a little bit about mary weingarten. mary weingarten grew up outside of washington d.c..after graduating from the university of chicago she worked for several years in community arts in london and then move to san francisco where she earned her m.a. in comparative literature. her translations of russian poets have been published in magazines and in crossing centuries and anthology of contemporary russian poetry. her poems have appeared in 26 journals, journal 26, excuse me. she has grown three children teaches english at san francisco state university and is working on a new collection of poetry. she lives in tampa and cisco with her husband, jeff hoyle. please welcome mary weingarten. [applause] congratulations. >> wow. it's great to be here and it is really an enormous honor, clichÉs aside, you know you are right. it is a clichÉ but it's true, isn't it quite i am really grateful to the before columbus foundation, justin, ishmael, to jack foley who icas could not make it today into all of you for this award. and i thank all of you for coming this afternoon on this gorgeo

host: randi weingarten, thank you for your time. next on "washington journal," we will look at the drone program with my clients -- mike lyons. we will be right back. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> at the democratic national convention, the dazzling speech made him a national figure. lincoln gives a dazzling speech in new york, the cooper union speech. it is a beautiful testament to the research he does. it is a fantastic speech, well worthy of praise. barack obama gave the speech in 2004. he was running for the senate in illinois and one. abraham lincoln ran for the senate in illinois and lost. you want to think about abraham lincoln in 1860, think about barack obama running for the presidency in 2008, if he had lost the only senate election. that is the level we are talking about. >> the assistant professor profiles historic and modern leaders to show the lessons that can be learned from those who have had the greatest impact on the issues of thei

guest: let's leave it there and go to a randi weingarten for a response. guest: i think what happens is people do not really know the facts about health care or about pensions. the average pension for teachers around the country is somewhere between $20,000.25000 dollars after someone has worked 25 to 30 years. that is because it is deferred. it is deferred compensation. most teachers pay into that. what happened in the last recession is that there was less of a pay into it by the state dollars and things like that, and that is where you see some of the school systems and states. this is the bottom line -- teaching, firefighting, being a police officer, all of these are jobs where you want the best and brightest. you want to make sure people can work as hard as they work, make a difference in the lives of kids, and when they retire can be treated decently and retire. that is why there has to be balanced approach in the private sector and public sector. what we're facing now and the private sector is we're facing retirement insecurity because folks no longe

randi weingarten, president of the atc. >> announcer: this is the "bill press show." just use your citi card and register your purchase online. have a super sparkly day! ok. [ male announcer ] now all you need is a magic carriage. citi price rewind. buy now. save later. ñ [ ♪ theme ♪ ] >> >> announcer: the parting shot with bill press. this is the "bill press show." >> bill: all right. on this thursday, november 29, a very quick parting shot. there is -- it is not just a fiscal cliff. there is another big issue facing this administration and that is pot. the question i raised to jay carney at the white house briefing yesterday is now that voters in colorado and washington state have legalized the recreational use of marijuana, is the federal government the obama administration going to respect that or continue to enforce the federal law? carney wouldn't answer the question. all he said was it's up to the department of justice and by the way, congress has to change the law. which is a total cop-out. if anybody ought to know,

and randi weingarten, president of the american federation of teachers. thank you both for joining me. >> thank you. >> great to be with you. >> george, let me go to you first. what is the key to the ground game in these final hours? >> the key is one, we have thousand of people that have said they want to be a part of this. and the key for us is to make sure that we are getting out and talking to the people. i think as it has been said many times before, when people understand what is at stake, when people understand that difference between them having a future and not having a future, is simply getting out the vote no matter what the challenge is. people will react to that and so we have thousands of people all around the country that are willing to go out, knock on doors. we have a saying that we have adapted. richmond, virginia at this moment. that saying is one more knock for barak. that's what we are doing. we are going that extra mile to make sure that we knock on the door it encourage people to come out and stand up for their future. >> randi wein

