around the world, if you would please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. thank you, please be seated. >> before we get started i'd like to have guests tonight. a date to begin with a welcome to one of the members of our board of trustees and the former governor of the state of california, pete wilson. governor. [applause] also with us tonight is our terrific congressman from houston guy really is retiring after 26 years. [applause] are scum her supervisor, foy. [applause] for the city who are patient enough to go through the book signing line, just prior to the event this evening coming in at this wonderful woman to see woman is here with us today. she's the best selling "new york times" best-selling author. it is a gentleman, please join me in welcoming calista gingrich. [applause] we have with us tonight a very special guest. i know that if i were simply to get the typical dinner circuit introduction speaker did newt gingrich, the one where you list every accomplishment. i promise you it he here all night and even newt would get bored. his list of achievements and politics is involvement of lifelong learning. his expertise in national security matters, business ventures, philanthropic endeavors, dozens of books he's written just the list goes on and on. allow me for the moment to present that all of us here are well acquainted with the important milestones in the life of one newt gingrich. i want to focus in some part on the future. but i sincerely hope is misplaced and it as it relates to ideas. so let me explain. it is no secret to anyone here that the party of abraham lincoln and ronald reagan took a beating three weeks ago. republicans plus the bottle as well as seats in both the house and senate. most are still stinging badly for that defeat. i know there's a first index earrings as many seem to be visiting the reagan library in what seems to be a class. a quest to remember a great president and remind themselves of these ideals, his optimism and what he did to inspire americans to greatness. we should remind ourselves that while our 40th president had the uncanny ability to reach into the heart and minds of americans, who was ronald reagan himself who said, quote, i was in a great communicator. i communicated great things. today, we can recognize that great things spring from great ideas. it can also take heart as leaders in our time, like speaker newt gingrich who have great contributions to make in the way of such ideas. there's plenty of precedent here. when was elected communist party lacked like the republican party today was in the wilderness. jimmy carter occupied the white house and the house and senate were safely democrat hands. with the election of president reagan in 1980, republicans took control of the white house and the senate. but in the house where newt gingrich went to work each day, he was badly outnumbered. i worked as a hill staffer for a congressman whose author was only steps away from newt's. i can history of our representatives like newt, the minority was often a lonely place. the republicans had held the majority there since 1954 and there was not a soul alive who could ever imagine the republican majority again. except for newt. there's no seniority, but a tireless work ethic, dedication and mind filled with ideas. it is newt gingrich or sat in the back benches of congress and methodically devised a strategy over several years to make the republican party party of ideas once again. in this newt who devised the famous contract with america. a plan that gave republicans more to run against in historic 1994 elections. he gives them something to run for. in this newt to rally the faithful behind these ideas and to pack the house after 40 years on the minority. this newt who helped end of your passage of welfare reform and balanced budgets during his time as speaker of the house. he's been on a national stage a percent, pushing america and the conservative is that a word with these ideas. so ladies and gentlemen, i beg you to join me in welcoming to the library, speaker newt gingrich. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> thank you all very, very much. it's always an honor to be back at the reagan library. i want to thank john hi bush did a great shot peterson at providing leadership on a day-to-day basis. the degree to which this library is a model of educating young people is really remarkable and a lot of that goes to the mag entity candidate fundraising ability. john, thank you for your work. [applause] i hope all of you will join me and keeping mrs. reagan in your prayers. she's a remarkable woman who spent a lifetime serving this country and we all cherish her as she continued to play a role at the library. i could come here and not mention nancy for at least a moment. i also want to say, governor, it's great to be back with you. we did a lot of things over the years have been mayor of san diego to u.s. senator, to governor to a leader and a variety of ways. and the tequila scrape people who represent a willingness to serve their state in an important way. it's always engaged when you rub there. thank you poker serving the country. it really does make a difference. it's great to be back here. [applause] i did maybe with us, but were thrilled to have you. we have an american legacy book tour. our very fond of the library as you know someone made a movie called ronald reagan and i want to recognize tonight kevin knobloch and his wife randi. or i was thrilled to be a cabin because such a great job. so we come back to the reagan library from a unique background and you may wonder why we talk about an american legacy book to her. you may wonder why calista has created an alliance to introduce four to eight euros american history and wife witnessed many novels as i have about american history. the best person who could explain to american history being that the reagan library was president reagan. we want to show you part of president reagan's farewell address. this captures purposely why we have an american legacy book tour. >> there's a great tradition of warnings presidential farewells. i've got one that's been on a mind for sometime time. oddly enough it starts with one of the things i'm proudest of in the past eight years. the resurgence of national pride that i called the new patriotism. this national feeling is good, but it will count for much and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge. an informed patriotism is what we want. for doing a good job teaching our children what america is and what she represents in the long history of the world. those of us over 35 grew up in a different america. we were taught very directly what it means to be an american. we've gone a love of country and appreciation of this institution. if you didn't get these things from the family, you got them from the neighborhood and the father down the street to come in korea and the family allows anthea appeared he can get a sense of patriotism from school. if all else failed, you can get a sense of the churches were the culture. the movie to the idea that america was special. tv was like that to you through the 60s. now we're about to enter the 90s and some things have changed. younger parents are sure that an unenviable appreciation of america to teach america. for those who create the popular culture from a well grounded patriotism is no longer the style. our spirit is back, but we haven't institutionalized. we've got to do a better job of getting across that america is freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise and freedom is special and rare. they needs production. so we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion, but what's important. what those 30 seconds over tokyo meant. four years ago on the 40th anniversary of d-day, i read a letter from a gallup woman writing to her late father who fought on omaha beach. her name is lee says amanda and she said we will always have him or her. we will never forget, but the boys of normandy did. let's help her keep her word. if you forget what we did, we won't know who we are. i'm warning of an eradication of the american memory that could result ultimately in adoration of the spirit. the service in a six. more attention to history and civic ritual. all great change in america begins at the dinner table. so in the kitchen i hope the talking begins. if your parents had been teaching you what it means to be an american, let her know and nail them on it. that would be a very american thing to do. [applause] >> i want to thank staff here at the library because i called this afternoon and i said, you know, i've been speaking how to introduce this talk that occurred to me as to quote reagan if i could get reagan to quote reagan. i think all of you will now agree that there's a power of what he did and how he did it just remarkable. i think that's at least 50% of the explanation randomness we are in. those of us conservative black the courage to take on the school board committee teachers union, the academic elites, news media, entertainment culture. when we ceded ground which has crippled the country sandor standing and part of what we've done with alice sent in my case and writing novels to get across the american people as a country worth knowing and you know it by learning its history. he become an american. can claim genetic patterns, geographies. somalia, china, mexico. in calista's case, her parents came, her grandparents came from switzerland and poland and in my case from places like scotland and ireland. you can learn to be an american. to do that, you have to learn to be an american. do you have an academic elites and news media elite who were opposed to teaching how to be an american company literally cut off the lifeblood of this country. so that's the basis of what we've been doing and that's why we have an american legacy to her. .. and sense i've written three novels on george washington, what a better pattern than to weave these giants, ronald reagan, after whom the soviet empire disappeared, and george washington after whom he can a country. what are the lessons of history? it will study the history because it is an interesting have it. i studied history to better understand present and the future so that i can be engaged in making history by being an intelligent person. that is what citizenship ought to be. and so what are some of the lessons klaxon not me start with the fiscal cliff i want to say something like the contract for america, the balanced budget, welfare reform. ronald reagan's supply-side economics, i'm proud of the number of things that made no sense in washington. there is no fiscal clef. this is absolute total nonsense. the best way to understand what happens to all of us is to write a great essay by thomas wolfe entitled of the flag catchers. this goes back i think to the 60's when he first wrote this. now, she's trying to describe the particular pattern in san francisco in which the welfare department has figured out all of the senior to the to be on the second floor of the office hiding from the people they served screening the people who are mad and the samoan community in san francisco having figured out the game was and so we have six foot five and 6 feet six summer winds carrying the traditional war close and they would walk up to the front desk and say i want to see the boss and a staff person would say we are not supposed to let you see the boss and they would start to hit the floor. so we would have a normal sized person staring at him and thinking to himself do they pay me enough for the next part of this? thomas wolfe is one of the greatest observers of the american scene in our generation. he never read this if you go back because we are revisiting everything. everything that is described in his great early essays where we visited because the left has continued to retreat and metastasize and become more than was first described. instead of being the local samoa into the local san francisco office, it is the national news media and the fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff and if you are an intelligent politician and you walked out to do a press conference what i say to you which is a fiscal clef is a fantasy. we accept whatever obama wants dhaka duty triet if you want to with the fiscal cliff requires, much like the land of oz with the person hiding behind the machines to raise taxes now and they violated the fiscal cliff. t want to stand up and provide america the fiscal clef, do you want to go on the national and explain that you are so reactionary and out of touch with life that you don't care that america is going to die late on their state? it's all right if that is the kind of person that you are. you will never be on television because after all, you are clearly weird. [laughter] let me start with the fiscal cliff right here and say there is no fiscal cliff. conservatives and republicans are demoralized. get over it. we did a number of stupid things. they were smarter than we work, work harder than we did, fought longer than we did, did some clever things. ronald reagan, one of the most important single statements is february, 1975 in washington that the conservative political action committee meeting. now, i was part of this. i have no sense of timing. so i picked one. [laughter] ayman georgia. i have a strange accent, a weird name. this was beyond not clever. [laughter] this is light don't give me money, pay for the therapy. [laughter] in december of 1974 the republican party i.t. was at 17%. and the serious talk was the party going to be replaced? it was nonsense that was serious talk and i was a part of the group that came out of the wreckage and began reading the republican national committee and doing national analysis of what went wrong. there's the commercial called republicans are people, too peery when you are in that troubled the commercial says i am a person, too, you know that you are deeply moving. it was in this environment ronald reagan went and said we need a bold colors, no pale pastels and he was throwing down a ball side. he said don't tell me you have a sellout, don't tell me you have a case, don't tell me you are going to do whatever the left wants. there are moments in history when you draw the line and fight we have a huge number of state legislatures. we are supposed to create a caucus in order to be socially acceptable in washington that's the current reform in washington. how much do we need to surrender so he won't be to me anymore? in terms of my that scuttling the second time i ran jimmy carter was the head of the democratic ticket. and i remember it was the best campaign technically i ever ran and it felt really good towards the end in these moments when everything feels right because you are the candidate in the middle. so i went in to vote in the library on election day, 1976 and very proud that jimmy carter was the nominee. i found myself standing in line behind people that have come from the nursing home to get revenge from sherman's march to georgia. [laughter] >> i thought to myself how likely is it that after the vote for jimmy carter they will split their tickets for the yankee born army brat on the republican side? and i thought this is going to be long evening. and it was. i went from 48.5% in the delegation in 1974 to 48.3% in 1976 barely enough to survive. carter approved the left hand by 1978. when i came to washington, the democrats had been so dominant from 1973 and on looking for the republicans to beat up hoping not to be noticed and distorted in 1978 and literally banded together and went to the house to find democrats to beat up. and we pick fights with them. i'm talking about the date. i want to make that clear so nobody says gingrich advocates beating of democrats. [laughter] have to be very careful how these things spread. but i do agree passionately with margaret thatcher's will first you in the argument and you win the vote so we have people who go to the floor regularly and start debating. and after a while, the democrats stop coming to the floor because they understand there are more of us who are prepared to debate and we studied it every week because we didn't have to govern. they were winning the house. the minority is still going when he switched sides and became the republican. if you are the majority you have to have an idea to hold hearings and mark up the bill and go to the conference with the senate and get something done. if you are the minority you get to go. [laughter] >> hon. that becomes a self perpetuating metal. and more or less i would say house republican is to get a grip. they are the majority, they are not the minority. they don't need to cave in to obama or four may surrender caucus. the senators will do what ever senators do. it is an institution on which individual with a totally dominates team work to feed each senator is a unique figure and somehow fashions out what they are going to do. you are not going to in the short run in the minority organize the senate republicans in terms of actually being able to do something positive you organize and do - things which route to get them to magically come up with a formula there will always be five or six different versions depending on how many centers are in the room. on the house side there is the situation you are the majority. you control the schedule. you control the committees. you control the hearings. and so, my number one and fais to the republicans is simple. back out of all of the negotiating with obama. the president is overwhelmingly dominant in the news media. you start setting up the definition of success, finding the win with obama to give the ability to say to you not good enough. we send welfare reform three times and see to it the first three times. we didn't start by reaching an agreement. we started by doing something. but the house republicans would say to every subcommittee and there are a ton of some committees every one of you is going to hold hearings on the we stand government. so why don't you go back home and create 1-800-waste. there are probably a letters in their. or to put it on the line which is a better way to do it and have it available in a variety of other format and say look you send us everything we should hold hearings on how many americans do you think will try one or two or three items of waste that they would be willing to suggest to the congress hearing? so in the first day of 5 million suggestions. they can say this is what he wants to raise taxes for. somebody said to me to days ago there estimate is that the effort, the federal emergency management agency effort and new jersey has 1 dollar in the waste it may be old high or a little bit low it gives a flavor and it was certainly true in katrina. so you start saying to yourself let's have a discussion about how many billions have been thrown away on bad loans and solar panels. let's have a discussion about why we are still sending money to egypt. let's have a discussion about how much money is being wasted by the various agencies and less of a discussion on whether or not we want to give the epa this money to enact a radical program. now we have a different conversation but instead the president in the news media have magically gotten the republicans into an argument over taxes. and then i give obama great credit for this to revive never seen anybody better at finding to field distractions in order to live with responsibility. [applause] let me say to give you a 2012 variation on ronald reagan's the 51975 bold colors pastels it isn't a winning formula for the republican party. [applause] flights start of the media operates in collaboration with the white house first to create panic. you are going to run off the fiscal cliff unless you do what you're told to do and you are a bad person if you ask a question what is the fiscal cliff and will america be dramatically different on gentry second if we just hold our breath and see what happens. second, moved to destruction. the destruction is grover norquist. i've known grover norquist for a long time. i think that he is a fine person. there is no elective office. and in fact he wasn't elected president. so we have the president of the united states who was responsible for figuring out how to solve the problems who has not offered a single serious cost-cutting measure. tell me what you think barack obama is going to do to say i need a yes vote on this. he's gotten as worried about whether grover norquist now defines the republican party. because as we all know, if we are not worthy of the news media respect we are a party that will disappear. listen to the tone of the language when you watch the morning show or even fox and friends or this whole schtick. grover did something very important. he came up with the idea of the new tax increase pledge as a way of drawing the line in the sand and let me be clear about my background in the tax increases under ronald reagan i voted against the tax increase of george h. w. bush that it was a disaster, fundamental mistake coming and when we balanced the budget for four straight years, we did it by cutting taxes to accelerate economic growth. so i clearly represent a different view. [applause] but i have no problem if somebody wants to break their new tax pledge. if they are prepared to go home and explain them but this idea that they are treating this posturing and several senators upset i'm not afraid of grover norquist might as well put in the record i'm not afraid of grover norquist. there are circumstances where you raise taxes. ronald reagan, we have this great video reagan said at one point my feet are in concrete. and he could get away with going to the conference one morning and saying the sound you are hearing is concrete breaking. as the governor he concluded in order to make the state's requirements he had no choice. but in the cost he was totally up front in a totally honest and he went to the people of california and said it's a bigger mess than i thought it was. i can't fix it any other way. i think we have to do this. but she did that after creating a connection which fundamentally cut the cost and dramatically cut spending. ronald reagan to the caribbean was raising the taxes for the government. they figured out if he needed their must be really serious. what we have today is no innovation camano reform, no new thinking, no creativity, no hearings on waste or hearings of better ways of doing this. you live in the age of the ipad and the iphone and google and facebook and trevor and face the federal government that runs up the pace. [laughter] and you have no serious effort in either party to overhaul the system. in that sense we are told by people that are running a disaster we need more of your money to prop up the disaster, we can't reform, and it is a bipartisan failure. now i want to talk about how washington would have dealt with this. washington is a remarkable person. i think that he was the most important single american and all of us stand on his shoulders and i think we wouldn't have won the american revolutionary war without him and we will not have gotten in the constitution without him and we might not have been able to find an orderly system. and we all stand on his shoulders. washington is very the gun listening to people who actually knew what they were doing. and it was a very specific narrow way. i'm not against the people who know more about you do on the topic. it's the consultants that no less than you do so you feel secure because you paid somebody else. so washington, for example, in the second clinton campaign needs advice, calls the council on war and there are two people who are not a part of his military. their local farmers and i was the longest serving teacher and the military, 23 years, talking about the art of the war and i was would always tell the generals and the admirals' we had these people in the room there were farmers that actually knew the neighbor and they were the only to people in the room that knew that there was a sunken road south of clinton and you could go from trenton to princeton and the british army but not see you. they were not there for social reasons, they represented the only to people that knew what they were doing. and so, you have something that you see almost none of today, and that is a person that is prepared to reach out to the person that knows. i spend years, literally years trying to convince the government on the republican and the democratic party that we had between 70 to $110 billion. my sources were very straightforward, american express, visa or mastercard. if you have in medicare and medicaid the same level fraud you get, you would say somewhere between 70 to $110 billion a year without raising taxes, and without punishing any honest person. they don't fit the congressional budget office model condra not in the dhaka see, they have these weird private sector ideas, they want to use computers. [laughter] there is a whole series of weird things about this. and that's where we are. we are a country that could solve virtually all of its problems. if you read -- and i want to close the spec to washington for a second because i am frankly giving they're not the country listening to republicans and democrats bellyache. now, can you imagine industry novels in washington, crossing the delaware christmas night to march 9 miles in the dark that has shrunk in from 30,000 to 2500 of the 2500, one out of every three do not have boots. there were in the burlap bags on their feet and so they are saying i don't know what i will do. can you imagine if the had brought in this consultant? >> if you want to see a congress that is truly incompetent, don't rely on the current model, they are amateurs but that is in the continental congress. 14,000 soldiers crossing into the valley that is called jolly forge promised that they would have money and supplies and equipment to build cottages. the of one act for 14,000 people to the valley forge is always hard to be free. it's always difficult and washington moving through the most bitter winter in the army transformed the army by building the car bringing in to innovate and teach european military tactics and the prussian officer who understands the most important thing, americans aren't europeans. we see this to the current congress and the news media. we are not spain or greece, we are not totally messed up. there's a country that gets the government to quit screwing that we would do fine over the next 20 years. [applause] imagine the consultant's report. if they cannot and said no we have easily the the situation and you have one act and 14,000 people. you think this is that? [laughter] you think you should be deeply depressed, then consider quitting to the congress that isn't doing well to be worthy of a couple hundred it doesn't deserve your loyalty. why don't you go home. >> these people wanted to be free. and they are prepared to die. when they cross the delaware on christmas night in a desperate last effort before the army seizes to exist, the slogan, the password is a victory or death, and they meant it. it wasn't victory or i will cry for six weeks. it wasn't a victory or not going to watch fox news for a month. it wasn't a victory i think i will pout. [laughter] these people were really passionate. about the idea that freedom was the right god had given them and they were not going to fail god by giving it up and finally we get to yorktown. it is an extraordinary gamble. washington can't win the war by direct assault. he's sitting out into the navy has so much power that he can't capture manhattan. one ship of the line had more artillery firepower than the entire american army. people forget how powerful the ships were so she's sitting there and at that time there are no helicopters and no cars and no television and no computers he gets a note from the french army that is sitting and says the admiral of the french navy sitting in the caribbean believes he could come north for six weeks now, the entire upper kennedy was created because washington had the courage a year earlier to send a one-third of his army to the south to fight general cornwallis. he won the victory in greensburg north carolina that cost him so much that he said to his staff to more victories like this and we will not have an army left and they were just gradually tearing up his army and he retreats to yorktown in despair expecting the navy to save him. washington has gotten this note. the french march river to new york and the general says i am under your command. they manage to mask the british in manhattan so they don't know that he is on the move and they think that he is still sitting there and they have a four or five day headstart. washington has to raise enough money to pay the army to get it to keep moving. that's how close this is. the only time in the entire war that washington is described as intensely emotional is the warning that he sees the french fleet where he is described as acting as though he were crazy. dancing and yelling and screaming with tears coming down his eyes because he has gambled everything. she had no way of knowing if they would show up. and they were there and the british were not and cornwallis' surrender, the band plays the world turned upside down, and it was. they can to the library tonight and the placement for man who believe in freedom so much that the soviet empire disappeared and i can to talk about the land of his shoulders we stand, george washington, and i would say to each one of you and a free person, every republican in the entire country and every conservative in the country, find the courage to live up to the endowment your creator has given you. you are in doubt with liberty and the right to pursue happiness. it comes from god and therefore you have the responsibility to respond to that endowment. to get there you can do what ronald reagan and george washington did. they understood margaret thatcher's rules for stephen the argument then you win the vote. george washington denied that they were marching to climb on the votes in the snow storm had his officers greeted the opening pages of thomas kane's latest pamphlet which washington had asked him to write. he was the great pamphleteer with common sense and describe the declaration of independence and now it was turning out to be really hard. in july of 1776 had turned into a bitter and painful depressing and demoralizing series of defeats. when washington had the crisis which begins these are the times as washington said the first to win the argument then you in the war. people had to believe. i just came here tonight to say to you we have no reason to despair, no reason to back off, no reason to surrender but you have every reason to behave as americans. i look forward to questions. [applause] [applause] so, the speaker has been kind enough to give us a few minutes for questions and answers and all i ask is if you have one you raise your hand. there are people in the aisles with microphones if you can wait until we get a microphone in your hand so everyone can hear, that would be great. we will start over here. >> first of all mr. speaker and the like to congratulate you and thank you for coming out and for being the man in their a reena to fight the good fight. we don't of -- we appreciate that. [applause] and i agree with you we haven't lost lost the war we've lost the battle and have to continue to fight. some of the things we should do and should think about going forward is one, we need to make sure that the constitution is followed. and it should be called out when they don't follow the constitution. we cannot rule by executive fiat. i also think that they are doing a wonderful job by starting the education in the schools because i think that that is where we need to start a long-term plan of 30 to 40 years of turning around. because we need to educate people, not indoctrinate them. and i think we need to go after the media. and i would like to see you come up with something along the lines of the contract with america. maybe the contract of we the people come to define the conservatives, conservatism, and to lay out clearly like you did before to the american people and i think that we can win and conquer again. thank you. [applause] thank you. >> i sincerely appreciate your intellect. i would like to ask you on the terms of the immigration debate that seems problematic those people that are coming into the nation whose restrictions in the country are to violate the law. are we running the risk of inculcating a culture with this population and i will certainly like to have your thoughts on this problem and solve this issue by adamle strengthening the country but hopefully avoiding the further demise. >> what ever series we find on immigration has to include the control and include some kind of a worker permit system which is actually rigorously enforced. that is i happen to think we are going to end up with some kind of system that has people that are a resident and who have a work permit they are not on the path to citizenship at some point you have to be practical about what is doable but i think it's very important to ensure as you build that what you have now and i don't think people that show up here as we refuse to control the border and refused to identify who you are and refused to police ourselves, and refused to do anything that we find we are here to tell you you are stiffer taking advantage of the richest country in the world is to say to you please come and exploit me. so, i think to some extent we have to reestablish -- [applause] we have to reestablish a world of law, and the importance which are to make in the the date which i think has had a significant impact for our side in solidifying the degree to which people about the positions that made no sense, number one we are not going to deport grandmother. some of you may disagree with that, but i will guarantee you if you look at the country as a whole the idea that we go out and find grandmothers and deport them, the churches will protect them, their families will protect them now conservatives shouldn't play the ball better fantasies. there is an obligation to down conservatism and reality. so i'm not for citizenship for people that come here illegally but for figuring out a path to the residency against people who pay taxes and get them to be within the law and to be not exploited and in this sort. we lost them by a bigger margin than latinos. this cannot be a gift problem as one of our leaders described it. because asians are the hardest working most educational oriented and by the we economically most successful group in america. so, people stand around and say okay give me a gift. but you walk in and say why i want to talk to you about economic liberty the first have to couch your grandmother point all of those that believe in families understand that is a really hard barrier. it's tricky in the rest of the conversation because then we say no, we are not going to deal with you. and somebody has got to have the guts in our party and in our movement to stand up and say i am for a conservatism that enforces the law within a framework of the reality, and i am for conservatism which is based on the facts, and i think that is going to require that we find some way to say i totally and for enforcing the law for where we are this morning or this evening i want to impose and i am prepared to be very tough about it. i'm afraid to say to employers once there is a 24/7 instant verification model based on the atm card you hire somebody that isn't here illegal and they are red hammer you economically. but i think people will buy that. you can create a contract that works but what you can't do is continue to go down this road of trying to find a contract that is impossible and isolating yourself from the country in a way that guarantees the left will control because with the left wants is a limited illegal immigration who've rendered to the citizens in both. that is the fundamental difference. speaking california it is virtually impossible deal to -- due to the demographics and the registration to head of republicans collected to federal offices and to the governorship. this demographic is becoming more and more important every election. how can we do something about that? in the election and in the future? >> it's a great question and theodore roosevelt in the 80's decides he wants to go into politics. roosevelt came from a very aristocratic family, went to harvard, was independently wealthy and all of his social friends said to him what are you doing? and he said i'm going to the german and the irish bars. they said how can you do that? there are germans and irishman. [laughter] roosevelt said political power in the city is decided in those saloons you can sit up here in your penthouse all you want, but i want to be in the room where the decision is made. i will take your word demographic. and this is where i so deeply disagree with our consulting class and with one of the comments of the last nominee. i don't see demographic problems. what do you think of what asian-americans want? they want a good education for their kids. they're passionate about their children. they love their children. the invest heavily in their children, more heavily than any other ethnic group in america. what kind of future? just had a survey that i saw this morning. guess what the number one validation of achievement is that is seen by the college students today and we say this to them 25, after years from now how do you know you'll was successful? -- you will be successful? only half. so if they could be close to the subway so they wouldn't need a car which is a terrible thing that gives them independence, can you imagine how depressing would be to know that obama's vote is to have a home and have positions, be economically independent? we as a party to humble ourselves. i tell the story about washington and the farmers for a practical reason. we need to relax and actually listen to the people of california. you think the average latino likes to fight that the unified is a disaster? they like the fact that sacramento is owned by the lobbyist? you think there's a thrill to pay higher and higher taxes for fewer and fewer jobs? they don't have any sense that they are allowed to have a conversation with us. that may be searched with a string of sitting down in the states saying tell me about your dreams, tell me about your dreams. i think he would be shocked to read and become a distributor by can't use the guy's name, he's a democratic consultant, and it wouldn't be fair to him because he told me one night he had to be hired by the traditional party which run mexico since 1929. she went down -- this was just before the reform to get. he went down because they were in deep trouble and the one to the clever american advice. he said you know we have a little problem. it's called corruption. and the guys he was talking to were the ones that were corrupt. [laughter] and they said to him -- she said this is his description, not mine. he said they were smoking cigars in this room and they said you don't understand this. people don't mind corruption. he said let me get this straight. you think the average mexican debts and goes to work and for all that the idea to of the five days of salary will be stolen by some fat machine politician that is out of touch? so they lost the election and there is a message there. people don't come to america to recreate bad government. they are watching sacramento reinvent the really bad government. [applause] >> we have time for about two more questions right here. >> thank you for coming, mr. speaker. i really was looking forward to you debating dhaka. that would have -- that would have been amazing. one of the things that was really noticeable and palpable in the last year of the presidential debate in the candidates was the lack of media object to the and as a media person what you said just for this next wave on the television and loggers in order to come back and the sickly silence this mainstream media that we have today? [applause] >> i do a fair amount of policing. [laughter] but my first question as republicans look at this and i just started the productions would be a six month project of reviewing and trying to learn the lesson at a much deeper level than you would get from the current wave of the analyst because the of the presidential elections in the popular vote and remember the minority of the vote in 2000 and the underperforming the presidential election in 2000 for the weakest incumbent re-election in american history. there's something that i just wrote a newsletter that you can get that set the r word isn't romney, is republican. this isn't about how he loses, it is about a party that i think has failed to become a modern effective party. the answer i would suggest is a national committee were to create a set of dates that are hosted by the republicans. and then we tell the media -- i participated and we had a great time here at the library with the truth is you ended up in the library on example you ended up with left wing moderator's who think their center because everybody that we know is to their left these are not people who think they are biased questions if you want to go back and analyze the questions and we are putting together a fascinating case study which some of you will remember george stephanopoulos asked this question about the 1963 griswold versus connecticut supreme court involving contraception. i guarantee you -- because i was there every republican candidate in the date has gone what? we learned a few weeks later that he had apparently been briefed and this was the beginning of the war on when to leave to women in which we discovered the law students that were not able to afford their own contraception have to have as a part of the new socialist model free contraception otherwise they will be deprived which was a symbol that we saw one article yesterday that "time" magazine maintain her as the person of the year conwell of course because after all she symbolized more than anyone else the total dishonesty with which the won the election. she's the perfect symbol of our incompetence. they clearly had a strategy, and george stephanopoulos launched a strategy. why would you want to set the date and invite the of 13? we will make a deal. sean hannity, rush limbaugh and comparable people to host the the dates. [applause] and yet we continue to pretend that the news media is neutral. the news media to send to the left. so you have to start of the fundamental level of rebuilding. there is a big problem in california where you need to have a serious effort to create a conservative internet based political medium because there is no effective coherent public in california and it makes it very hard. [applause] >> last question appear in the balcony. >> i went to start with the last christmas with my best christmas ever. you're 40 points ahead in the polls. i told my family no gifts, no anything, my favorite politician. so thank you for a great christmas to start off. and then going ahead more controversial here i did vote for romney people started getting angry to follow up with that a deal like the gop establishment forced romney on us and if you did when you are campaigning how did you feel about that? and how difficult was that knowing that is what they were doing? >> first of all i don't think that there is a republican establishment who has looked at this and the notion that somewhere in the country is a club with the establishment gathers. that romney spent six years running for president. he was very good at what he was good at which was raising money, which was how she had earned a living. he was a finance guy that spent his career being a finance guy and he knew lots of finance guice. they got together and they talked finance stuff is sounded good to them. this is our kind of guy. he's a sincere honest guy and frankly smart. he lost the election that i would argue any of us would have had a hard time winning because we were in an overmatched read we were a midsize college team being dropped into the super bowl and we don't understand this yet. the obama people never quite. they kept our offices opened in 09 and ten and 11 and there were 53 offices in north carolina alone. this is why i am doing this six month study of the productions which i have entitled lessons to learn. we don't have lessons to learn right now. when we see these guys on tv that wasted millions of dollars as consultants, explaining what they now think, but what you know as they don't. [laughter] because they haven't taken enough time to learn anything. this is a serious crisis of the conservative movement in the republican party because if we don't figure out the new game we aren't going to be competitive but is so serious it is because we will nominate a clever person as the appropriate ethnic background and it articulates better than met. he got what became got which is bob dole got and bush got running for the reelection. that is a fact. and unless we look at the california republican party finding the right individual is going to turn of the largest stake in the country sounds like a serious deep fundamental rethinking now. unfortunately i have been around for so long. i was there for the rebound after goldwater that took a total of four years and i was there for the rebound after watergate that took six years. i was there after george bush lost in '92 which took two years, and i was there after they lost the house and 06 which took four years. so he said to me and my strategically optimistic? sure. the world isn't going to be kind to obama. they will have plenty of mistakes. the challenge is not what they will do wrong. the challenge is whether we are prepared to slow down, think, have honest arguments and figure out what we need to do. if we do that, the country will be just fine. thank you very, very much. [applause] >> from albany new york we hear about the state mandated new york state reuters institute. the program promotes cultural initiatives to the author presentations, workshops, film screenings and more. >> just as vividly before me. i'm the director of the new york state writers institute. and what we do, but i do in this intellectual cut we bring a lot of writers through to albany and to do other types of writing workshops and films and programs with young writers in the institute. >> my life the last few years was i suppose you'd call that adventuress this room and everything. >> they find the best writers that we can and bring them to albany to the particular place, and i can't think of any of their organization, even some of the better known ones in the major cities that have such a regular creative talent coming true low-cost to the public with our open door policy. so we bring the world to albany. so all of these people that were in this basis our people that have come from far and wide to read it to the general public. we have had the most recent has gotten us up to at least ten or probably even nobel laureates, and we actually used to teach at albany to most recently south african writer and people like the nigerian writer or the caribbean writer. the names go on, but along the way we archived by video and audio all of the people that have come through, so we have left a footprint, they have left a footprint, and the institute was founded in 1973 and officially became the new york state writers institute and in 1984 over the years we have had more than a thousand riders. >> my sister was a rabid conservative who actually worked at the double use this convention and she couldn't get a room so she actually ended up staying with me. she brought a sign she was holding that said w. stands for women. [laughter] i said you can stay this time has to go. >> as a result, we had a very extensive archive of the writers and their readers and interviews with them and i guess we like to think of ourselves as perhaps becoming the c-span of literature and we will see what happens with that. but we are about to have the virtual research library and all of these videos were adios which collected over the years and the grand archive and the contemporary writing that they know in america. one of the things that helps is to be writers ourselves and know what makes a writer comfortable and to respect the writer that has come for a visit and not treat them like some sort of a side show and to engage that person in conversation. we often like to say, and joking among ourselves, that we invite them to dinner, and we just had this couple of public events that we decided to gather when it was public but what really happens is sitting down and having good conversation. it brings the raiders back. it's actually one of the things people most appreciate about the institute. they will respect those writers. you go to some literary meetings and you think i'm so glad that i got through that. when we catch the next plane out because of the reuters institute and you find yourself saying that was good. i hope they invite me back. >> we have the cases across the country and instead of going to see world and disneyland we would visit the historic sites so by the time i turned 15i visited monticello or truman's independence and got to read the home and go to the red cloud nebraska. so i think living on the road for a family that goes through the trailer got me very interested in american history. >> literature is a very important thing in the community. as my friend used as a writer is someone who has readers. it's a good simple line, but simple definition but that through the art form and enhancing that community and enhancing that general imagination makes having a writers institute not only a worthwhile thing that very important. and what we have done i think across the years is not only expose people to the accidental art work and writing in particular but dedicated people to become more discriminating, to become more effective judges by what makes something good come and people read, people buy books, this is a very book loving community and i think the writers institute has done a lot to enhance that to create the environment in which people can explore literature especially. i think that there are not enough programs like this around the country. i wish there were more in albany it is quite rich, and they are in that feedback loop with this. i don't think such an operation in the writers institute could have been created in the first place without them being a strong group of writers that formed the sort of dark to the columbia county where a lot of new york city riders have gone all the way to
