them the story of congresswoman shirley these are old, and they always tell them the story of shirley chisholm, who said kids who are hungry cannot learn. we have free lunches for kids in school and we can't imagine not having free lunches for kids in school today. worry about quality because the quality is getting worse, folks. i thought it was bad when i was a kid. have ant is we responsibility i think to recognizing there is a crisis and childcare is a crisis. health care is a crisis. until we do that, we are never going to be able to resolve it. this is a good story -- march reading month i have a lot of schools, so we go into april and so forth. i go into second and third grade classes and read. the kids get excited. i show them where i work. or i read the legend of mackinac island. kids, am done i asked the do you know what a member of congress does? someone mentioned the president or washington, d.c. or something. also, how many of you have had asthma? 1/3 of the class will raise their hand, no matter where i am at. nott now wayne county is complying with sulfur dioxide levels. i tell t

back in the day, we had shirley chisholm running for president.d hillary clinton and she lost. are we ready as a people for a few mill president -- a female president? guest: i hear this question a lot from democrats who are say beating they donald trump is the most important thing to us. some of them worry if they nominate a woman, if they nominate a person of color, if they nominate a gay man, that might make it more difficult. say i want as looking'm exclusively for women. is specifically looking to the women this year. let gocrats are able to of that fear a little bit and cast their support behind whoever they like best, there's a lot of support for people of color, there's a lot of energy on the ground to move the party forward and the about their values of supporting a more diverse candidate. host: what are the other key voting blocs to watch out for? guest: we've been looking at different constituencies. you have the white working class, blue-collar, union democrat. democrat along the mississippi river, these manufacturing industrial towns

them the story of congresswoman shirley these are old, and they always tell them the story of shirley chisholm, who said kids who are hungry cannot learn. we have free lunches for kids in school and we can't imagine not having free lunches for kids in school today. worry about quality because the quality is getting worse, folks. i thought it was bad when i was a kid. have ant is we responsibility i think to recognizing there is a crisis and childcare is a crisis. health care is a crisis. until we do that, we are never g

brooklyn's a great place you know, we gave the world jackie robinson, shirley chisholm, coney islande when you get back there >> it does it's changing a lot. one of the challenges that we all are working through is making sure that we can maintain the diversity that has made brooklyn such a special place. you know, we want to continue to be a collection of neighborhoods where working families, middle class folks, senior citizens, young people who are starting out, artists, can continue to call brooklyn home so we have a real affordable housing crisis that we have to address. >> seth: you obviously mentioned, right there, the value of diversity you talked last night about donald trump and his comments about ilhan omar, your colleague. what's your response to when you saw that and also, your response to what seems to be a more muted reaction to it from your republican colleagues? >> those are very dangerous and divisive remarks that were made. and words have consequences, particularly when delivered by the so-called leader of the free world. and there are people who he can inspire and

and there our biggest problem was that shirley chisholm and other members of congress said we have a crisis also in haiti. and we're in the going to allow you just to get cubans in. and so we came up with a special cuban-haitian immigration program, which also allowed a number of haitians to come in. under the umbrella of the cubans. if they had been isolated, i don't think we would have had that degree of support. but the cuban-american community was heavily republican. and so that led to a buy-in for this bipartisan process of allowing the cubans in. >> my last question for you is looking at the last 39 years. the refugee act in action, what do you think should have been done differently or how should it be amended today? >> there needs to be a clarification about how you apply for refugee status. the difference between a refugee and the asylum advocate is that a refugee is applying to come in on a well founded fear of persecution from outside the country. an asylum applicant is doing so inside the country. and now we have a situation on our southern border in which people are comi

too bold.k these are i give them the story of congresswoman shirley chisholm who said we have to see children in schools because if we do not, they are not going to learn. children who are hungry cannot learn. she persisted and we got free lunches for kids in schools. we cannot imagine not having free lunches for kids in schools today. they get fed twice. we do have to worry about quality because the quality is getting worse, folks. i thought it was bad when i was a kid. have ant is we responsibility i think to recognizing there is a crisis and childcare is a crisis. health care is a crisis. until we do that, we are never going to be able to resolve it. this is a good story -- march reading month i have a lot of schools, so we go into april and so forth. i go into second and third grade classes and read. the kids get excited. i show them where i work. or i read the legend of mackinac island. kids, am done i asked the do you know what a member of congress does? someone mentioned the president or washington, d.c. or something. also, how many of you have had asthma? 1/3 of the class wil