on one hand. this is a cultural change that is going on. and it really is because we have been able to open up those doors. i stand upon on shoulders of women like ellen who came before me that allow this, that forced this to be available for women who wanted to take this on. what do we do now? the truth is the pro-choice democratic women who've character's degree -- baseline. the truth is most democratic women are pro-choice. the vast majority at this point. we are looking for in our candidates women who are, who are committed to their communities, who have a story to tell, who are willing to do the hard work of putting together the campaign structure. and the thing about these campaigns is that, i't's like a startup. you had to be able to put

together at least some of the resources, not all, but you have to have enough resources to get started, you have got to had enough of the poli people suppo people support. we have to have an understanding of what that state or district is about. that is what we are looking for. we will help, including numerous women in one race, to find that story and help her find her argument to make the case. at some point we are looking to see who can win. at the end of the day we want to add women's voices into our legislatures, in our city councils and into our congress. that is what we do. polle're looking up numbers, looking at the makeup of the district. seeing who's got the best chance of winning ultimately the general election. and the truth is, as i said earlier, the best person to win an election is the one who can win the primary. >> you made an early endorsement in maine and iowa. teresa greenfeld and sarah getting. what was the decision behind

jumping in so early especially in a state like maine? ms. schriock: in iowa teresa greenfeld appears to be the only woman. we have known teresa. that's the thing. the interesting thing about emily's list is for so many of the women we have known or been working with them for years. as they come up. unlike the democratic congressional campaign committee dealing with a valid we deal withne, the whole ballot. maggie hassan, whom he had the great honor of framing before she ran for the state senate in new hampshire, we knew her as s state senator when she lost that senate seat. we came back around and said, you should run for governor. we supported her in that governor's race. then when the senate seat came satgainst kelly ayotte, we

down with many conversations and said, we think we should do this. we're really looking for leaders, rising leaders across the ballot lines. it is a really unique thing that emily's list does that very few other entities do. so, somebody like sarah gideon a maine, who we have been champion of in her work, who not only did a phenomenal job as speaker of the state house in maine ensuring a newly elected candidate, janet mills, the newly elected governor started to turn the train around after eight years of republican getting thatge agenda through. but she also proved her worse when she was in the minority. when she had to work across the aisle in cycles before. that is the kind of leadership we are looking for. we think she's someone who is a strong leader who can take on susan collins. >> looking at the entire bal

lot in the last cycle what we have heard is we have never seen this level of interest, women signing up and asking how they can run. what you see? has any of that enthusiasm slipped? ms. schriock: no. i keep thinking it is going to slip. at some point. so, we have a website right now. emily's list.org. you can sign up for our run to win program if you are pro-choice democratic woman who has any interest to run for anything. we will put you into a program first online and then offer in person training. so, initially, after 2016, which is where so many groups like wonderful groups like run for something, dealing with younger folks. just across the board had all of this interest coming in. we did, too, by the thousands. in the first four weeks after the election we had over 1000 women sign up to emily's list wanting to run for office.

we'd already talked to 920 the two years prior. this is like, ok, something is happening. that number is over 46,000 women today. it has continued every day. i getting email every morning about how many women signed up yesterday. sometimes it is five and sometimes it is 48. this year, right now. and they are signing up to say, i want to run. i may not know what for. city council, county commissioner. and we provide those tools. we are not seeing it slow down. they are getting more organized in the state. why we laid out this very, very large plan yesterday, earlier say, wherei should we are investing $20 million into our legislative races across the country, which is where so many of these women are coming in. we are doing that one, because we have got to change who is

making policy decisions in our legislatures. abortions bans that we have been seeing in alabama, georgia, ohio, missouri. there have well over, almost 400 anti-choice bills move through republican legislatures. they have not all become law. we're up against and so we have got to change who is making the laws. we also need to make sure there are different people at those tables when we get ready to do redistricting in this country in 202021. that is a long answer. the women are there, ready to run enable take this on. >> what you see as emily's list 's role in louisiana and mississippi where there is going to be legislative elections but they are going to be democrats atop the ballot who say they have signed abortion restriction. what is the role there? in schriock: i will say mississippi and alabama we are just starting our outreach there.