next former speaker of the house newt gingrich presents the second book in the historical fiction serious "victory at yorktown." it's a little over an hour. good etching. i have the honor of being the executive director of the ronald reagan presidential center. it's a pleasure to welcome you here on the rainy evening. in honor the men and women in uniform who defend our freedom around the world within if you would stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. i plek allegiance to the flag of united states of america. and to the republican for which it stands, one nation under god, and with lib if i and justice for all. thank you. please be seated. before we get started ilgd like to recognize a few special guests we have with us. i would like to begin with a welcome to one of our members of board of trustees and the former governor of the state of california pete wilson. governor. [applause] [applause] our county supervisor peter floyd. peter, thank you for coming. [applause] now for those of who who were patient enough to go through the book signing line prior to the event this evening we yo know the wonderful woman is here with us tonight. she's "the new york times" best selling officer and president of gingrich productions. please join me in recognizing calista fig h -- gingrich. [applause] we have with us tonight a special guest. if i i know if i were simply to give the typical dinner circuit gingrich the one where you list every accomplishment of the speaker's bio. i promise you we would be here all night and newt would get bored. the list of achievements in politics, his involvement in life-long learning, his expertise of national security matters, his best interest, the philanthropy endeavors. the box he's written, the list goes on and on. let's presume we are well accounted with the important milestone and the life of one gingrich. i want to focus in some part on the future. and what i hope is newt's place in it as it relates to ideas. so let me explain. it is no secret to anyone here that the party of abraham lincoln and ronald reagan, took a beating three weeks ago. republicans lost the battle for the white house as well as seats in both the house and senate. most are still stinging badly from the defeat. i know, this from firsthand experience as many seem to be visiting the reagan library in droves lately and what seems to be a quest. a quest to remember a great president and remind themselves of his ideals, his optimism, and what he did to inspire americans to greatness. we should remind ourselves that while our 40th president had the uncanny ability to reach to the hearts and minds of americans, it was ronald reagan himself who said, quote, it wasn't a great communicator i communicated great things. today we can recognize that greet things spring from great idea. we can also take heart that there are leaders in our time like speaker gingrich. who have great contributions to make in the way of such ideas. now there is plenty of precedent here. when newt was elected to office in 1978 in georgia, his party, like the republican today was in wilderness. jimmy carter occupied the white house and both the house and senate were safefully democrat hands. the election of president reagan in 1980, republicans took control bows the white house and the senate. in the house, where gingrich went to work each day, he was badly outnumbered. i worked as a hill staffer for a congressman who had an office steps away from newt's. can assure you for representatives like newt, the minority was off in a lonely place. the republicans hasn't held a majority there since 1956. there was not a soul alive that could imagine a republican majority again. oh. except for newt. [laughter] with no seniority, but a tireless work ethic, a vision, and a mind filled with idea, it was newt gingrich who sat in the back bench of congress and meth devised a -- once again. it was gingrich that devised the famous contract with america. the plan that gave republicans more than something to run against in the historic 1994 election. he gave them something to run for. it was gingrich who rallied the faithful behind the ideas and took back the house after forty years in the minority. it was gingrich who helped engineer passage of welfare reform. and who balanced budget during his time as speaker of the house. he's been on national stage ever since pushing america and the conservative movement forward with his idea. so ladies and gentlemen, i wouldn't like -- i would like you to join me in welcoming speaker newt gingrich [applause] [applause] thank you all very, very much. it's always an honor to be back at the reagan library. i want to thank john heubusch for the great job he does of really providing leadership on a day-to-day basis. the degree to which the library is a model of educating young people is really remarkable and a lot of that goes to the energy that drive it to be candid the fundraising ability that john brings to this. john, thank you for your work and thank you for the introduction. [applause] i hope all of you will join calista and me in keeping mrs. rage anyone your prayers. she's a remarkable woman who spent a lifetime working for this country. we cherish role while she continues to play a role here in the library. i couldn't come here without mentioning nancy for a minute. governor, it's great to be back with you. we did a lot of things over the years. from you being mayor in san diego, to u.s. senator and leader in a variety of ways. i look to them as great people who represent a willingness to serve their state and country. an important way, and i want to say it's a family engagement out there. thank you both for serving the country. it makes a difference. it's great to be back here. [applause] i didn't know you would be with us. we're thrilled to have you here tonight. we have launched what we called an american legacy book tour. we're fond of the libraries, as you know, and we made a movie called "ronald reagan --" i want to recognize tonight kevin and his wife randy here. kevin the director of the film. we were thrilled to be with kevin. he's done a great job with the movies we have done tonight. we have come back from a unique background. you may wonder where we talk about an american legacy book tour. you may wonder why calista has created an alliance with elephant to introduce children to american history. and the best person who could explain our commitment to american history being at the reagan library was president reagan. join me for a minute. we want to show you part of the farewell address. the last speak from the oval office. i think it captures perfectly why we have an american legacy book tour. >> it was a great tradition warning in presidential fail well. i have one on my mind for some time. it starts with one of the things i'm proudest of. the past eight years. the resurgent of national pride that i called the new patriotism. this national feeling is good. but it won't count for much and won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge. informed patriotism is what we want. and are we doing good enough job teaching what america is and what she represents in the long history of the world? those of us over 35 or so years of age, grew up in a different america. we were at all times -- taught directly what it means to be an american. we appreciation of the constitution. if you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood. from the father down the street who fought in korea, the family who lost someone, or you can get a sense of patriotism from school. and if all oles failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture, the movie celebrated democratic valuable and reinforced the idea that america was special. tv was like that too through the mid '60s now we're about to enter the '90s and some things have changed. younger parents aren't sure when appreciation of america is the right thing to teach modern children. and as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionized it. we have to got to do a better job of getting across that america is freedom. freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, and freedom is special and rare. it's fragile. it needs production. so we've got teach history based not on what is in fashion, but what is important. why the pilgrims who came here. who jimmy doolittle was and what the 30 seconds over tokyo met. on the 40th anniversary of d day i read a letter from a woman who wrote to her father who fought over d.day. she said we will always remember and never forget what the boys of normandy did. let's help her keep her word. i'm worning of an eradication of the american memory that could result ultimately in the erosion of the american spirit. let's start with basics. more attention to american history and greater emphasis on sitting ruche l. let me offer lesson one. all great change in america begins at the dinner table. tomorrow night in the kitchen i hope the talk begins and children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an american, let them know and nail them on it. that would be a very american thing to do. [applause] i want to thank staff here at the library. i called this afternoon and i said, you know, i've been think aboutings how to introduce this and i occurred it's stupid for me to quote reagan and f i can get reagan to quote reagan. there's a power that he did that is remarkable. i50 prptd of the explanation why we're in the mess we're in. nose of us who are conservative lacked the courage to take on the school board, the teachers union, the local academic elite, the news media, the entertainment culture. we seeded ground which has crippled this understand's of itself. part of what we have done her case for 4 to 8-year-old with the ellis the elephant and my case writing novels to try to get across to the american people. it's a country worth knowing and you know it by learning the history. you become an american. any other place in the world you can claim genetic pattern geography. you can come here from haiti, somalia, in cast list my case they came from places like scotland and ireland. you can come from anywhere and learn to be ab american. to do that you have to learn to be an american. if you an academic aleet and news media elite and opposed 6 teaching you how to be an american. you literally cut off the life blood of the country. that's the basis what we've been doing. we have an american legacy tour. now, several people said when they found out i was coming out here that if i want to come out here and talk about george washington, which to a lot of people seems a long way off. and talk about sweet land of liberty and land of pilgrim's pride both of -- came up and recently and actually about the 13 colonies. her mother who is 80 who her said you should not say it's for 4 to 8 years old. it's for 4 to 80s nobody has study the colonies. it's brand new information for everybody. somebody said, okay, you do thaw but you what you should do in order to engage washington and the national media is you should apply it to the fiscal cliff. i thought to myself, at the reagan library, what better place to go back to pirs principles. and since i have written three novel on george washington. what better part earn than to wave the two giants ronald reagan after whom the soviet empire desired and george washington after whom we became a country. what are the lessons of history. i don't study it because it's an interesting habit. i study to better understand the present and future engage in making history by intelligent and informed citizens. what are some of the lessons? let me start with the fiscal cliff. sky an obviously question. how many of you heard the term fiscal cliff? [laughter] i want to say something in washington which will be seen as her receipt call and gingrich going off and making no sense. the contract of america, the balanced budget, welfare reform. i participated my career, reagan's economics defeat of the society yef empire. i'm proud of the number of things i participated in that made no sense in washington. by thomas wolf. this goes book i think to the '60s when he first wrote it. now wolf is try, to describe a particular pattern in san francisco. in which the welfare department figured out that all of the senior welfare people should be on the second floor of the welfare office hiding from people that they serve. and the newest, least paid people should be on the ground floor screening the people who are mad. wolf distribution the community in san francisco as having figured out what the game was. you would have 6'5" and six foot six people come in carrying traditional native war clothes. they would walk up to the front desk and say i want to see the boss. and the underpaid brand new staff person would say, we're not supposed to let you see the boss. and they would start to hit the floor with their club. you have the normal sized person staring up with the huge war club and thinking to themselves do they pay enough for the next part of this? [laughter] if you haven't read this. thomas wolf is one of the greatest observers the americans have seen. it's worth reading. we're revisiting everything wolf described. in the great early excess. the left is continued to new at a time and evolve and e it's a size and become more baroque that was tennessee when he described it. now instead of being the local is a moe begans it's the national news media. they get together and chant fiscal cliff, face fiscal cliff. it you're an intrejt politician and you say what i said which is the fiscal cliff isn't a "fantasy." it is an excuse to panic. it's a device to get us running down the road so we accept whatever obama wants otherwise we failed the fiscal cliff how can you be a patriotism if you don't what the fiscal cliff requires and they will tell us much like the land of oz. there will be the person hiding the behind the machine that say raise taxes now. and if you don't raise taxes now you violated the fiscal cliff. do you want to be the person who stands up and destroying america? do you want to go on one of the national networking and explain your reactionary and out of touch with life you don't care that america is going to die late on thursday? [laughter] it's all right if that's kind of person you are. we're never going schedule you. you will be never on television. you are clearly weird. [laughter] let me start with the idea and say there is no fiscal cliff. we had a bad election. we did a number of stupid things. we faced an opponent smarter than we were. ronald reagan when he was most important single statement is february 1975 in washington at the conservative political action committee meeting. now i was part of this. i ran in '74. i had no sense of timing. so i picked watergate to run in. [laughter] i'm in georgia, i'm a yankee born army brat with a strange accent, a weird name, running as a republican during wear gait. it was beyond not clever. [laughter] this was like, you know, don't give him money, pay for the therapy. [laughter] in december of 1974 republican party id was at 17%. and i was serious talk about is the party going to be disappear and be reduced. it was nonsense but it was serious talk. i was part of the group that came out of the wreckage and began meeting with a guy at the republican national committee and doing serious indepth analysis what went wrong and why? they had a serious of commercials called republicans are people too. when you're in bad enough trouble, do you want a commercial that says you're a person do too. you know you deeply moving. it was in this environment the ronald reagan went to sea pack and said we need bold colors no pale pastel. he was throwing down a battle sign. he was saying don't tell me you have a sellout. don't tell me you have a cave. don't tell me you have do whatever the left wants. there are moments in history where you draw a line and fight. we have thirty governors. we a huge number of state legislators. the idea we are supposed to create a center caucus in order to be socially acceptable in washington is absurd. that's what people are currently forming in washington. how much do i need to surrender so he won't beat me anymore? when i was family elected to congress, it turns out of my bad scheduling with the second time i ran jimmy carter was head of the democratic ticket. it was the best campaign technical ily i ever ran. it felt good toward the end. everything feels right because you're the candidate in the middle of the mess. i went in to vote on election day 1973 and the state of georgia was and i found myself standing in line. behind three people who had come from the nursing home. to get revenge for sherman's march through georgia. [laughter] i thought to myself, how likely is it that after they vote for jimmy carter, they will split their ticket for yankee born army brat on the republican side. i thought this is going to be a long evening. it was. i went from 48.5% in '74 to 48.3% in 1976. barely enough to survive. and then carter approved the left can't governor. when i came to washington, the democrats had been so dominant from 1973 on. they would saunter to the floor of the house looking for republicans to beat up. republicans would shrink on to the floor of the house hoping not to be noticed. and the new generation who were elected starting in '87 banded together and went to the floor of the house to find democrats to beat up. we pick fights with them. i'm talking about physical -- i'm talking about debating. not physical. i want to make that clear. i want to make that clear so nobody -- i agree passionately with the rule first you win the argument and. then you win the vote. we didn't have governor. and they were running the house. we were the minority pointed out to me when he switched side and became a republican and said if you're in the majority. you have to have an idea faceted to a bill, hold learnings. if you're in the majority you get to vote no. it becomes a self-perpetuating model. and one of the things i would say to the house republicans is to get a grip. they are the majority. they're not the minority. they don't need to cave in to obama. they don't need to form a surrounder caucus. the senator will do whatever senators do. the senate as pete knows is an institution which individualialty dominates team work. each senate is a unique figure each one fashions out what they going to go. you're not going to end the short run in terms of actually being able to do something positive. this are going to be five or six different versions depending how many are in the room. when the house side you're in a different situation. you are the minority. you control -- majority. you control the scheduling, the hearings, the grown ups. my number one bit of advices to the congressional republicans is simple. back out all of the negotiating with obama. the president is overwhelmingly dominate in the news media. you gave obama the ability to say to you not good enough. they can create 1-800 waste. probably technical a few more letters in there. i'll let you add the number to get to the right number to the phone company or put it online which is a better way and have it available on a variety of other formats and say you send everything you can think we should hold hearings on. how many americans could find one or two or three items of waste. we would have five million suggestions and you could say this is what he wants to raise taxes for. somebody said in the fema effort on new jersey is -- [inaudible] maybe a little bit high or low. give use a flavor. it was true in katrina. i want to give to an active radical program. suddenly you're in a different conversation. the president of the news media have gotten the republicans in to an argument over taxes. i give obama credit for this. i have never seen anybody better at finding trivial distractions in order to avoid responsibility. [laughter] [applause] let my say to give you a 2012 variation on ronald reagan's 19 75 bold colors. obama light is not a winning formula for the republican party. [applause] let's start with how the media operates. they operate in collaboration with the white house first to create panic. you run off the fiscal cliff unless you are insane and do what told. you are a bad person asking why is there a face call cliff. will america will be different on january 2nd if we hold our bleat and see what happens? second. you then go to distractions. the current distractions is grover norquist. i have known grover norquist for a long time. i think he's a fine person. he hold know elective office. and in fact, he wasn't elected president. he is the president of united states who is responsibility for figuring how to solve our problems who is not offered a single serious cost consulting measure. tell me what you think barack obama is going to go to the house and senate democrats and say i need a yes vote on this. instead of dealing with the fact that the president of the united states is once again totally failing to provide leadership, the president has gotten us worried about whether grover norquist defines the republican party. as we know, if we are not worthy of the news media's respect and love we are a party that disappear. listen to the tone of the language when you watch the morning joe or, you know, "fox & friends." are often the whole thing and i want to make two points and the norquist. he did something important. he came up with the idea a no tax increase pledge as a way of drawing a line in the sand. let me be clear about my background. i voted under the tax increase in reagan. i say this in the reagan library. i voted against the tax increase of george h. w. bush. when i thought it was a disaster. when he balance the budget for four straight years, we did it by cutting taxes to accelerate economic growth. i clearly represent a different view. [laughter] but i have no problem if somebody wants to break their no tax pledge. if they are prepared to go home and explain it. the idea they're creating the posturing. several senators said i'm not afraid of governor norquist. i want to put on the record i'm not afraid of grover norquist. they didn't give their pledge to grover norquist. the pledge to the voters of the state. with now, there are circumstances where you raise taxes. ronald reagan, you have in your are kentucky -- are give the great video. my feet are in concrete he said and being reagan, he could get away with going to the press conference one morning and saying, the sound you're hearing, is concrete breaking. because as governor, he concluded in order meet the state's requirement he no choice. but it never cost much. he was totally unfront and honest. he went to the people of california and said look here is where we are. it's a bigger mess than we thought. i can't fix it any other way. ic we have to do this. he did that after create agency -- nobody thought ronald reagan was raising taxes to create a bigger government. they thought if he needed it, it must be serious. what we have today is no innovation. no reform, no new thinking, no creativity, no hearings on waste. no hearings of better ways of doings things. you live until the age of the ipad and the iphone, and of google and a facebook and twitter, and you're faced with a federal government which currently runs at the pace of manual typewriter. [laughter] you have no serious -- in that sense we're told by people who are running a disaster we need more of your money to prop up a disaster. we can't reform. it's a bipartisan failure. now the last thing i want it talk about is how washington would have dealt with this. washington is the most important single american. we would not have won the american revolutionary war without him. we might well not have gotten a constitution without him and might not have been able to find a orderly system of self-government. we stand on his shoulders. and washington was very big on listening to people who knew what they were doing. hesp h i'm not against listening to people who know more than you do. it's listening to consult assistants who know less than you do but get paid for telling you things you feel secure because you paid someone else that fails. washington, for example, in a fight in the second trenton campaign, needs advice. calls a counsel of war. an there are two people in the council who are not part of the military. they are local farmers. and always remind, i spent one time longest serving teacher of the senior military. i spent 2003 five years talks about "art of war." i would tell general and admiral. the reason they had two people in the room they were farmers who actually knew the local neighborhood. and they were the only two people in the room who knew there was a sunken road south of trenton, you could go from trenton princeton and the army wouldn't see you. they weren't there for social reasons. they there were for because they really literally the only two people who knew tbha they were doing. you have with washington nothing you see in washington today. that is a person who is prepared to reach out to the person who knows. i spent years literally years trying to convince the government in the republican and democratic party we have ownership and 1 $10 of fraud in medicare and medicaid. my tourses were straight straightforward. american express, visa, and mastercard. it you had in the federal government you get an experience express you would save between 70 and 110 billion a year. they adopt first time the budget office model, they're not bureaucracy, they have the weird private sector idea. they want to use computers. [laughter] there a serious of weird things about this. and that is where we are. we're a country which could solve virtually all of the problems. if you read i want to close with the reference back to washington for a second. republicans belly aching. could you imagine people did who they paid. you can't do that. it won't work on a thirty-second commercial. our second is valley forge. by the way, if you want to see a congress that is truly incompetent, don't rely on the current one. they are amateurs. go wack and look at the continental congress. 14,000 soldiers crasses ridge to valley forge promised they would have money, supply and equipment to build cottages. they have one ax for 14,000 people. we did we road valley forge to remind folks it's hard to be free. it's always difficult. washington going through the most bitter winter transforms the army by bringing in a man to innovate and teach european military tactics and yet a offs who immediately understands the most important thing. americans aren't european. i would say this to the current congress and people in washington and news media, we're not spain, we're not greece, we're not totally messed up like europe. we would do fine over the next twenty years if we get government to quit screwing up. [applause] but imagine the consult assistant consult ant report if they said general washington, we have you have one ax and 14,000 people. we think this is bad. we think you should be deeply depressed and consider quitting. a congress isn't doing well enough doesn't deserve the loyalty. why don't you go home? they wanted to be free. and they prepared to die. when they crossed dpez on christmas night on a desperate and last effort before the army seizes to exist. the slogan, or pass word is victory or death. and they meant it. it wasn't victory cry or six weeks. or victory or i'm not going watch fox news for a month. it wasn't victory or i think i'll pout. all right people really passionate about the idea that freedom was the right god had given them. they weren't going fail god by giving it up. finally we get to yorktown, the last novel in washington. it's a great gamble. the country is exhausted. washington can't win the war by direct assault. he's sitting outside of new york. the royal navy has so much power, he can't capture manhattan. one ship of align had more artillery fire power than the entire american army. people forget how powerful the ships were for the time. he's significant -- southeast -- he's sitting there there are no helicopters or cars or television. he get a note from a french army sitting in rhode island, which said, thed admiral of the french navy sitting in the caribbean believes he could come north for six weeks. the entire opportunity was created because washington a courage year over to send one-third of the army to south to fight general corp. wallace and wear him out. he won a victory at the court house in north carolina that cost him so much he said to his staff two more victories like this and we won't have an army left. they would gradually tearing up cornwallis' army. he retreats expecting the royal nay destroy save him. washington has gotten the note. the french march from rhode island over to new york, french general said i'm under your command. they managed to mask the british in manhattan. they don't know washington is on the move and think he is sitting there. they had a five-day head start. they run through philadelphia where washington has to raise the money to get the army to keep it moving. that's how close it is. the only time in the entire washington is described as intensely emotional the morning he sees the french fleet he's described as active as though he were crazy. dancing and yelling and screaming and tears coming down his eyes. he's gambled everything. he had no way of knowing for they were showing up. they were there and the british weren't. when cornwallis surrenders. the band plays "the world turned upside down." it was. i came to the reagan library tonight the place named for the men who believed in freedom so much that the soviet empire disappeared. i talk about the man who's shoulder we stand on. george washington. i would say to you in every republican in the entire country every conservative in the entire country, find the courage to live up to the endowment your creator has given you. .. described the declaration of independence vividly. and now what was turning out to be really hard. july 1776 by december had turned into a editor, painful, depressive, demoralizing series. in washington rewrite a pamphlet called the crisis, which begins these are the times. washington understood the first you win the argument menu in the word. people had to believe. i came here to say to you, we have no reason to despair. you have no reason to back off. you have no reason. we have every reason to behave this parents. any questions? [applause] [applause] >> said the speaker has been kind enough to give us an temper questions than answers. if you have one come raise your hand. if you could wait to leak at the in your hand, so everyone can hear it, that would be great. we will start over here. >> first of all, mr. speaker, i'd like to congratulate you in thank you for coming out and be demanded to read that his willing to fight the good fight. we appreciate that. [applause] and i agree with you that we have also her, we've lost the battle we have to continue to pay. some of the things we should all think about going forward is a need to make sure the constitution is followed it should be called a nato coat the constitution. we can't rule by executive fiat. i also think a list at is doing a wonderful job a starting education in the schools because that's where we need to start a long-term plan of 30 to 40 years of turning it around because we need to educate people, not indoctrinate them. and i think we need to go after the media. i'd like to see you come up with something along the lines of the contract with america, contractor we the people to define conservatism and to lay out clearly, like you did before the american people and we can win and conquer. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. those are good comments. >> i sincerely appreciate your intellect. i think to have three postelection questions on the immigration debate. it seems problematic those people coming into the nation's whose first our actions are to ignore them. by reframing the risk of the culture of flawlessness this population. i wonder if we need to be concerned that they could thoughts on how we could avoid this problem and solve this issue by not only strengthening, but avoiding a for their demise. >> it has to include control of the border and has to include some kind of a worker permit system, which is rigorously enforced. i happen to think you ultimately end up as some kind of system that has people resident or noncitizen and have it work permit, not on a path to citizenship because that's a metal -- you have to practical about what is doable. as you go there, you have to enforce the law. but you have now, and i don't blame people who show up here. if we refuse to control the border and identify who you are and refuse to police ourselves refuse to do everything if you're here illegally, it's hard for me to tell you you're or taken advantage of the richest venture in the world. he seems to be saying please come and exploit me. to some extent we have to reestablish the rule of law. the only point to try to make during the debate that had a significant impact on our side in solidifying the degree to which people adopt positions that made no sense. two points. one is for not going to deport grandmother's. some of you may disagree with that, but if you look at this country as a whole, the idea behind grandmother's, the churches will protect them. their families will protect them. and they cannot pin. conservatives should not write laws that are fantasies. i didn't say i'm for people who come here illegally, but i'm prefiguring out a patch of residency to get them to pay taxes, get them to be within the law, get them to be not exploited and ends this. we will never appeal. when you have a candidate who says to the entire group of people covering for investigations by a bigger margin than latinos. this cannot be a gift problem as one of our leaders describe it because asians are the hardest working, most education oriented and economically most successful group in america. so they're not the people who stand around and say please give me a gift. but when you walk into a community and say hi, i want to touch that economic liberty, the first debate to take take out your grandmother. all of you who believe in families understand that's a really high barrier. it's tricky at that point to the rest of the conversation because they say no, i'm not going to do with you. somebody has to have the guts in our party and is meant to say am floored a conservatism that enforces the law within a framework of reality and i'm for conservatism, which is based on facts and i think that's going to require we find some way to say you, i'm totally for enforcing law, but i want to set up earlier this morning or this evening. i could then impose and prepare to be tough about it. i'm prepared to say once there's a 24/7 instant verification model on your atm card, you hire somebody who's not here legally, we're going to hammer you economically so it's irrational. i think people will buy that. you can create a contract that works. what you can't do is continue to go down this road of trying to find a contract that's impossible in isolating yourself in the country that it guarantees the left will control. but the left wants his unlimited illegal immigration has been get to be citizens and vote. that's the fundamental difference. >> in california, it's virtually impossible to do skewed registration to have republicans elected to federal office is in governorships. this skewed demographics is becoming more and more important every election. how can we do something about that? with better elections in the future. >> it's a great question. theodore roosevelt in the 1880s decides he wants to get into politics. theodore roosevelt became permit very aristocratic family. went to harvard, was independently wealthy. all of the social friends that she had and what are doing? roosevelts and ongoing to determine an irish forest. they said how can you do that? and incumbent gary sherman said irishman. [laughter] and roosevelt said, political power in this city is decided in the saloons and you can set appear in your penthouse all you want, but i want to be in the room with the decisions made. what to take your demographically. and this is very so deeply disagree with their consulting class and candidly with one of the comments of our last nominee. i don't see demographic problems what do you think asian americans while? they want a good education. their passionate. they love their children. their best to limit children. they invest more heavily in their children than any other group. just had a survey i saw this morning came out. guess what the number one validation of achievement as saying that college students is today released a 25, 30 or so now, how do you know to be successful? it is owning a house. if you are a true left wing collect this who wanted to hurt everybody said they could be close to the subway, so they would get a car, which is a terrible thing that gives them independents. can you imagine how depressing it would be to know that obama wants to cornejo, how possessions, and be economically independent. we have a party have to humble ourselves. i told the story about the two farmers for practical reason. we need to relax a little bit and go out and listen to the people of california. do you think the average italics the fact that l.a. unified is a disaster? to think that the fact sacramento is owned by the lobbyists? to get their throat to pay higher and higher taxes for fewer and fewer jobs? party think they don't have any sense there that had a conversation with this? that maybe starts at this same time you got your dreams. tell me about your hopes. i think you'd be shocked. great story. i can't use the guys name. it wouldn't be fair to him. but he has banned to be hired by the traditional party which had run mexico since 1929. he went down on the reform ticket and he went down because the candidate was in deep trouble and they wanted clever american advice. he did a series of focus groups and city have a problem. it's called correction. the guys who you are talking to were the guys who were corrupt. [laughter] and they said to him, this is his description, not mine. a number of guys who are fairly overweight smoking cigars in this room, going you don't understand this. you're clearly a gringo. people don't find corruption. he sent them to get this straight. you think the average american gets up on monday morning because stewart thrilled with the idea that two of the five-day salary will be stolen by some fat machine politician? said they found him later that day and lost the election. there's a message there. people don't come to america to re-create that government under watching sacramento reinvent really bad government. [applause] >> we've got time for about tumor questions. , over here. >> thank you for coming, mr. speaker. i was looking forward to debating barack obama. that would have been amazing. [cheers and applause] one of the things that was really noticeable impalpable in the last year of the presidential debates and the candidates was the lack of media object to be. as a media person, what do you suggest for this next wave of television and bloggers in order to combat and basically silence this mainstream of mainstream media that we have today? [applause] >> well, if you go back and look at the debates, i did a fair amount of policing. but my first question as republicans look at this and i've just started gingerich productions will be a six-month product of reviewing and trying to learn the lessons at a much deeper level than you get from the current wave of analysts. because when you lose five out of six presidential elections in popular vote, but a minority vote in 2000. you underperform in the presidential election of 2004. the weakest incumbent in american history. i just heard a newsletter, which said the r. word is not romney, it is republican. this is about a party that is still to become a modern, effective party. part of the answer is suggested the republican national committee works to create a set of debates hosted by the republicans do we tell the media, why would you want -- i participated in the head every time here at the reagan library, but the truth is you ended up in the reagan library with one of the examples. left-wing moderators did their centrist because everybody they know us to their left. [laughter] these are not people who are biased. they represent the center for america because every round they go to cocktail parties at this literally got far to the left. so if you were to go back and analyze questions were putting together right now fascinating case study, which some of you will remember richard stephanopoulos asked this question about the 1963 tidwell versus connecticut supreme court suit involving contraception. i guarantee you, because i was there. every republican candidate and a debate has gone what? relearned a few weeks later the church i had been briefed that this was the beginning of the war on women in which we discovered $50,000 year law students unable to afford their own contraception have to have this part of the new socialist model free contraception or otherwise will be deprived, which then became a symbol which we saw one article yesterday in "time" magazine named her the person of the year. of course because after all she symbolized by than anyone else the total dishonesty with which they won the election. she's the perfect symbol of our incompetence. they clearly had a strategy of ensure stephanopoulos launched a strategy. by which you want to set up for debate and debate the other team and? will make a deal. the democrats will although sean hannity, rush limbaugh and three comparable people to host all their debates. [applause] and yeah, we continue to pretend that the news media is mutual. the news media is the last. and so i think you have to really start at the very fundamental level of rebuilding. there's a big problem in california very nature of a serious effort to create a conservative internet-based political medium because there is no effective coherent political news coverage in california and it makes it very hard to govern. [applause] >> last question appear in the balcony. >> hi, balcony. >> i want to start with last christmas is on best christmas ever. you were at had 30 points in the polls. i told them no gifts, no anything. my greatest politician is ahead. thank you for christmas. to follow up with that, do you feel at the gop establishment force romney on this? and if you did, how do you feel about that and how difficult was that knowing that's what they were doing? >> first of all, i don't think there's a republican establishment. governor wilson agrees with me that notion is among the country the republican establishment gathers is untrue. mitt romney spent six years running for president. he was very good at what he was very good at, which is raising money, which is how he earned a living. he was a finance guy. he spent his entire career being a finance guy. they liked them. they got together, talked finance stuff. it all sounded good to them. they say this is our kind of guy. he's a smart guy. he lost an election, which i would argue any of us would've a hard time winning because we were and overmatch. overmatched. berkowitz has coached team being dropped into the super bowl. we don't understand this yet. the obama people never quit. they kept offices open in 09, 10 and 11. their 53 offices in north carolina alone. this is fine during a six-month study at gingerich productions, which lessens to learn. we don't have lessons learned right now. we don't know are talking about good music is on tv wasted millions of dollars as consultants explaining that they now think, what you know is they don't. because they haven't taken enough time to learn any thing. i mean, this is a serious crisis of the republican party because if we don't figure out the new game, were not going to be competitive for a generation or more. that's a serious it is. don't assemble one and 16 because we'll nominate clever person that has the appropriate i think that articulates better. nick out what mccain got, which is what dole got smooches with pushcart running for reelection. that is a fact. unless we get our act together and look at the california republican party. i need to rate individual turner of the largest state in the country? to take a serious, deep, fundamental rethinking. unfortunately, i've been around so long as there for the rebound after goldwater. i was there for the rebound after watergate come with took six years. is there after george bush lost in 92, which took two years. i was there in the house and a six, took four years. but he said of a strategically optimistic? a century. but let's not going to be kind to obama. still have plenty of mistakes. challenges that what they will do wrong. the challenge is whether we are prepared to slow down, think, have honest arguments and figure out what we need to do right. if we do that, this country will be just fine. thank you very, very much. [applause] [applause] >> for more information about newt gingrich, visit gingerich productions.com. >> you don't always find many newspaper editors in any era investigating reporting. the place he never uses not just economics. it's the discomfort that investigative reporting causes in the newsroom because it's troublesome. it's got more than economic. if you ruffle the feathers of some and powerful, that gets people running in to complain to the publisher of there's those kinds of things happening. her fortune all through the 70s and almost all of her career to work for people who are strong and upright in that area and just let the chips fall where they may. >> booktv is at the national press club were broken off. john mueller has his first workout on frederick douglass. we all know but frederick douglass, but you focus on the last 18 years of his life. why is that? >> many people know him as an abolitionist, state and an advocate for women's rights, but he is so much more than that. the last 25 years he spent in washing to d.c. he moved here in the late -- in the early 1870s. his children which are also well positioned well respected in washington and washington was the place to be with reconstruction. the first class about congressman, black senators. frederick douglass was really the most prominent black men of washington. there is a call to start a newspaper and frederick douglass at this experience with the norstar kind of as a leader wanted douglas to hope balbis paper and paper and help finance it. douglas was very reluctant, but he eventually came around on january 13, 1870, the new air was launched and not broadened focus in washington. he got involved in local politics at that time with the modern republican party staffer for the republican party the 19th century. frederick douglass as much of a republican party man. washington d.c. got self-government in the early 1870s. the first nonvoting delegate to congress. frederick douglass competed the shipment for that position. so douglass is involved in local politics. we continue to run his newspaper. he also at one point was president of friedman bank for a short time. he moved his family here. it really was a man of washing can. there's been many biographies about frederick douglass. we learn about in the great hall. reno in 1845 he wrote his autobiography about his experiences as an order, as a non-bullishness, but his later life is an ignored. so spending a lot of time in washington, especially where his home is. i started to look into what is written about his later life and from there wasn't much written. i said hey, this is a great opportunity. >> his home is called cedar hill? >> is correct. >> isn't still here? >> and 1960s, john f. kennedy signed a bill that gave control of the house and department of interior in the early 1970s, frederick douglass saint albans. the flagship site of the national park service. has over 40, 50,000 visitors every year. it sits high up on a hill. you can see the washington monument to the left. the u.s. capitol dome to the right is amazing majestic view and it's open seven days a week. the curator contributed it forward and supports and to make this book not just -- make it active living histories of people read the book. they want to go over there or haven't been there for a couple years, i went to revisit mr. douglass. >> frankfurter custard with the forward. john. >> mclaren is the current curator. frank the best retired now, but he was a curator for many, many years. very well respect it in the douglass community. dr. clifford may is coming university archivist also contributed to the forward. >> john muller is the author of "frederick douglass in washington, d.c.." thank you very much. >> thank you. ♪ >> if we turn away from the needs of others, we align ourselves with those forces, which are bringing about this suffering. >> ui to take advantage of it. >> obesity in this country is nothing short of a public health crisis. >> are little antennas went up the told me that someone had their own agenda. >> it would be just a shame to waste it. >> i think they service the window on the path to what was going on with american women. >> she becomes the chief confidant. she's the only one of the world we can trust. >> many of the women who were first ladies were writers. journalists broke books. >> they are in many cases quite frankly human beings and their husbands. if only because they are not first and foremost to find and consequently limited by political innovation. >> donnelly was socially adept politically savvy. >> dolly madison loved every minute of it. mrs. monroe absolutely hated it. >> you can't move without polluting what women want and what women have to contribute. >> during this statement it was too much