randi weingarten of the american federal of teachers in studio with us.ut of tennessee. a tennessee hospital. they are busy contacting thousands of patients after somebody stole a hospital laptop with patient information on it including 22 thousand recordings with patients last names, addresses, birthdays, physician's names and social security numbers, can you say identity theft? you can see that coming there. that's why you need protection against it. i have got it with what is called lifelock ultimate. the most comprehensive protection ever made. lifelock can't protect you or your bank account if you are not a member. call now, and if you mention press 60 you will get 60 risk-free days of protection. the deal is, if you are not happy call them again within 60 days and cancel and they'll give you a full refund. give them a call at 1-800-356-5967 for lifelock ultimate. peter what have you got. >> on twitter @bpshow on the republicans that stand in the way of teachers and unions. kim says the tea party doesn't want the unions they are just sad. kind of sum

a little bit about mary weingarten. mary weingarten grew up outside washington d.c.after graduating from university of chicago, she worked for several years in community arts in london and moved to san francisco, where she earned her m.a. in comparative literature. for translation of russian pilots have been published in magazines and in crossing centuries an anthology of russian poetry. her poems have appeared in 26 journals, journal 26. she has grown three children, teaches english at san francisco state university and is working on a new collection of poetry. she was in san francisco with her husband by jeff hoyle. please welcome, mary weingarten. [applause] >> congratulations. >> wow, it is great be here and it is really an enormous honor, clichÉs aside. you are right, but it's true. it's a clichÉ, in the name? i'm grateful to the before columbus foundation, to justin ishmael, to jack foley like us could could make it today and all of you for this award. i think all of you for coming this afternoon on this gorgeous day, with the arteries, thank you for coming. th

to help us answer that question is one of the most influential voices in education, randi weingartenssed in her hoodie sweatshirt because you are out doing work around sandy recovery in the schools. >> satly. we're working -- we have several -- we have hundreds of volunteers today that have come from different cities throughout the united states. ast volunteers to help with community recovery on coney island, the rockaways, and help with staten island. i'm going back in my sweatshirt and garb. thank you for having me this way. >> of course. absolutely. all right. the president is re-elected and stands once again in chicago to accept the presidency once again that the american people have given to him. so i was there that night and, you know, i've got a long history in chicago. my thought is, yes, this is great, this is exciting, and this is the site of the chicago strike. this was the moment where the whole education question came to a head. chicago teachers saying, yes, we can have a longer school day but we've got to have nurses, social workers and activities in the school, not jus

he worked with randy weingarten, the head of the teachers' union to negotiate a contract in newark, newsey. now neither one of them, they were actually on the network earlier this week and said, we didn't compromise our principles, but we worked together to find a solution. that's a republican, again, not compromising on principle. but rather working towards a solution. and governing, so there are republicans doing it. we just have to not seem so polarized when certain issues come up. >> you've got the rga, since we just finished it up last week, pushing forward. what are some of those real practical applications that richard is asking for, with these ideas of widening the tent. of being more embracing to more voters? what next can, what next can the republican party do here? >> first and foremost. they have to come up with a deal on the fiscal cliff. and they're going to have to come up with revenues. just like the democrats are going to come up with spending cuts. the biggest challenge right now that the republicans have are not looking like the party of no. so they now have to look l

new jersey, governor chris christie, and president of the american federation of teachers randy weingartenyou to letting me stick around. >> great movie, by the way. have you seen it? >> i was watching it. >> looks fantastic. >> today the governor and the teachers union will announce a landmark contract offering merit pay bonuses to the teachers of newark so we can now, the three of us, or the four of us, or the five of us even, actually get along on something here. >> i love it. >> when it comes to education which is one of the hot button issues the past two years on this show but this is great news. >> so talk about what happened. >> what happened was the folks in newark, the superintendent and the president of the teachers union wanted to do something different. randy and i were supportive of that. we control the newark state district, the state does. we've taken it over so we're the negotiators. i think we've all decided we need to do something different and not only does it provide merit bonuses and provide advancement based on merit but involves the teachers in the evaluation process

connell: we have to leave it there but ww will continue this, randi weingarten, thank you very much.gen: we are waiting on john boehner to talk to whoever wants to listen to him. he is chatting with treasury secretary tim geithner about trying to broker some sort of deal on the fiscal cliff. we will listen to the speaker when he starts talking. connell: scott minored is coming up. john boehner comments he can move the market, scott will be talking about markets and investing from guggenheim chief investment officer, $160 billion, knows his stuff and we will talk about the economic data and again fiscal cliff and everything else, 39 and the dow i hear the winners we're seeing on the s&p today. i'm only in my 60's... i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. call now and find out about an aarp medicare s

