from hazardous products. later, h.r. mcmaster participates in a form on threats to free and open societies. friends of mine emailed me and said why do you want to tackle this issue? marriage and family? you are jumping into the culture war. you really want to do this? will be our guest on in-depth today from noon until 2:00 p.m. eastern. his latest book is the divine plan. other books include the crusader, as well as the spiritual lives of ronald reagan, george w. bush and hillary clinton. join our live conversation with your phone calls, tweets and facebook questions. kengorin-depth with paul

live, today from noon until 2:00 p.m. eastern. be sure to watch in-depth with author lee edwards next month. watch book tv every weekend on c-span2. >> our guest on "newsmakers" this week, we are joined by stephanie schriock, of emily's list. working to elect pro-choice democratic women to state and local elections. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> 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 ballot, i'm sure you've interacted with a lot of donors

that worried that the woman cannot win the presidency after 2016. have you 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. it's a part of pop culture and everybody's focus. and i will say that, particularly since the debate, i think that debate on both nights, elizabeth warren in her strong showing on the first night and kamala harris did a phenomenal job on the second night, put aside a lot of the fears of whether or not a woman could beat donald 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 was 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, this thing is wide open. the person who can beat trump is the one who wins the 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 what would happen 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. [laughter] 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 build that pool of potential 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 that 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 -- jumps after the debate and how well elizabeth warren and

kamala harris have done, but it was the first time they saw them. that's why these moments are so important. 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. >> moving down ballot, the 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 incumbents who may not be solid on that issue? ms. schriock: we don't always and weosely with the dlc 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 men 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? all that being said, if there is 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 congress 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 incumbents 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 incumbents. we saw that in 2018. we did not engage in those races because of our policy. we are thinking through what is the right next step for us? all that being 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. >> a race 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 are taking a close look at that one and 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.

>> what do you look for in a candidate besides being pro-choice? how do you determine who is the best fit? ms. schriock: there are multiple women primaries that we have at the top of the ticket and all the way down. this is 30 years of success of emily's list. i want to say it was maybe six 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. to the effect of 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 characteristics, that is the 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, it's like a startup. you had to be able to put ve 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 have enough of the 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. so, we're looking up poll. numbers, looking at the makeup of the district . 's. 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 ballot line, we deal with the whole ballot. i often tell the story of maggie hassan, whom he had the great honor of framing before she ran for the state senate in new hampshire, we knew her as a 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 up against kelly ayotte, we sat 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 in maine, who we have been a

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 governor lapage getting that agenda through. but she also proved her worse -- worth 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 ballot 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 do 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. slist.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 2016 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 get an 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 this week, i should say, where 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. these 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.

where up against it -- we are up against it 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 2021. 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? ms. schriock: i will say in 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. you're going to start seeing more activity in states like louisiana and mississippi. we believe -- we know that there 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 an emily's list group hoping 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. i say this 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. s 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. leader schumer and speaker pelosi gave huge credit for that. that was not the case 20 years ago in the democratic party. that has taken a lot of work to prove those women can win. we, this country, and the republican women need to do the same thing. i hope this is the beginning of a change because we are never going to get a 50% women in congress if the republicans don't start carrying their weight. i really do believe and i say 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. virginia the biggest battle this year. one of the chambers came down to the name being drawn out of a hat. what is your plan to try to flip 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 two seats in the senate and the house of delegates. we had an incredible success in 2017. in fact, i can pull the name out of a hat. that was our candidate. she lost. she is running again. we have already 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 absolutely think we can do this and we have to do it. >> that is something the democratic party has neglected at large -- down ballot races. state legislative races. this party lost thousands of seats during the obama era. what needs to change? ms. schriock: i think things one, have changed a lot and i 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 chunk of ground. during donald trump's first midterm.

we've got to go the rest of the way. we helped pick up seven chambers in the last election in 2018. we now have to go after another 7-10 in places like michigan and pennsylvania and florida, really important races. i have definitely seen an increase of support. financial support in these places. the two things that i think are really critical for democrats and one of the reasons emily's list rolled out their investment plan, more than double -- much to 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 ramping up. we have to get the resources into those races. it is really important. 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 broadly

and target strategically. 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 100, 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. it's a good time. three minutes. question? 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.

women's march activism, 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. that was just this last weekend, the grassroots leaders came together at a women's congress to plan out there 2019 work r 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 good off year, election, driven

by women once again. i just do not have the same concern. the other side is, motivated too. women voters that were the leaders in 2018, they are going to be there. >> and looking at all of those races, i still, i'm still wondering about the intersection 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. next year is -- it will feel 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 commission races. 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 slew of state from red to blue. -- slew of seats from red to blue. that is our goal. it is very possible. >> that is it for our time. host: thank you. i hope you will come back as the election year progresses. thank you so much. >> let's talk all things women and politics. you really had -- on the impact of so many women in the presidential campaign this year. we heard her 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 framed 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 than joe biden looking rusty on the trail. this is the package we can sell in the midwest. people will take a second look. 2016, that election night is probably the biggest trauma since 9/11 for a lot of democratic activists. it has done a lot of work on their brain to think 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. -- for a 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. kamala harris to go after joe biden on stage to prove that she could be tough and stand up to donald trump in a debate. selling been her point. 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. >> i heard 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. just because, seeing people on stage, there is no substitute for it. once you see somebody in that format, that is why think that works for kamala harris. it's not that joe biden is a stand-in for donald trump. 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. in their memory hillary was so bullied by donald trump. that's why she lost.

polls are one thing. money is altogether different. what are the donations? the reports from the campaign showing about the acceptance of female candidates? >> i think it is early. in the first quarter of elizabeth warren reported a low number. my hunch is that is not the case anymore. host: the next report will be interesting to watch. >> we've seen some senate candidates. raised $1 million in a week for a senate campaign against a senator who has seemed invincible 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 unfettered gerrymandering. in a state like virginia where control of the chamber cooking down to one or two seats. it is something that activists will push. these really matter. this one legislative seat matters. 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? rhetorically, i think -- the court weighing in against democrats, they are comfortable making these arguments. if elected government we will

create a 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 might 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. >> tonight on c-span's q and day. a. >> 10 years later, he is in a 49 state landslide. and then it all came apart. >> pat buchanan, who served as a speechwriter and senior advisor

explained hisixon book, nixon's white house wars. >> i wrote him a memoir, saying i think you are going to have to keep the tapes. i did not think they were going to be that damaging to us. the stuff you need, you should tape. take the rest out and burn it. and shut down this special prosecutor's office for this thing grows into a monster. and i did not know it at the time. but nixon had called in fred was art and entertained this idea. they said it would be obstruction of justice. not recommend burning subpoena tate. second, they were his property. them andply got rid of

said impeachment be dammed, i think he would have moved right through it. president nixon said if he had burned the tapes as i had urged him to do, he would have survived. i think that is right. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and a. in 1979, a small network with an unusual name rolled out a big idea. let viewers make up their own minds. c-span bringing you unfiltered content. a lot has changed in 40 years but today, that big idea is more relevant than ever. c-span, with your unfiltered view of government. brought to you by your public service or satellite provider. >> a house environment subcommittee is looking into the impact of climate change.

members talked with james witt and atmospheric science professors about efforts to prepare for natural disasters which might result in change in weather patterns. >> the subcommittee will come to order. without objections, the chair is authorized. this is our third in a series of climate change hearings, continuing with natural disasters. i recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening statement. mentioned, this is the third in a series of