>> rajiv, when we over in afghanistan to write this book? book? book? >> i traveled the initial in early 2000. i made 15 trips from 2009 through this year, many of them several weeks at a time. i traveled all over the country, but i emphasize my time in the south. i spent a lot of time with our military forces, with u.s. marines into helmand province, with army soldiers in kandahar, with american diplomats and reconstruction workers, and with the afghan people. traveled around by helicopter, by my is that trucks, pickup trucks, by donkey, and really -- >> we able to get out on your own? >> yes. fortunately, though i'm an american, i'm blessed with dark skin and this beard. >> did that make a difference? >> it did make a difference. it allowed me to blend in perhaps in ways it would be more difficult for you to do in kandahar. >> rajiv chandrasekeran, here is his most recent book, "little america: the war within the war for afghanistan." he has been our guest here on booktv on c-span2. thank you, sir. >> thank you. real pleasure. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page. click search. you can share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. tv.org. >> next, former speaker of the house newt gingrich presents the second book in his historical fiction series on george washington, "victory at yorktown" but it's a little over an hour. >> good evening, everyone. my name is john, and i had the honor of being executive director of the ronald reagan presidential foundation, and it's my pleasure to welcome all of you here on this rainy evening. in honor of our men and women in uniform who defend our freedom around the world, if you would please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. >> thank you, please be seated. >> before yes, sir. i would like to recognize a few special guests we have with us today but i'd like to begin with a welcome to one of our members of our board of trustees and a former governor of the state of california, pete wilson. governor. [applause] >> also with us tonight is a terrific congressman who is retiring after 26 years of terrific service and his wife. [applause] >> our ventura county supervisor, peter, thank you for coming. [applause] >> now for those of you who are patient enough to go through the book signing line just prior to the event this evening, you know this wonderful woman is here with us tonight. she's a best selling author, "new york times" best selling author and the president of gingrich production, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming callista gingrich. [applause] so we have with us tonight a very special guest. i know that if i were simply to give a difficult introduction to spend her gingrich, the one where you list every accomplishment of the speakers bio, i promise you we would be here all night and even he would get bored. [laughter] >> his list of achievements in politics, his involvement in lifelong learning, his expertise in national security matters, his business interest, his philanthropic endeavors, the dozens of books he's written, the list goes on and on. so allow me for the moment to presume that all of us here are already well a coin with the important milestones in the life of one newt gingrich. because i want to focus in some part on the future. and what i sincerely hope is newt's place in it as it relates to ideas. so let me explain. it is no secret to anyone here that the party of abraham lincoln and ronald reagan took a beating three weeks ago. republicans lost the battle for the white house the white house as well as seats in both the house and the senate. now, most are still stinging badly from that defeat. i know this from firsthand experience, as many are visiting the reagan library in droves lately, and what seems to be a quest. a quest to remember a great president, and remind themselves of these ideals, his optimism, and what he did to inspire americans to greatness. we should remind ourselves that while our 40th president had the uncanny ability to reach into the hearts and minds of americans, it was ronald reagan himself who said, quote, i wasn't a great communicator. i communicated great things. today, we can recognize the great things spring from great ideas. we can also take heart that there are leaders in our time like speaker newt gingrich who has great contributions to make in the way of such ideas. now, there's plenty of precedent here. when newt was first elected to office in 1978 in georgia, his party, like the republican party today, was in the wilderness. the jimmy carter occupied the white house, and both the house and senate were safely in democratic hands. but with the election of president reagan in 1980, republicans took both the house and the senate. but in the house, where newt gingrich went to work each day, he was badly outnumbered. now, i worked as a hill staffer for a congressman's office who was only steps away from newt, and i can assure you for representatives like newt, the minority was often a lonely place. the republicans had not held the majority there since 1954, and it was not a soul alive who could ever imagine a republican majority again. oh, except for newt. with no seniority but a tireless work ethic, a vision and a mind filled with ideas, it was newt gingrich who sat in the back benches of congress and methodically devise a strategy over several years to make the republican party a party of ideas once again. it was newt edifies the famous contract with america. plan to give republicans more than something to run against the historic 1944 election. he gave them something to run for. it was newt who rallied the faithful behind these ideas and took back the house after 40 years in the minority. it was newt who helped engineer passage of the welfare reform and to balanced budgets during his time as speaker of the house. he's been on the national stage ever since, pushing america and the conservative movement forward with his ideas. so ladies and gentlemen, i'd like you to please join me in welcoming to the reagan library, speaker newt gingrich. [applause] >> thank you. thank you all very, very much. it's always an honor to be back at the reagan library. i want to thank john for the great job he does of really providing leadership on a day-to-day basis, the degree to which of this library as a model of educating young people is really remarkable. analog that goes to the energy, and to be candid, the fund-raising ability that john brings us. so, john, thank you for your work. [applause] >> i hope all of you will join close to me in keeping mrs. reagan in your prayers. she is a remarkable woman who spent a lifetime serving this country. and we all cherish her, as she continues to be active and continues to play a role here at the library. so i couldn't come here, and i mentioned nancy fortissimo their aisles with say, governor, it's great to be back with you. we did a lot of things over the years. from being made in san diego to u.s. senator to governor, to a leader in a variety of ways. i look to pete wilson and to gale as great people who represent the willingness to serve the state and the country in an important way. i want to say, it's always a family engagement if you're out there, thank you both for serving the country but it really does make a difference. it's great to be back here. [applause] >> i did not you would be with us, but we are thrilled to have you here. callista and i have launched what we call an american legacy book tour. we are very fond of the library, as you know, and we made a movie called ronald reagan -- i want to recognize tonight kevin and his wife are here. kevin was the director of that film, and we are just always thrilled to be with kevin because he does such a great job with movies within together. and so, we come back to the reagan library from a unique background, and you may wonder why we talk about an american legacy book tour. you may wonder why callista has created an alliance with the elephant to create -- -- and why i have witnessed many novels as i have come and i thought the best person who could explain our commitment to american history being at the reagan library was president reagan. so join me for a minute. we want to show you part of president reagan's farewell address. his last speech in the oval office but i think this captures perfectly why we have an american legacy book tour. >> there's a great tradition of warning in presidential farewells, and i've got one that's been on my mind for some time. and hardly enough, ma it starts with one of the things i'm proud enough in the past ages. the resurgence of national pride that i called the new patriotism. this national feeling is good. but it won't count for much and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge. and informed patriotism is what we want. and are we doing a good enough job to teach our children what america is and what she represents in the long history of the world? those of us who are over 35, grew up in a different america. we would talk very directly what it means to be an american. and we have a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. if you didn't get these things from her family, you got them from the neighborhood. from the father down the street thought in korea, or the family who lost someone, or you get a sense of patriotism from school. and if all else, you can get a sense of patriotism of the popular culture. the movies celebrated democratic value, implicitly reinforced the idea that america was special. tv was like that, too, through the mid '60s. but now we're about to enter the '90s, and some things have changed. younger parents are not sure that i'm ambivalent appreciation of america is the right thing to teach modern children. and it's for those who crave the popular culture well grounded patriotism is no longer the style. our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitution allies did. we've got to do a better job of getting the thought that america is freedom. freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, and freedom is special and rare. it's fragile. it needs production. so we've got to teach history based not on what -- but what's important. why the pilgrims came here, what those 30 seconds over tokyo meant. four years ago on the 40th anniversary of d-day, i read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father who had fought on omaha beach. her name was lisa, and she said we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of normandy did. well, let's help her keep her word. if we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. i'm warning of an eradication of the american memory that could result ultimately in an erosion of the american spirit. .. [applause] >> i want to thank the staff here at the library, because i called this afternoon, and i said, you know, i've been thinking about how to introduce this talk, and it occurred to me it's pretty stupid for me to quote reagan, and i could get reagan to quote reagan, and i think you will all agree there's a power to what he did and how he did it. i also believe, by the way, that's at least 50% of the explanation why we're in the mess we're in. those of us who are conservative lacked the courage to take on the school board, the teachers' union, the local academic elites, the news media, the entertainment culture. and we ceded ground which has crippled this country's understanding of itself. and part of what california lis saw and -- ca list that and i have done, in my case with writing novels is to try to get across to the american people this is a country worth knowing, and you know it by learning its history. you become an american. any other place in the world you can claim genetic pattern, geography, it's not true here. you can come here from haiti, somalia, china, mexico, in calista's case her grandparents came from switzerland and poland, in my case they came from places like scotland and ireland. you can come from anywhere, and you can learn to be an american. but to do that, the you have to learn to be an american. and if you have an academic elite and a news media elite and an entertainment elite who are opposed to teaching you how to be american, you cut off the life blood of this country. that's why we have an american legacy tour. now, several people said when they found out i was coming out here that if i'm going to come out here and talk about george washington, which to a lot of people seems a long way off, and i talk about sweet land of liberty and land of pilgrim's pride, both of callista's books have become bestsellers, it's actually about the 13 controlnies. her mother, who's now 80, wrote her and said you should not say this is for 4-8 years old, this is for 4-80 years old because nobody has studied the colonies and, therefore, it's brand new information for everybody. somebody said to me, okay, you're going to do that, but what you really should do in order to engage washington and the national media is you should apply it to the fiscal cliff. and i thought to myself at the reagan library what better place to go back to first principles. and since i've written now three novels on george washington, what better pattern than to weave these two giants, ronald reagan after whom the soviet empire disappeared, and george washington after whom we became a country. and ask yourselves what are the lessons of history? i don't study history because it's an interesting habit, i study history to better understand the present and the future so that i can be engaged in making history by being an intelligent, informed perp. that's what citizenship ought to be. and so what are some of the lessons? now, let me start with the fiscal cliff. and i'd ask a simple, obvious question. this is a very sophisticated group. how many of you have heard the term "fiscal cliff"? [laughter] okay. now, i want to say something which in washington will be seen at heretical and as gingrich once again going off and doing things that make no sense like the contract with america, balanced budget, i've participateed in my career with reagan's supply-side economics. i'm proud of the number of things i've participated in that made no sense in washington. [laughter] there is no fiscal cliff. this is absolute, total nonsenses. the best way to understand what happens to all of us is to read a great essay by tom wolfe, thomas wolfe enentitled mar mowing the flak catchers. this goes back to, i think, the '60s when he first wrote it. now, wolfe is trying to describe a particular pattern in san francisco. in which the welfare department has figured out that all of the senior welfare people should be on the second floor of the welfare office hiding from the people they serve. and the newest, least paid people should be on the ground floor screening the people who are mad. and wolfe describes the samoan community in san francisco. as having figured out what the game was. and so you would have 6-5 and 6-6 samoans come in carrying traditional native war clubs. [laughter] and they would walk up to the front desk, and they would say i want to see the boss. and the underpaid, brand new staff person would say, uh, we're not supposed to let you see the boss. and they would start to hit the floor with their club. and so you'd have this normal-sized person staring up at this gigantic samoan with his war club and thinking to himself, do today pay me enough for the next part of this? [laughter] and if you haven't read this essay, thomas wolfe is one of the greatest observers of the american scene in our generation. if you've never read this, it's worth going back and reading because we're revisiting everything wolfe, everything wolfe described in his great early essays. we're revisiting. because the left has continued to mutate and evolve and metastasize and become more baroque than it was when wolfe first described it. and so now instead of it being the local samoans at the local san francisco office, it's the national news media. and they get together, and they chant fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff. and if you're an intelligence politician and you walk out to do a press conference and you say what i just said to you -- which is the fiscal cliff is a fantasy, it is an excuse to panic, it's a device to get all of us running down the road so we accept whatever obama wants because otherwise we have failed the fiscal cliff, and how can you be a patriot if you don't do what the fiscal cliff requires? and the fiscal cliff will tell us one afternoon much like the land of oz where there will be this person hiding behind the machine who will say raise taxes now. and if you don't raise taxes now, you'll have violated the fiscal cliff. now, do any of you want to be the person who stands up and destroys america by violating the fiscal cliff? do you want to explain that you are so out of touch of life that you don't care america's going to die late on thursday? [laughter] it's all right if that's the kind of person you are, because we just need to know it now because we're never going to schedule it. [laughter] after all, you're or clearly weird. [laughter] so let me start with the fiscal cliff idea and say there is no fiscal cliff. let me say second act conservatives and republicans -- about conservatives and republicans who are demoralized, get over it. we had a bad election. we did a number of stupid things. we faced an opponent who worked harder than we did, did some clever things. ronald reagan, one of his most important single statements is february 1975 in washington at the conservative political action committee meetingment now, i was part of this. i ran in '74. i've had no sense of timing. so i picked watergate to run in. [laughter] i'm in georgia. i'm a yankee-born army brat with a strange accent, a weird name running as a republican during watergate. this was beyond not clever. [laughter] this was like, you know, don't give him money, pay for the therapy. [laughter] in december of 1974 republican party id was at 17%, and there was serious talk about is the party going to disappear and be replaced. now, it was nonsenses, but it was serious talk , and i was part of the group doing serious, in-depth analysis of what went wrong and why did it go wrong. they actually had a series of commercials called republicans are people too. now, when you're in bad enough trouble that you have a commercial that says i'm a person too, you know you're deeply moving. [laughter] it was in this environment that ronald reagan went to cpac and said we need bold colors, no pale pastels. and he was throwing down a battle sign. he was saying don't tell me you've got to sellout, don't tell me you've got to cave, don't tell me you've got to do whatever the left wants. there are moments in history when you draw a line, and you fight. now, we have 30 governors. we have control of the united states house of representatives, we have a huge number of state legislatures. the idea that we are supposed to create a surrender caucus in order to be socially acceptable in washington is absurd. let's be clear, that's what we're -- that's what people are currently forming in washington. how much do i need to surrender so you won't beat me anymore. when i was finally elected to the congress -- by the way, in terms of my bad scheduling, the second time i ran jimmy carter was at the head of the democratic ticket. and i remember it was the best campaign technically i ever ran. and it felt really good towards the end. and we've been think these moments when everything feels right because you're the candidate, and you're in the middle of the cocoon. so i went in to vote on election day, 1976, and the state of georgia was very proud that jimmy carter was the nominee. and i found myself standing in line behind three people who had come from the nursing home. [laughter] to get revenge for sherman's march through georgia. [laughter] and i thought to myself, how likely is it that after they vote for jimmy carter they will submit their ticket for a yankee-born army brat on the republican side? and i thought, this is going to be a long evening. [laughter] and it was, i went from 48.5% against the dean of the delegation in '74 to barely enough to survive in '76. getting in, carter proved the left can't govern, and by 1978 i won the seat. when i came to washington, the democrats had been so dominant from 1973 on that they would salter onto the floor of the house looking for republicans to beat up. [laughter] and republicans would shrink onto the floor of the house hoping not to be noticed. and the new generation who were elected starting in '78 literally banded together and went to the floor of the house to find democrats to beat up. and we'd pick fights with them. i'm talking about -- i'm talking about debating, i'm not talking about physically. i just want to make that clear so that nobody in the national media says gingrich advocates beating up democrats. [laughter] you have to be very careful how these things spread. but i do agree passionately with margaret thatcher's rule. first you win the argument, then you win the vote. so we'd get groups of people who would go to the floor regularly and start debating. and after a while the democrats stopped coming to the floor, because they understood there were more of us that were prepared to debate than there were of them. we studied it every week because we didn't have to govern. the minority, as phil graham once pointed out to me when he switched sides and he became a republican, he said if you're in the majority, you have to have an idea, fashion it into a bill, hold hearings, mark up the bill, pass through your body, go to conference with the senate, get something done. you're busy all day long trying to achieve something. if you're in the minority, you get to golf and vote no. [laughter] that becomes a self-perpetuating model. and one of the things i would say to the house ore palins is to get a grip -- the house republicans is to get a grip. they are the majority. they're not the minority. they don't need to cave in to obama, they don't need to form a surrender caucus. the senate, as pete knows, is an institution in which individuality totally dominates teamwork. each senator is a unique figure, each senator somehow fashions out what they're going to do. you're not going to, in the short run in the minority, organize the senate republicans in terms of actually being able to do something positive. you may be able to organize them to do negative things, you're o not going to get them to suddenly, magically come up with a formula because there are always going to be five or six difficult versions depending on how many senators are in the room. on the house side, you're in a different situation. you are the majority. you control the schedule. you control the committees. you control the hearings. and so my number one bit of advice to the congressional republicans is simple: back out of all of this negotiating with obama. the president is overwhelmingly dominant in the news media. you start setting up the definition of success finding and agreeing with obama, you just gave obama the ability to say to you, not good enough. we send welfare reform down to clinton three times, and he vetoed it the first two times. we didn't start by reaching an agreement, we started by doing something. if the house republicans would say to every single subcommittee -- and there are a ton of subcommittees -- every one of you is going to hold hearings on waste in government, so why don't you go back home, and they could create 1-800-waste. [laughter] okay? probably technically a few more letters in there, so i'll let you add whatever the right number are to get to the number for the phone company. or to put it online which is a better way to do it and also have it available in a variety of other formats and say, look, you send us everything you think we should hold hearings on. how many americans do you think could find one or two or three items of waste that they would be willing to suggest congress hold a hearing on? so within the first two or three weeks you'd have five million suggestions. and you could say, look, this is what he wants to raise taxes for. somebody from new jersey said to me two days ago their estimate is that in the fema effort, the federal emergency management agency effort in new jersey one dollar of every three is waste. now, that may be a little bit high, a little bit low, but it gives you a flavor. certainly, it was true in katrina. so you start saying to yourself let's have a discussion about how many billions have been thrown away on bad loans and solar power. let's have a discussion about why we're still sending money to egypt. let's have a discussion about how much money is being wasted by various agencies. let's have a discussion about whether or not we want to give epa this money to enact a radical program. now suddenly you're in a different conversation. but instead, the president and the news media have magically gotten the republicans into an argument over taxes. and then, and i give obama great credit for this, i have never seen anybody better at finding trivial distractions in order to avoid responsibility. [laughter] [applause] and let me say to give you a 2012 variation on ronald reagan's 1975 bold colors, no pale pastels, obama light is not a winning formula for the republican party. [applause] so let's start with how the media operates. the media operates in collaboration with the white house first to create panic. you're going to run off the fiscal cliff unless you're totally insane and do exactly what we're told to do and, therefore, you're a bad person if you ask the question why is there a fiscal cliff, and will america be dramatically different on january 2nd if, in fact, we just hold our breath and see what happens. second, you then go to distraction. the current distraction is grover norquist. now, i've known grover norquist for a long time. i think he's a fine person. he holds no elective office and, in fact, he wasn't elected president. so the president of the united states who is responsible for figuring out our problems who has not offered a single serious, cost-cutting measure, i mean, tell me what you think barack obama's going to go to the house and senate democrats and say i need a yes vote on this cost cutting. instead of dealing with the fact that the president of the united states is once again totally failing to provide leadership, the president has cleverly gotten us worried about whether grover norquist now defines the republican party. because as we all know, if we are not worthy of the news media's respect and love -- [laughter] we are a party that will disappear. i mean, just listen to the tone of the language when you watch morning joe or you watch, you know, even fox and friends are off on this whole. shtick. and grover did something very important. he came up with the idea of a no-tax increase pledge as a way of drawing a line in the sand. i voted against the tax increases under reagan -- i say this in the reagan library -- i voted against the tax increase of george h.w. bush which i think was a disaster and a fundamental mistake, and when we balanced the budget for four straight years, the only time in your lifetime, we did it by cutting taxes to accelerate economic growth. so i clearly represent a different view. [applause] but i have no problem if somebody wants to break their no-tax pledge. if they are prepared to go home and explain it. but this idea that they're creating this posturing, several senators have said i'm not afraid of grover norquist. well, i just want to put in the record here i've known grover for years, i'm not afraid of grover norquist. they didn't give their pledge to grover norquist. they gave their pledge to the voters of their state. ms. now, there are circumstances where you raise taxes. ronald reagan, you have in your archives this great video. reagan campaigned at one point and said my feet are in concrete. and being reagan, he could get away with going to the press conference one morning and saying the sound you're hearing is concrete breaking. [laughter] because as governor he concluded in order to meet the state's requirements he had no choice. but it never cost him very much because he was totally up front and totally honest, and he went to the people of california and said, look, here's where we are. it's a bigger mess than i thought it was, i can't fix it any other way, i think we have to do this. but he did that after creating a commission which fundamentally cut costs and dramatically cut spending. i mean, nobody thought ronald reagan was raising taxes to create a bigger government. they figured out if he needed it, then it must be really serious. what we have today is no innovation, no reform, no new thinking, no creativity, no hearings on waste, no hearings on better ways of doing things. you live in the age of the ipad and the iphone and of google and of facebook and of twitter, and you're face with the a federal government which currently runs at the pace of a manual typewriter. [laughter] and you have no serious effort in either party to fundamentally overhaul the system. and in this that sense we're told by people who are running a disaster we need more of your money to prop up a disaster we can't reform. and it's a bipartisan failure. now, the last thing i want to talk about is how washington, i think, would have dealt with this. washington's a remarkable person. i think he is the most important single american. i think all of us stand on his shoulders. i think we probably would not have won the american revolutionary war without him, we might not well have gotten a constitution without him, and we might not well have been able to find an orderly system of self-government. and we all stand on his shoulders. and washington was very big on listening to people who actually knew what they were doing. [laughter] and i mean this in a very specific, narrow way. because i'm not against listening to people who know more than you do about their topic. i've listened to consultants who know less than you do but get paid for telling you thing z so you feel secure, because you paid for somebody else, and it fails, it's their fault. so washington, for example u in a fight at trenton -- this is in the second trenton campaign -- needs advice. calls a council of war with. and there are two people in the council who are not part of his military. they're local farmers. and i always remind -- i was at one time the longest-serving teacher in the senior military. i spent 23 years talking about the art of war. and i would always tell generals and admiral the reason washington had these two people in the room is they were farmers who actually knew the local neighborhood. and they were the only two people in the room who knew that there was a sunken road south of trenton, and you could go from trenton to princeton, and the british army wouldn't see you. so they weren't there for social reasons. they were there because they were, literally, the only two people who knew what they were doing. so you have with washington something which you see almost none of in washington today, and that is a person who was prepared to reach out to the person who knows. i spent years, literally years,, trying to convince the government in both the republican and democratic party that we have between 70 and $110 billion a year of fraud in medicare and medicaid. and my sources were very straightforward; american express, visa and mastercard. if you had in the federal government in medicare and medicaid the same level of fraud you get at american express, you would save somewhere between $70 and $110 billion a year without raising taxes and without punishing any honest person. can't get anybody to listen to me. they don't fit the congressional budget office model, they're not in the bureaucracy, they have these weird private sector ideas, they want to use computers. [laughter] i mean, there are just a whole series of weird things about this. and that's where we are. we're a country which could solve virtually all of its problems. if you read -- and i want to close with this reference back to washington for a second. because i'm, frankly, callista and i have been going around the country listening to conservatives and republicans belly ache. you know, can you imagine -- i've written three novels in washington; to try men's souls, crossing the delaware on christmas night with ice in the river during a snowstorm, to march 9 miles in the dark with an army which has slunk from 30,000 to 2500, and of the 2500, one out of every three do not have boots, they're wearing, they're wearing burlap bags on their feet and leaving a trail of blood. so when conservatives say, oh, gee, i don't know what i'll do, it's so difficult, i say do you have any idea what it costs to become free? what people did, what they paid? but can you imagine if washington brought in his consultants? [laughter] hi, i've got this idea, we're going to cross the river at night. can't do that. [laughter] won't work on a 30-second commercial. [laughter] our second volume's valley forge. and, by the way, if you want to see a congress that's truly incompetent, don't rely on the current model. they're amateurs. go back and look at the continental congress. 14,000 soldiers cross a ridge into the valley that's called valley forge promised by the congress that they would have money, they would have supplies, and they'd have equipment to build cottages. they have one axe for 14,000 people. and we did, we wrote valley forge in part to remind folks it's always hard to be free. it's always difficult. and washington going through the most bitter winter in the history of the american army transforms the army by bringing in an officer who understands the most important thing: americans aren't europeans. i would say this to the current congress, the current people in washington, the current news media, we're not spain, we're not greece, we're not totally messed up like europe. this is a country where if we could just get government to quit screwing up, we would do fine over the next 20 years. [applause] but imagine the consultant report if they came out and said, you know, general washington, we've evaluated the situation, and you have one axe and 14,000 people. we think this is bad. [laughter] we think you should be deeply depressed and consider quitting. [laughter] a congress that isn't doing well enough to be worthy of at least a couple hundred axes doesn't deserve your loyalty. why don't you go home. now, these people wanted to be free, and they were prepared to die. when they cross the delaware on christmas night in a desperate last effort before the army ceases to exist, their slogan, their password is victory of death. victory or death. and they meant it. it wasn't victory or i'll cry for six weeks. [laughter] it wasn't victory or i'm not going to watch fox news for a month. [laughter] it wasn't victory or i think i'll pout. [laughter] these people were really passionate about the idea that freedom was the right god had given them, and they weren't going to fail god by giving it up. and finally, we get to yorktown, our last novel on washington. it's an extraordinary gamble. the country's exhausted. washington can't win the war by direct assault. he's sitting outside new york. the royal navy has so much power that he can't capture manhattan. one ship of a line had more artillery firepower than the entire american army. people forget how powerful these ships were for their time. and so he's sitting there, and at a time when there are no helicopters and no cars and no television and no computers, he gets a note from the french army which is sitting in rhode island which says the admiral of the french navy sitting in the caribbean believes that he could come north for six weeks. now, the entire opportunity was created because washington had had the courage over a year earlier to send one-third of his army to the south to fight general worn wallis and wear -- cornwallis and wear him out. cornwallis won a victory in greensboro, north carolina, that cost him so much that he said to his staff two more victories like this, and we won't have an army left. and they were just gradually tearing up cornwallis' army, and he retreats to yorktown in despair expecting the royal navy to save him. and washington has gotten this note. the french march from rhode island over to new york, the french general says i am under your command. they manage to mask the british in manhattan so they don't know washington's on the move and think he's still sitting there. they had a four or five-day head start. they run through philadelphia where washington has to raise enough money to pay the army to get it to keep moving. that's how close this is. the only time in the entire war that washington is described as intensely emotional is the morning he sees the french fleet where he is described as acting as though he were crazy, dancing and yelling and screaming and tears coming down his eyes because he's gambled everything. he had no way of knowing if they'd show up. and they were there, and the british weren't. when cornwallis surrenders, the band plays "the world turned upside down," and it was. i came to the reagan library tonight, a place named for a man who believed in freedom so much that the soviet empire disappeared, i came to talk about the man on whose shoulders we all stand, george washington. and i would say to each of you and to every person, every republican in the entire country, every conservative in the entire country, find the courage to live up to the endowment your creator has given you. you are endowed with liberty, you are endowed with the right to pursue happiness. it comes from god and, therefore, you have the responsibility to respond to that endowment. together we can do exactly what ronald reagan and george washington did. ronald reagan understood margaret thatcher's rule, first you win the argument, then you win the vote. george washington, the night they were marching to climb on the boats in the ice during the snowstorm, had his officers read the opening pages of thomas paine's latest pamphlet which washington had asked him to write. paine was the great panel me tier whose pamphlet, "common sense," described the declaration of independence vividly. and now it was turning out to be really hard. july of 1776 by december had turned into a bitter, painful, depressing, demoralizing soors of defeats. and washington got him to write a pamphlet called "the crisis" which begins, these are the times that try men's souls. because washington understood, first, you win the argument. then you win the war. people had to believe. so i just came here tonight to say to you, we have no reason to despair, we have no reason to back off, we have no reason to surrender. we have every reason to behave as americans. i look forward to questions. [applause] [applause] >> so the speaker's been kind enough to give us a few minutes for questions and answers. if you have one, raise your hand. we have people in the aisles with microphones. if you could wait until we get a microphone in your hand so everyone can hear it, that would with great. so we'll start over here. in first of all, mr. speaker, i'd like to congratulate you and thank you for coming out and for being the man in the arena who's willing to fight the good fight. we do appreciate that. [applause] and i agree with you that we haven't the war, we've only lost the battle, and we have to continue to fight. some of the things that i think we need to do and we should all think about going forward or is, one, we need to make sure that the constitution is followed, and they should be called out when they don't follow the constitution. we can't rule by executive fiat. i also think that callista's doing a wonderful job by starting the education in the schools, because i think that's where we need to start a long-term plan of 30-40 years of turning it around. because we need to educate people, not indoctrinate them. and i think we need to go after the media. and i'd like to see you come up with something along the lines of the contract with america, maybe the contract of we the people to define conservativism and to lay out clearly, like did before to the american people, and i think we can win and conquer again. >> thank youment. [applause] thank you. those are good comments. >> over here. >> speaker gingrich, sincerely appreciate your intellect. i'd like to ask you a postelection question on the current immigration debate. it seems problematic that those people who are coming into the nation whose first interaction with our country are to violate our laws or at best to completely ignore them. are we running the risk of inculcating a culture of lawlessness? i'd certainly like to have your thoughts on how we can avoid this problem and solve this issue by not only strengthening our country, but hopefully avoiding further demise. >> well, i think whatever way we define immigration has to include control of the border and has to include some kind of worker permit system which is actually rigorously enforced. that is i happen to think you're going to ultimately end up with some kind of system that has people who are resident but not citizen and who have a work permit but are not on a path to citizenship, because i think that's a matter of -- at some point, you've got to be practical about what is doable. but i think it's very important to insure as you build that that you're actually going to enforce the law. and i don't blame people who show up here. if we refuse to control the border and we refuse to identify who you are and we refuse to police ourselves and we refuse to do anything if we find out you're here illegally, it's a little hard to tell you you're stupid for taking advantage of the richest country in the world that seems to be saying to you, please, come and exploit me. i think to some extent -- [applause] we have to reestablish a rule of law. and the only point i tried to make during the debate which i think had a significant impact, unfortunately, for our side in solidifying the degree to which people adopted positions that made no sense. i made two points. one is we're not going to deport grandmother. now, is some of you may disagree with that, but i will guarantee you if you look at this country as a whole, the idea that we're going to go out and find grandmothers and deport them, the churches will protect them, their families will protect them. it ain't gonna happen. now, conservatives should not write laws that are fantasies. we have some obligation to bound conservativism in reality. and so i didn't say give them amnesty, i'm not for citizenship for people who came here illegally, but i'm for figuring out a path for residency that gets them to pay taxes, get them to be within the law, get them to be not exploited and ends the sore. we will never appeal, i mean, when you have a candidate who basically says to an entire group of people -- and, remember, we lost asians by a bigger margin than latinos. now, this cannot be a gift problem, as one of our leaders described it, because asians are the hardest-working, most education-oriented and, by the way, economically most successful group in america. so they're not the people who are going to stand around and say, oh, please, give me a gift. but when you walk into a community and say, hi, i want to talk to you about economic liberty, but first i've got to kick out your grandmother, all of you who believe in families understand that's a really high barrier. i mean, it's tricky at that point to have the rest of the conversation. because they just say, no, i'm not going to deal with you. and somebody's got to have the guts in our party and in our movement to stand up and say i am for a conservativism that enforces the law within a framework of reality, and i'm for a conservativism which is based on facts. and i think that's going to require that we find some way to say, yeah, i'm totally for enforcing the law. but i'm going to start from where we are this morning or this evening. i want to then impose -- and i'm prepared to be very tough about it. i'm prepared to say to employers once there's a 24/7, instant verification model based on your atm card, you hire somebody who's not here legally, we're going to hammer you economically so it's irrational. but i think, you know, i think people will buy that. you can create a contract that works. what you can't do is continue to go down this road of trying to find a contract that's impossible and isolating yourself from the country in a way that guarantees that the left will control. because what the left wants is unlimited illegal immigration who then get to be citizens and vote. that's the fundamental difference. >> over here. >> in california it's virtually impossible due to demographics and due to skewed registration to have republicans elected to federal offices. and for the governorship. this skewed demographics is becoming more and more important every election, and how can we do something about that? in the elections in the future? >> that's a great question, and it's -- theodore roosevelt in the 1880s decides he wants to get into politics. now, theodore roosevelt came from a very i risk accuratic -- aristocratic family. went to harvard, was independently wealthy. and all of his social friends said to hill, what are you doing? and roosevelt said, i'm going down to the german and the irish bars -- [laughter] and they said how can you do that? i mean, there are germans and irishmen there. [laughter] and roosevelt said political power in this city is decided in those saloons. and you can sit up here in your penthouse all you want, but i want to be in the room where the decision is made. i'll take your word "demographic." i don't, and this is where i so deeply disagree with our consulting class and, candidly, with one of the comments of our last nominee. i don't see demographic problems. what do you think asian-americans want? they want a good education for their kids. they're passionate about their children. they love their children. they invest heavily in their children. they invest more heavily in their children than any other ethnic group in america. what kind of future do you think they want? just saw a survey in the morning that came out. guess what the number one validation of achievement as seen by college students is today when you say from them 25-30 years from now how do you know you'll be successful, you know what it is? owning a house. now, if you were a true left-wing collectivist who wanted to herd everybody into apartments so they could be close to the subway so they wouldn't need a car which is a terrible thing that gives them independence, can you imagine how depressing it would be to know that obama's vote base wants to own a home? have possessions? be economically independent? and i think we as a party have to sort of humble ourselves. i tell the story about washington and those two farmers for a practical reason. we need to relax a little bit and go out and actually listen to the people of california. you think the average latino likes the fact that l.a. unified is a disaster? do you think they like the fact that sacramento's owned by the lobbyists? do you think they're thrilled to pay higher and higher taxes for fewer and fewer jobs? or do you think maybe they don't have any sense that they're allowed to have a conversation with us? and that maybe starts with us going and sitting down with them and saying, so tell me about your dreams, tell me about your hopes. i think you'd be shocked. i have a great story, i can't use the guy's name. he's a democratic consultant -- and it wouldn't be fair to him because he told me one night, but he happened to be hired by the traditional party which had run mexico since 1929. and he went down, this was just before vicente fox won on a reform ticket. and he went down because their candidate was in deep trouble, and they wanted clever american advice. and he did a series of focus groups, and he said, you know, you have a real problem. it's called corruption. [laughter] and the guys he was talking to were the guys who were corrupt. [laughter] and they said to him, he said -- now, this is his description, not mine. he said, you have a number of guys who are fairly overweight smoking cigars in this room, and they're going, you don't understand us. you're clearly a gringo. people don't mind corruption in mexico. and he said, he looked at them and said let me get this straight. you think the average mexican gets up on monday morning and goes to work thrilled at the idea that two of the five days' salary will be stolen by some fat, machine politician who's totally out of touch with them? they said he fired them later that day, and they lost the election. i think there's a message there. people don't come to america to recreate bad government. and they're watching sacramento reinvent really bad government. [applause] >> we've got time for about two more questions. we'll come right here. >> thank you for coming, mr. speaker. i really was looking forward to you debating barack obama. that would have -- [cheers and applause] been amazing. one of the things that was really noticeable and palpable in the last year of the presidential debates and the candidates was the lack of media objectivity. and as a media person, what do you suggest for this next wave of breitbarts and television and bloggers in order to combat and, basically, silence this mainstream or lame stream media that we have today? >> well -- [applause] and if you go back and look at the debates, i did a fair amount of policing. [laughter] but my first, my first question as republicans look at this, and i've just started at gingrich productions what'll be a six month project of reviewing and trying to learn the lessons at a much deeper level than you're going to get from the current wave of analysts. because i think when you lose five out of six presidential elections in popular vote remembering that bush got a minority of the vote in 2000 and we, you underperform in the presidential election of 2004, the weakest incumbent re-election in history. there's something, i just wrote a newsletter which you can get at gingrich productions.com in which i said the r word is not romney, it's republican. this is about a party that i think has failed to become a modern, effective party. part of the answer there i would suggest is that the republican national committee work to create a set of debates that are hosted by the republicans. [applause] and we tell the media, why would you -- i mean, i participated, and we had a great time here at the reagan library. but the truth is you ended up in the reagan library, you end up with left-wing moderators who think they're centrist because everybody they know is to their left. [laughter] i mean, these are not people who think they're biased. they think they represent the center of america because everybody they go to cocktail parties with is literally that far to the left. so they ask the question -- if you were to go back and analyze the questions, and we're putting together right now an absolutely fascinating case study which some of you will remember where george stephanopoulos asked this question about the 1963 griswold v. connecticut supreme court or suit involving contraception. i guarantee you every -- because i was there -- every republican candidate in the debate is going, what? now, we learned a few weeks later that george, apparently, had been briefed that this was the beginning of the war on women in which we discovered that $50,000-a-year law students who were unable to afford their own contraception have to have as part of the new socialist model free contraception or otherwise they'll be deprived which then, of course, became a symbol -- time magazine may name her person of the year. well, of course, because after all, she symbolized the total dishonty with which they won the election. she's the perfect similar bomb of our incompetence. but they clearly had a strategy. and george stephanopoulos lawn of. ed the strategy. now, why would you want to set up a debate and invite the other team in? it would be like us saying we'll make a deal. if the democrats will allow sean hannity, rush limbaugh and three comparable people to host all their debates -- [applause] and yet we continue to pretended that the news media's neutral. the news media is the left. and so i think that you have to really start at a very fundamental level of rebuilding. by the way, this is a big problem in california where you need to have a serious effort to create a conservative, internet-based political medium because there is no effective, coherent political news coverage in california, and it makes it very hard to govern the state. [applause] >> time for the last question up here in the balcony, mr. speaker. >> hi. >> hi, balcony. >> hi there, how are you? last christmas was my best christmas ever, you were 30 points ahead in the polls. [laughter] i told my family no gifts, no anything, my favorite politician is ahead. so thank you for a great christmas to start off. and then going ahead, a little more controversial here. i did vote for romney, let's start off with that before people start getting angry. to follow up with that, do you feel like the gop establishment forced romney on us, and if you did while you're campaigning, how do you feel about that, and how difficult was that knowing that's what they were doing? if you felt that way. >> first of all, i don't think there is a republican establishment. i think governor wilson, who's lived through all this agrees with me, the mythical notion that somewhere in the country there's a club where the republican establishment gathers isn't true. mitt romney spent six years running for president. he is, he was very good at what he was very good at which was raising money. which is how he had earned a living. i mean, he was a finance guy. he'd spent his swire career at bain -- his entire career at bain being a finance guy. they got together, they talked finance stuff. it all sounded good to them. they said, hey, this is our kind of guy. he's a sincere, honest guy. frankly, he's a smart guy. mitt romney's not -- you know, i'm not going to get sucked into some, he lost an election which i would l argue any of us would have had a hard time winning because we were in aver overmatch. -- overmatch. we don't understand this yet. the obama people never quit. they kept offices open in '09, in '10, in '11. i think there were 53 offices in north carolina alone. and this is why i'm doing this six month study at gingrich productions which i've entitled lessons to learn. we don't have lessons learned right now. we don't know what we're talking about. when you see these guys on tv who wasted millions of collars as con -- of dollars as consultants explaining what they now think, what you know is they don't. because they haven't taken enough time to learn anything. [laughter] i mean, this is a serious crisis of the conservative movement and the republican party because if we don't figure out the new game, we're not going to be, we're not going to be competitive for a generation or more. that's how serious it is. i mean, don't assume we're going the win in '16 because we'll nominate some clever person of, you know, who has the appropriate ethnic background and articulates better than mitt did. mitt got about what mccain got which was about what dole got which was about what bush i got running for re-election. that's a fact. and unless we get our act together, look at the california republican party. you think finding the right individual is going to turn around the largest state in the country? it's going to take a serious, deep, fundamental rethinking. now, unfortunately, i've been around so long i was there for the rebounded after goldwater which took a total of four years, i was there for the rebounded after watergate which took six years, i was there after george bush lost in '92 which took two years, and i was there after we lost the house in '06 which took four years. so if you said to me am i strategically optimistic, sure. they've got to govern. the world's not going to be kind to obama. they'll have plenty of mistakes. the challenge is not what they will do wrong. the challenge is whether we're prepared to slow down, think, have honest arguments and figure out what we need to do right. if we do that, this country will be just fine. thank you very, very much. [applause] >> for more information about newt gingrich, visit gingrichproductions.com. >> you think of washington in 1835, 25 years before the civil war with, um, you know, what would you think? you would think, well, you know, slavery was well entrenched, you know, the black people were miserable, the whites were kind of cruel and indifferent. and that's actually not true at all. in washington, um, in washington -- washington had about 30,000 people then as a city, 12,000 of them were black. the majority of the black people in washington actually in 1830 were free, were not slaves out of the 12,000 black people, slightly more than half were free. >> what led to washington, d.c.'s first race riots in 1835, and what part did francis scott key play? jefferson morley recounts this almost forgotten chapter in american history in "snowstorm in august," monday night at 10 eastern part of c-span2's booktv. >> washington post correspondent and author rajiv command chandr. his newest book "the little america." mr. chandrasekaran, when you talk about little america, what are you talking about? >> guest: i'm talking about this remarkable community that the americans built in the deserts of southern afghanistan not in the last couple years, but six decades ago. back when, unknown to most of our countrymen, there were dozens and dozens of american engineers there back in the '40s and '50s digging irrigation canals, building dams, helping to nation build in afghanistan. on the very same terrain president obama's troop surge unfolded over the past couple of years. in my history of obama's surge, in my examination of it, i actually start back in the 190s in this remarkable period of american assistance to afghanistan, a period of great optimism when we built this town there that the afghans started calling little america complete with a coed high school, a swimming pool where boys and girls would swim together, a clubhouse where you could get a gin and tonic. it was a period of great promise for the americans and afghans, and i use that as the opening for this book that talks about the great hope and tragedy of our war in afghanistan today. >> host: does "little america" still exist? >> guest: it does. it's the capital of helmand province. though it looks nothing like it did way back then. the suburban-style tract homes have been sort of built over, there's no more swimming pool, and it's not quite as safe of a place as it was six decades ago, unfortunately. >> host: now, for americans six decades is a long time, but for the afghan community it's not such a long period, is it? >> guest: afghans over there still remember this period. i remember going and traveling through helmand province in 2009, and an old afghan man came up and asked me and the marine colonel i was with whether he knew mr. and mrs. lerner, and the colonel looked befuddled. of course, the lerners were the couple that taught him english decades ago, and he had no concept of the united states was a country of 300 million people. of course, we should know every other american, and why did we not know the people who had taught him english? so for the afghans of a certain generation they remember with great fondness this period of engagement and, in fact, remember it far more fondly than they think of the current american period of our stabilization activities there today, unfortunately. >> host: now, rajiv chandrasekaran, haven't there been several starts and stops and boom and bust, hopeful periods in our history with afghanistan? >> guest: there have. you know, the '50s and '60s were a period of great optimism and then, obviously, there was the soviet invasion. the taliban were toppled after the 9/11 attacks, there was a period of great optimism that afghanistan would be able to build a more stable democratic society. but then we took off eye off the ball as many americans know, and we focused on iraq. and what that allowed was the taliban to surge back in, and unfortunately, i think what we're seeing now is a period of a real mixed bag, if you will. there have been some real gains paid for by the lives and limbs of many americans, many american service members. and we have beaten back the taliban in places. security has improved. but there are real questions as to whether any of that can be sustained, whether the afghan government, whether its army and police force will really be able to take the baton from american forces as they start coming home over the next couple of years. >> host: rajiv command chandrasekaran, imperial live in the emerald city was about baghdad, "little america" is about afghanistan. >> you don't always find many newspaper editors of any era embracing investigative reporting. the point we've seen over the years is not just economics, it's the discomfort that investigative reporting often causes in a newsroom. because it's troublesome. it's that more than the economics. i mean, if you're going to ruffle the feathers of somebody powerful, that gets those people run anything to complain to the publisher -- running in to complain b to the publisher, and there are stories legion over the years about those things happening.