i wish we were deep in all 50 states. we are not. we did play in over 30 last election cycle but we are not in all 50. seeinggoing to start more activity in states like louisiana and the base. we believe, -- we know that ther e are strong democratic women who share our values who are willing to start changing hearts and minds of. democrats in those states host: in 2017, the gop created hopingy's list ligroup to elect pro-life women to state seats. do you expect them to be a factor in 2020? ms. schriock: what i would say is this. everybody wants to be emily's list. it has taken us 35 years to get here. i have that conversation with organizations who want to be the emily's list of millennials. and we need all of that work and we need an emily's list of

republican women. i completely agree with that, but it takes sometimes to build. the pipeline of candidates to move through and support. so, i am hopeful. truly and we will run against some of those women and that's ok but the republican party has to change its mindset about it support of women.within the party . there's a reason we have so many more democratic women because emily's list has been pushing up that mountain and we won in the democratic party. democratic party leaders often are looking for women candidates. and speakerer pelosi gave huge credit for that. that was not the case 20 years ago in the democratic party. to prove those women can win. we, this country, and the republican women need to do the same thing. ofope this is the beginning

a change because we are never going to get a 50% women in congress if the republicans don't start carrying their weight. and i sayo believe this not as a democrat but i say this as an american woman who cares deeply about policies for families in this country, we will have a better government when those decision-making tables are at least 50/50. right now we are not even close. we have 7 minutes left. question? >> focusing on down ballot. biggest the battle this year. one of the chambers came down to the name auto hat. to try to flipan one or both of those chambers? ms. schriock: we really believe we can flip the both of those chambers this year's. we need to pick up some seats in the senate and house of delegates. we had an incredible success in 2017. in fact, i can pull the name o

ut of a hat. that was our candidate. she lost. she is running again. we have already i endorsed over 30 women for, across the chambers. we announced already a $600,000 investment in partnership with priorities u.s.a. to do some outreach. i have had staff on the ground already recruiting, coaching, helping set up organizations around those candidates in both chambers. you're going to see additional support. we actually think we can do this and we have to do it. >> that is something the democratic party has neglected at large -- down ballot races. this party lost thousands of seats during the obama era. ms. schriock: i think things ie, have changed a lot and think even under the obama administration i like to remind people midterms are pretty bad

for the party that is in power. and, unfortunately, under the obama era, they were particularly bad and we lost a lot of ground. we made up a chucnk of -- chunk of ground. we've got to go the rest of the way. p seven chambers in the last election in 2018. anotherave to go after 7-10 in places like michigan and pennsylvania and florida, really important races. i h ave definitely seen an increase of support. financial support in these places. think areings that i really critical for democrats and one of the reasons emily's theirolled out investment plan, more than double -- much with the pain and suffering of my development team, more than double what we did last election cycle which was triple what we did the cycle

before. we are reamping up. we have to get the resources into those races. this is the next decade of congressional and legislative seats all over again. this is the moment. we have got to do it. we also need to recruit and .target strategically . we made mistakes to leave red districts without candidates. i fully admit i was part of that a decade ago. we have to have democrats running everywhere. now, they are not all going to win. we have got to be honest. but if those candidates pull out an extra 200 votes for the democratic ticket, that is how we win statewide. we have got to change our mindset about recruitment. we have got to give enough coaching support to those candidates to get them up and running. the good news is is that emily's list has got 46,000 women who

want to run for office. dave: you talked about the people inside those candidates. in some ways, it seems like we've seen less mobilization in some of the special elections that were norm is for democrats that shrunk a little bit. there were a number of problems within the organization, they shrunk -- the women's march. how do you keep people is focused down ballot? they start to focus on the big show -- the presidency. ms. schriock: people love the presidency but i really, with organizing women on the ground. this just this last week, the grassroots leaders came together at a women's congress to plan out there 2019 work already. even though you're not seeing these national marches, what they are all focused on turning out voters and turning out their neighbors. i think we're really looking a particular next in 2020, we are

