and i had to track him down and i finally got him in phoenix airport and i said, john, this is tom daschle's bill. this is really important to tom, and you can't do that to the democratic leader, and he said, okay. we got it done. tom was my friend from then on. [ laughter ] >>@hat is where it all started. >> we have a question right here at that microphone if you could identify yourself. >> alex fultonith the "hill" newspaper. i wanted to get your thoughts on president obrecent recess appointments of richard cordray and the others in the midst the pro forma sessions, and they are said to be sham sessions, t were those appointments justified under the constitution and the senate rules as you see them? >> well, you will find a difference here. >> you will find a difference, but i believe that the president was entirely justified. for two reasons. one, because as trent said earlier, we are make it harder and harder and harder for nominees to go through this incredibly laborious and incredibly long time process and there is no end. it gets worse by the year. so to me alone that is the factor

and he worked fsh tom daschle. -- he worked for tom daschle. >> he's actually a distinguished fellow with us. >> who are some of the fellows we might recognize? >> carol. matt miller is a senior fellow. he writes in "the washington post" and is often on msnbc. and you know, andre kerney is a senior fellow with us. he worked in the clinton administration and was a speech writer for a lot of folks. they were all brilliant thinkers. and we have a hopeful roster of -- eric alterman who is a senior fellow with us. eric is much more liberal. and we like to -- we consider ourselves progressive. we're a centurist on some issues particularly in liberal an others. >> one of the things that has developed over the years is rich people who give money to washington institutions for whatever reason and i'm thinking of adelson who gave all that money to the gingrich campaign tor coke brother who is give a lot of money to charities and places like that. you have a list like george sew roles. >> no singer doner account for more than 10% of our funding. we have a very diversified portfolio. so, we have

and he worked for tom daschle at one point. >> and tom daschle is now with you all. >> he's now a senior fellow. he is a distinguished senior fellow. >> who are some of the other fellows you have that we might recognize? >> charles browner is a distinguished seen yore fellow with us. matt miller is a senior fellow, he writes in "the washington post" and is often on msnbc. ira kearney, he was a speech writer far lot of folks, they are all brilliant thinkers and we took -- we have a full roster of -- matt miller is more centrist, eric is more lebral, we consider ourselves pan progressives, we are centrist on some issues, liberal on others. >> one of the things that developed over the years are rich people who give money to washington for whatever reason. i'm thinking of edelson who gave money to the gingrich campaign or the koch brothers who give to heritage and you have a number on your list like george sorsos. >> george soros. no single donor accounts for more than 10% of our funding. we have a diversified portfolio. a lot of foundations as well as corporations. there's no single person,

i had a phone sitting on my desk and when it rang, i knew it was tom daschle. because we also found out, no offense, don and some of the other staff members here, sometimes you needed to get around the staff who would do a little boxing and tackling to keep frus taus from talking dir and is we had that on more than one occasion, where i would call him or he would call us, and on that infamous morning at 9/11 when i realized that we were all under attack, and he was the majority leader and i picked up the phone to say, hey, tom, i think that we better get out of here. about that time, my door burst open and in came the security people and we were gone and we spent an interesting day for the rest of the day, and one that we will never forget. and since he was so good in promoting my book, i will promote his book "a time like no other" and great title, and he talked about all of the challenges facing us. when i think about the journey to leadership, it is just not something that you leap to. these house and senate colleagues that are here as tom mentioned, they wi

and after that, tom daschle and trent lott on their time many congress and how things have changed. later, the launch of the ten-year campaign to double the number of women in congress. earlier this month, the president sent his 2013 federal budget proposal to congress and over the past several weeks members of his administration have come to capitol hill to discuss their agency's requests. tuesday we'll have live coverage on c-span 3 of two of those hearings. the first is at 10:00 a.m. and there will be testimony from lisa jackson. under the president's plan the epa budget would decrease by a total of $8.3 billion. later in the afternoon we'll hear from secretary of state hillary clinton before the senate foreign relations committee. the president is requesting $51.6 billion, a 1% increase over 2012. this includes $8.2 billion for civilian-led operations in war zones and other overseas operations. you can watch live coverage of both of these hearings, tuesday, on c-span 3. >>> there are millions of decent americans who are willing to sacrifice for change, but they want to do it wit

the day i was elected to lead in place of bob dole, and connie and phil gramm, and tom daschle and i said, tom, can we meet your leaders. we went into tom's office and we said a prayer, together, to give us guidance and to pray for our country. that was our first act when we had our leadership teams together. and the next thing is that i think that, you know, the day of 9/11, we wind up in a cavern somewhere in virginia or west virginia, but i was never quite sure where we were, tom, but flying in a helicopter with tom and me and harry reid and other ways had gone their ways to get to the cavern and there we were together talking to the respective conference, and they were here and we were over there, and that was not popular with the team. we are over here in a bunker, see you later. and so we had talked to dick cheney a couple of times and then i said later on in the day, we want to go back. send the helicopter, and he said no. i didn't appreciate that very much, but he said, no, we don't know if it is safe yet, but later on he said that the helicopter is on the way, and the helicop

. >> tom daschle, when he uttered the phrase, i'm a d.c. resident. >> i register showed paul and romney leading the president. i talked to some folks privately. there's something going on here that despite the president recovering in every other battleground state, he didn't here. is is it because republicans were attacking him in the state. >> republicans spend six months attacking the president in iowa. the second, ron paul is beating the president by the most. ron paul is not going to be the nominee for president, but is there more work that needs to happen in the state? absolutely. there are a lot of roots. something that's really in the president's favor. >> our third one, golden name. son of a u.s. senator. great grandson of a famous baseball brawler. i thought could be the instant front-runner and really challenge bill nelson, but boy, what did we learn? >> 1992, got in a bar brawl after reportedly taking jaeger the , this is very 1992.w belt. >> when you're in a head lock -- >> and in the process, broke his ankle. >> charlie chris former righ

he was the chief of staff when obama was a senator, chief of staff to tom daschle before that. he's the insider when it comes to how power is wielded, but he avoids the cameras, seen as a fixer, assigned to tough problems, and you don't hear about him a lot, but people close to the white house handling business, he's behind a lot of it. >> host: the chamber, president tom don hew is ten, why? >> guest: the chamber of commerce group claims to remit most of american business. you think of it as the lobbying group for big business in america, well funded, and they oppose anything that they think would harm the bat dome line -- bottom line for businesses in america. that's opposing the president's health care initiative and things like that, and it's put tom donohue who runs the chamber on a personal one-on-one contest with obama sometimes in a way that many people say he's won and obama backed down over claims and stances that donohue's taken. >> host: i went through the list, only one female in the top ten and ten women total on the list of 50, why? >> guest: well, you know, it's