day two ofcovers janet yellen's congressional testimony. and recovers -- silvio burwell's nomination hearing. and we have an update on the crisis in ukraine. but first, the president says vladimir putin plans to go to for a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of d-day. if president putin makes the trip, it will be his first meeting with president obama and other western leaders since the start of the ukraine crisis, which has longed relationship -- relations between russia and the u.s. to its worst since the start of the cold war. of president putin's inner circle have been slapped with travel bans and freezes. said he wastin pulling back troops from the border and today he says he is testing his army's combat readiness. what is he really up to? >> it is clearly a skin of fred six message. i would love to be a fly on the wall with that d-day celebration and prudent having to sit next to all of the other leaders. putin having to sit next to all of the other leaders. back, vladimir putin came and said, actually, i'm testing the readiness of my eye -- my entire armed forces, including a nuclear deterrent. and there were reports that two nuclear submarines had actually tested ballistic missiles and that the airspace defense of russia had repelled a mock nuclear strike. at the same time, we have russia's foreign minister, sergei lavrov, contradicting what his boss said yesterday, saying any elections on may 25 would be premature and the country is not ready for them. and we saw the separatists saying they would go forward with the referendum on may 11, yesterday, attin least publicly, urged them to pull back on those. >> and how are governments and investors responding to that mixed message? message frome investors already today, that some of the perhaps misplaced euphoria that we saw yesterday has the rally of the micex been tempered today. we saw the ruble dropping today for the first time in four days and the ukrainian currency also going down. and in the same way that investors are not so sure what prudent is top -- putin is talking about, we have seen some wariness on the half -- on the part of western governments. before putin said he was going to be testing his military forces, he had a german envoy saying, yesterday's message was great and maybe we don't have to go forward with sanctions. but after what he said today, i think governments are really deeds, whoa, let's match with words before we pull back on our sanctions or any other policies. >> you covered the congressional hearing this morning with the senior state department officials and the treasury. what was their message? >> that was their main message in the beginning. we have the secretary of state and other saying that what he is saying is fine, but we will judge him by his actions. and there was more talk about electoral sanctions. -- sectoral sanctions. it is harder to get the europeans on board when you have a big group trying to do sanctions together, and the u.s. assistant secretary explained it is also because of the legal constraints that europeans are under. the u.s. can move more quickly with it sanctions than europeans can. at the same time, both officials said that the u.s. is trying to work like a score out -- a scalpel and not like a sledgehammer with the sanctions. and that is really important because they are trying to get the message to american and european businesses that this is not directed at them and that they are trying to and minimize -- to minimize the impact and this would be on investment going forward, not those already in place. >> thank you. we will have more on sanctions and the ukraine crisis coming up. gary hofbauer,th senior fellow at the peterson institute. he will be my guest and about 25 minutes. with al hunt, treasury secretary jack lew will join him to discuss the russian sanctions and the u.s. economy. that is friday night at 9 p.m. right here on bloomberg television. billionngton, the $40 comcast-time warner cable deal once again came under scrutiny. america's number one and number two cable providers made bigger case for thetheir merger. yang yang joins us from capitol hill with a recap. >> that afternoon. comcast executives and time warner cable executives were quite literally in the hot seat is afternoon and this morning. there were air conditioning issues in the hearing room. senator baucus, chairman of the antitrust subcommittee of the house judiciary committee, actually took a moment to's the hearing and explained that if you saw any sweat on any of the that if you saw any sweat on any of the four heads of any of the witnesses, it was because of the air-conditioning problem. that was theh, but only one. but it was not that tough of a grilling as far as hill hearings go. lawmakers made clear that they are not in the position to judge the deal. that decision rests with the fcc and doj regulators. they said that their goal today was to get to the bottom of whether the merger is good for customers. , executive vice president of comcast made his case that the answer is yes. beneficiary of service andd investment is the american consumer. specifically, it will bring customers faster internet speeds, more programming choices, more robust wi-fi, and our best in class x-one operating system. and business consumers will benefit as well. >> another point that we heard comcast making is that there is no overlapping coverage between time warner cable's network and the comcast network. at, however, was an argument that the opponents would not buy. antitrustormer doj official saying that was bogus. take a listen. >> the fact is, comcast and time warner cable do compete. the two companies compete in a number of ways. for instance, they compete to carry local and regional sports teams and they compete for advertising dollars. >> other opponents were well represented at the hearing as well. other arguments that they were making is that it gives comcast anti-competitive leverage them and that comcast could become both judge and jury in this hearing where congress has no say. this is really up to the fcc and the doj. >> thank you. --ing up, beating animals zillow beats analyst estimates in the first quarter. and we will talk about the recovery of the economy in the united states. ♪ >> federal reserve board chairman janet yellen spent a second day on capitol hill spelling out her latest views on the u.s. economy and defending the central bank's actions. bloomberg's chief washington correspondent peter cook has more on her testimony. stray fromlen wednesday's message? >> she didn't stray too far, especially when it came to the economy. she reiterated many of the things she said to the joint economic committee on wednesday, but she did get dragged into some other areas during the q&a session with the committee. but to the larger question, the economy, she says is doing better after the slowdown we saw in the first quarter. it is doing well enough that the tapering of the bond buying program can continue, but not well enough for the fed to start talking about raising interest rates. >> in life, there is a considerable degree of slack that remains in the labor markets -- in light of the considerable degree of slack that remains in the labor markets, a high degree of accommodation remains warranted. >> senators today were pressing yellen on the fed ex's strategies. specifically, she ignores, that it could take five years to reduce the numbers to precrisis levels of $800 billion. interest inno returning to that of the 1970's. fedon the broader issue of policy in general, she pushed back at the criticism that it is creating uncertainty in the economy and doing more harm than good. >> i think there are a number of sectors of the economy that have responded favorably to a policy of low interest rates. it has helped stimulate demand and job growth. it has been one factor that has been helpful. again, i would not say it is a panacea. >> senators tried to drag her into the budget debate at -- on capitol hill. she largely steered clear of that, as did her predecessor, ben bernanke. and one piece of news that will cheer up folks in the banking community, she said she supports on the the position board of governors with someone from the banking community. taxpayers will get billions in profits from fannie mae and freddie mac, the government owned mortgage companies. they will pay the treasury more than $10 billion. the two companies are required to give the government all their profits. fannie and freddie received $187 billion in taxpayer aid. staying on the housing front, the zillow reported earnings after the close. it eat estimates and raised its full-year guidance for 2014. the founder and ceo of zillow joins me now from seattle. welcome back. >> great to be here. >> the results exceeded even your expectations. what is attracting users to mobile? what ise is definitely driving our growth. this little thing has been a godsend to our business. 178 homes are viewed every second on zillow on mobile now. we went public three years ago and it was 21 homes per second. there is massive mobile growth. and the reason why is that real estate is the ultimate mobile experience. when you are driving around looking for homes in the neighborhood, that is when you want to have the power of zillow in your hand. that is what is propelling our audience, and then in turn, advertisers follow audience. that is why revenue and profits have followed. >> your premier agent sales saw a big increase as well, mainly due to agents buying more advertising. how does that translate to monthly revenue per subscriber? bighis quarter was a quarter in terms of new subscriber ads. we now have about 53,000 real estate agents that advertise on zillow. also, our revenue per real estate advertiser grew to a record as well. and the reason is that more and more advertisers are buying more inventory from us. 60% of our bookings this quarter were existing advertising -- advertisers choosing to buy more inventory. and the reason is the cause it is working. it is working for them, and they on theirng a great roi investment. >> i'm speaking with the cofounder and cto of zillow. spencer, talk to me about the forecast and how it is changing the way homes are valued. >> this is an exciting feature that we've just launched. we have known -- been known as estimates,y with z which shows how much each house is worth. you can go and see what we say it will be worth in 12 months. and for a homeowner looking to list their home, this is important information. for a homebuyer considering buying, this is very important information. the good news is that 96% of people at their own home will find that their forecast is estimated to increase the next 12 months. it is mostly good news to comedic eight. it is an exciting feature we've just rolled out. >> -- it is mostly good news to communicate. it is an exciting feature we've rolled out. he said in his words that only homes are overrated. he added that young people are settled with more debt and less likely to enter the housing market. what is your reaction to those comments? >> housing is cooling somewhat. year-over-year, sales are about six percent and we project an increase year-over-year of about three percent. the rate of increase is slowing, but i would reject the peopleent that the way value perceived real estate or that we have shifted to a renters society, our data does not prove that out. colleague wrote a fascinating story on bloomberg.com. it says that the so-called trophy home market is shattering price records this year and that an increasing number of residential properties change hands for more than $100 million. what does that tell you about the luxury home market? and what does it say about the amount of money that is still on the sidelines? home market is on fire, particularly in the new york area. it is being fueled by financial buyers, people from the financial community. but increasingly, by foreign buyers, russia, middle eastern buyers. it -- ofhas plenty of challenges to our economy, but it is still a stable place for foreign assets. that has generated a lot of foreign buyer interest in owning u.s. real estate. that is what you see with the super high-end, the $150 million part of the housing market. ceohe cofounder and cto -- of zillow. thank you. ofing up, more excerpts betty liu's exclusive interview with sheldon adelson. ♪ >> this reminder, there are multiple ways to watch bloomberg tv. we are on the web on bloomberg.com, on your mobile device, apple tv, and amazon fire tv. allisonagnate sheldon -- sheldon abelson is one of the architects of sin city's famous strip. in this excerpt of betty liu's exclusive interview among mr. abelson talks about being such an outspoken man. you ask me a question and i try to be honest. maybe i flunked diplomacy 101. i could never be a liar. i can only tell the truth. i could be -- would be a very bad liar. >> mr. adelson also says he knows it takes more than gambling to draw his customers to his hotel. >> i look at las vegas, and my first time here and i see that -- >> it's the capital of adult entertainment. >> that is right. there are shows, restaurants, all forms of entertainment. there's a big ferris wheel i see dotting the skyline. >> by the way, i don't think the ferris wheel is going to do very much. there are ferris wheels all over the world. >> have you been on that? >> no. >> do you ever plan on it? >> no. we have a ferris wheel, the singapore flyer, right next our property in singapore. it's for the kids. to go was a kid, i love on the ferris wheel. i'm still a kid, but a little bit older. >> what i'm driving at, though, is that there is this need among casino operators to try to diversify, to try to get people into their resorts. outside of gambling. >> i did it. >> but why would you do it? >> because i'm competitive. to be competitive is to do things differently. >> stay with bloomberg television throughout the day for more highlights of betty liu's exclusive interview with it vegas sands ceo sheldon -- sheldon adelson. we are coming up on 26 minutes past the hour. that means bloomberg television is on the market. alix steel is standing by with details. >> let's get you caught up on where markets are trading. are seeing stocks pulling back from their earlier rally. the dow jones industrial at one point actually hit an all-time record high, but now only 0.2%. driven by a reversal in tech stocks into negative territory. a couple of actions we want to highlight. the first is, discovery a 50-50 joint venture with libya media to buy all thee medias, which produces tv programming. it has a deal valued at $900 million. both companies are contributing $150 million and will continue to operate under its current name and executive team. tesla also watching today, because shares of the electric car are tumbling after first-quarter deliveries trailed estimates. tesla has delivered nearly 6500 cars, but a constraint on battery supplies actually prevented it from shipping more. we are watching the markets rolling over, and the s&p up by almost one point. we are back on the market in 30 minutes. ♪ >> welcome back to the second half-hour of "bottom line" on bloomberg television. i'm mark crumpton. thanks for joining us. alex steele joined me again with some breaking news on time warner. >> time warner is actually spinning off time incorporated on may the -- may 23. it will be listed under the eie.r time what does this leave time warner with? media division, cable tv, network, movie division -- and of course, your member the lego movie came out and helped to boost was quarter earnings for time warner. shareholders will get shares of the new company as of may 23. >> we will continue to follow this story throughout the day here on bloomberg television. let's check some of the top stories we are following for you at this hour. the number of americans seeking unemployment benefits fell by 26,000 last week to 319,000. its latest sign that the job market is slowly improvement in -- improving. it looks like mostly temporary lay offs around the east are holiday. allocations are a proxy for laos, so the klein suggests companies are cutting fewer jobs. the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from their dormitories by the islamist militant group boko garneringbeen attention. protests were held across nigeria. and here at home, first lady michelle obama joined a viral media campaign under the #bringbackourgirls. syrian state television said an explosion struck a hotel in the an edgent owned area of of the contested neighborhood in the old part of aleppo. there were injuries. the biggest rebel alliance claimed responsibility for that attack. top is a look at the stories this hour. let's turn back to the crisis in ukraine and sanctions against russia. haltdent obama plans to russia's eligibility for trade benefits under a program that assists developing nations. gary hoffpauir is a senior fellow at the peterson institute for international economics and a sanctions specialist. he joins me from washington. mr. hofbauer, welcome to "bottom line" and thank you for your time. >> thanks. >> when do sanctions work and when don't they work? >> this is the case i would categorize as a military venture. we have looked at some major cases in the last 100 years involving military ventures where a big target country was -- the attempt was to deter a big target country. there are very few successes in this category. to --bout the u.s. trying one was the u.s. trying to deter britain and france from bidding did in 1966, and that succeed. there are a few other cases of note that are successful. i suppose the big reason is that when a country embarks on a military venture, as president putin has come a presumably he has calculated that sanctions will be imposed and he has taken that into account. putintainly, president and his inner circle would have to know that one weapon to be used would be economic sanctions. putin notent concerned about the impact sanctions could have on the russian economy? themthink he anticipated at a certain level and i don't think the level of sanctions imposed so far has been above his threshold. i doubt that he wants to trigger very heavy sanctions, such as have been imposed on iran. he may go slow in his effort to ,ibble away at eastern ukraine but i doubt he has given up the effort at this stage. >> talk to us about his power base. inner circle his allow this to continue? glug he has two power bases. one it -- >> he has two power bases. one is the kgb. those people are dedicated loyalists. they will not be deterred one way or another. the other power base are the -- it is, and the about 20 to 30 people who have a lot of wealth of their own and they hold a lot of putin's well. they could be concerned. but so far the russian stock market has only dropped by 15% and it has been up the last two days, yesterday and today. this is not a crushing blow to these oligarchs, not yet. but they would be concerned about sanctions that could cost them another 50% of their wealth. >> i'm speaking with gary hofbauer, senior fellow at the peterson institute for international economics. ordinary russian citizens, are they caught in the middle? will sanctions cripple their economy to the point where they will suffer? >> sure. they don't have any power, but they will suffer, and that is often the case with economic sanctions. the imf has reduced its forecast of growth for the russian 3.5% to fourabout percent at the end of last year -- -0.5% now. that is not great for the russian people. the economy there has been hurting for the past couple of years and this is more of the same. but i don't think their voice is very strong. >> we have about one minute left. the west, as you know, has interest in russia. is it possible that sanctions could backfire? how much of a reciprocal action by russia could hurt the west? >> russia stands to lose a much more than the west. russia does not have a big economy. it is fragile. wills to what you say, who suffer from the backlash, there is a lot that prudent can do to -- that putin can do to hurt the western particular europe. it has about $200 billion of commerce with russia annually, and about $250 billion of investment in russia and all of that is at risk, and the western europeans know it. that is why they are not to -- to enthusiastic about stiff sanctions. senior fellower, at the peterson institute. thank you so much for your expertise. obama's come, president nominee for health and human services secretary faces a senate committee. how will sylvia mathews burwell do in her first. -- first appearance on the hill? that is next. ♪ >> this just in, the federal election commission has allowed -- voted to allow a political action committee to make decisions about bitcoin. there were lingering disputes and a long-running debate over how to deal with bitcoin transactions under federal campaign law. both republican and democratic commissioners were debating whether they should be subject to the $100 limit in place for cash comp pain country since. human services secretary kathleen sebelius on her way out, the nominee to take over the job sylvia mathews burwell -- sylvia mathews burwell testified for the first time. what did she have to say about the future of obamacare? >> this is still a very incendiary topic here in washington. she tried to walk a line. she defended the law in her testimony and said it would be her job if she is chosen to implement that law, but she also said she will be trying to engage both parties if she gets the job. even still, republicans on the committee, including lamar and scott, use this hearing to voice this -- their grievances. nozick tries is there. we also heard from democratic senator kay hagan -- no surprises there. we also heard from and it genetic -- democratic senator kay hagan. she is under fire. here is what she said about the rollout. >> there are a number of things in thinking about i.t. procurement as well as delivery. one is, you don't connect the business owner and the i.t.. that connection does not generally occur and it is a problem i have experience in the private sector. -- have not experience in the private sector. >> not a lot of complaints about burwell herself. she was commanded for the work she's done in the past with the bill and linda gates foundation and the walmart foundation. several lawmakers knew her well as the former deputy chief of staff under clinton, or in her capacity as the white house budget director. by the way, she was confirmed unanimously for that position. it's likely she will have an easy time here. it is important to point out it is actually the finance committee that will vote on her nomination, so not the committee that held the hearing today. that is yet to come. >> megan hughes in washington, thank you. it is time now for today's latin america report. security rces raided camps in caracas today. the camps were installed more than a month ago to protest rising crime, shortages, and inflation under the government of the current president. that is your latin american report for this thursday. coming up, the 2014 nfl draft gets underway tonight. here in new york, joe flacco's agent joe linda joins us next. ♪ >> be sure to check out the latest edition of bloomberg businessweek. it hits newsstands and your tablet today. you can read it on the go with our new businessweek app. and the nfl draft when he 14 kicks off tonight. here to walk us through it is joe linta, who represents 40 nfl players. he negotiated joe flacco's $120 million contract. line" and "bottom good to see you. what has your phone and like today? has your phone been glued to your hand? >> pretty much. lots of phone calls not so much for those guys that are in second or later rounds, but the media guys. it is exciting, because you are impacting these kids lives. i'm privileged to work with them. >> you mentioned those low rounds where sometimes you find a gem, like a tom brady, some folks who get overlooked. you and i were talking before about pittsburgh, and i went to school there, and the late mr. nunn was the scout for the steelers. he looked at historically black colleges and a lot of great players, namely john stallworth .or one why did the smaller schools not get the recognition that the bigger schools are getting? >> it's hard to look under every rock. we have a good network of people, but still it's harder to find the kids and smaller schools to work with. it is a lot of luck on our end. >> in this year's draft, at least two big ones. the heisman trophy winner and linebacker from south carolina. talk to me about the economics of the draft for these two young men. what is at stake financially in terms of a signing bonus, salary, and endorsements? >> the endorsements are huge, especially if you are a quarterback. touchdowns are much more rather than if you are just sacking the quarterback. >> why is that? >> you get more tv time, and the marketers like that more. the draft now is a very cookie-cutter approach. the first pick in the draft is getting x, and pick number two is getting x minus a certain percent. >> talk about how the salary drops precipitously if the name goes lower in the draft. if your projected to be three or end or you -- but you up at about 15 or 16, we are talking millions of dollars. >> yes, but you really have no control over the process. the kids can't get caught up in reading the newspapers and looking at the pundits, what have you. >> how do you calm them down? say, 20 theou greatest days of their lives, but it's got to be unbelievably stressful for them and their families. >> i liken it to labor. you know you are going to have a baby, but you don't know when. >> [laughter] fromepresent a quarterback lsu. he is coming off a torn acl and there was somewhere that he failed a drug test, this week that came to light. what can you say about this controversy? fast came back amazingly from surgery. with regard to the test, it was a positive drug test. it was called a dilute sample, which means his sample was diluted with water from being hydrated. we provided the league documentation of that from the doctors. of course, you don't hear that in the media. >> his doctor said, you need to hydrate. >> yes, he was drinking a allen and half of water for the two weeks leading up -- a gallon and a half of water for two weeks leading up to that. >> you negotiated the huge contract for joe flacco, as we mentioned. he was the 18th overall pick in the two thousand eight draft. he admits that he always felt slighted and has had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, which you can see him standing there .olding the lombardi trophy he proved all of the naysayers wrong. is the negotiation even more complicated than it seems? >> actually, not, because in his case we attempted to do something before and we couldn't come to an agreement were both satisfied or happy. we decided to table it throughout the season. once you win the super bowl and and yourtouchdown contract is up, you have a bit of leverage. whategotiation was simple, is the highest contract ever and let's move on from there. secondsly have a few left. who do you think will go tonight? >> i think the texans will go. -- the texans logo. he is a great player and a game changer. if they go with jj being clowning, that is fine, too. >> what happens to manziel? >> i don't want to get into it. there won't be one, don't think. >> mr. linta, thanks for your time. stay with us. another check of the market is on the other side of the break. "bottom line" continues in just a moment. ♪ >> be sure to tune in to bloomberg tv this friday night at 9:30 p.m. new york time. we will take a look at the next space race through an in-depth journey into the booming business of space exploration only on bloomberg. get the headlines at the top of the hour on bloomberg radio, streaming on your tablet, and at bloomberg.com. that does it for "bottom line" and i'm mark crumpton. we will see you tomorrow. ♪ >> it is 56 past the hour and we want to get you caught up on the markets. i'm alix steel. time warner is splitting off tiny inc. -- time inc. moreholders will get shares. the new company will be listed as duty -- under the new york stock exchange ticker pie time. they're also looking at more job cuts and real estate consolidation. and a quick look on the broader markets. the nasdaq has picked up by 0.3%. the dow jones industrial average slipping from a record high it hit earlier in the day. we also want to take a look at the home builders. it is the sector most impacted by janet yellen's testimony on capitol hill over the last two days. there is a potential problem for the economy, saying "the reason flattening could prove more protracted than expected." how concerned should we be about the housing market? joining me now is bloomberg analyst drew reading. is do we know if a slowdown a blip or an actual contraction? >> at don't think we have learned anything new from janet yellen's testimony. what she did was vocalized the trends we have seen in the markets in the last couple of months. things have definitely slowed down and there are challenges in the market for homebuyers. affectingity is some people. there are still strict standards. and we will need to see continued job growth. >> what will be the catalyst to help the housing market recover? we have seen a household formation rate to continue to fall off here. does that correlate with jobs? >> what we need to see is a return to the first-time homebuyer. historically, this buyer accounts for 40% to 50% of home sales and in the past couple of years it has only been 25% of 30%. in a typical housing recovery, it starts at the entry-level buyer and works its way through the ecosystem. we are kind of at a standstill until we get that first homebuyer in and get things going. >> where is that going to come from? will it be government driven or the fed playing well -- playing around with rates? or is it just that jobs will get you want tone thing look at, particularly with first-time homebuyer growth is job growth. be a forward, that will catalyst. if you talk to some of the employers, that will drive things along at a quicker pace. >> in terms of slowing homeownership and slower demand, is there any way to play this? >> typically, homebuilders are a kind of rising tide lifts all boats. but going forward, you will have to look at any specific initiatives and what builders hatch -- have access to geographic tailwind. those homebuilders exposed to the markets in texas and northern california are doing better than the rest of the country. >> thank you. we are on the markets in 30 minutes. "street smart" is next. ♪
>> with coronavirus cases up and his poll numbers down, the president lashes out with election day just two weeks away. the question is, does the president have a coherent closing message? plus, the debate commission announces changes ahead of thursday's second presidential face-off. the question is, will the new rules prevent this debate from turning into another debacle? and the house speaker says progress has been made on pandemic relief talks. the question is whether a bill will be ready before election day. it's "way too early" for this. good morning! and welcome to "way too early," the show that is definitely still deciding on its halloween costume. i'm kasie hunt on this tuesday, october 20th. we'll start with the news. with election day just two weeks away, the president appears desperate to turn the page on the pandemic, which continues to weigh down his poll numbers and sicken so many americans. the president is also ramping up his public attacks on infectious disease dr. anthony fauci, after fauci's appearance on "60 minutes" on sunday night. nbc news obtained this audio of the president on a campaign call with staff yesterday. >> people are tired of hearing fauci and all these idiots. these people. these people that have gotten it wrong. fauci's a nice guy. he's been here for 500 years. every time he goes on television, there is always a bomb, but there's a bigger bomb if you fire him. but fauci is a disaster. >> and later tweeted, "dr. tony fauci says we don't allow him to do television, and yet, i saw him last night on "60 minutes" and he seems to get more air time than anybody since the late great bob hope. all i ask of tony is that he make better decisions. he said ono masks and let china in." the president then mocked fauci's ceremonial pitch at the nationals game earlier this year, posting, "also, bad arm." and here's trump at a campaign rally in prescott, arizona, later in the day. >> pandemic. they're getting tired of the pandemic. aren't they? getting tired of the pandemic. you turn on cnn, that's all they cover. covid, covid, pandemic, covid, covid, covid, covid. you know why? they're trying to talk everybody out of voting. people aren't buying it, cnn, you dumb bastards. they're not buying it. [ cheers and applause ] that's all they talk about. you know, biden wants to lock it down. he wants to listen to dr. fauci. >> responding to that attack linking joe biden to dr. fauci, the former vice president tweeted, "dot, dot, dot, yes." he also called the attack, "a badge of honor." dr. fauci also responded, calling the president's criticism a distraction. >> it's like in "the godfather." nothing personal, strictly business. as far as i'm concerned. you know? i just want to do my job and take care of the people of this country. that's all i want to do. >> fauci also reiterated in his "60 minutes" interview that he's not advocating a national lockdown and says he wants to use public health measures to safely reopen the economy. in between campaign stops, president trump yesterday touted the size of the crowds showing up for his rallies, even though none of them are socially distanced, as required by state laws, and few attendees are wearing masks. >> i'm very happy with the way it's going. i don't think it's being covered fairly. i don't think you're showing the kind of enthusiasm. i don't think you're showing the crowds and the crowd size. you did in the "washington times." i appreciate that. but for the most part, they're not. but these are the largest crowds ever to meet for rallies, by far, not even by a little bit. and i don't think people are showing in terms of the media the enthusiasm. but the main thing is the people know. >> again, the crowds that flout state restrictions, the crowds that are gathering when many restaurants, theaters, music venues are not gathering crowds that size because of covid-19. meanwhile, the president mocked nbc's own kelly o'donnell yesterday, as she asked him to authorize the release of information on whether he took a covid test before the last debate with joe biden. watch. >> will you authorize your doctors to tell you when you tested negative last before the last -- >> is that really important to you? >> yes, it is. >> you seem to be so intent. but if it's so important to you -- why is it so important to you? >> because we want to know how long you may have been -- >> why? >> we want to know if you followed the rules -- >> i know, but why is it so important to you? >> will you authorize your doctors -- >> yeah, my doctors have already given it. you know, my doctors have given more information than has been given on any human being in the history of the world. >> will you authorize them -- >> his doctors have not given us that information, by the way, that my colleague, kelly o'donnell, is asking for. the president said that he would be tested before the debate on thursday, although he also claims that he is now free of the virus and immune. on capitol hill, coronavirus stimulus talks are making some headway as house speaker nancy pelosi and treasury secretary steve mnuchin, quote, continued to narrow their differences, according to the speaker's spokesman. pelosi's chief of staff, drew hamel, tweeted yesterday that the two leaders spoke for about an hour and that the speaker tasked committee chairs to reck critical differences with their gop counterparts on key areas. he continued by saying that pelosi hopes that by the end of the day tuesday -- today -- we will have clarity on whether we'll be able to pass a bill before the election. he also noted that pelosi and mnuchin are planning to speak again today. on sunday, pelosi set a 48-hour deadline for the white house to reach a deal for more coronavirus aid. joining us now, senior writer at politico and co-author of "the playbook," jake sherman. he is also an msnbc contributor. jake, good morning! i feel like we have had this conversation many times at this hour over the last few weeks about whether it was actually possible that they could pass a coronavirus bill before the election. what's your take on how serious this is? i mean, it does seem like there is some movement, but there is, of course, that looming divide, even if mnuchin and pelosi can actually get a deal, between the president and senate republicans. what are you hearing? >> well, today -- good morning, kasie. today is the 91st day of negotiations between the administration and capitol hill over this latest coronavirus relief package, which has gone absolutely nowhere over these last 91 days. now, pelosi and mnuchin have made progress, but there are still very many places, very many policies and top-line numbers, and all elements of this bill are very far from being done. and i'm very, very skeptical, as are you, kasie, it sounds like, that this could get wrapped up today. now, it's not impossible, but i just find it very difficult to believe that they will wrap up some of these issues, which we are going to lay out in "playbook" this morning, in the next, basically, 24 hours. now, if they don't wrap it up, it's possible that this bill gets passed in the lame duck session of congress after the election. neither side is saying they're going to walk away from the table, but there's just a recognition, kasie, as you know very well -- in two weeks, it's difficult to pass a $2 trillion bill when a lot of people want to be home campaigning, and that's just a reality that neither side can control and it's just part of the standard rhythms and practices of washington. >> yeah. what's your take on where the incentives are right now? i mean, if you're house speaker nancy pelosi, you're reading all these polls, you're expecting the senate to be friendlier to you next year, after the elections. you're potentially expecting joe biden to be in the white house. if you're speaker pelosi, does it make more sense to try to push this through now, get this out the door now, or does it make more sense to wait? i mean, i can see arguments for both sides. i mean, if they wait, then it becomes the first thing you have to do in a biden administration, but if you don't -- if you don't wait and you push through here, perhaps you have to spend more time negotiating with republicans and give up some of the things you want. like, what's the thinking in the speaker's office? >> well, that's a very good question, kasie. i think you could look at this a million different ways. pelosi has made the argument privately that she wants to get some of this stuff done now so biden doesn't have to deal with it, but she also has to contend with chuck schumer, who, by the way, probably does not, if you were to look at his natural inclinations, probably does not want to give senate republicans something to vote on when they're up against the ropes. now, i've become skeptical that a lame-duck deal is possible, and i think that if they don't pass this in the next two weeks or try to pass this in the next two weeks, coronavirus relief could slip until february, january, february, or march, just because it's going to be difficult to get a package through in the early days of the next congress anyway. so, i think mitch mcconnell also has an interesting calculus here. i mean, he does not like the price tag, but there are some of his members who wanted a bill to vote on, and it will help them electorally. so, a lot of different calculuses in the mix here. and the big question is steven mnuchin. i mean, republicans are so distrustful, do not like mnuchin, believe he gives up the farm every time he talks to pelosi. we kind of lay that out in "playbook" this morning, and they're worried what he might give up in his quest for a deal. he's very eager for a deal and very eager to give donald trump something to tout on the campaign trail. >> yeah. well, to your larger point, i think the idea that this lame duck congress after this election is going to be some sort of sane, normal period of time, is probably not what i'd think any of us are assuming is going to happen. politico's jake sherman, thank you, my friend. always great to have you this hour. still ahead, a look at what to expect tonight when the dodgers and rays face off in game one of the world series. plus, new changes announced for thursday night's presidential debate. what both campaigns are saying about that. those stories and a check on the weather when we come right back. e weather when we come right back. that life of the party look walk it off look one more mile look reply all look own your look... ...with fewer lines. there's only one botox® cosmetic. it's the only one... ...fda approved... ...to temporarily make frown lines... ...crow's feet... ...and forehead lines... ...look better. the effects of botox® cosmetic, may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition. do not receive botox® cosmetic if you have a skin infection. side effects may include allergic reactions, injection site pain, headache, eyebrow, eyelid drooping, and eyelid swelling. tell your doctor about your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. so, give that just saw a puppy look. and whatever that look is. look like you... with fewer lines. see results at botoxcosmetic.com frnext time try bounce wrinkleut ofguard dryer sheets.? the world's first mega sheet with 3x more wrinkle relaxers. look at the difference of these two shirts... the wrinkle guard shirt has less wrinkles and static, and more softness and freshness. to tame wrinkles on the go use bounce 3in1 rapid touch up spray. bounce out wrinkles with bounce wrinkle guard dryer sheets and touch up spray! both, with a money back guarantee. welcome back. time now for sports. the 2020 world series gets under way tonight between the los angeles dodgers and the tampa bay rays. and this year is going to be unlike any other. about 11,000 fans are going to be allowed to watch the game at globe life field in arlington, texas. that's the smallest crowd for a series game since roughly 1909. this is the rays' second world series appearance, while the dodgers have won the n.l. pennant in three of the last four years. the 116th edition of baseball's fall classic kicks off tonight with game one at 8:00 p.m., as right-hander tyler glassnow takes the mound while the dodgers give clayton kershaw the nod. time now for the weather. we check in with meteorologist bill karins for the forecast. bill, good morning! happy tuesday. >> hey, happy tuesday to you, kasie. it was not a happy monday in iowa yesterday. snow. and it wasn't just a little snow. i mean, the first snow of the season typically is something small. this caused extreme problems on the roads. i mean, the highways were shut down. >> yikes! >> this is just outside of des moines. you can see it was big, fat, wet snowflakes, and they were accumulating, too. and yeah, it's a winter wonderland in the northern plains right now. and yeah, look it! you can see, 3, 4 inches of snow there, especially on the grassy surfaces. so, as we go through today, we're not done yet. we have another batch of snow heading for areas near minneapolis, all the way through northern wisconsin, a little section there of south dakota. and then behind that, even another bill batch in areas of montana. so, 7 million people are included in this. so, storm one you'll see is heading through the great lakes. this is storm two, now coming down through montana. and it's going to be arriving during the day today in minnesota. so, it's amazing. it's cold enough that even during the daytime hours, we're going to get snow in october in areas in the northern plains. so, as we go throughout this week, we get the snow today. then it looks like another chance by the time we get to friday. so, here's the combined forecast for the two storms. and that's -- you know, areas from fargo to aberdeen, duluth, international falls. i mean, we're talking about 8 to 12 inches is possible. and this is very unusual to get this amount of snow. and you notice minneapolis, 3 to 5 inches is possible. so, if this does occur, billings, bismarck will both be on track for the third snowiest october ever on record, fargo, more snow expected than the last nine octobers combined. and in minneapolis, your average first snow isn't until mid-november, so this is very early to be this cold and this snowy in the northern portions of the plains. only 35 degrees with snow in minneapolis today. kasie, thankfully, a lot of the rest of the country's looking nice from new york to d.c. and a little bit of rain in florida. but yeah, for the northern plains, ooh, it's going to be a long winter. >> i am so not ready for that phase of winter. please, no! it's already going to be so long. bill karins -- >> i don't even know where my hats and gloves are yet. >> thank you. we'll see you tomorrow. yeah, me neither. i'm going to have to track them down. still ahead here, president trump continues to go low against joe biden. he is now telling supporters that the former vp would be in jail if it weren't for the attorney general. we're back in just a moment. the attorney general we're back in just aom ment. ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) once-weekly ozempic® is helping many people with type 2 diabetes like emily lower their blood sugar. a majority of adults who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. here's your a1c. oh! my a1c is under 7! 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[ crowd chanting ] >> he is lucky that we have in our country -- and they don't appreciate -- a wonderful human being and the most fair attorney general of the united states. because i know people that would have had him locked up five weeks ago. bill barr is a very nice man and a very fair man, and they have no idea, because somebody else would have taken that thing and all the crap and corruption. he's been a corrupt politician for a long time, this guy. >> your campaign strategy seems to be to call biden a criminal. why is that? >> he is a criminal. he's a criminal. he got caught. read his laptop. and you know what's a criminal? you're a criminal for not reporting it. you are a criminal for not reporting it. let me tell you something. joe biden is a criminal and he's been a criminal for a long time, and you're a criminal and the media for not reporting it. good luck, everybody. have a good time. >> there is no evidence -- there is no evidence of this at all. at all. and this is the argument the president is making in the final weeks. we have a system of justice that is one that is not a dictatorship. it is fair and straightforward, in theory, anyway, and that does not line up at all with what the president is saying. i just think since we played all those comments from the president making those accusations, we should just clear that up. meanwhile, more than 50 former intelligence officials signed on to a letter yesterday saying that the "new york post" story about hunter biden's emails has, quote, all of the classic earmarks of a russian disinformation campaign. this is what the president was just talking about. the letters' signatories span four administrations, including the current one, and include former cia directors john brennan, michael hayden, and leon panetta. and some of the signatories have endorsed joe biden, we should note. the letter presents no evidence on whether the "post" report, which alleges that hunter biden used his father's position as vice president to further his foreign business dealings -- i'm not even sure we should outline that -- was falsified. it also doesn't comment on the involvedity of any of the emails, but instead, it says that their collective national security experience makes them, quote, deeply suspicious that the russian government played a significant role in this case and suggests that russia is trying to influence how americans vote in this election. and in related news, the website mediaite reports that fox news passed on the story over questions over credibility. the news division chose not to write the story unless the emails could be properly vetted. however, the "new york post," also owned by rupert murdoch, ran it with a byline of those who apparently didn't contribute to or write it. that's according to "the new york times." the "post" stood by its story, saying that it had been properly vetted. fox news declined to comment on the mediaite report. meanwhile, a wisconsin judge yesterday reimposed a previous order limiting the capacity of people that can gather at indoor venues to 25% capacity. the order, which was initially imposed by the state's governor, tony evers, comes amid a surge in coronavirus cases in the state as it deals with one of the worst surges of virus infections in the country. over 1,000 people there are hospitalized as of this week, hitting new records in both infections and deaths. the state also opened a field hospital on state fairgrounds last week to help overwhelmed hospitals treat patients with less severe covid symptoms. a lawsuit brought on by the tavern league of wisconsin, an alcohol trade commission, argued that the state government had overstepped its authority and caused 5,000 bars, restaurants, and taverns that the league represents, to shut down. a judge temporarily blocked the capacity order last week but has reinstated it yesterday. still ahead, two weeks out from the election and president trump is voicing optimism about his chances of staying in the white house. we're going to have that new sound for you. plus, after a chaotic first debate that featured many interruptions, the rules for this week's face-off between the president and joe biden are going to be a little bit different. but before we go to break, we want to know, why are you awake? 