looking at an historic turnout. our goal is make sure we are seeing a good turnout in 20 in virginia where have a really tion, drivenr, elec by women once again. i just do not have the same concern. the other side is, motivated too. this is why will have in the store turnout. -- historic turnout. women voters who led the way in 2018 will be there. >> and looking at all of those races, i still, i'm still e intersectiont th between those races and the presidential race. you talked about the money coming in. is there not any downside? could be sent down ballot? ms. schriock: the nice thing about her having a huge and democratic primary is that a lot of, currently this your what we have seen it emily's list, we're not exactly where to put their resources in the

presidential at this moment. wait, put it down ballot. let's get these candidates up and running and get them in a position where they can take advantage of a strong presidential turnout. will feelis -- it like it is all about the presidential. as long as we've got strong candidates already on the ballot. let's go further down, city council races, county commissioner. if they are set up ready to take advantage of what i believe will be a true historic turnout, then we could change a whole dlesloew of state from red to blue. that is our goal. it is very possible. host: thank you. i hope you will come back as the election year progresses. thank you so much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] "newsmakers" is back. and then we are with is zach and dave of "the washington post."

--st of all, you really had on the impact of so many women in the presidential campaign this year. we heard yher opinion. what are the concerns among democratic activists and voters about having a woman at the top of the ticket in their effort to unseat president trump? >> i friend the question that way because a person have felt some of it is a fitting over the past few weeks. i had less to do with the strength of the female candidates then joe biden looking rusty on the trail. this is the package we can sell in the midwest. somebody also was more dynamic. people will take a second look. 2016, that election night is probably the biggest trauma since 9/11 for a lot of democratic activist. what can we do that would prevent this from happening again? it's taken at least six months for a lot of activists to date

out of that depression and consider voting for woman again. i'm sure she has heard the same thing. >> if you look at the polls, three women would have over 50%. that is changing now but it took those women getting up on stage in front of a national audience. to go after joe biden and stage to prove that she could be tough and stand up to donald trump in a debate. she can prosecute trump. she showed that this week. elizabeth warren had a strong debate performance. they showed on a national stage to voters and activists that they can run just as viable campaign is any man could. d people worried that a woman onstage with donald trump would get bullied by him physically. i don't think i will hear that is much now. once you see somebody in that format, that is why think that works for kamala harris. it was easy for people to start

picturing her on stage with trump. before they had a nightmare vision of trump making fun of her and walking across the stage and following her around. sotheir memory hillary was bullied by donald trump. host: money is altogether different. what are the donations? the reports from the campaign showing about the acceptance of female candidates? >> in the first quarter of elizabeth warren reported a low number. that is not the case anymore. host: the next report will be interesting to watch. >> we've seen some senate candidate. sarah gideon. a weekse $1 million in for a senate campaign against a senator who has seemed invincible in cycle ex-slugger -- cycle after cycle. she raced half a million. people are still find in the

down ballot candidates in a way that republicans should worry about. when i asked about money outside, i was seeing what she would do with that question because the democratic donors are still primed to think giving to down ballot races if they are exciting enough. host: the supreme court decision on redistricting will energize both parties on the state legislature level. how do you see that playing out over the next year? >> democrats are very upset by this decision that there will be on the started -- unfettered gerrymandering. in a state like virginia were control of the chamber cooking down to one or two seats. it is something that activists will push through, these really matter. this one legislative seat m at atters. it could mean the difference between a different control of the house. >> it's a bit like term limits was republican as a good government issue when it is explained to somebody in an elevator. it makes sense to say why should

a legislator be allowed to serve to 10 years without a real challenge? weighincally, i think -- layin g in against democrats, they are comfortable making these arguments. if elected government we will elect the commission. i think the republicans might be on the back foot arguing for this. they end up saying it is the will of people but people don't like a lot of elected officials as we have seen. i think politically give mike advantage democrats in 2020. host: well, it is independence weekend. a big weekend for candidates all over the place. thank you for spending part of that weekend with us on c-span. >> thank you. >> there has been discussion about an appearance before congress. any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report.

andontains our findings analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. we chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. and the report is my testimony. provide information beyond that which has only been published in any appearance before congress. >> >> robert mueller is set to a pure on wednesday, july 17. later in the day, he will take questions from the house intelligence committee. both open sessions. eller's report into russian interference in the 2016 election will air live on c-span 3, online at c-span.org or the free c-span radio app. newport is an associate professor of computer science at