good men and women of the aft under president randy weingarten making the difference in the classroomsow they are. you can follow their good work at aft.org. simple. aft.org. peter, what's up? >> bill, you have your work cut out for you today. as somebody noticed we're tweeting at bp show. bill w points in all of the nuts are falling from the tree this morning, bill! in reference to the couple of callers we had in the last segment. >> bill: why do they have to fall from the tree on the same day? >> maybe it is you. mr. john john writes in on twitter, at this point, romney is the lyingest lier that ever lied at lying in response to our post about the jeep ad. we're tweeting at bpshow. >> bill: i think we have a new rule right. seriously. anybody who mentions benghazi, right, is a plant. is a republican plant. anybody who brings it up. nonissue. but republicans are really, really, really trying to keep it alive. >> it is brought up in the weirdest of contexts. you know. >> bill: let's go back on the campaign trail. one person who's been following it very closely joining us often, reed wi

let's talk about senator dick durbin and president obama's pledged to richard trumka and randi weingarten about no cuts in spending. we don't think to talk about -- demonize them. our center dick durbin and president obama have made it clear they will accept no spending cuts. they made this clear to the union chief. -- our senator from illinois dick durbin. host: what should republicans do or not do? our last caller said republicans should be willing to go over the cliff, it necessary. caller: we should shut the government down, if they cannot agree to any spending cuts. we will be coming up to the debt limit again. they should shut the government down. we will see how the government runs without all these extra programs. senator coburn has identified all the duplication and waste in the government. it is ridiculous that they don't even talk about that. host: senator durban from illinois, let's look and his comments on abc yesterday. he is talking about what democrats would be willing to do to avoid the fiscal cliff. [video clip] >> social security does not add one penny to our debt, not

. >> it was remarkable seeing him on the show with randy weingarten after all they threw him versus unionsa lot of union members in the state who don't like chris christie. to see the head of the teachers union having struck a deal with governor christie shows that he is effective at least in some ways. >> a great far reaching bill there. and also mark halperin, we were struck by the fact when we were in charlotte the head, the democratic head of new jersey senate came running up letting us know that he had his good buddy chris christie on the phone. >> stylistically donny is a great bellwether of the fact he has found a way to break through. one is how to get re-elected if he's going to be a national player. he has to win re-election in a democratic state. and the other thing he has to perform in the state. he's turned the state around in some ways but the storm doesn't help. they still have a lot of work to do on education, on some of the cities, on jobs. so if he turns the state around economically in particular i think he would be formidable. >> all right. we also have breaking news in

it's the storm, but it's also what we saw on the show, i think it was two weeks ago, him and randy weingarten sitting down. there are people who don't like his style, don't like the way he does things, but they recognize he's working with the other side, a thing we don't see much in washington to get things done for the people. yes, it's the storm, but also the body of what he's done -- >> mike, it's so unusual in a state like new jersey where scandal seems to chase one major politician after another from toricelli to menendez. and who would've believed this big guy that came out of nowhere would rise above them all? it is stunning stuff. >> well, big guy and big lesson to be learned by others in that business. that you can speak your mind as chris christie does every day all day, you can speak your mind and get away with it, that's not the wrong phrase, actually. >> be rewarded for it. >> by behaving the way chris christie did. by appearing with the president of the united states, by acknowledging the fact that the president came, and thank you very much for all your help in new jersey and a

our guest is randi weingarten, president of the american federation of teachers. and then later we will discuss drone strategy. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> this week on "newsmakers," mary kay henry talks about what unions like the seiu are looking for. tomorow at 10:00 am and 6:00 p.m. eastern. >> what about if the soviet union announced as tomorrow that if we attack cuba, there will be a war? >> this is such a serious thing that we're going to be uneasy. >> all right. something may make these people should off -- shoot it off. i want to keep my own people very alert. >> hang on tight. >> it is a fascinating moment. it is amazing that eisenhower tells him to have his people alert, because everyone is completely on edge. kennedy laughs. then he says, hang on tight, which is a nice moment that even on this terribly tense day, they're able to joke a little bit with each other. especially during this crisis, i think they had a sense of hull will lead is to occupy that office and how you're getting all kinds of advice, good advice, faul