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[ inaudible ] i'm doing this. what am i doing to prepare? i'm doing this. i've done very well in debates. and you know, you do what you do. you just do what you do. the last debate, i had 2 on 1. i usually have 2 on 1, at least, and i did well in the last debate. >> despite being displeased with the change, trump says he will still show up for the debate. hours earlier, his campaign had sent a scathing letter objecting to the selected topics for the debate, taking issue with the fact that it won't be focused on foreign policy. biden's campaign did not immediately comment on the formatting change but disputed that the campaigns had previously agreed on a foreign policy focus. coverage of the final debate moderated by nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker is going to kick off right here at 8:00 p.m. on thursday night. joining us now, white house reporter for politico, gabby ohr. gabby, good morning to you! thanks for being back with us. can we talk first about this debate? because clearly, the format's going to be a little bit different from the one we saw before, which, you know, frankly, devolved into something of a shouting match, because of the way that the president conducted himself. what do we know about how the president is preparing this time and how it might be different from last time? >> well, the president's campaign team has told him that he needs an entirely different approach to actually have an impact on undecided voters in this third and final -- or second and final debate, excuse me. so, they've been encouraging him to come off a lot softer in his responses, to interrupt less, which was, of course, one of the biggest irks in the first debate, the president's incessant interruptions and interjections of both the moderator, chris wallace, and also his opponent, joe biden. and they've been telling him to continue to focus his attacks on things like hunter biden, the former vice president's son, but to do so in a way that could actually resonate with voters. we don't know to the extent to which he's been doing debate prep lately. we know he's been traveling a bunch. he's had campaign rallies nearly every single day since emerging from the hospital for coronavirus. and so, it is tough to see exactly how much preparations the president has put into this second and final debate versus vice president joe biden, who we know has been working diligently with his advisers to really make sure that this final prime time opportunity to reach that small slice of undecided voters who still remain is beneficial to him. >> yeah, no, it's a good point. and we also note that chris christie, the former new jersey governor, had been a significant part of those strategy sessions, but he was in the hospital for a week fighting coronavirus, and to our knowledge, is still recuperating. i want to ask you, gabby, about dr. fauci. we talked about this little bit earlier in the hour. but the top -- the face of fighting the pandemic. he is widely popular with americans. he was on "60 minutes" on sunday night, clearly got under the president's skin. the president tweeting about him. what is the strategy in attacking dr. fauci just two weeks before the election? are his advisers -- do they think there is some benefit to this? are they trying to get him to stop? i mean, this seems like a feud that is not a winning situation for president trump, but maybe i'm missing something. >> well, it's just as confounding to some of the president's advisers as it is to his political opponents, because if you look at the polling, dr. fauci has had a significantly better approval rating and rating for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic than has president trump. and that stands across the board with suburban women, with senior voters, really, with the demographics among whom the president is struggling the most right now. yesterday during his phone call with campaign staff, he said that if dr. fauci had been in charge of handling this pandemic, that there would have been significantly more deaths in the united states. he made unfounded claims about fauci's position on protective face coverings, masks, and it's already drawn some blowback from even republicans. senate republican lamar alexander came out yesterday and said that dr. fauci is one of the nation's most distinguished experts in infectious diseases, and the president has no grounds to be attacking him. and politically, you know, two weeks out from an election, it is baffling that the president would choose to train his eyre on one of his own health experts, as opposed to his actual general election opponent. >> all right, politico's gabby orr, thank you very much for getting up early with us. it's great to have you this morning. still ahead here, we've got a dance-off of sorts on the campaign trail. we're going to show you that in "the cooler." plus, democrats win the latest battle over mail-in ballots in pennsylvania as the supreme court allows more time for votes to be counted. we'll bring you the latest. s to. we'll bring you the late st stay restless with the icon that does the same, the rx crafted by lexus. lease the 2020 rx350 for $409 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. lease the 2020 rx350 for $409 - [announcer] meet the make family-sized meals fast. and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away. the ninja foodi air fry oven, the oven that crisps and flips away. women with metastatic webreast cancer,.... ...standing in the struggle. hustling through the hurt. asking for science, not sorrys. our time... ...for more time... ...has come. living longer is possible- and proven in women taking kisqali plus fulvestrant or a nonsteroidal aromatase inhibitor. kisqali is the only treatment in its class with proven overall survival results in 2 clinical trials. helping women live longer with hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer. kisqali was also significantly more effective at delaying disease progression... ...versus a nonsteroidal aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant alone. kisqali can cause lung problems or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including breathing problems, cough, chest pain, a change in your heartbeat, dizziness... ...yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdomen pain, bleeding, bruising, fever, chills,... ...or other symptoms of an infection, a severe or worsening rash, are or plan to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. avoid grapefruit during treatment. kisqali is not approved for use with tamoxifen. it's our time... ...to continue to shine. because we are the thrivers. ask your doctor about kisqali, the only treatment in its class proven to help women live longer in 2 clinical trials. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ time now to gather around the water cooler for some of the things that are going to have people talking today. adele will be "rolling in the deep" at 30 rock this week, as she prepares to host "saturday night live" for the first time. the singer announced the news on instagram, writing, "i am so excited about this! and also absolutely terrified! my first ever hosting gig, and for "snl," of all things. it will be almost 12 years to the day that i first appeared on the show during an election, which went on to break my career in america. so, it feels full circle." adele first appeared on the show as a musical guest back in 2008, right as her first studio album "19" was topping the billboard charts. man, doesn't that feel like a million years ago? you can catch adele hosting "snl" alongside musical guest her, this saturday on nbc. yesterday at a drive-in early voter mobilization event, vice presidential candidate kamala harris broke out some moves. ♪ ♪ girls i hear you been running from the beautiful queen that you can be becoming ♪ ♪ ♪ >> twitter, of course, could not get enough of that moment or of the senator's signature chucks -- her sneakers, and of course, taking the opportunity to reference another dancing candidate. ♪ i said young man, when you're short on your dough ♪ [ laughter ] >> i think that's turned into a tick-tock dance. maybe we should add a halftime dance-off at the final debate? i mean, i'd watch it. anyway. still ahead here, we've got the latest reporting from cnbc. as leaders make progress on stimulus talks. and as we go to break, we've got a look back at this date in history from 1973 and watergate. >> the country tonight is in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history. the president has fired the man you just saw, the special watergate prosecutor, archibald cox, and he has sent fbi agents to the office of the special prosecution staff and to the attorney general and the deputy attorney general, and the president has ordered the fbi to seal off those offices. i to seal off those offices (customer) hi? 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(burke) sure. your parents have maintained a farmers home policy for twelve consecutive months, right? ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ (burke) start with a quote at 1-800-farmers. sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. welcome back. time now for business! the rush to get a relief deal passed before election day continues on capitol hill as house speaker nancy pelosi and treasury secretary steven mnuchin, quote, continued to narrow their differences, end quote, in yesterday's discussions. for that, let's bring in cnbc's julianna tatelbaum, live from london. juliana, good morning. always good to see you. how are the markets reacting to this possibility? i will say as a hill reporter, i remain skeptical that this is something that's actually going to happen. but what's your take from the business side of things? >> markets are also nervous, kasie, and this is what we saw yesterday. we saw some steep selling late in the day with the s&p 500, the dow jones, and the nasdaq all ending significantly lower. they're really watching this, what seems like a political dance in d.c. now, we did get some encouraging comments, as you said, from nancy pelosi's office. a spokesperson for the house speaker's office saying that they have made some progress in talks, and secretary mnuchin and pelosi are set to talk again today. but investors are watching with a degree of skepticism as well. having said that, u.s. futures do point to a positive start. so we are expecting to see a rebound at the open for wall street today, but a lot of nerves remain at play. and in addition to stimulus talks, investors are also closely watching netflix, who's due to deliver their earnings. we're also due to get some commentary from various central bank speakers, which is always very important for markets. we've got some data coming out in the housing market. u.s. housing starts and building permits for september. but no doubt about it, washington firmly in focus for stock market investors. kasie? >> and the other thing, julianna, moderna says it's going to get results for its covid vaccine in november? that seems pretty soon. and i'm sure the markets are looking for some good news there. what do we know? >> so, moderna's ceo is speaking at a "wall street journal" event on monday, stephen van zell, and he said we could get the interim data we need on the phase three trial under way as early as next month. and if that data is positive and sufficient, then the u.s. government could potentially approve the vaccine for emergency use by the end of the year. moderna has one of the leading vaccines when it comes to the timeline for these trials. they've been one of the first out of the gate and they are using a new technique, which has enabled them to progress pretty quickly through this process. so, fairly upbeat comments from the moderna ceo, but we've got to wait for those results to come through. and if that goes as scheduled, then we could see that next month. back to you. >> all right, cnbc's julianna tatelbaum live from london. thank you, as always. great to have you earlier, we a you awake? one viewer tweets too early because i'm trying to figure out how the cowboys have won any games this season. fair. awake because i caught the stove on fire making ramon noodles. i hope everything is okay with the stove. and another one, i take a lot of pride in my service as a letter carrier and collecting your election ballots. thank you. david emailed, quote, define awake. that is fair. that is absolutely fair. coming up next here, what democrats will do to fight back against voter suppression efforts ahead of the election. and president trump lashes out as the polls show him trailing joe biden with the election just two weeks away. he is ramping up attacks on dr. anthony fauci and we'll have the latest remarks and the numbers that may explain his frustration. plus, former white house official and 2012 campaign manager jim messina joins the conversation as the former president prepares to campaign for joe biden in philadelphia tomorrow. "morning joe" is just moments away. ning joe" is just moments away the men and woman of the united states postal service. we are here to deliver your cards, packages and prescriptions. and also deliver the peace of mind knowing that what's important to you-like your ballot-is on its way. every day, all across america, we deliver for you. and we always will. less oral steroids. taking my treatment at home. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your doctor about nucala at home. find your nunormal with nucala. state of the art technology makes it brilliant. the visionary lexus nx. lease the 2021 nx 300 for $359 a month for 36 months. experience amazing. at your lexus dealer. unlike ordinary memory want supplements-ter? neuriva has clinically proven ingredients that fuel 5 indicators of brain performance. memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. try our new gummies for 30 days and see the difference. who trust in our performance and comfortable, long-lasting protection. because your strength is supported by ours. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. - [announcer] meet the make family-sized meals fast. and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do things no other oven can, like flip away. the ninja foodi air fry oven, the oven that crisps and flips away. welcome back. we are exactly two weeks from election day and yesterday marked the first day of early voting in the battle ground state of florida. voters were up before dawn, standing for hours with lines growing in to the hundreds before opening. those in southern counties waited in heavy rain to cast their vote. early voting continues in florida, 12 hours a day, through november 1st. do you have a plan to vote yet? make one if you haven't already. meanwhile, a ruling by the supreme court will allow mail in ballots can be counted in they're received within three days in pennsylvania. four justices dissented from the order signaling that the court was equally divided with chief justice john roberts siding with the three liberal members. they're down to eight following the death of ruth bader ginsburg. joining us now from priorities usa, anissa mcmillan. good morning to you. thank you so much for being here. i want to start with this decision in pennsylvania. i noticed republicans my twitter feed criticizing john roberts yet again for this decision. what was your read on this and i know that pennsylvania is certainly a place i'm going to be watching on election night because it really could be the center of everything if this election is very close. what do you make of the decision and what else are you worried about there as you look at the landscape? >> well, it certainly was a good decision in terms of allowing for and planning for the influx of mail-in ballots that we know we're going to see. part of our larger litigation strategy has been filing these types of cases and in fact, the decision in the lower court was decided based upon evidence that we presented in a similar case. so it is a win. the greatest concern is what you laid out in the opening of the segment which is the fact that it was a split decision, meaning that as we look toward the nominee who we have now for the supreme court who kind of refused really to acknowledge that there was a problem as far as voter suppression was concerned, we remain very, very concerned in terms of how that will play out if we have more cases that go before the court. we also are still -- we were able to secure some wins not only in pennsylvania, but in michigan as well. but we are still in court trying to defend those wins because part of the national strategy of the gop is to continue to appeal and appeal and appeal. so that is of course always a concern. you know, we have been successful so far, but there is a very, very strong coordinated effort both by the rnc and the trump campaign to stifle the wins that we and others have gotten in this space. >> do you have any sense of which cases we should be watching for and paying particularly close attention to on election night? i realize that obviously we don't yet have a good sense of where on the map we're going to be focused but since you have this plan laid out already, you have been focusing on this, are there states where you think we should be absolutely zeroing in on at this stage ahead of election night in two weeks? >> so we pivoted -- our strategy started -- we have a $34 million program and once we started to understand the nature of the pandemic and we started to understand the nature of the coronavirus itself, we focused on florida, pennsylvania and michigan in terms of filing cases that would expand access to the ballot. understanding that we knew we were going to see this unprecedented turnout that you're seeing with the long lines wrapped around buildings, and we understood also too that we had to make sure that we removed those unnecessary barriers to voting by mail because we knew that the same voters, mainly black and brown voters and also immigrants, that have challenges due to unnecessary barriers to voting in person, they also face those challenges when voting by mail. and so those are the three states. we have done some litigation on mail ballot deadlines in arizona as well. so we're looking out there, but we're hoping our work and we feel fairly confident our work in expanding access to the ballot will help to kind of alleviate some of what we see, whether it's the misinformation, the disinformation. a lot of the litigation that we see from republicans, we're hoping that because we were able to make that early pivot we can get some relief for voters across the country. >> very quickly, i want to talk briefly about senate races. i saw your tweet about jaime harrison and barack obama endorsing him. what races are you looking at in terms of the senate? any that may have been unexpected earlier that you now think are winnable? >> we haven't changed our initial strategy. i'm just a personal fan of jaime harrison, but we're looking at maine obviously and other areas. but we feel confident there. if you see a lot of senate republicans in very winnable races, those races where democrats have a shot, you now see republicans actually distancing themselves from donald trump which is the sign of a lot to come as far as like, you know, how the races will shape up. so we definitely -- we have not focused on south carolina yet, but we are still looking at some of those seats that are very, very winnable and have been for quite some time. >> well, jaime harrison certainly has plenty of money. thank you your time this morning. for today, i'm looking at the critical talks, it will be a critical day for whether americans will get the relief they need from the federal government as we battle this pandemic. thanks for getting up "way too early" with us here on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. we're going to win. i wouldn't have told you that two or three weeks ago, but we're going to win. we have never been in a
i'm excited to be here. host: i wanted to start, your entire story has so many emotional movements on - - moments. as a congressional editor and love the portion where you say people tell me on the first editor to have a baby in office but now, the first to give birth. [laughter] >> but it tells you the average age for a senator to give birth in office we need more women senators and younger senators. host: the passages are fantastic but i hope we can have a candid conversation what that looks like on the personal level to be a very tradition bound institution. how awkward was that? talk me through. you use the phrase with abreast on the senate floor. [laughter] >> as soon as i became pregnant it was through ivf. i was trying. we began having the conversations. the senate even then with democrats in the minority we were pretty evenly divided. i knew we would need every single vote. senate rule says i cannot take maternity leave i can introduce legislation or vote. i cannot even give birth in illinois i had to do in dc otherwise i would be stuck there. you cannot take a newborn baby on the airplane. from the beginning i knew we would have to work through a lot of issues including the senate rules. there's no way for me to get on the floor to vote with my baby unless they change the rules. that was almost a nine-month long process of negotiations with amy klobuchar. and orin hatch was the lead committee chairman. host: what does that experience tell you and show you how far washington has to go to be truly feminist with the ability to represent? because as you point out others raise children. >> one thing i learned you can find allies in unexpected places. once a senators knew i was having these conversations and negotiating. orin hatch really didn't want to change the rules. what will the babies dress code going to be? as a mom are you seriously asking me if the baby would adhere to a senate dress code? must have a blazer and shoes. she wears a beanie. i will not take that off. she would be in for the pajamas. i could put shoes on that. i will put a blazer on her. i did that day. but i had members, republican members, marco rubio i hardly ever agree said tammy, i am with you. i will stick up for you. i wish i could've brought my young kids to the floor. we need to do this. we need to change the rules. and roy blunt said tammy i will be the next chairman. i will change the rules. i remember when i was in the house how great it was when i can bring my children to the floor progressive as he became chairman, the same wiki change the rules for me. host: that is fascinating. and it brings me to another question as a hill person i consider that photograph of you entering the building to vote iconic holding her baby daughter. you have been in the public eye for so long. you address this but how did that feel different now not just a public figure. >> i am very jealous of guarding my daughter's privacy. you will rarely see pictures to see their fullface. sometimes you will see media has captured it. but i am most no ways on - - never post pictures with their face. they can decide whether or not they want to post pictures of themselves on social media. but it was important for me to do my job as a working mom. are fighting for working moms everywhere so it was very symbolic for all of the moms who work outside of the home as well. to see me break down that barrier i could show even a senator has to fight to bring her kid onto the floor to do her job. host: talk about very common experiences that women don't talk about, you were very candid about ivf and how tough that was. that is something a lot of women are starting to share more and more to get rid of the unnecessary shame attached to it. you talked about it matter of fact and your initial experience with the doctor in a catholic hospital who did not give you your full options. you can walk through with that shows you trying to help press healthcare policy to be more inclusive with fertility options. >> i was a congresswoman at the time. that was a learning experience. prior i was at the v.a. i also use them for the healthcare. at the time so had very limited services. every v.a. hospital has a civilian teaching hospital as a partner. the v.a. i go to happens to be a catholic institution which i didn't ever think about ever go to them for mammograms or routine care. but when they return on - - referred me to maternity services the doctor did not even examine me or take me into the clinic. she met me in the waiting room. your 43 years old. you are too old. you have less than a 3 percent chance of getting pregnant. the best you can do is go home and enjoy your husband and sent me on my way. not knowing anything about treatments i believed her. this is a doctor and hospital i have received excellent care. it never even occurred to me. had no reason to believe i was to all that 43 to get pregnant. i had been trying for ten years. so my husband enjoyed that line about enjoy your husband but then two years later i was speaking at a women in leadership seminar when a woman who was there the question was asked, had you manager work life balance i try but i regret i could never have children because then i struggled and cannot get pregnant now i am 44 or 45. a woman said you are not too old go to this doctor. at northwestern in chicago. he has knocked up every single woman over 40 in chicago. go to him. i didn't believe her. was very polite she continue to pester me every month. finally i went i went in to see the doctor who said you work with me and go to the process. there's no reason why you cannot get pregnant and he examined be one - - examine me. eighteen months to the day i was pregnant. i don't want anybody else to be misled the way i was. i said i thought i couldn't get pregnant and i was too old. he said where did you go? because that's a catholic institution as a catholic church they do not support ivf specifically because it's fertilization of an egg outside of the human body. that happens a lot. so i included this in the book because i want other women and other families who try to start a family to know that they have options. and it is a struggle but it is worth it. have two beautiful girls one at 46 and then another right after i turned 50. host: it is incredible. you go into this in great depth. i wonder how you contextualize the story we didn't even get to the rest. and with healthcare policy there are very few members who have your direct experience with these choices of working women that they make every day. did you think about this as you are working or was that separate quick. >> everything i have experienced a bring to work with me because i think it makes me a better public servant for my constituents. i also told my staff members as they go through their lives with experiences. what the point of working for united states senator if you cannot work on your passion projects? i have been working very hard on reproductive rights not just as a progressive democratic women take on people's attention including my republican colleagues. if you support the persons of amendments of fertilized egg is a full person with rights you will make ivf out of reach for most people. my doctor said if this passes, tammy i could be convicted of manslaughter if i put fertilized eggs and you knowing that probably two of them will not take because they are human beings and has rights. think about what you are doing when you pass legislation on reproductive access for women. i bring that to the table. i wrote about it and letters to my colleagues and a speak up all the time. is not just about choice in terms of abortion but to want to have children and have techniques beyond my grasp because of these laws that haven't seen consequences most people don't even think about. host: i covered this but you raised this issue and had a discussion during the confirmation process. talking to more of your colleagues like the senators that were allies and access on the floor does it make them more open to talking about it? >> i think so. time and again whether we talk about the post office and then to support the u.s. postal service i get my medication through the mail. it's one thing for the mail to be the couple of days late but if it is three weeks late and is my medication for phantom pain people are suffering. i also think i bring to the table i introduced the mom act talking about the high maternal mortality rates among african of american women they need to support their not listen to in the childbirth process. and the diaper needs act talking on - - talk about people cannot afford diapers for their children in daycare not because it'll have access to daycare but access to diapers if they are choosing between food and diapers if you drop off a child you have to include diapers then you can't that your child in daycare then you can go to work. so i think it makes a better legislator. and my colleagues have their own experience that they are helpful to them as well. host:'s now going back to the earlier chapters in your life you discussed, i was struck reading "the new york times" review because they had the thought that i had. there are certain parallels to dreams of my father. you get extremely personal. your style of writing is very different from president obama. he could be a little ornate but i just like you get down to it. so what was that like? so discuss who your influences were because you are so candid what it was like growing up to have the vision of america and your life in america and you get really personal. did you say this is the way senator duckworth would talk quick. >> i really enjoyed born of crime. the title was amazing. very personal about being born biracial in south africa even his parents got together and had him. and my parents met each other and fell in love and had me my dad and home state of virginia could not have married my mother because it had not yet passed in virginia. and i learned so much about apartheid to the individual on the black side of the equation and the white side. i wanted to do the same thing for the experience of growing up biracial in asia. i wanted to teach the reader about what it was like to grow up in southeast asia post- vietnam but also why i still believe america is worth it. america is worth fighting for. my sexual daughter abigail asked me the question. mommy you don't have legs. she wants me to teach her to ride her bike. but i can't run alongside of her to push the bike. so she said why couldn't somebody else's mommy or daddy go to iraq and lose their legs? why you? i wanted to show her america is worth it. democracy is worth it. it began me growing up has an american in southeast asia. to understand what a privilege it was that i was an american. but i can leave the war-torn country when i wanted to because i had the passport and another children could not because they were abandoned by their fathers but i was not abandoned by mine. host: speaking of your father, his experience in the v.a. system, was the first chapter in a chapter you continued later on as somebody grappling with the v.a. so talk readers through was at personally painful to explore? with the political talk about this. >> my dad don't go to the v.a. to get the care and the support that they need because they think they are okay and they are saving the care for their buddies. my dad time and again lied and said i would find. i don't need anything you take care of the other guys. which is what you learn to do in the service and look out for your buddy. but they took that to the most extreme form. i write about this the example in illinois as the director of the state department, the federal v.a. said there were 800,000 veterans in illinois. i knew there were at least one.2 million because that is how many individual veterans applied for license plates for the secretary of state. the v.a. is undercounting 400,000 veterans in illinois. so when they go to build a new hospital they say illinois is only 800,000 it doesn't need the additional hospital we will build. that means illinois doesn't get the hospital. and those other 4000 that are not being counted do need help to help is not they are it has gone somewhere else. i spent a lot of time telling veterans even if you don't plan to use it go sign up so they know you are there. the best way to take care of your buddy is not to enroll in the v.a. but to enroll so they know you are there and you are counted. i run into this all the time. they are in the mode of taking care of their buddies or sacrificing for the team instead of watching out for themselves and it hurts the team when they don't get the care they need. host: you eloquently say in the book it's just a matter of the culture of taking care of veterans. is your hope that telling your story can help that to happen quick. >> i hope so. all the stories in the book of me growing up in asia and to be so lucky i was american or to talk about being hungry when i was in my teens and my dad lost his job and was unemployed four or five years in his fifties. i tell the stories to people because i know people have lost a job. they can't get another one and they are behind in their rent literally one day away from homelessness the way we were and they are just scraping by where they can and choosing between do i feed my kids or take medicine? all of those things. i show that you are not alone. there are people like me in positions of power who try our best to solve the problem. but despite all of that the safety nets were there. i did get the food stamps. i could go to a public school to graduate from. i could graduate from college for my bachelors degree. all of that was available and a could join the army to become a senator one day. i want to make sure the safety nets are there for other people. host: another question about your inspirations. with the current situation with the anti- asian hate crime a terrifying moment for a lot of asian americans and pacific islanders in the country. you are working on legislation to address this, but when you are writing this book i imagine we were in the coronavirus but how do that into your mind talking about your experience to people who might suffer discrimination here in america? >> about the chapter about being discriminated against when i was in asia because i was half white. i was going for being half white and insulted and treated differently by my asian cousins because i was halfway and didn't fit in with the asian community. then i talk about being another later on in that happened before coronavirus hit. i hope people understand this is a universal experience among asian americans and pacific islanders in the united states. we are the ones after our ancestors going from the civil war had it taken away from them in the chinese exclusion act veterans actually had the citizenship taken away that they had earned due to the chinese exclusion act. are the only population that has a family play into internment camps in the middle of the war and fought for the country even as family members just because they were of japanese descent or even look like they would be of japanese descent. i had people come up to me while i was wearing the uniform of my nation but saying where are you really from? duckworth is not your name. that is your husband's name. no. i am a duckworth. i have been here since the revolution. this past year was really hard on the a api community. it is always been here but now to be the target of hate crimes part of it because the president of the united states was using hate speech the president was saying the country virus and blaming the chinese for the virus but not saying the people's republic of china but the chinese the chinese-americans so they were committing hate crimes against them has been really dramatic for the aapi community it grew over 160 percent and we know most hate crimes against aapi are reported. it is reported anything other than a hate crime. host: i do wonder if you got the chance to reopen your book what we are seeing now is there anything more how you would address the otherness issue? >> maybe a little more time talking about how it when it mattered. in my helicopter that day i talk at length about the shootdown as part of the helicopter crew it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor or black or white. i've been part of cruise we are a bag of skittles. and we are all americans. and that's why i love the army. it didn't matter who i was if i was a halfbreed asian girl for good only mattered if i could shoot straight and if i could carry the load when someone needed help. i probably spent more time on that than a racial perspective just because of the meritocracy. host: it is a good segue to the portion of the book where you talk about that. another new york times interview you talk about i don't like to listen to pop culture about war because it's emotional. how hard was it to put this on paper? >> it was hard but i did in one single sitting. is very cathartic. by did have to go back and talk to a lot of people. i don't have a lot of memory what happened past landing the aircraft. i reached up to do the emergency engine shut down because we had a fire. i passed out. i came to within the hour have lots of conversations but i don't remember any of that. the doctors and nurses at the emergency room in baghdad give me a drug to sedate me but they knew the side effect would block my short term memory. they did everybody coming through as an act of mercy. i am grateful to that. but i had to talk and hear what happened in the intervening time. i found it incredibly rewarding the things that i said and did i'm very proud of. i was not a hero that day. i didn't kill anybody to safety. but until they sedated me, i was watching out for my crew. as a soldier and army officer, ultimately that was vindication for who i was at my core. watching out for my guys until the end. host: that is such a remarkable experience to have those conversations. did you have other people helping you? >> i did. it was a group project. over the years i was at walter reed on the nurse in charge of the emergency room had come up to me and said i know who you are. this was within five minutes of being wounded. you came to my emergency room i want you to know what you did. he came to my room and he gave me the number that i could track down the medevac medic and he put me in touch so it ended up being a little facebook group in the hospital unit and medevac unit like a snowball once i found one person me find two people than three people. before long i was in touch with all sorts of folks some in civilian life they were all reaching out and talk to each other. it became very human for the others as well. because many of them once they treat you in baghdad, what happened to the patient they don't know if the patients died or survived. so for many of them it was closure and one in particular that intubated me he said i have haunted him for 15 years with my final words to him before he sedated me. he thanked me for letting him know i was okay. host: was he impressed that now you are a senator? [laughter] >> and military you don't talk politics where they are on the political spectrum but they know. every day is a gift. because every day since that day i was shot down has been a gift. i should have died. the only reason i survived is the heroism of my crew and the doctors and nurses and all the people who took care of me. every day is literally a gift. i tried to convey that but know that you are my northstar and i never want you to make you ashamed or embarrassed to save me by what i have done. host: it is an interesting contrast with trevor noah his born of crime is very upfront about the trauma you experienced a lot of trauma that yet you chose something that is a very joyful sentiment. did you have discussions with others quick. >> we had all sorts of discussions. there is a saying strong in the book in places. triple amputee from vietnam. it was all sorts of things. that one day when i was talking to the publishers into my collaborator, i was talking about the shootdown and they said every day of my life they asked me i had a tough day at work. i don't know a healthcare fighter something. i said i'm exhausted today. we had a tough day and i said that every day is a gift. every day i have is one i'm surprised that i have. they said that's the title. because that's how i live my life. every day i say thank you to carry me out of that field in iraq and then i say okay what can i do today to live up to them for what they did for me on that day. >> sometimes the brainstorming and then you say it out loud. so more logistical question, i was so impressed that you have the time to write this. you mentioned you wrote the part in one sitting. does your husband take over childcare duties? >> i do it in bits and pieces. when i would do the proposal for the book i was writing it up in the notes app on the airplane see have a noun have to sit there and then on long flights going back to iraq, i just that and wrote. i would just write bits and pieces and put it together. then once i had the book deal i got in december and it was due august 2020 i knew i had to get it done. i just hunker down and wrote. even just ten minutes writing a paragraph. it's just a process. i had a great collaborator who worked with me. in my senior senator i talked about how he found me in the hospital gave me a new mission. i sent some copies two different folks. i'm a big fan of sherrod brown and his wife is also led new york times and a best-selling author and then they gave me feedback. i had a lot of people helping me along the way. host: i love that that they are reaching out with great detail. what was the hardest part of the book to write? but there might be another part that you found quick. >> actually my early childhood was the hardest part. it was not an accident it was intentional. it's not on me but the fact this aircraft did a remarkable piece of flying and landed the bird in one piece that's why we are all alive. i want to honor his expertise and he had distinguished flying cross with his actions on that day. i always say it's not a crash but it is a landing. it was an amazing effort to pilot tree one - - pilot. so to reliving poverty in hawaii and also ellie start talking about in recent years as the nation has been in more of a recession and talk about it more and the fact i was on food stamps i was very ashamed for a long time in my early twenties and thirties. i thought that was a failure. not until i realized that was success. because we never gave up as a family. to this day don't get between me and the penny on the ground i will get between you i will roll over you with my wheelchair. that something to be proud of with the american people's help with the food stamps and the free lunch program, we should be more open about that. there are families that are food insecure right now to know that there is hope. host: it makes sense although i would not expect you to choose that part. talk about trevor noah. and in that same interview of "the new york times" a referenced earlier, you referenced you talk about other books like white rage like you would like to see even the president read it. wish i could ask you a question, what book would you have anybody working on the hill is a reporter or staffer read? >> i would rather have a reading list because it does talk about the pendulum swing of our nation every time we have a major civil rights movement and success and stepping forward. but there is a backlash that is part of the nations history. i think people should understand those in the military and that experience the war i always wanted. that's a good book about the iraq war and afghanistan in my generation of troops were thinking after not having been at war over ten years. and that coming-of-age story and what that is for military men and women. i would have a long list. and with apartheid in south africa read that. >> a reading list is fair. another book question i was so struck this is not a political memoir a lot of times members have their eye and something higher but you're just telling a story. is as the book for everyone if they honestly had no idea who you were. >> this book is really for my daughter's. i want them to read and understand the struggles that i went through. and that america provided me the privilege and help along the way. and that america is worth it. i truly wrote this just for my girls. but also for others to understand this democracy is worth fighting for. to give people a perspective as to why i believe in the programs i believe in. why i support more food stamps and more money for public education. i support the policies that i do or how i got to this position based on my experiences. and i hope people get that as well. but this is a love letter to me nation permit for my daughter's so they would understand why i was willing to compromise their life. why i can't teach my daughter to ride a bike that is a cost to her i made a decision before she was even born but i would still do it again in the same position. because our democracy and this union is worth the struggle to become a more perfect union. host: speaking of your daughters one portion made me laugh out loud but when you said what is daddy's name and what is mommy's name and she said in the professional voice tammy duckworth. [laughter] was it tough to talk about your current situation as a working mom? to have them maintain their privacy? how did you wrestle with that quick. >> if you asked me about it when i first ran for office i would not have talked about it but after having my kids are having gone through senate campaign while on ivf and trying to get pregnant. i decided i had to talk about it for other moms are women that are struggling with fertility issues. because people would come up to me and have this idea with the heroics with the treatment and i want people to know there is no such thing of work life balance. it is a lie. it's a lie that is perpetuated the person nation and families in the long run. there is a worklife balance we must pass things like universal family leave, paid family leave. we need to have it and here is why. the fact military women. in 2014 they have to report back even if they had a cesarean even added a duty station was afghanistan they have to do that. that is wrong. i got into that portion it was deeply personal as a mom. i wanted to say i struggled and i see your struggles i had to pump out my breast milk sitting on a toilet stall. i was trying to do the best for my daughter. so i felt to have left it out would have been a disservice. host: you mentioned not even the senate is set up to support that. now the book is out, we're talking today i imagine you're doing other public appearances, to what extent do you want other female leadership to tell stories like this quick. >> i hope more people step forward to speak about the struggle. i understand as a leader i have to step forward and take charge. sometimes, this is exhausting. you just can't and you have to set up boundaries. i want to be realistic about that. i get called all the time by women who want to run for office. especially younger women who have younger children. i tell them i had a huge temper tantrum when i was on my campaign. was of may baby daughter and the campaign i was feeling adequate. even as the world saw me as a senate candidate who had it all together. and want more women who achieve success to be up front it's not just work harder. i was working as hard as i possibly could and barely pulling it together. but i did it. i did make an is a message i want to tell to other families. you can make it. but it is hard. it's not easy but it's worth it in the end. host: absolutely. part of all that, now we see now the average age of motherhood is growing. you became a mom of two at 50. is there anything in writing this recalling what that was like that surprised you? >> actually because of my daughter's they make me do all the things that maybe if i was a mom in my mid- twenties i would not have appreciated. i'm calmer, and more patient. but i also think it has given me a second youthfulness. that on the swing with my kids. i don't think i would do that if i didn't have to. or go to the aquarium just the other day my two -year-old has this great belly laugh running from fish tank to fish tank. just a day of laughter. i say go for it. it's that old line it to be a 50 -year-old with kids were 50 -year-old without kids and wishing that you had some of you talk with somebody who back to college why don't you do that? you are 65 and four years you are 69 anyway. you might is obese 69 -year-old with a college degree. do it. host: very, very good point. you mentioned earlier senior senator durbin he played a central role in your political career. i wonder if you had conversations with him that shaped that part of the book or any notable dialogue about this quick. >> i shared, when i wrote the first half of the book i shared it with him. talk about my writing style it's an army writing style they teach you to do active writing you get to the point in keep sentences short. you do it. so that is how i write because that is how the army taught me. i'm very plainspoken after 23 years in the army. he came back and said it is very moving. i learned about a lot of your experience as a child i can see why you are you made me cry in the passage of the shootdown could you tone down the army language a little bit? i don't think that would be your future career. he could even say the f bomb. [laughter] i gave him a copy i said i am sorry. i toned it down. [laughter] >> he is always watching out for me. i said i did not tone it down. i don't swear that much. he said i didn't thank you would. [laughter] i am very much myself in the book. host: but going back to the stylistic conversation did anybody else read that and say give you color or just say be you? back everybody said just be me. i think i did a good job of describing things. i wanted to show what cambodia was like. before it was just right. my early childhood memory was sitting in a car because it was a french colony at one point and the flowers in the mango trees. there's a lot of description in the book. it was just a description of my style of writing. i needed to be true to myself. >> absolutely. >> 100 percent succeeded in that. one portion of the book, when you were going to fertility treatments, that's incredibly tough to go through the ivf process let alone on a political campaign. did you consider saying more about that? or more to put into words? you talk about it in other parts you say it succeeded after a lot of failures. how did you navigate that quick. >> the book could only be so long. you have constraints on how many pages i didn't want to write 500 pages i wanted them to get through and that was enjoyable. i'm sure some people will cry when they with a part of the shootdown but there is proud moments as well. i felt that i treated it and it front but in my own life i don't well on things for a long time. that is how im. it was tough and insect. even have a chapter about that it sucked and i own it and now i'm moving on. now i am addressing being a working mom two girls under the age of six and a good senator at the same time. i'm always moving on with the next phase. acknowledge what happened. i can't dwell on it. i don't have the time. after this interview i still have to go stuffed easter baskets and we are 48 hours away from easter egg hunt. i just don't have the time to be dwelling on the past. host: absolutely. but i am wondering how constituents shape this. did you have conversations with your personal life and how that inspired you in any particular way quick. >> definitely. my constituents are why i was able to write this book. over the last four years in the house and in the senate as i talked to constituents come i then prompted to tell stories i have never told before i never told people my dad was out of a job for five years and we were struggling. was the only one putting food on the table for our family for a time. finally started to talk about that because emmett folks that were laid off and i look into the audience saying i'm 52 years old what will i do? and it hit me. i just started to talk about my dad in that meeting. i never spoke to him being out of work before. the staff said i did not know that about you. so it is my constituents after i had my two girls i started to talk about ivf and then people would come up and say thank you for talking. one person said because of you i tried ivf and now i have my baby. that constituents have made me comfortable and trying to relate to them to hear to them come i can share experiences with them. that is got me to the place i cannot write this book. i cannot open myself and share the stories and they learn to recognize it. these are stories people have gone through and i hope people can see themselves in my story if there the first person to go to college, if they have been asked where you from. because even though they are americans if they have to fight to try to get some support to be a working mom come i hope they see themselves in this book. host: that is beautiful. i wonder also thinking about your future in different ways. sometimes we see members that spend more time with their family. you have a young family. have you had time to evaluate that? >> no. i have a six-year-old and a three -year-old i have college tuition come up. i cannot stop working for another 18 years at least. [laughter] that is a real problem. my oldest daughter will get my husband's g.i. bill that i use mine for the phd so i have to hustle. [laughter] being a senator is an amazing job. i love it as company commander so i'm happy to be a united states senator. my job i think makes me a better mom. i plan on doing this for a long time to come. host: wonderful. defendant writing another book? >> oh my god. [laughter] let's see how this one goes if it is well received. as i said, i didn't write this book just to tell my story. i wrote to tell america story as an example and then to really answer my daughter's question. it's really for them. i write a letter to my daughters that i think moms and dads might recognize to speak to your child as an adult it from your current experience. if i write another book may be about that. visitors i talked to in the book at walter reed there are characters there and korean war veterans. both of them are in pt's and a physical therapist and in their eighties became this couple about amputees and they were so honest about what life is like and then milkshake man and the one who lost his legs and handing out milkshakes paid out of his own pockets literally for years. love to tell those stories in more detail. host: i think that is a fantastic book idea. this is a fascinating conversation. thank you so much for your time. i hope i'm more a samuels and 's my great pleasure to welcome you here this afternoon to the last talk in this year's benjamin and barbara zucker lecture series. today's speaker david deyoung is a correspondent in the middle east where he writes for the dutch financial daily among other publications. for the research and
joining us today, senator to discuss your book. >> thank you for having me. i'm excited to be here. host: i wanted to start, your entire story has so many emotional movements on - - moments. as a congressional editor and love the portion where you say people tell me on the first editor to have a baby in office but now, the first to give birth. [laughter] >> but it tells you the average age for a senator to give birth in office we need more women senators and younger senators. host: the passages are fantastic but i hope we can have a candid conversation what that looks like on the personal level to be a very tradition bound institution. how awkward was that? talk me through. you use the phrase with abreast on the senate floor. [laughter] >> as soon as i became pregnant it was through ivf. i was trying. we began having the conversations. the senate even then with democrats in the minority we were pretty evenly divided. i knew we would need every single vote. senate rule says i cannot take maternity leave i can introduce legislation or vote. i cannot even give birth in illinois i had to do in dc otherwise i would be stuck there. you cannot take a newborn baby on the airplane. from the beginning i knew we would have to work through a lot of issues including the senate rules. there's no way for me to get on the floor to vote with my baby unless they change the rules. that was almost a nine-month long process of negotiations with amy klobuchar. and orin hatch was the lead committee chairman. host: what does that experience tell you and show you how far washington has to go to be truly feminist with the ability to represent? because as you point out others raise children. >> one thing i learned you can find allies in unexpected places. once a senators knew i was having these conversations and negotiating. orin hatch really didn't want to change the rules. what will the babies dress code going to be? as a mom are you seriously asking me if the baby would adhere to a senate dress code? must have a blazer and shoes. she wears a beanie. i will not take that off. she would be in for the pajamas. i could put shoes on that. i will put a blazer on her. i did that day. but i had members, republican members, marco rubio i hardly ever agree said tammy, i am with you. i will stick up for you. i wish i could've brought my young kids to the floor. we need to do this. we need to change the rules. and roy blunt said tammy i will be the next chairman. i will change the rules. i remember when i was in the house how great it was when i can bring my children to the floor progressive as he became chairman, the same wiki change the rules for me. host: that is fascinating. and it brings me to another question as a hill person i consider that photograph of you entering the building to vote iconic holding her baby daughter. you have been in the public eye for so long. you address this but how did that feel different now not just a public figure. >> i am very jealous of guarding my daughter's privacy. you will rarely see pictures to see their fullface. sometimes you will see media has captured it. but i am most no ways on - - never post pictures with their face. they can decide whether or not they want to post pictures of themselves on social media. but it was important for me to do my job as a working mom. are fighting for working moms everywhere so it was very symbolic for all of the moms who work outside of the home as well. to see me break down that barrier i could show even a senator has to fight to bring her kid onto the floor to do her job. host: talk about very common experiences that women don't talk about, you were very candid about ivf and how tough that was. that is something a lot of women are starting to share more and more to get rid of the unnecessary shame attached to it. you talked about it matter of fact and your initial experience with the doctor in a catholic hospital who did not give you your full options. you can walk through with that shows you trying to help press healthcare policy to be more inclusive with fertility options. >> i was a congresswoman at the time. that was a learning experience. prior i was at the v.a. i also use them for the healthcare. at the time so had very limited services. every v.a. hospital has a civilian teaching hospital as a partner. the v.a. i go to happens to be a catholic institution which i didn't ever think about ever go to them for mammograms or routine care. but when they return on - - referred me to maternity services the doctor did not even examine me or take me into the clinic. she met me in the waiting room. your 43 years old. you are too old. you have less than a 3 percent chance of getting pregnant. the best you can do is go home and enjoy your husband and sent me on my way. not knowing anything about treatments i believed her. this is a doctor and hospital i have received excellent care. it never even occurred to me. had no reason to believe i was to all that 43 to get pregnant. i had been trying for ten years. so my husband enjoyed that line about enjoy your husband but then two years later i was speaking at a women in leadership seminar when a woman who was there the question was asked, had you manager work life balance i try but i regret i could never have children because then i struggled and cannot get pregnant now i am 44 or 45. a woman said you are not too old go to this doctor. at northwestern in chicago. he has knocked up every single woman over 40 in chicago. go to him. i didn't believe her. was very polite she continue to pester me every month. finally i went i went in to see the doctor who said you work with me and go to the process. there's no reason why you cannot get pregnant and he examined be one - - examine me. eighteen months to the day i was pregnant. i don't want anybody else to be misled the way i was. i said i thought i couldn't get pregnant and i was too old. he said where did you go? because that's a catholic institution as a catholic church they do not support ivf specifically because it's fertilization of an egg outside of the human body. that happens a lot. so i included this in the book because i want other women and other families who try to start a family to know that they have options. and it is a struggle but it is worth it. have two beautiful girls one at 46 and then another right after i turned 50. host: it is incredible. you go into this in great depth. i wonder how you contextualize the story we didn't even get to the rest. and with healthcare policy there are very few members who have your direct experience with these choices of working women that they make every day. did you think about this as you are working or was that separate quick. >> everything i have experienced a bring to work with me because i think it makes me a better public servant for my constituents. i also told my staff members as they go through their lives with experiences. what the point of working for united states senator if you cannot work on your passion projects? i have been working very hard on reproductive rights not just as a progressive democratic women take on people's attention including my republican colleagues. if you support the persons of amendments of fertilized egg is a full person with rights you will make ivf out of reach for most people. my doctor said if this passes, tammy i could be convicted of manslaughter if i put fertilized eggs and you knowing that probably two of them will not take because they are human beings and has rights. think about what you are doing when you pass legislation on reproductive access for women. i bring that to the table. i wrote about it and letters to my colleagues and a speak up all the time. is not just about choice in terms of abortion but to want to have children and have techniques beyond my grasp because of these laws that haven't seen consequences most people don't even think about. host: i covered this but you raised this issue and had a discussion during the confirmation process. talking to more of your colleagues like the senators that were allies and access on the floor does it make them more open to talking about it? >> i think so. time and again whether we talk about the post office and then to support the u.s. postal service i get my medication through the mail. it's one thing for the mail to be the couple of days late but if it is three weeks late and is my medication for phantom pain people are suffering. i also think i bring to the table i introduced the mom act talking about the high maternal mortality rates among african of american women they need to support their not listen to in the childbirth process. and the diaper needs act talking on - - talk about people cannot afford diapers for their children in daycare not because it'll have access to daycare but access to diapers if they are choosing between food and diapers if you drop off a child you have to include diapers then you can't that your child in daycare then you can go to work. so i think it makes a better legislator. and my colleagues have their own experience that they are helpful to them as well. host:'s now going back to the earlier chapters in your life you discussed, i was struck reading "the new york times" review because they had the thought that i had. there are certain parallels to dreams of my father. you get extremely personal. your style of writing is very different from president obama. he could be a little ornate but i just like you get down to it. so what was that like? so discuss who your influences were because you are so candid what it was like growing up to have the vision of america and your life in america and you get really personal. did you say this is the way senator duckworth would talk quick. >> i really enjoyed born of crime. the title was amazing. very personal about being born biracial in south africa even his parents got together and had him. and my parents met each other and fell in love and had me my dad and home state of virginia could not have married my mother because it had not yet passed in virginia. and i learned so much about apartheid to the individual on the black side of the equation and the white side. i wanted to do the same thing for the experience of growing up biracial in asia. i wanted to teach the reader about what it was like to grow up in southeast asia post- vietnam but also why i still believe america is worth it. america is worth fighting for. my sexual daughter abigail asked me the question. mommy you don't have legs. she wants me to teach her to ride her bike. but i can't run alongside of her to push the bike. so she said why couldn't somebody else's mommy or daddy go to iraq and lose their legs? why you? i wanted to show her america is worth it. democracy is worth it. it began me growing up has an american in southeast asia. to understand what a privilege it was that i was an american. but i can leave the war-torn country when i wanted to because i had the passport and another children could not because they were abandoned by their fathers but i was not abandoned by mine. host: speaking of your father, his experience in the v.a. system, was the first chapter in a chapter you continued later on as somebody grappling with the v.a. so talk readers through was at personally painful to explore? with the political talk about this. >> my dad don't go to the v.a. to get the care and the support that they need because they think they are okay and they are saving the care for their buddies. my dad time and again lied and said i would find. i don't need anything you take care of the other guys. which is what you learn to do in the service and look out for your buddy. but they took that to the most extreme form. i write about this the example in illinois as the director of the state department, the federal v.a. said there were 800,000 veterans in illinois. i knew there were at least one.2 million because that is how many individual veterans applied for license plates for the secretary of state. the v.a. is undercounting 400,000 veterans in illinois. so when they go to build a new hospital they say illinois is only 800,000 it doesn't need the additional hospital we will build. that means illinois doesn't get the hospital. and those other 4000 that are not being counted do need help to help is not they are it has gone somewhere else. i spent a lot of time telling veterans even if you don't plan to use it go sign up so they know you are there. the best way to take care of your buddy is not to enroll in the v.a. but to enroll so they know you are there and you are counted. i run into this all the time. they are in the mode of taking care of their buddies or sacrificing for the team instead of watching out for themselves and it hurts the team when they don't get the care they need. host: you eloquently say in the book it's just a matter of the culture of taking care of veterans. is your hope that telling your story can help that to happen quick. >> i hope so. all the stories in the book of me growing up in asia and to be so lucky i was american or to talk about being hungry when i was in my teens and my dad lost his job and was unemployed four or five years in his fifties. i tell the stories to people because i know people have lost a job. they can't get another one and they are behind in their rent literally one day away from homelessness the way we were and they are just scraping by where they can and choosing between do i feed my kids or take medicine? all of those things. i show that you are not alone. there are people like me in positions of power who try our best to solve the problem. but despite all of that the safety nets were there. i did get the food stamps. i could go to a public school to graduate from. i could graduate from college for my bachelors degree. all of that was available and a could join the army to become a senator one day. i want to make sure the safety nets are there for other people. host: another question about your inspirations. with the current situation with the anti- asian hate crime a terrifying moment for a lot of asian americans and pacific islanders in the country. you are working on legislation to address this, but when you are writing this book i imagine we were in the coronavirus but how do that into your mind talking about your experience to people who might suffer discrimination here in america? >> about the chapter about being discriminated against when i was in asia because i was half white. i was going for being half white and insulted and treated differently by my asian cousins because i was halfway and didn't fit in with the asian community. then i talk about being another later on in that happened before coronavirus hit. i hope people understand this is a universal experience among asian americans and pacific islanders in the united states. we are the ones after our ancestors going from the civil war had it taken away from them in the chinese exclusion act veterans actually had the citizenship taken away that they had earned due to the chinese exclusion act. are the only population that has a family play into internment camps in the middle of the war and fought for the country even as family members just because they were of japanese descent or even look like they would be of japanese descent. i had people come up to me while i was wearing the uniform of my nation but saying where are you really from? duckworth is not your name. that is your husband's name. no. i am a duckworth. i have been here since the revolution. this past year was really hard on the a api community. it is always been here but now to be the target of hate crimes part of it because the president of the united states was using hate speech the president was saying the country virus and blaming the chinese for the virus but not saying the people's republic of china but the chinese the chinese-americans so they were committing hate crimes against them has been really dramatic for the aapi community it grew over 160 percent and we know most hate crimes against aapi are reported. it is reported anything other than a hate crime. host: i do wonder if you got the chance to reopen your book what we are seeing now is there anything more how you would address the otherness issue? >> maybe a little more time talking about how it when it mattered. in my helicopter that day i talk at length about the shootdown as part of the helicopter crew it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor or black or white. i've been part of cruise we are a bag of skittles. and we are all americans. and that's why i love the army. it didn't matter who i was if i was a halfbreed asian girl for good only mattered if i could shoot straight and if i could carry the load when someone needed help. i probably spent more time on that than a racial perspective just because of the meritocracy. host: it is a good segue to the portion of the book where you talk about that. another new york times interview you talk about i don't like to listen to pop culture about war because it's emotional. how hard was it to put this on paper? >> it was hard but i did in one single sitting. is very cathartic. by did have to go back and talk to a lot of people. i don't have a lot of memory what happened past landing the aircraft. i reached up to do the emergency engine shut down because we had a fire. i passed out. i came to within the hour have lots of conversations but i don't remember any of that. the doctors and nurses at the emergency room in baghdad give me a drug to sedate me but they knew the side effect would block my short term memory. they did everybody coming through as an act of mercy. i am grateful to that. but i had to talk and hear what happened in the intervening time. i found it incredibly rewarding the things that i said and did i'm very proud of. i was not a hero that day. i didn't kill anybody to safety. but until they sedated me, i was watching out for my crew. as a soldier and army officer, ultimately that was vindication for who i was at my core. watching out for my guys until the end. host: that is such a remarkable experience to have those conversations. did you have other people helping you? >> i did. it was a group project. over the years i was at walter reed on the nurse in charge of the emergency room had come up to me and said i know who you are. this was within five minutes of being wounded. you came to my emergency room i want you to know what you did. he came to my room and he gave me the number that i could track down the medevac medic and he put me in touch so it ended up being a little facebook group in the hospital unit and medevac unit like a snowball once i found one person me find two people than three people. before long i was in touch with all sorts of folks some in civilian life they were all reaching out and talk to each other. it became very human for the others as well. because many of them once they treat you in baghdad, what happened to the patient they don't know if the patients died or survived. so for many of them it was closure and one in particular that intubated me he said i have haunted him for 15 years with my final words to him before he sedated me. he thanked me for letting him know i was okay. host: was he impressed that now you are a senator? [laughter] >> and military you don't talk politics where they are on the political spectrum but they know. every day is a gift. because every day since that day i was shot down has been a gift. i should have died. the only reason i survived is the heroism of my crew and the doctors and nurses and all the people who took care of me. every day is literally a gift. i tried to convey that but know that you are my northstar and i never want you to make you ashamed or embarrassed to save me by what i have done. host: it is an interesting contrast with trevor noah his born of crime is very upfront about the trauma you experienced a lot of trauma that yet you chose something that is a very joyful sentiment. did you have discussions with others quick. >> we had all sorts of discussions. there is a saying strong in the book in places. triple amputee from vietnam. it was all sorts of things. that one day when i was talking to the publishers into my collaborator, i was talking about the shootdown and they said every day of my life they asked me i had a tough day at work. i don't know a healthcare fighter something. i said i'm exhausted today. we had a tough day and i said that every day is a gift. every day i have is one i'm surprised that i have. they said that's the title. because that's how i live my life. every day i say thank you to carry me out of that field in iraq and then i say okay what can i do today to live up to them for what they did for me on that day. >> sometimes the brainstorming and then you say it out loud. so more logistical question, i was so impressed that you have the time to write this. you mentioned you wrote the part in one sitting. does your husband take over childcare duties? >> i do it in bits and pieces. when i would do the proposal for the book i was writing it up in the notes app on the airplane see have a noun have to sit there and then on long flights going back to iraq, i just that and wrote. i would just write bits and pieces and put it together. then once i had the book deal i got in december and it was due august 2020 i knew i had to get it done. i just hunker down and wrote. even just ten minutes writing a paragraph. it's just a process. i had a great collaborator who worked with me. in my senior senator i talked about how he found me in the hospital gave me a new mission. i sent some copies two different folks. i'm a big fan of sherrod brown and his wife is also led new york times and a best-selling author and then they gave me feedback. i had a lot of people helping me along the way. host: i love that that they are reaching out with great detail. what was the hardest part of the book to write? but there might be another part that you found quick. >> actually my early childhood was the hardest part. it was not an accident it was intentional. it's not on me but the fact this aircraft did a remarkable piece of flying and landed the bird in one piece that's why we are all alive. i want to honor his expertise and he had distinguished flying cross with his actions on that day. i always say it's not a crash but it is a landing. it was an amazing effort to pilot tree one - - pilot. so to reliving poverty in hawaii and also ellie start talking about in recent years as the nation has been in more of a recession and talk about it more and the fact i was on food stamps i was very ashamed for a long time in my early twenties and thirties. i thought that was a failure. not until i realized that was success. because we never gave up as a family. to this day don't get between me and the penny on the ground i will get between you i will roll over you with my wheelchair. that something to be proud of with the american people's help with the food stamps and the free lunch program, we should be more open about that. there are families that are food insecure right now to know that there is hope. host: it makes sense although i would not expect you to choose that part. talk about trevor noah. and in that same interview of "the new york times" a referenced earlier, you referenced you talk about other books like white rage like you would like to see even the president read it. wish i could ask you a question, what book would you have anybody working on the hill is a reporter or staffer read? >> i would rather have a reading list because it does talk about the pendulum swing of our nation every time we have a major civil rights movement and success and stepping forward. but there is a backlash that is part of the nations history. i think people should understand those in the military and that experience the war i always wanted. that's a good book about the iraq war and afghanistan in my generation of troops were thinking after not having been at war over ten years. and that coming-of-age story and what that is for military men and women. i would have a long list. and with apartheid in south africa read that. >> a reading list is fair. another book question i was so struck this is not a political memoir a lot of times members have their eye and something higher but you're just telling a story. is as the book for everyone if they honestly had no idea who you were. >> this book is really for my daughter's. i want them to read and understand the struggles that i went through. and that america provided me the privilege and help along the way. and that america is worth it. i truly wrote this just for my girls. but also for others to understand this democracy is worth fighting for. to give people a perspective as to why i believe in the programs i believe in. why i support more food stamps and more money for public education. i support the policies that i do or how i got to this position based on my experiences. and i hope people get that as well. but this is a love letter to me nation permit for my daughter's so they would understand why i was willing to compromise their life. why i can't teach my daughter to ride a bike that is a cost to her i made a decision before she was even born but i would still do it again in the same position. because our democracy and this union is worth the struggle to become a more perfect union. host: speaking of your daughters one portion made me laugh out loud but when you said what is daddy's name and what is mommy's name and she said in the professional voice tammy duckworth. [laughter] was it tough to talk about your current situation as a working mom? to have them maintain their privacy? how did you wrestle with that quick. >> if you asked me about it when i first ran for office i would not have talked about it but after having my kids are having gone through senate campaign while on ivf and trying to get pregnant. i decided i had to talk about it for other moms are women that are struggling with fertility issues. because people would come up to me and have this idea with the heroics with the treatment and i want people to know there is no such thing of work life balance. it is a lie. it's a lie that is perpetuated the person nation and families in the long run. there is a worklife balance we must pass things like universal family leave, paid family leave. we need to have it and here is why. the fact military women. in 2014 they have to report back even if they had a cesarean even added a duty station was afghanistan they have to do that. that is wrong. i got into that portion it was deeply personal as a mom. i wanted to say i struggled and i see your struggles i had to pump out my breast milk sitting on a toilet stall. i was trying to do the best for my daughter. so i felt to have left it out would have been a disservice. host: you mentioned not even the senate is set up to support that. now the book is out, we're talking today i imagine you're doing other public appearances, to what extent do you want other female leadership to tell stories like this quick. >> i hope more people step forward to speak about the struggle. i understand as a leader i have to step forward and take charge. sometimes, this is exhausting. you just can't and you have to set up boundaries. i want to be realistic about that. i get called all the time by women who want to run for office. especially younger women who have younger children. i tell them i had a huge temper tantrum when i was on my campaign. was of may baby daughter and the campaign i was feeling adequate. even as the world saw me as a senate candidate who had it all together. and want more women who achieve success to be up front it's not just work harder. i was working as hard as i possibly could and barely pulling it together. but i did it. i did make an is a message i want to tell to other families. you can make it. but it is hard. it's not easy but it's worth it in the end. host: absolutely. part of all that, now we see now the average age of motherhood is growing. you became a mom of two at 50. is there anything in writing this recalling what that was like that surprised you? >> actually because of my daughter's they make me do all the things that maybe if i was a mom in my mid- twenties i would not have appreciated. i'm calmer, and more patient. but i also think it has given me a second youthfulness. that on the swing with my kids. i don't think i would do that if i didn't have to. or go to the aquarium just the other day my two -year-old has this great belly laugh running from fish tank to fish tank. just a day of laughter. i say go for it. it's that old line it to be a 50 -year-old with kids were 50 -year-old without kids and wishing that you had some of you talk with somebody who back to college why don't you do that? you are 65 and four years you are 69 anyway. you might is obese 69 -year-old with a college degree. do it. host: very, very good point. you mentioned earlier senior senator durbin he played a central role in your political career. i wonder if you had conversations with him that shaped that part of the book or any notable dialogue about this quick. >> i shared, when i wrote the first half of the book i shared it with him. talk about my writing style it's an army writing style they teach you to do active writing you get to the point in keep sentences short. you do it. so that is how i write because that is how the army taught me. i'm very plainspoken after 23 years in the army. he came back and said it is very moving. i learned about a lot of your experience as a child i can see why you are you made me cry in the passage of the shootdown could you tone down the army language a little bit? i don't think that would be your future career. he could even say the f bomb. [laughter] i gave him a copy i said i am sorry. i toned it down. [laughter] >> he is always watching out for me. i said i did not tone it down. i don't swear that much. he said i didn't thank you would. [laughter] i am very much myself in the book. host: but going back to the stylistic conversation did anybody else read that and say give you color or just say be you? back everybody said just be me. i think i did a good job of describing things. i wanted to show what cambodia was like. before it was just right. my early childhood memory was sitting in a car because it was a french colony at one point and the flowers in the mango trees. there's a lot of description in the book. it was just a description of my style of writing. i needed to be true to myself. >> absolutely. >> 100 percent succeeded in that. one portion of the book, when you were going to fertility treatments, that's incredibly tough to go through the ivf process let alone on a political campaign. did you consider saying more about that? or more to put into words? you talk about it in other parts you say it succeeded after a lot of failures. how did you navigate that quick. >> the book could only be so long. you have constraints on how many pages i didn't want to write 500 pages i wanted them to get through and that was enjoyable. i'm sure some people will cry when they with a part of the shootdown but there is proud moments as well. i felt that i treated it and it front but in my own life i don't well on things for a long time. that is how im. it was tough and insect. even have a chapter about that it sucked and i own it and now i'm moving on. now i am addressing being a working mom two girls under the age of six and a good senator at the same time. i'm always moving on with the next phase. acknowledge what happened. i can't dwell on it. i don't have the time. after this interview i still have to go stuffed easter baskets and we are 48 hours away from easter egg hunt. i just don't have the time to be dwelling on the past. host: absolutely. but i am wondering how constituents shape this. did you have conversations with your personal life and how that inspired you in any particular way quick. >> definitely. my constituents are why i was able to write this book. over the last four years in the house and in the senate as i talked to constituents come i then prompted to tell stories i have never told before i never told people my dad was out of a job for five years and we were struggling. was the only one putting food on the table for our family for a time. finally started to talk about that because emmett folks that were laid off and i look into the audience saying i'm 52 years old what will i do? and it hit me. i just started to talk about my dad in that meeting. i never spoke to him being out of work before. the staff said i did not know that about you. so it is my constituents after i had my two girls i started to talk about ivf and then people would come up and say thank you for talking. one person said because of you i tried ivf and now i have my baby. that constituents have made me comfortable and trying to relate to them to hear to them come i can share experiences with them. that is got me to the place i cannot write this book. i cannot open myself and share the stories and they learn to recognize it. these are stories people have gone through and i hope people can see themselves in my story if there the first person to go to college, if they have been asked where you from. because even though they are americans if they have to fight to try to get some support to be a working mom come i hope they see themselves in this book. host: that is beautiful. i wonder also thinking about your future in different ways. sometimes we see members that spend more time with their family. you have a young family. have you had time to evaluate that? >> no. i have a six-year-old and a three -year-old i have college tuition come up. i cannot stop working for another 18 years at least. [laughter] that is a real problem. my oldest daughter will get my husband's g.i. bill that i use mine for the phd so i have to hustle. [laughter] being a senator is an amazing job. i love it as company commander so i'm happy to be a united states senator. my job i think makes me a better mom. i plan on doing this for a long time to come. host: wonderful. defendant writing another book? >> oh my god. [laughter] let's see how this one goes if it is well received. as i said, i didn't write this book just to tell my story. i wrote to tell america story as an example and then to really answer my daughter's question. it's really for them. i write a letter to my daughters that i think moms and dads might recognize to speak to your child as an adult it from your current experience. if i write another book may be about that. visitors i talked to in the book at walter reed there are characters there and korean war veterans. both of them are in pt's and a physical therapist and in their eighties became this couple about amputees and they were so honest about what life is like and then milkshake man and the one who lost his legs and handing out milkshakes paid out of his own pockets literally for years. love to tell those stories in more detail. host: i think that is a fantastic book idea. this is a fascinating conversation. thank you so much for your time. i hope
we need more younger senators and more women senator. >> absolutely. the passages in this book are fantastic but hoping we can have conversation but what does like on a personal level. the senate as a very tradition and often hidebound institution. how awkward was that talking through -- i think he used the phrase without abreast on the senate floor. >> well, as soon as i became pregnant, i get pregnant througe ivf as i was fine but assumes would are successful, we begin having the conversations because remember the senate was even then when democrats were in the minority we were pretty evenly divided. even then with democrats in the minority we were pretty evenly divided. i knew we would need every single vote. senate rule says i cannot take maternity leave i can introduce legislation or vote. i cannot even give birth in illinois i had to do in dc otherwise i would be stuck there. you cannot take a newborn baby on the airplane. from the beginning i knew we would have to work through a lot of issues including the senate rules. there's no way for me to get on the floor to vote with my baby unless they change the rules. that was almost a nine-month long process of negotiations with amy klobuchar. and orin hatch was the lead committee chairman. host: what does that experience tell you and show you how far washington has to go to be truly feminist with the ability to represent? because as you point out others raise children. >> one thing i learned you can find allies in unexpected places. once a senators knew i was having these conversations and negotiating. orin hatch really didn't want to change the rules. what will the babies dress code going to be? as a mom are you seriously asking me if the baby would adhere to a senate dress code? must have a blazer and shoes. she wears a beanie. i will not take that off. she would be in for the pajamas. i could put shoes on that. i will put a blazer on her. i did that day. but i had members, republican members, marco rubio i hardly ever agree said tammy, i am with you. i will stick up for you. i wish i could've brought my young kids to the floor. we need to do this. we need to change the rules. and roy blunt said tammy i will be the next chairman. i will change the rules. i remember when i was in the house how great it was when i can bring my children to the floor progressive as he became chairman, the same wiki change the rules for me. host: that is fascinating. and it brings me to another question as a hill person i consider that photograph of you entering the building to vote iconic holding her baby daughter. you have been in the public eye for so long. you address this but how did that feel different now not just a public figure. >> i am very jealous of guarding my daughter's privacy. you will rarely see pictures to see their fullface. sometimes you will see media has captured it. but i am most no ways on - - never post pictures with their face. they can decide whether or not they want to post pictures of themselves on social media. but it was important for me to do my job as a working mom. are fighting for working moms everywhere so it was very symbolic for all of the moms who work outside of the home as well. to see me break down that barrier i could show even a senator has to fight to bring her kid onto the floor to do her job. host: talk about very common experiences that women don't talk about, you were very candid about ivf and how tough that was. that is something a lot of women are starting to share more and more to get rid of the unnecessary shame attached to it. you talked about it matter of fact and your initial experience with the doctor in a catholic hospital who did not give you your full options. you can walk through with that shows you trying to help press healthcare policy to be more inclusive with fertility options. >> i was a congresswoman at the time. that was a learning experience. prior i was at the v.a. i also use them for the healthcare. at the time so had very limited services. every v.a. hospital has a civilian teaching hospital as a partner. the v.a. i go to happens to be a catholic institution which i didn't ever think about ever go to them for mammograms or routine care. but when they return on - - referred me to maternity services the doctor did not even examine me or take me into the clinic. she met me in the waiting room. your 43 years old. you are too old. you have less than a 3 percent chance of getting pregnant. the best you can do is go home and enjoy your husband and sent me on my way. not knowing anything about treatments i believed her. this is a doctor and hospital i have received excellent care. it never even occurred to me. had no reason to believe i was to all that 43 to get pregnant. i had been trying for ten years. so my husband enjoyed that line about enjoy your husband but then two years later i was speaking at a women in leadership seminar when a woman who was there the question was asked, had you manager work life balance i try but i regret i could never have children because then i struggled and cannot get pregnant now i am 44 or 45. a woman said you are not too old go to this doctor. at northwestern in chicago. he has knocked up every single woman over 40 in chicago. go to him. i didn't believe her. was very polite she continue to pester me every month. finally i went i went in to see the doctor who said you work with me and go to the process. there's no reason why you cannot get pregnant and he examined be one - - examine me. eighteen months to the day i was pregnant. i don't want anybody else to be misled the way i was. i said i thought i couldn't get pregnant and i was too old. he said where did you go? because that's a catholic institution as a catholic church they do not support ivf specifically because it's fertilization of an egg outside of the human body. that happens a lot. so i included this in the book because i want other women and other families who try to start a family to know that they have options. and it is a struggle but it is worth it. have two beautiful girls one at 46 and then another right after i turned 50. host: it is incredible. you go into this in great depth. i wonder how you contextualize the story we didn't even get to the rest. and with healthcare policy there are very few members who have your direct experience with these choices of working women that they make every day. did you think about this as you are working or was that separate quick. >> everything i have experienced a bring to work with me because i think it makes me a better public servant for my constituents. i also told my staff members as they go through their lives with experiences. what the point of working for united states senator if you cannot work on your passion projects? i have been working very hard on reproductive rights not just as a progressive democratic women take on people's attention including my republican colleagues. if you support the persons of amendments of fertilized egg is a full person with rights you will make ivf out of reach for most people. my doctor said if this passes, tammy i could be convicted of manslaughter if i put fertilized eggs and you knowing that probably two of them will not take because they are human beings and has rights. think about what you are doing when you pass legislation on reproductive access for women. i bring that to the table. i wrote about it and letters to my colleagues and a speak up all the time. is not just about choice in terms of abortion but to want to have children and have techniques beyond my grasp because of these laws that haven't seen consequences most people don't even think about. host: i covered this but you raised this issue and had a discussion during the confirmation process. talking to more of your colleagues like the senators that were allies and access on the floor does it make them more open to talking about it? >> i think so. time and again whether we talk about the post office and then to support the u.s. postal service i get my medication through the mail. it's one thing for the mail to be the couple of days late but if it is three weeks late and is my medication for phantom pain people are suffering. i also think i bring to the table i introduced the mom act talking about the high maternal mortality rates among african of american women they need to support their not listen to in the childbirth process. and the diaper needs act talking on - - talk about people cannot afford diapers for their children in daycare not because it'll have access to daycare but access to diapers if they are choosing between food and diapers if you drop off a child you have to include diapers then you can't that your child in daycare then you can go to work. so i think it makes a better legislator. and my colleagues have their own experience that they are helpful to them as well. host:'s now going back to the earlier chapters in your life you discussed, i was struck reading "the new york times" review because they had the thought that i had. there are certain parallels to dreams of my father. you get extremely personal. your style of writing is very different from president obama. he could be a little ornate but i just like you get down to it. so what was that like? so discuss who your influences were because you are so candid what it was like growing up to have the vision of america and your life in america and you get really personal. did you say this is the way senator duckworth would talk quick. >> i really enjoyed born of crime. the title was amazing. very personal about being born biracial in south africa even his parents got together and had him. and my parents met each other and fell in love and had me my dad and home state of virginia could not have married my mother because it had not yet passed in virginia. and i learned so much about apartheid to the individual on the black side of the equation and the white side. i wanted to do the same thing for the experience of growing up biracial in asia. i wanted to teach the reader about what it was like to grow up in southeast asia post- vietnam but also why i still believe america is worth it. america is worth fighting for. my sexual daughter abigail asked me the question. mommy you don't have legs. she wants me to teach her to ride her bike. but i can't run alongside of her to push the bike. so she said why couldn't somebody else's mommy or daddy go to iraq and lose their legs? why you? i wanted to show her america is worth it. democracy is worth it. it began me growing up has an american in southeast asia. to understand what a privilege it was that i was an american. but i can leave the war-torn country when i wanted to because i had the passport and another children could not because they were abandoned by their fathers but i was not abandoned by mine. host: speaking of your father, his experience in the v.a. system, was the first chapter in a chapter such a combination of the personal and frankly the political to talk about how the system can fail >> so my dad did what a lot of veterans do which is they don't go to va to get the care they need and support they need because they think they're okay and they're saving the care for their bodies and my dad time and again line to the va. he had wounds from his military service and he would say i don't need anything, you take care of the other guys which is what you learn to do in the service, you look out for your buddies and our veterans would take that to the most extreme form and i write about this in the book where for example ouin italy when i was director of the state department of veterans affairs the federal va said there were thousand veterans in illinois but i knew there were 1.2 million veterans because that's how many individual veterans apply for licenses from the secretary of the state so the va is undercounting 400,000 veterans in illinois which means that when the va goes to build a new hospital they look at all the states and the illinois has thousand veterans, it doesn't need additional water to hospitals were going to build so that means illinois doesn't get those hospitals and windows 400,000 veterans do need to go to va for help but help isn't there, it's gone somewhere else i spent a lot of time telling veterans even if you don't plan to use it sign up so the va knows you're therethe best way you can take care of your buddies is not not enrolled , the best way you can take care of your body is enroll so that they know you are there and get counted but i run into this all the time. they're still in that mode of taking care of their bodies, sacrificing for the team instead of watching out for themselves and it ends up wearing the team when they don't go inand get the care they need . >> i should say i saw it as a system variable you say this in the book. it's a matter of the culture of taking care ofveterans needing to evolve . is your book that telling your story can help that happen? >> all the stories in the book about me growing up in asia and rivera in america and being so lucky i was american or talking about being hungry, when i was in my teens and my dad had lost his job and was unemployed for over for five years, i've been telling me stories osto people because i know there are people that have lost a job in their 50s and they're behind on their rent and are literally a day away from homelessness the way we were and are grateful for the food stamps or are scraping by whatever they can and are choosing between two i feed my kids or do i take medicine? all those things. i them all together in the book to show that you're not alone . you're not alone and there are people like me who are in positions of power to understand and see you and are trying our best to solve the problems you're stfacing but despite all that, the safety nets are there for me. the safety nets were there. i did get the food stamps on it, i did go to a public school, i could graduate from college with relatively low debt, all that was available so that i could join the army and become a us senator one day and i want to make sure those units are there for other people . >> another sort of question i have about your inspiration for this. the current situation with anti-asian crime frankly when a really terrifying moment for a lot of asian american civic islanders in this country land i know you're working on legislation that can help address this but i'm wondering when you are writing this book i imagine we may be worth yet and the virus pandemic but whether that entered into your mind in terms of talking about your experience to people who might suffer discrimination you're in america. >> chapters about feeling of permanent other about actually being discriminated against when i was in asia because iwas half what . i was born for being half white and insulted and treated differently by my asian cousins because i was half white and didn't fit in with the asian community and i talk about being and other later on and that all happened before coronavirus. so i hope people take from that and understand this is a universal experience among asian american pacific erislanders in the united states . we are the one group in this country that after some of our ancestors have gone through fighting for the north and the civil war had it taken away from them in the chinese exclusion. veterans of the civil war had their citizenship they had earned taken away due to the chinese exclusion act h. we are the only population that our families put into internment camps in the middle of the war and fought for this country even as our family members were living behind barbed wire just because they were of companies dissent or looks like they would be of japanese descent . so i have had people come up to me while i was wearing the uniform of my asian with the american flag on my shoulder and asked where are you really from? duckworth isn't really your name, that's your husband's name . no, i duckworth was been here since before the revolution ba so i want to explain that so this past year has been hard on the ati community because that otherness is always been with us now to be the target of the crimes that are just exploding and part of it is because the president of the united states is using a speech. donald is saying things like kung fu virus and blaming the chinese for the virus but not saying the people's republic of china but same the chinese people coming up to chinese-americans and committing crimes against them have been really traumatic for the ati community. infact they crimes have risen 550 percent in our major cities , over 3000 cases of reported hate crimes against aapi's. the recorded asvandalism, monday, theft, anything other than the crime . >> the answer to this might be nothing but i wonder editor if you got a chance to reopen your book now in light of what we're seeing in light of bias crimes and even more, how you address the otherness issue, would you add anything? >> i think i would maybe spend a little bit more time talking about how when it really mattered the identity of america was all that mattered. in my helicopter on that day i talked at length aboutthe shootdown . i think i would have talked d about being in part of the helicopter crew it doesn't matter if you're rich orpoor, black or white or asian or hispanic . i've been part of doctor cruz where there's one of each flavor and their . we're all different colors and we're all americans. and that's why i love the army because it didn't matter who i was or that i was a little halfbreedasian girl . it's only matter if i could shoot straight and whether or not i was willing to carry the mold when someone was out. i would have spent more time on that from a racial perspective and just from thinking of falling in love with the army . >> interesting. it's tactually a good segue to the portion of the book where you talk about the shootdown. i read another new york times interview for this discussion in which you talk about i don't want to consume much pop culture about war because it's top for me to watch. how hard was it to put all this on paper? >> it was hard but i did it all in one single sitting and it was very hardto get away . but i did have to go back and talk to a lot of people because i don't have a lot of memory of what happened past landing aircraft so when dan rc miller landed aircraft and i reached up to try to finish the emergency engine shutdown to prevent a fire ipassed out then . i came to later on within the hour and i had lots of conversations with people but i don't remember any of that because the doctors and nurses at the emergency room in baghdad he a drug to sedate me that they knew the side effects would be to wipe my memory and my short-term memory and they do all that for the units coming through as an act of mercy and i'm grateful to them for that but i had to go find those doctors and nurses and talk to them and hear what happened in the intervening time and i found it incredibly rewarding because i was told things that i said and did and i'm very proud. i was not here that day i didn't land the aircraft, i didn't carry anybody to safety but i'm told they sedately and i was watching out for my crew and as a soldier, as an army officer that ultimately was a vindication for who i was at my core that i waswatching out for my guys until the end . >> that is such a remarkable experience how you have those conversations and you mentioned did you. >> there was a group project, what happened was some folks had found these and when i was at walter reed, one of the nurses in charge of the emergency room had come up to me and said i know you are. this is within four or five months of me being wounded and he said you came through my emergency room, i want you to know what you did and he gave me his name and i was able to track down the medevac medic in the helicopter and then he put me in charge with other anfolks so it ended up being a little facebook group for the medevac units in house units where they all, and statistics it's called snowball sampling. think of a snowball rolling down getting bigger and bigger, once i found two people that ohelped me find three people and before long i was in touch with all sorts of who were all reaching out and they all talk to each other and it became really for the others as well because many of them never saw once they treated you in baghdad what happened to the patients, they didn't know if those patients died or survived . many of them, it was closure and one of them but one nurse who integrated me he said i had wanted him for 15 years with my final words to him before he sedated me and he just thanked me for letting them know i was okay. >> it's kind of impressed thatyou know a us senator . >> the thing about being in the military we don't talk politics . we don't care where people are on this political spectrum but they know. the book is called every day is a gift because every day since that day when i was shot down has been a gift and i should have died in that, the only reason i survived is through the heroism of my crew. the house and all the doctors and nurses and all the people who took care of me so every day for me is literally a gift these men and women have given outside to convey that to them and say we may not always agree but know that you guys are not far and i try to never make you ashamed or embarrassed to have saved me by what i've done . >> speaking of the title, it's an interesting contrast with trouble turnover is title. his title for a crime is very upfront about the trauma inherent . your experience a lot of trauma yet you title your book something that's a joyful positive sentiment was it hard to settle on the title west and mark. >> we had all sorts of discussion about what this book was supposedto befall . there's a saying, strong in the book in places, that's the title for this book, from vietnam. we got a whole sorts of things. my calls i just mad dog six, we could have called it back but one may as i was writing this to the publisher and to my collaborator, i was talking about the shootdown and i say but you know, every day of my life i think i had a tough day at work. i don't know what it was, maybeit was a healthcare fight or something and i said i'm really exhausted . you had a tough day but i said every day is a gift because every day i have is one that i'm surprised i have and they said that's the type . that's the type. because that's how i live my life. every day i get up, thank my dad and chris spears and kurt hannemann and matt bacchus for carrying me out of that field in iraq and then i say okay. what do i have to do today to live up to what they did for me on that day . >> sometimes all the brainstorming and in you uttering the title out loud. i love that story. another logistical question senator, i'm so impressed that you have the time to write this and you mentioned you wrote the part about doing it in one sitting. did your husband take over childcare duties? >> i do it in bits and pieces so when i was doing the proposal for the book i was writing it for the most part on my iphone on airplanes. you have an hour and a half sitting there. and then when i was on long flights when we were, i went back to iraq so i just sat and wrote there. so i would just write bits and pieces and put it together at once i have the book deal and i know i got the book deal in december and i was doing it in august 2020 i knew i had to get this thing done i just down and wrote. it's just about making sure that even 10 minutes writing down a paragraph and so it's just a process and i had a great collaborator who worked with me and reme along and had lots of good proofreaders. i sent dick durbin my senior senator who is in the book, i talk about how he found me in the hospital and gave me a new mission and encouraged me to write . i sent him copies three and i sent it to different folks that i'm a big fan of sherrod brown and his thought process and his wife is also a new york times, connie is a best-selling author so i sent it to them achapter here and there . so i have lots of people hoping me along the way. >> i love the center of the yacht, that's a great detail. what was the hardest part of the book to write? i'm assuming it's talking about the track but there's be another part of the most difficult. >> my early childhood was the hardest part c. lots of practice work shootdown because the badguys took aim. it was intentional and we landed the bird . >> no, it's fine. it's not on me. it's the fact that dan miller the pilot in command of the aircraft had a remarkable piece of flying and landed that burden one piece and that's why we're all alive i want to honor his expertise and he received the distinguished flying cross for his actions on that day though i always say it's not a craft, it's a landing. dan did an amazingeffort . >> thank you. >> no problem. probably my early childhood stop was the hardest to write . i had closed off a lot of that struggle of reliving poverty in hawaii. i only started talking about it in recent years as the nation has been in more of a depression, a recession and talk about it more and the fact that i was on food stamps. i was very ashamed of being on food stamps for a long time in my early 20s and 30s. i thought that was a failure. it's only until i got later in life that i realized that was access because we never gave up as a family. to this day don't get between me and a penny on the ground. i will roll over you in my wheelchair to pick that up because i know the value of a penny. that's something to be proud of because we pick ourselves up. with the school lunch program, the school breakfast program, we should be more obligated about that because there are other families that are food insecure rightnow that need to know that there's hope . >> it makes sense although i would not have expected you to choose that part. you talk about trevor noah and in that same interview of the new york times i referenced earlier you reference your affection and talk about other books like white rage which is a book that you referenced reading recently and that you would like to see even the president read and i wish i could ask you a question i will now ask you which is what book you have anybody working on the hill, recorder or staffer read a book? >> i would definitely put white rage on there because it does talk about the pendulum swing in our nation every time we had a major movement and success and stepping forward that there is this backlash and it's part of our nation'shistory . i think that's one that you can read. i think people should understand those in the military and that experience. brendan friedman who wrote the more i always wanted is a good, that's a good book about the iraq war and afghanistan as well and what my generation of troops were thinking after havingnot been at war . with that coming-of-age story is for military men and women but i would have a whole long -a list of things. you want to learn about apartheid, reed born a crime because it's good. >> that's fair, a reading list is probably fair. another book question i had is reading your book on social this is not your political memoir which often times members have their eye on something higher, you're just telling a completely engrossing story and i wonder do you mean this book for everyone whether they're from another kstate? >> this book was written for my daughters. iwant them to read and understand america is worth it . i want them to understand the struggles i went through and that america provided me the privilege and would help on the along the way and that america is worth it. i truly wrote this just for my girls but also for others who understand this democracy is worth fighting for and maybe to give people a perspective as to why i believe in the programs and why i support things like more food stamps or money for public education. why i support the policies that i do and to really expand edhow we got to these positions based on my experiences. and i hope people get that as well but really this book is the love letter to my nation written for my daughters though they would understand why i was moving to even compromise their life. that's a cost to her that i made a decision before she was even born that resulted in me losing my license and i would do it again, make the same decision because our democracy and this less s than perfect union is worth the struggle to become a more perfect union. >> speaking of your daughter one portion that did make me laugh out loud and i'm going to botch the paraphrase but when you ask your daughter what daddy's name and she said in that perfect lid tammy duckworth. i cracked up. was it tough decision is still talk about your current situation as a working mom because as you mentioned you want to have your daughters, how did you wrestle with that? >> if you'd asked me about it when i first ran for office i would not have talked about it but after having had my two girls, after having gone through a senate campaign while on ivf and having a miscarriage, i decided i had to talk about it for other moms who work outside the home and other women who are struggling with fertility issues . plus i realize people would come up to me and have this idea that my life is all and the ip treatment and i want people to know there's no such thing as work white balance. it is a lie and it is alive that gets perpetuated that hurts our nation and our families in the long run. because there is no worklife balance. we must pass things like universal family leave. we need to have it and here's why. the fact that military women, this is when i started in 2014, military women had to report back to duty even if they had necessary and, even if that duty station was afghanistan they wouldhave to do that . so i got that portion that was deeply personal as a mom because i wanted to really say that i struggle with it and i see your struggle and that i too have had to pump my breast milk out sitting on the toilet stall. because there's no place to express them i was trying to do the best for my daughter but the system is not set up to support a mom who works outside of the home and so i felt that to have left it out would have been a disservice. >> as you mentioned not even the senate report that. now that this book is out, we're talking today i imagine you're doing a lot of other public appearances. to what extent do you want maybe other female leadership figures in politics to start telling stories like erthat and getting personal? >> i hope that more people step forward and speak about the struggle. i understand that i have to step forward and take charge often but sometimes you're just too exhausted and you can't take charge and you have to set up boundaries so i want to be realisticabout that . i get called all the time i women who want to run for office and especially for federal office, younger women who have younger children and i tell them you read the book you'll see the story where i broke down on the campaign i had had enough and when i was with my campaign i was with my baby daughter and i felt inadequate. even if the world saw me as this senate candidate who had it all together and i watched more women who do have success to be upfront eabout the fact that it's astruggle and it's not all , you have to work harder. i was working as hard as i possibly could and i was barely holding it together but i did it and i did make it and that's the message i want to tell to otherfamilies , that you can make it but it's hard. it's not easy but it's worth it in the end. >> absolutely. and part of all that, we're now seeing a little bit of a w baby bump in this country and certainly the average age of motherhood grow. us somebody who became a mom of two at 50, is there anything in writing this and recalling what that was like, anything that surprised you, anything you want to share with those watching right now ? >> i actually feel younger because of my daughters. they make me do all these things that if i had been a mom in my mid-20s i would not have appreciated. i think i am a caller mother, more patients but i also think that it's given me a second usefulness. and i sit on the swing with omy kids. i don't think i would do that if i didn't have kids and i went to the aquarium just the other day with my three-year-old. she has this great belly laugh and she was runningfrom fish tank to fish tank mommy, fish . it's just laughter and i say go for it. it's that old line, you can either be a 50-year-old with kids and wishing that you had some or when you talk to somebody who wants to go back to college, why would you do that, your 65 west and mark in four years you'll be 69 anyway, youmight as well be a 59-year-old with a college degree so do it . >> very good point. you mentioned you were in a conversation but you're a senior senator, senator durbin is arguably played a central role in your political career and i wonder whether you had conversations with him that she that part ha of the book or if there's any notable dialogue you had with them about this as you wrote . re>> when i wrote the first half of this book through the shootdown i shared with him . and you talk about almy nwedding, the army teaches you to do actual writing. you get to the point you keep your sentences short subject, verb, noun . you do it and so that's how i write because that's how the army taught me. i'm very much an active voice and i spent 23 years in the army and dick came back to me and it was very moving. i learned a lot about your experiences and i can see why you are the way you are now. you made me cry with your passage about the shootdown but could you turn down the army language just a little bit. i don't think that's going to be good for your futurecareer to have that many,that much. he didn't even say f bombs . i don't think you should be writing . and i gave him a copy of the book the other day and said i didn't tone down, he said i didn't think you would. >> that's really funny. >> he's always watching out for me, is my mentor. but i know, you have to be true to yourself. i don't swear that much, it's only with my army buddies but i'm very much myself in the book.>> but going back to the stylistic conversation did anybody read this and go give me some color or were they kind of saying be you, right your style. >> everybody said beanie. i think i couldget a good job . i want to show people for example what cambodia was like. obefore it was destroyed and i remember my early childhood memory was sitting in the car with like a used the warm role of french bread because i it had been a french colony at one point and the flowers and mango trees so there's a lot of description in the book but it was just a description in my style of writing and talking. i needed to be true to myself . >> absolutely. and 100 percent succeeded in that one portion of the book that i'm wondering is when you were going through , and incredibly tough phase 2 oh through the eaivf process let alone during a political campaign. did you consider saying more about that? was there more that you found tough to put into words because you talk about it and there are other portions where you say you succeeded after a lot of failures. i do not get back? >> i wanted to address it av viable and only be so long so you have constraints in terms of how many pages i didn't want to write a 500 page tome . i want to write a book you could get through. and was enjoyable. i'm sure that some people will cry when they read the portions about the shootdown and how i feel about my buddies but i hope there are laugh out loud moments as well . so i thought that i treated it and i was about it but in my own life i don't dwell on things for a long time. that's how i am. i wentthrough that, stuff, it sucked . ti have a chapter called on the site. which is an army philosophy and it starts and i own it and now i'm moving on. now i'm addressing the sake of being a working mom of two girls under the noage of six and trying to be a good senator at the same time so i'm always moving on with the next phase. i acknowledgewhat happened . i don't share away from it but i can't dwell on it because i just don't have the time. after this interview i got to find all the stuff for my easter basket which i haven't done yet and what are we, 48 hours away western mark i just don't have the time to spend dwelling on the past. >> absolutely. it's a fantastic chapter title by the way. i'm wondering how constituents take this at all. if you had any conversations with people about your personal life that ended up affecting chaptersin the book . that inspired you in any particular way. >> definitely. my constituents are why i was able to write this book because over the last years, as i talked to constituents i've been prompted to tell s stories i never told before. i never told people that my dad was out of a job for five years and that we were struggling and that i was the only one putting food on the table for our family. i only started talking about that because i went and met folks at the steel mill that had been laid off and i looked out of this audience and people saying i'm 52 years old, what am i going to do and it hit me o. i just started talking about my dad in that meeting and i had never spoken abouthim being out of work for and my sacrifices . i did not know that about you so it is my constituents. it's the fact that the right had my two girls i spent started talking about ivf and men said thank you for talking about that and i've had more than one person say i tried ivf and i had my baby so it is my constituents who have made me comfortable and trying to relate to them and shield them, i've been able to share experiences with them and that's got me to the place where i'm now able to write this book because i've been able to open up myself and share the stories i've learned to recognize it. these are not uniquely my stories, these are stories people have gone through and i hope people see themselves in my story whether there the first person to go to college like i was or whether they have been asked where are you from the cause you know, even ugthough their american. whether they have had to fight to try to get some support at work for being a working mom. they see themselves in this book. >> that's very beautiful. you know, i wonder if it helps you think about your future in a different way. we sometimes see members step away to spend more timewith their family and you have a young family . >> i got to pay for college, i got a six-year-old and three-year-old. i've got college tuition coming up. i can't stop working for another 18 years at least. that's a real problem. my coldest daughter would get my husband g.i. bill but i use my phd so i got to be hustling for my money. no, look. it's being a senator is an amazing job and i love it. the only thing better than this job is company commander and as i stand here i'm happy to be a united states senator and i think my job makes me a better mom. and so i plan on doing this for a long time to come. a>> wonderful. do you plan on maybe writing another book? >> let's see how this one goes. let's see if this one is well-received . i as i said, i didn't write this book just to tell my story. i wrote this book to tell america's story and that my life is an example of america's story and to answer my daughter's questions. this is for them. i and the book with a letter to my daughter that i think other moms and dads might recognize just the desire to your child as an adult but from your current experience. if i want another book it might be about all the great people at walter reed helped me recover, all the visitors in my book and there such characters there. l and thomas l porter kumar korean war veterans. both of our he's an amputee, she's a physical therapist and in their 80s became the sex talk couple. for the amputees because they were so upfront about what life is like post amputation and to that milkshake man, a vietnam veteran who lost both his legs that wandered around walter reed handing out milkshakes paid out of his own pocket for years to help support thetroops so i'd love to tell those stories in more detail . >> not to make more work for youbut i think that's a fantastic book idea . this was a fascinating conversation, thank you so much for your time and i hope we all go out and read the book. thank you again. >>. >> hello everyone and welcome to the national book festival . >> over the past 21 years in partnership with the library of congress book tv has provided in-depth uninterrupted coverage of the national book festival featuring hundreds of nonfictionauthors and guests . and on saturday, book tv returns live and in person to the library of congress national book festival. all day long you'll hear from and interact with guests and authors such as librarian of congress carla hayden, journalist david merideth, writer clint smith and more. the library of congress national book festival live saturday beginning at 9:30 a.m.eastern on c-span2 . >> live sunday uc berkeley governmental studies scholar stephen hayward will be our guest to talk about leadership, ronald reagan's political career and the americanconservative movement. he's the author of several books including two volumes of the age of reagan series , greatness and patriotism is not enough about the scholars who changed the course of conservative politics in america. join in the conversation with your phone calls, comments, texts and tweets. in-depth with even hayward live sunday at noon eastern on tv on c-span2. >> weekends are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories and on sundays book tv brings you the latest and nonfiction books andauthors . funding comes from these television companies and more . including mexico. [music] >> may go along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service . >> jason riley is a pleasure to be with you. we have been together on my radio show. you have made a number of videos and i read you in the wall street journal. your pretty ubiquitous in my life,i want you to know that . >> you, good to be here
younger senators and women senators. younger senators. host: the passages are fantastic but i hope we can have a candid conversation what that looks like on the personal level to be a very tradition bound institution. how awkward was that? talk me through. you use the phrase with abreast on the senate floor. [laughter] >> as soon as i became pregnant it was through ivf. i was trying. we began having conversations because the senate and even then when the women minority, we were pretty evenly divided and i know we need every single vote so i couldn't take maternity leave and senate rules i cannot take paternity leave because if i do, i can't introduce legislation, can't vote or do anything so i couldn't even give birth in illinois where he wanted to, i had to do it in d.c. because if i was in illinois, i would have beenno stuck you can't take a by on an airplane so even from the beginning i knew we have to work through a lot of issueshe including senate rules. there's no way to get on the floor to vote with my baby unless they change the rules. nh long process of negotiations with amy klobuchar. and orin hatch was the lead committee chairman. host: what does that experience tell you and show you how far washington has to go to be truly feminist with the ability to represent? because as you point out others raise children. >> one thing i learned you can find allies in unexpected places. once a senators knew i was having these conversations and negotiating. orin hatch really didn't want to change the rules. what will the babies dress code going to be? as a mom are you seriously asking me if the baby would adhere to a senate dress code? must have a blazer and shoes. she wears a beanie. i will not take that off. she would be in for the pajamas. i could put shoes on that. i will put a blazer on her. i did that day. but i had members, republican members, marco rubio i hardly ever agree said tammy, i am with you. i will stick up for you. i wish i could've brought my young kids to the floor. we need to do this. we need to change the rules. and roy blunt said tammy i will be the next chairman. i will change the rules. i remember when i was in the house how great it was when i can bring my children to the floor progressive as he became chairman, the same wiki change the rules for me. host: that is fascinating. and it brings me to another question as a hill person i consider that photograph of you entering the building to vote iconic holding her baby daughter. you have been in the public eye for so long. you address this but how did that feel different now not just a public figure. >> i am very jealous of guarding my daughter's privacy. you will rarely see pictures to see their fullface. sometimes you will see media has captured it. but i am most no ways on - - never post pictures with their face. they can decide whether or not they want to post pictures of themselves on social media. but it was important for me to do my job as a working mom. are fighting for working moms everywhere so it was very symbolic for all of the moms who work outside of the home as well. to see me break down that barrier i could show even a senator has to fight to bring her kid onto the floor to do her job. host: talk about very common experiences that women don't talk about, you were very candid about ivf and how tough that was. that is something a lot of women are starting to share more and more to get rid of the unnecessary shame attached to it. you talked about it matter of fact and your initial experience with the doctor in a catholic hospital who did not give you your full options. you can walk through with that shows you trying to help press healthcare policy to be more inclusive with fertility options. >> i was a congresswoman at the time. that was a learning experience. prior i was at the v.a. i also use them for the healthcare. at the time so had very limited services. every v.a. hospital has a civilian teaching hospital as a partner. the v.a. i go to happens to be a catholic institution which i didn't ever think about ever go to them for mammograms or routine care. but when they return on - - referred me to maternity services the doctor did not even examine me or take me into the clinic. she met me in the waiting room. your 43 years old. you are too old. you have less than a 3 percent chance of getting pregnant. the best you can do is go home and enjoy your husband and sent me on my way. not knowing anything about treatments i believed her. this is a doctor and hospital i have received excellent care. it never even occurred to me. had no reason to believe i was to all that 43 to get pregnant. i had been trying for ten years. so my husband enjoyed that line about enjoy your husband but then two years later i was speaking at a women in leadership seminar when a woman who was there the question was asked, had you manager work life balance i try but i regret i could never have children because then i struggled and cannot get pregnant now i am 44 or 45. a woman said you are not too old go to this doctor. at northwestern in chicago. he has knocked up every single woman over 40 in chicago. go to him. i didn't believe her. was very polite she continue to pester me every month. finally i went i went in to see the doctor who said you work with me and go to the process. there's no reason why you cannot get pregnant and he examined be one - - examine me. eighteen months to the day i was pregnant. i don't want anybody else to be misled the way i was. i said i thought i couldn't get pregnant and i was too old. he said where did you go? because that's a catholic institution as a catholic church they do not support ivf specifically because it's fertilization of an egg outside of the human body. that happens a lot. so i included this in the book because i want other women and other families who try to start a family to know that they have options. and it is a struggle but it is worth it. have two beautiful girls one at 46 and then another right after i turned 50. host: it is incredible. you go into this in great depth. i wonder how you contextualize the story we didn't even get to the rest. and with healthcare policy there are very few members who have your direct experience with these choices of working women that they make every day. did you think about this as you are working or was that separate quick. >> everything i have experienced a bring to work with me because i think it makes me a better public servant for my constituents. i also told my staff members as they go through their lives with experiences. what the point of working for united states senator if you cannot work on your passion projects? i have been working very hard on reproductive rights not just as a progressive democratic women take on people's attention including my republican colleagues. if you support the persons of amendments of fertilized egg is a full person with rights you will make ivf out of reach for most people. my doctor said if this passes, tammy i could be convicted of manslaughter if i put fertilized eggs and you knowing that probably two of them will not take because they are human beings and has rights. think about what you are doing when you pass legislation on reproductive access for women. i bring that to the table. i wrote about it and letters to my colleagues and a speak up all the time. is not just about choice in terms of abortion but to want to have children and have techniques beyond my grasp because of these laws that haven't seen consequences most people don't even think about. host: i covered this but you raised this issue and had a discussion during the confirmation process. talking to more of your colleagues like the senators that were allies and access on the floor does it make them more open to talking about it? >> i think so. time and again whether we talk about the post office and then to support the u.s. postal service i get my medication through the mail. it's one thing for the mail to be the couple of days late but if it is three weeks late and is my medication for phantom pain people are suffering. i also think i bring to the table i introduced the mom act talking about the high maternal mortality rates among african of american women they need to support their not listen to in the childbirth process. and the diaper needs act talking on - - talk about people cannot afford diapers for their children in daycare not because it'll have access to daycare but access to diapers if they are choosing between food and diapers if you drop off a child you have to include diapers then you can't that your child in daycare then you can go to work. so i think it makes a better legislator. and my colleagues have their own experience that they are helpful to them as well. host:'s now going back to the earlier chapters in your life you discussed, i was struck reading "the new york times" review because they had the thought that i had. there are certain parallels to dreams of my father. you get extremely personal. your style of writing is very different from president obama. he could be a little ornate but i just like you get down to it. so what was that like? so discuss who your influences were because you are so candid what it was like growing up to have the vision of america and your life in america and you get really personal. did you say this is the way senator duckworth would talk quick. >> i really enjoyed born of crime. the title was amazing. very personal about being born biracial in south africa even his parents got together and had him. and my parents met each other and fell in love and had me my dad and home state of virginia could not have married my mother because it had not yet passed in virginia. and i learned so much about apartheid to the individual on the black side of the equation and the white side. i wanted to do the same thing for the experience of growing up biracial in asia. i wanted to teach the reader about what it was like to grow up in southeast asia post- vietnam but also why i still believe america is worth it. america is worth fighting for. my sexual daughter abigail asked me the question. mommy you don't have legs. she wants me to teach her to ride her bike. but i can't run alongside of her to push the bike. so she said why couldn't somebody else's mommy or daddy go to iraq and lose their legs? why you? i wanted to show her america is worth it. democracy is worth it. it began me growing up has an american in southeast asia. to understand what a privilege it was that i was an american. but i can leave the war-torn country when i wanted to because i had the passport and another children could not because they were abandoned by their fathers but i was not abandoned by mine. host: speaking of your father, his experience in the v.a. system, was the first chapter in a chapter you continued later on as somebody grappling with the v.a. so talk readers through was at personally painful to explore? with the political talk about this. >> my dad don't go to the v.a. to get the care and the support that they need because they think they are okay and they are saving the care for their buddies. my dad time and again lied and said i would find. i don't need anything you take care of the other guys. which is what you learn to do in the service and look out for your buddy. but they took that to the most extreme form. i write about this the example in illinois as the director of the state department, the federal v.a. said there were 800,000 veterans in illinois. i knew there were at least one.2 million because that is how many individual veterans applied for license plates for the secretary of state. the v.a. is undercounting 400,000 veterans in illinois. so when they go to build a new hospital they say illinois is only 800,000 it doesn't need the additional hospital we will build. that means illinois doesn't get the hospital. and those other 4000 that are not being counted do need help to help is not they are it has gone somewhere else. i spent a lot of time telling veterans even if you don't plan to use it go sign up so they know you are there. the best way to take care of your buddy is not to enroll in the v.a. but to enroll so they know you are there and you are counted. i run into this all the time. they are in the mode of taking care of their buddies or sacrificing for the team instead of watching out for themselves and it hurts the team when they don't get the care they need. host: you eloquently say in the book it's just a matter of the culture of taking care of veterans. is your hope that telling your story can help that to happen quick. >> i hope so. all the stories in the book of me growing up in asia and to be so lucky i was american or to talk about being hungry when i was in my teens and my dad lost his job and was unemployed four or five years in his fifties. i tell the stories to people because i know people have lost a job. they can't get another one and they are behind in their rent literally one day away from homelessness the way we were and they are just scraping by where they can and choosing between do i feed my kids or take medicine? all of those things. i show that you are not alone. there are people like me in positions of power who try our best to solve the problem. but despite all of that the safety nets were there. i did get the food stamps. i could go to a public school to graduate from. i could graduate from college for my bachelors degree. all of that was available and a could join the army to become a senator one day. i want to make sure the safety nets are there for other people. host: another question about your inspirations. with the current situation with the anti- asian hate crime a terrifying moment for a lot of asian americans and pacific islanders in the country. you are working on legislation to address this, but when you are writing this book i imagine we were in the coronavirus but how do that into your mind talking about your experience to people who might suffer discrimination here in america? >> about the chapter about being discriminated against when i was in asia because i was half white. i was going for being half white and insulted and treated differently by my asian cousins because i was halfway and didn't fit in with the asian community. then i talk about being another later on in that happened before coronavirus hit. i hope people understand this is a universal experience among asian americans and pacific islanders in the united states. we are the ones after our ancestors going from the civil war had it taken away from them in the chinese exclusion act veterans actually had the citizenship taken away that they had earned due to the chinese exclusion act. are the only population that has a family play into internment camps in the middle of the war and fought for the country even as family members just because they were of japanese descent or even look like they would be of japanese descent. i had people come up to me while i was wearing the uniform of my nation but saying where are you really from? duckworth is not your name. that is your husband's name. no. i am a duckworth. i have been here since the revolution. this past year was really hard on the a api community. it is always been here but now to be the target of hate crimes part of it because the president of the united states was using hate speech the president was saying the country virus and blaming the chinese for the virus but not saying the people's republic of china but the chinese the chinese-americans so they were committing hate crimes against them has been really dramatic for the aapi community it grew over 160 percent and we know most hate crimes against aapi are reported. it is reported anything other than a hate crime. host: i do wonder if you got the chance to reopen your book what we are seeing now is there anything more how you would address the otherness issue? >> maybe a little more time talking about how it when it mattered. in my helicopter that day i talk at length about the shootdown as part of the helicopter crew it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor or black or white. i've been part of cruise we are a bag of skittles. and we are all americans. and that's why i love the army. it didn't matter who i was if i was a halfbreed asian girl for good only mattered if i could shoot straight and if i could carry the load when someone needed help. i probably spent more time on that than a racial perspective just because of the meritocracy. host: it is a good segue to the portion of the book where you talk about that. another new york times interview you talk about i don't like to listen to pop culture about war because it's emotional. how hard was it to put this on paper? >> it was hard but i did in one single sitting. is very cathartic. by did have to go back and talk to a lot of people. i don't have a lot of memory what happened past landing the aircraft. i reached up to do the emergency engine shut down because we had a fire. i passed out. i came to within the hour have lots of conversations but i don't remember any of that. the doctors and nurses at the emergency room in baghdad give me a drug to sedate me but they knew the side effect would block my short term memory. they did everybody coming through as an act of mercy. i am grateful to that. but i had to talk and hear what happened in the intervening time. i found it incredibly rewarding the things that i said and did i'm very proud of. i was not a hero that day. i didn't kill anybody to safety. but until they sedated me, i was watching out for my crew. as a soldier and army officer, ultimately that was vindication for who i was at my core. watching out for my guys until the end. host: that is such a remarkable experience to have those conversations. did you have other people helping you? >> i did. it was a group project. over the years i was at walter reed on the nurse in charge of the emergency room had come up to me and said i know who you are. this was within five minutes of being wounded. you came to my emergency room i want you to know what you did. he came to my room and he gave me the number that i could track down the medevac medic and he put me in touch so it ended up being a little facebook group in the hospital unit and medevac unit like a snowball once i found one person me find two people than three people. before long i was in touch with all sorts of folks some in civilian life they were all reaching out and talk to each other. it became very human for the others as well. because many of them once they treat you in baghdad, what happened to the patient they don't know if the patients died or survived. so for many of them it was closure and one in particular that intubated me he said i have haunted him for 15 years with my final words to him before he sedated me. he thanked me for letting him know i was okay. host: was he impressed that now you are a senator? [laughter] >> and military you don't talk politics where they are on the political spectrum but they know. every day is a gift. because every day since that day i was shot down has been a gift. i should have died. the only reason i survived is the heroism of my crew and the doctors and nurses and all the people who took care of me. every day is literally a gift. i tried to convey that but know that you are my northstar and i never want you to make you ashamed or embarrassed to save me by what i have done. host: it is an interesting contrast with trevor noah his born of crime is very upfront about the trauma you experienced a lot of trauma that yet you chose something that is a very joyful sentiment. did you have discussions with others quick. >> we had all sorts of discussions. there is a saying strong in the book in places. triple amputee from vietnam. it was all sorts of things. that one day when i was talking to the publishers into my collaborator, i was talking about the shootdown and they said every day of my life they asked me i had a tough day at work. i don't know a healthcare fighter something. i said i'm exhausted today. we had a tough day and i said that every day is a gift. every day i have is one i'm surprised that i have. they said that's the title. because that's how i live my life. every day i say thank you to carry me out of that field in iraq and then i say okay what can i do today to live up to them for what they did for me on sometimes the brainstorming begins and you just utter out loud, i love that story. another logistical question, i am impressed that you have the time to write this and you mentioned the part about this, how did you do it?pa does your husband take over childcare duties. >> when i was doing the proposal for the book, i was writing on my iphone on airplanes. have an hour and a half and you're sitting there and when i was on a flight three you go back to iraq, i just sent broker. i would write bits and pieces and put together once i had the book deal and i got it in his temper and was due 2020, i knew i had to get done so i just hunkered down and wrote it just making sure even ten minutes writing down a paragraph, is just a process. i had a great collaborator helped me and proofreaders and by senior senator in the book, i talk about how he found me in the hospital and gave me a new mission encouraging to run. different folks, i'm a big fan of sherrod brown in his writing and thought process and his wife is a new york times, best selling author so i sent it to them, a chapter here and there and they gave me feedback so i had a lot of people helping me along the way. >> i love that. that's great, great detail. what was the hardest part of the book to write? there might be another part you found? >> my early childhood was the hardest part. the bad guys took me, there was not an accident, it was intentional and we actually landed the bird. not on me,e, is the fact that dn was the man of the aircraft, a remarkable piece, he landed that bird and that's why we are all alive. ...ne pilot. so to reliving poverty in hawaii and also ellie start and talk i about more. i was very ashamed for a long time in my early 20s and 30s. i thought i was a failure. i had to realize i wasn't a failure. dit was success because we neither gave up as a family. to this day if there's a penny on the ground that we'll were low for you in my wheelchair to pick up any of you. that's nothing to be ashamed of. that's something to be proud of. the school lunch program, that we should be more open about that because their other families that you no are food insecure now. need to know there is hope. this could make sense. in the same interview of "the new york times" that i referenced earlier you also talk about other booksk like rage tht you referenced reading recently. i wish at the time i get asked and i will now ask you which is what book would you have anybody work down the hill where porter or staffer read? >> guest: i don't have a reading list for they do have rage on there because it talks about the swing in our nation every time we have had our basic civil rights -- that there's this backlash and is part of our nations history. i think that's one to be read and i think people should understand those in the military ewith that experience and the wr i always wanted is a good book about the war in afghanistan and my generation after not having been at war when it was our turn to go but i would have a whole lot of listin of things and the apartheid in south africa -- is very good. >> if you want to learn about apartheid in south africa -- is really good. posted that's fair. a reading list is probably fair but another book question i have reading the book i was struck this is not your typical political memoir which are often read by members have their eye in something higher. you are just telling a completely engrossingg story and did you write the book for everyone when they had no idea who you were because you are from another state? >> guest: this book was from my daughters. i wanted them to read it and understand and understand the struggles that i went through and america provided me a privilege and with help along the way and america's worth it. i truly wrote this just for my girls but also for others to understand that this democracy is worthor fighting for and to give people a perspective as to why i believe in the programs that i believe in and why support things like food stamps and more money for public education and why support the policies that i do and explain how i got to these positions based on my experiences. and i hope people get that as well. really this book is a love letter to my nation and for my daughter so that they would understand why i was willing to even compromise. i made a decision before she was born that resulted in me losing my legs and i would still do it again if i were in the same position because our democracy and this less than perfect union is worth the struggle. >> host: yeah. speaking of your daughters one portion that i want to read out loud and i'll botch the paraphrase here but when you ask one of your daughters what is daddy's name is daddy and and when you say what's what's what's mommy's worth she says in a perfect voice tammy duckworth. was that a tough decision to talk about your current situation is a working mom because as you mentioned you wanted to have your daughters maintained their privacy and how did you wrestle with that at all? >> guest: if you had asked me about it when i first ran for office i would not have talked about it. afterid having had my two girls, after having gone through a senate campaign while in ivf and trying to get pregnant and having a miscarriage h i decidei had to talk about it further moms and for other women who were struggling with fertility issues. because i realize people would come up to me and it had this idea that my life is all heroics and i want people to know that there is no such thing as worklife balance. it's a lie. it is a lie and it's a lie he gets perpetuated that hurts our nation and hurts their families in the long run. because there is no work/life balance. we must have things like universal family leave. family leave. we need to have it in here is why. the fact that military women have to go back and this is when i first started in 2014 when the women had to report back six weeks after they had a birth even if they had a cesarean and even if the duty was and afghanistan they had to do that and that is wrong. i dug into that portion that was deeply personal as a mom because i wanted to really say i struggle with it and i feel your struggles and i also have to pump my breast milk out sitting on a toilet stall. i was trying to do the best for my infant daughter that the system is not set up to support the mom who works outside the home so i felt to have lifted out would have been a disservice.'r let's go and as you mention not even the senate is set up to support that. now that this book is out we are talking you've probably done a lot of public experiences and what to extent do you want others in politics to start telling stories like this? >> i hope more people step forward and speak about the struggle. i understand as a female leader i had to step forward and take charge often. sometimes you are just too exhausted and you can't take charge and you have to set around -- boundary so i want to be realistic about that. women who want to run for office and especially federal office women who have children and i tell them you know if you read the book to see the story where broke down on the campaign because they just had enough and i had as huge temper tantrum and when i was with my campaign i was with my baby powder and when i was with my baby daughter if was thinking about my campaign and i felt inadequate. even if the world saw me as a senate candidate who hadn't altogether and i want more women who do achieve success to be upfront about that but it's not just you have to work harder. i was working as hard as i possibly could and barely holding it together but i did it and that's the message i want to tell to other families that you can make it but it's hard. it's not easy but it's worth it in the end. >> host: absolutely. and part of all that we are now seeing a little bit of a baby bust in this nation. u.s. somebody who became a mom of two at 50 is there anything in writing this anything that surprised you anything you want to share with anyone watching right now? >> guest: i actually feel younger because of my daughters. they make me do all the things that if i had been a mom and my mid-20s i may not have appreciated. i have more patience but i also think it's given me a second youthfulness. i go and sit on the swing with my kids and i don't make i would do that if i didn't have children. we go to the aquarium to see the day with my girls and my 3-year-old just laughed. she's running from fish tank to fish tank laughing and saying mommy, fish. there was just laughter. so i say go for it. it's that old line you can either be a a 2-year-old with kids for the 50-year-old without kids and wishing you had some are when you talk to somebody who is 65 and one go back to college why would you do that at 65? in four years she'll be 69 anyway so you might still be a 69-year-old with a college degree, so do it. let's go very very good point. you mentioned earlier in the conversation centered turbine played an essential role in starting your grin i wondered if you have had a conversation with him or if there are notable dialogues you've had with him about this? >> guest: when i wrote the first half of the book i shared it with him. the army teaches you to do active writing and you get to the point where it's just the short subject, verb noun and you do it so that's how i wrote. i'm very much an act of voice because i 23 years in the army. one time someone said i can see why you are the way you are now and he made you cry with the passage that tammy could you tone down the army language just aia little bit? i don't think it's good for your future career to have that much army. and i was like and i gave him a copy of the book the other day and -- [inaudible] let's go oh my gosh that's really funny. he's always watching out for me. he's my mentor. i know you have to be true to yourself and i don't swear that much. it's only in private that i do it. my army but he's. i'm very much myself in the book. >> guest: absolutely. going back to the conversation did anybody go i need an adjective or what they say bu? >> guest: everyone said to be me. i think i did a good job of describing things. i wanted to tell people what cambodia was like before was destroyed. my early childhood memory was sitting in a car with a warm of french bread the flowers in the mango trees. there's a lot of description in the book but it's a description in my style of writing and talking. i needed to be true to myself. >> host: absolutely what can we you 100% succeeded in that. one question inmp the book. i'm wondering is when you were going through fertility treatments, that's incredibly tough thing to go through ivf let alone running a campaign. did you consider saying more about that in with their more fit you put into words because you talk a lot about it in their other portions were you say all right it succeeded after all the failures. >> guest: i wanted to address it. you have constraints in terms of how many pages and i didn't want a 500 page tome. i wanted to write a book that people could read and get through that was enjoyable. and i'm sure some people will cry and their laugh out loud moments as well. i thought i was upfront about it but in my own life i don't dwell on things for a long time. that's just how i am. it's tough and they even have a wochapter called it which is an army philosophy. i own it and now i'm moving on. now i'm addressing being a mom of two girls under the age of six and trying to be a good senator at the same time so i'm always moving on with the next phase and i acknowledge what happened and i don't shy away from it. i'd can't do it all because i just don't have the time. i still have to buy all the stuff for my easter baskets which i haven't done yet and it's only 48 hours away. i just don't have the time to spend dwelling on the past. >> host: absolutely.on it's a fantastic chapter. i'm wondering how constituents shape this at all. if you've had any conversations about your personal life ended up in certain chapters in the book and if that inspired you in any particular way? >> guest: definitely. my constituents are why i was able to write this book because over the last two years in my four years in the house and my four years in the senate i talk to constituents and i've been prompted to tell stories that i've never told before. i never told people that my dad was out of a job for five years and we were struggling and i was the only one putting food onon e table for a time there. i went and met this audience and people said i'm 52 years old when my going to do and it hit me and i just started talking about my dad in that meeting. i had never spoken about him being out of work before and the steps that i did not know that about you. after i had my two girls started talking about ivf and a member would come up to me and say oh my that had more than one person, tim needs a because if youm. i'd tried to ivf and now m pregnant and have a baby. and trying to relate to them to understand and hear them i've been able to share experiences with them and that's got me to the place where i'm now able to write this book because i've been able to i open up and share these stories that i've learnedd to recognize. these are just my stories. stories of people and i hope people see themselves in my story whether they are the first person to go to college like i wasop and whether they have been asked where are you from because they are americans and whether they have had to fight to try to get some support in being a working mom in how did they see themselves in this book? >> host: that's really beautiful. i wonder also if writing it help to think about your future in different ways. sometimes we see members step away to spend more time with their family and you have a young family. have you evaluated that at all? >> guest: you know what i have to pay for college. i can't stop working anytime soon. i have college tuition coming up. i have to work anotherr] 18 yeas at least. [laughter] that's a real problem. my older daughters can use my husband's g.i. bill. being a senator is an amazing job and i love it and the only thing was being a commander in the army. i'm happy to be a united states senator and i think my job makes me a better mom so i plan on doing this for a long time to come. >> host: wonderful. you plan on maybe writing another book? >> guest: oh my. we'll see how this one goes. you know as i said i didn't write this book just to tell my story. i wrote this book to tell america's story and my example of an american story and it's really for my daughters. and the book with a letter to ay daughters and i think other moms and dads might recognized the desire to speak to your child as an adult about your current experience. if i write another book it might be off out all the wonderful people walter reed. there are korean war veterans both s of whom -- an amputee ina physical therapist and became the talk couples for amputees because they were so upha front with what life was like post-amputation and the non-veteran who wandered around walter reed hanging out -- handing out milkshakes paid out of his own pocket for literally years to help support the troops. i would love to tell those stories in more detail. >> host: not to make more work for you but i have a fantastic book idea. this was a fascinating conversation. thank you so much for your time and i hope all the viewers go out and read "every day is a gift." the fantastic book. >> guest: thank you. >> host: jason riley it's a pleasure to be with you. we've been together on my radio show. you have made a number of videos and i read you with "the wall street journal." you are ready ubiquitous in my life. it does want you to know that. >> guest: thank you, thank you. good to be here. let's go good. you have done a
she ging paying starts july 30th on d. w. ah, ah, an inconspicuous forest trail, south of frankfort, next to one of germany's famous auto bars. ah, in houston, with the end of the road for a legendary german racing driver. maybe 3 years ago. and a no holds barred, a bid for land speed supremacy. unfeeling. the events of over 80 years ago remained the subject of speculation. neither o the with what exactly happened on that fateful day and what is it that pushes people to pursue speed records at all costs? i me. ah! who was band holes on my aunt who died in january 1938 driving down the perfectly straight autobahn at over 400 kilometers per hour. thick o an eastern germany home to a museum that was once the racing car factory of our tony own. germany's 1st state run automaker and a predecessor of today's audi me. the 1930 saw an ethic duel between 2 giants of the german racing seen as the relatively young our total known thought to overtake the dominant, mercedes benz t. a high profile rivalry that intensified when band hold the maya, join the our total unity. the young hot shot was to take on mercedes works driver and european champion old old car chola. the out on your bosses had high hopes for holes in maya, who was a boon for both motor racing and not the regime eager to capitalize on the competition for propaganda. the bold, young rising star was perfect. i come my own the speak to my buddy. you're awesome. i asked them, oh my god. oh my on my all of the i hello my son. when i say i live in no night yet. we're in dresden to meet a man who's written a number of books on the early german motor racing iraq, including the 19 thirty's when the country's big carmakers fought out their rivalry on germany's new out o bonds, a network of modern highways that brought prestige to the nazis hater casberg as an automotive historian, the regime he explains, was eager to show that germany could build not only the fastest cars, but also the best roads. to maximize publicity authorities held special record speed weeks on the new high speed motor weighs. another chance for glory for band owes a maya m october sorted horrible, her nose was even untie as ish frozen. my broke a series of records that had belonged to car jolla in october 1937. when earning them to also union it started doing time lock. shad. i'm a failed because of a design out of sync with the laws of nature's an icon causally. and vic ferronte and not all the destination as far went, i'm ended by the end of the week or the national racing commission. i promised that i'm lead soon. be allowed to make for the record attempts merging next inside. pulled idle was over fallen doll as will them for the hour during auto union had to respond because of the delicate relationship between a dime there in the public dime law and in the oven. dish tied delish to go and waterford. when to a decision was that if they drive after than we need to drive as well, the archaic, know you're missing out as seen from the teams 10, the wind had picked up when it was, was a my as turn to start on january 28th, 1938 on his 1st run, he clocked 429 kilometers per hour. a personal best, but still not fast enough to wrestle the record back from mercedes adjustments are made while the wind grew stronger. hosemeier was impatient, reportedly telling his team to just let him get back on the road for a 2nd run. it was 1147 ah, and then disaster at the 9.2 kilometer mark holes are my as type c car dubs tom linen, varden or stream liner careened off the road, flipping several times over a distance of 900 meters. the destroyed car came to a stop on an embankment, was a maya was killed instantly. conspiracy theories spread, blaming reckless auto executives for disregarding the strong winds and sending holes a maya to a premature death. mm. auto own own did not appear interested in a formal and thorough investigation. the remains of the car were destroyed before they could be properly examined. mm. the only viable explanation available under the circumstances was that a gust of wind had blown holes a mile off the road. but is that the true explanation? ah, why do people put their lives on the line and hair raising duals over a couple of kilometers? and the name of progress on some dubious patriotic quest, or is it personal ambition and ego i, we've come to the since i'm technical museum, to meet professor cook moves that, another historian who has studied the early days of automotive development. ah, he tells us about the origin of the pursuit of pace, which goes all the way back to the late 19th century to spanish lac what particularly before you go to sleep and stick. there was a common phrase at the time of the acceleration of the speed of life. i don't know who to fight. the late german monarchy was also called the hero of nervousness passed through industry and speed is part of that. and as soon as a symptom, but also as a kind of remedy as an art, hips mitigating the 1st month or so 50. some people try to adapt to the era and the racing driver or someone who could cope with high speed. it was well conditioned into the era content while there was this new image in which a lot of people saw as the pinnacle of the modern human being. feeling able to adapt to this accelerated pace down the noise mentioned them at their sites. so who were these dare devil? one of them in belgium was actually nickname the red devil. after brussels and to the imposing neal gothic church of our lady here lies a man who was only known outside belgium to racing, efficient auto, a man who in his time enjoyed a colossal reputation cami, your nazi son of a major tire manufacturer and record breaker. the 1st person to break the 100 kilometers per hour mark at the wheel over 120 years ago. felipe dibble is an archivist who has spend years looking into the story of camille and nazi. the driver was famed for his trademark red goatee and his red hot style at the wheel as he sought fame, as the fastest driver. ah, can you just yet? ah, and a horse you had no worries. at this off said the dog camille. nazi was a hero. because of that, a big lie, michael schumacher, a man who liked driving fast had a passion for speedy. if will he was determined to break record that a goal or connect course. i'm not going to saw the 1st rice she appears to have taken part in the shunts blue hill climb. we're reaching an impressive 25 kilometers per hour in an electric car. oh, when you call us back, when was slower than bicycles? they went to the finance committee to these records were heavily covered by the media. the cam especially the sport. i was the other girl had it on a pistol. girl, philip, i thought crispy said easy artists as booked eagerly. ah, the record breaking car is on display at the auto world museum near the city's famous song compton f arc. the larger make on don't is a popular exhibit. among the fastest motorized vehicles of its time surpassed only by steam locomotives. no radiator, no exhaust your nazi's car was electric. in the late 19th century, it was still unclear what kind of propulsion would set the pace on land. steam powered vehicles required, laborious, pre heating, and gasoline engines had a reputation for breaking down. if they started at all, not ideal for record centers, publicity was always key factor. comey expertly exploited. ah. the auto world car is not original. it's a replica built by. it's not the foundation of a modern day mobility pioneer. the lack of blueprints for the 899 car left him with a serious challenge. not least with the numerous features unique to the nazi car. receipt of his disposal doing well on don't vote, don't get exceed on the steering wheel. lever, which could have sliced open his stomach in an accident, and he was relatively told a rich received no break because he wanted to drive straight ahead as fast as possible to finally book desco, boosted and back. then they didn't drive on proper road, is willis, wiggily drove on horse racing tracks. no, maybe up to 2 kilometers long. see the piece to alicia vocal. their academic muscle will do killer me in age of a bull, though a huge crowd does it because they were international events in multiples. i booked all us to prescribe them. it was like the 1st man on the moon. there was great interest in the technology. it was see a biblical data report at the conversion 105.8 kilometers per hour. a new best mark. but not for long. 3 years later you nazi was displaced by of all things a steam powered vehicle by this point. yeah. nazi had already started competing in races for mercedes parent company dime. lar, even took out a life insurance policy on your nazi that corporate commitment brought dividends in 19 o. 3, you nazi one, the gordon bennett. come in ireland, the world's most important car, race of that era. ah, this is the only film footage of your nazi moon. it was a curious quirk of fate that saw the fearless belgian die, not on the track, but during another more harmless type of outdoor pursuit. another of you, nazi's talents, would be his downfall. a knack for imitating animal sounds. lou during a walk in the woods in 1913, a hunter mistook him for a deer and opened fire blue a couple of decades forward. we returned to band holes of maya and his tragic end in 1938. an event that left the motor, racing world in shock, one of its top drivers was dead. nazi authorities turned his funeral in berlin into a political rally. friends, family fans and rivals paid their last respects while the notorious ss held a vigil to the fallen hero. ah, but what was the actual cause of the accident? a question that was eclipsed amid the pomp of the funeral procession. nazi ideology could not allow a hero of the german nation to have died due to technical deficiencies, let alone a mortal driver error. the cause was never pursued, ah, cabinets home to the original out. oh known h q and a branch of the official saxony state archives. we want to look at historical documents. of specific interest to us is the file concerning the death of band hosemeier containing a range of original documents, formal testimony, affidavits and eye witness accounts. including this letter from a certain auto gaia to the head of the auto known motor racing team. his eye witness report recalls how the out whole new own car veered on to the grass bank and turned sideways details similar to those observed by time keeper, ca, hello, vi's mother who also referred to an explosion when question then there's this hugely important document a weather report from the nearby zepplin airport. between $11.12 on the day of the crash, it registered strong winds and gusts of up to 11 meters per 2nd. interestingly, only the mercedes team had asked for a forecast ahead of the record attempts ow, total known didn't buy the car, make her later sent a letter to its dealerships, however, insisting it had not recklessly put the driver under unreasonable pressure. and that the wind speed had in no way appeared dangerous. an attempt to shun responsibility. there are no photos or film footage of hose m i as final and fatal run itself. it's rumored, some material was destroyed. if so, then not everything. however, there is a private film captured by outward emsella who worked in a frankfurt photo processing lab. ah, on the day of the race, he was on a foot bridge crossing over the autobahn, where he was filming, and air show taking place at the same time. at one point, emsella happened to briefly train his camera on the road below. pulls a maya can be seen in the runoff zone after his 1st run. he just clocked 429 kilometers per hour, and now set off towards darmstadt on the 2nd and fatal leg of the 2 way record attempt. at 1st glance, with all eyes on the road, the film seems inconspicuous, but a closer look reveals other movement on the right of the picture. trees visibly swaying to and fro under the strain of evidently strong if not storm like winds. was this record attempt doomed from the outset? ah, we next mean motorsports expert martine shorda, the hose, m, i, a crash has become a labor of love for the former bookseller. over the years, he's collected a wealth of documentation, much of it from private archives. ah, and there is the one question that never goes away who is to blame for the driver's death. 6 6 1 thing shrewder is certain of is that it cannot have been the wind alone. it's robin lish. chicago's, he'd run off in favor of it was windy. you can see in this film footage i heard on 15 kilometers per hour from which wind blow the car off the road from the financial . i think like this can be due to 2 causes, 100 slide, or the combination of to zoom or one flight by analyzing the photos from that in from his day should i came across some curious inconsistencies among them out own yawns, motor sports division had made changes between the 1st and 2nd runs the air intake duct at the front of the car, for example was reduced. busy the company, the nozzle is given on the entire nose was replaced, and behind this little inlet, there was one tube supplying the engine with oxygen with torn on the more tor middle washed off tomorrow, and, and other tube connected to the cockpit. i think it's cockpit here like nose in the cockpit mit last 2 was all was, am i and likes driving with the cockpit open. the tube was necessary to prevent him from suffocating at speed. and another photo was of interest. a section of the body on the road. the picture had been taken by a reporter from italy and show as part of the underbody which has on looking triangular openings. they were evidently err valves that could be operated from the cockpit embark to indies. and also when did, and when his loft, he had this outlet for the streaming and at the front when they told him that if it got too intense and at the speed it was like a storm. then he could step on this lever. what kinds of all 3 done his or so, or my number or not? i think he did that, which disrupted the lower error dynamic, because the air was suddenly being redirected underneath the von, when the lucian british step bill than him, the car takes off the off ever your stir mammal. my only song flow is disrupted at those days. at junk is $52.00 plain and he started took off at just $120.00 with all that weight really cuz with the accident due to aerodynamics did outdoor on your sufficiently test the vehicles behavior at these extreme speeds, the historian period accused the exam. the team were clearly out of their depths when it came to such a technical detail. you hadn't a tourist time, it and it does it so that they never expected it to happen. it's not just they had a plan b as a whole issue was forgotten. there was no way the image of rosy meyer as a national hero was going to be compromised later by these trivial questions. they're still older, my s drive would be the last record attempt for our toll known, but not for mercedes. towards the end of the 1900 thirty's dime le ben's worked on a new car designed to pulverize previous milestone. the t 80 with a bombastic 8 meter long monster weighing in at over 3 tons. and with contours, more like those of a fighter bomber plain. this prototype is among the most impressive exhibits at the dime le museum. and she got ah, the impetus for the t 80 was provided by hands took previously an outdoor only on star whose success as a hill climbing champion, had been overshadowed by the flat ground feats of all the maya zone star was starting to fade, but he enjoyed good connections with the nazi leadership who were increasingly eager to see demonstrations of superior german engineering. at stokes request, the ti 80 was to be built by a fatty non portia legendary car designer and creator of autoland jones type c target top speed 600 kilometers per hour. this would require an output of 3000 horsepower. the job was entrusted to 2 dimer airplane engines, provided by the high, shabby asian ministry. each boasting displacement in excess of 44 leaders thought as fate had it, the ti 80 project would fall victim to the 2nd world war and 1939. as a result, hans stuck would be denied his own by hun phone, moons, house and ask cannonball run and perhaps spared a premature death. after the war, it was clear that speeds of over 600 kilometers per hour on land were not possible with combustion engines. records of that kind would require rocket propulsion and the kind of space available on this lunar like landscape bonneville and the state of utah usa. the remnants of a primeval lake turned into seemingly infinite salt flats by a combination of wind and water. and for almost a century now, the ultimate test track and an el dorado for speed freaks. oh yes, this would be the stage for a new generation of record seekers. chief among them art our farms and crag breedlove. the 2 americans were obsessed with being the fastest man in history and were prepared to use all means available to set a new record, which had now been held by a succession of british drivers. the dawn of the 960 saw our fawns and breathe love open a new chapter in the competition for the ultimate automotive glory. blue sam holly lives in ontario, canada. he spent years studying the history of the salt flats ear of speed records and the fearless men famed as junkyard. geniuses. folly has written the number of books dedicated to that era that time around 96061 that the united states air force was getting rid of a whole bunch of fighter jets from the korean war. and all this stuff was going into the junk market. and so anchor in los angeles, where craig b love lived, lived like literally hundreds of j $47.00 jet engines were being sold as scrap. so he was able to buy one for almost nothing, $500.00. he got that his 1st jet engine, if he got like an allison engine, it would have cost several $1000.00. so he was trying to save money by getting a jet ah, hacking up to 17000 horsepower. those engines were fitted in 19 fifties air force. jeff, such as the famous star fighter that reached speeds of over 2200 kilometers per hour. exactly what kind of power that could translate into with land vehicles was difficult to decipher. given the lack of testing, our phones knew absolutely nothing about jet engines. but somehow he, he found one from a junk dealer. and he found a like a manual about how to, how these things worked. and he actually took this thing apart with no education, no background whatsoever. just kind of an innate intelligence that he had. and he put it back together and he figured out how it worked. so, i mean, that is a stunning story. that literally these guys were doing it in their back yards. they had a, a steel post that was buried in the ground. and they were just literally chain the car to that post and they would run that engine. and i mean they, they totally blasted the ground dead. i mean, all the grass and everything was, was blasted off of it. hang on in october 1964, craig breedlove broke his own record not once, but twice. the 2nd attempt, almost costing him his life at just under 850 kilometers per hour. the brake parachute snapped off on the break . at that speed, they would just burn them up. a car seared across the end of the priest that track taking out to telephone poles before crashing into a salt lake. breedlove almost drowned in the desert, but managed to escape through the rooftop hatch. miracle. there had been no such miracle for band holes in maya. we went to hamburg to investigate the reasons why this record breaking racing driver was destined to die in january 1938. we thought further inside here at the city's port or 2 museum, one of the most exclusive collections of historic motor sports memorabilia in the world. a fair share of the cars on display here are prototype from a time when the racing world and the speed those heroes reached, enjoyed a different kind of fascination than today. ah, but another exhibit here is highlighted by museum curator simone. but aka a reaction arcade machines from the late 1930, a prized possessions discovered by chance by the museum and the archives of one of the oldest amusement parks in the world. the interior in this one, we founded in the tivoli in copenhagen. and the great thing about this game is the chance to reenact band also my as well record, attend from the press this button and we're away on dev. i'm and the no been a was you to open a closed the valve and as you can see, it takes a lot of practice and hold too much. i can't do it either. always. moments of you is ultima for kids back then a blast for the killer and the responses. but we didn't come here to see some automotive themed pinball machine. the museum archive is home to some rather special protocols from the old zeppelin factory. and frederick's hoffen, southern germany, out, oh, who knows? conducted wind tunnel tests here on a model of holes. am i as 1938 car? the key problem was that the rival mercedes car had around 200 more horse power and out whole new own lack the time and money for a new engine. the only way to compensate for the deficit was via aerodynamics. from these records, it's clear that out all knowns, tinkering and experimentation with the car was often more guesswork than innovative engineering. the tests could not come close to simulating speeds of over 400 kilometers per hour. let alone any cross winds. the document dates from january, 18th, 1938, just 10 days prior to the fatal accident. historian paid a cash bag has little doubt that the tasks were conducted right up to the very last minute. these are all bunched in on the, on woodland inside. they were done on the mush, if time pressure, and the protocol from january 18th, refers to tests 3 days before christmas is wednesday, since white are formed between the 20th and 22nd of december. and friedrich often will come of him with a $1.00 to $2.00 and a half scale models. and the assumption that a $1.00 to $1.00 scale model would be the same, wouldn't dock. and from that i had, and they calculated a higher output to not have been possible by time those emerged regional eyes that i'm at leon gun in a miscalculation and if so, then by who we went back to motor sports, expert martine shorda, for his opinion, fatty nand porsha, he says, had spent many years in charge of racing car development and auto known before terminating his consultant contract at the end of 1937. that development cost out own own. it's ingenious constructor at a most inopportune time. exactly how is documented in this patent which had been gathering dust and the archives for decades. of the notes show how attempts were made to reduce the air resistance while at the same time pushing the car down on to the ground. this involved adjustments to the body such as adding bulged sections along the sides of our uncovered view, shall be untrue. so the body is similar to an airplane we. the distance across the top is longer than underneath this, and that leads to low pressure on top. and ground pressure without the presence of additional mass. this is how was boiler work force and it's what keeps an airplane flying through. sorry. the high air moves faster than below was a feature that in theory makes the vehicle quicker. but at the same time, puts it at the mercy of the whims of the wind. does this explained the inventors insistence on remaining anonymous? a highly unusual omission when registering a patent? who says her pe, the fire minus name variation gordon? it's something i've always wondered why someone wouldn't want their name included the still unique event or is with hindsight, perhaps that individual suspected there might be resulting risks. but didn't know what the initiative was. i was showing the aunt of me over the decades. one thing that remains the same was that while the heroes of the road were put on a pedestal, they were at the same time pons of both political and economic imperatives. by the 19th sixty's record attempts shifted up another gear as commercial competition took the front seat, sensing an opportunity to boost their image. the tire and fuel industries pumped up, the hype and huge sums of sponsorship money into the inventive constructor, teams. oh for over 3 decades, the museum of technology ins and time has been home to a vehicle that is perhaps the ultimate embodiment of this unbridled competition and its excesses. the blue flame, the product of an arrow in record setting vehicles no longer really resembled cars . it's more of a rocket on wheels, 3 tons, propelled by 58000 horsepower. the driver was more of a pilot sitting on a mixture of liquid natural gas and hydrogen peroxide. this was the kind of explosive power otherwise, usually associated with space travel. ready ooh, re gab allege runs her own little museum here in long beach, california. dedicated to the legacy of them, landmark run. sitting in the blue flame that day in october, 1970 was her husband gary. the 1st person to crack the 1000 kilometers per hour. mark in a land vehicle. it was a record that would stand for 13 years. ah, before coming to fame, gary dabbling. had been a little known. drag racer who lived life in the fast lane. a photo genic hell raiser, who looked good at the wheel of a bullet car and also cut a fine figure for nasa's marketing men. he'd been a test subject for the apollo program space suit and live support systems. in 1969 they gave gary the choice of either staying with the apollo program or continuing on with his adventures in racing. and at that time, he'd already been signed to drive the blue flame. and so he gave up apollo for racing on the ground. mm. or, ah, talks about what it was like, and he goes through the count down from, you know, 19. you know all the way down and how it felt when he's pushed back in the seed and experiencing the been in the g horse and gary held the record longer than any other american. and the actually, the only other person that held it longer was john cobb, who held it until craig broke it's, he held it, i think, for 24 years prag, breed, loves records, stood at 966 kilometers per hour. upon october 23rd 1970 gary galena prepared to set off across the salt flats of bonneville, utah, to break that 5 year old mark, but also to hit the 1000 kilometers per hour figure he and his team and invested 6 years in the development of the 11 meter long cigar shaped vehicle for a spectacle that would last just 22 seconds before the fuel would run out. the man in the hat is dick keller, one of the rocket cars creators. ah, the former engineer now over 80 years old lives in daphne, alabama. in the mid 1960 s, he tells us the u. s. natural gas industry was also keen to enter the arena. the big selling point was to give the american public a sensational showcase of gas as more than just a fuel for old fashioned heaters. it was a cleaner and more efficient alternative to gasoline and kerosene. a record for the ages would win over new customers and push up profits. keller and his little engineering company took up the challenge. ah, basically our job was to try to do so over city the last rigor and was up to them to take advantage of that. didn't read promoted to the general of the new record attempt was a massive risk. when donald tests had the blue flame topping 1200 kilometers per hour in the process of breaking the sound barrier. for the worst case scenario, the organizers had taken out life insurance for gab allege worth over $100000.00. 3210. 01. ready? 300. 350 floor on 450. 561650? yeah we did a that's exactly how to 0. this id was riding abbas. ah, blue flame was timed at 622 miles or just over a 1000 kilometers per hour. a speed eventually bettered by a british team in 1983 and again in 1997. the 2nd time with the 1st ever supersonic land vehicle and a mark that stands to this day. but despite having only held the record for 13 years, blue flames moment of fame will for some always be the most memorable. ah, jerry gab, alleged never got the chance to retake the record. he died in 1984 after a motorcycle accident. ah! ah, the neverending quest for speed has its heroes and its victims. among them band holes a maya? the exact reasons for the fatal outcome of that run will likely remain a matter of speculation. was it just the wind that swept him off the road in january? 1938? probably not. there were a range of other potential factors involved. insufficient development work and technical acumen and time pressure. all things that were kept quiet for quite a while. daimler might have won the race for the record, but it was the out all noun driver who won the headlines and would feature. and most of the history books. the record sat by who doth carla was ultimately reduced to a footnote. oh, as for band hosemeier, was he really the indomitable driver and dare devil who threw caution to the wind on that fateful day? impervious to any fear? many observers have blamed the driver for his own death. at the hast thou regional archives in darmstadt, we on photos previously not seen by the public one as a shot of was a maya minutes before that final journey. with the look of a man who perhaps knew the fate that awaited him. ah, ah ah, he's one of the great always on the move between man, vienna neu, star tanner jonas kaufman. a even in corona virus times is not easy to types. meet dot in the artist, eunice kaufman. ah barnes 2030 minutes. d w. o. a lender contrast of ambitions of inequality. 75 years ago mahatma gandhi peacefully led the country to independence, full of ideals, what is remained of his vision. but what is the status of human rights and social justice in what's called the world's largest democracy? willis, india headed. this is the pulpit tour unleash on long violet boss, and re imagined valley's teachings for relevance to gandhi's legacy store to august 6th on the oh ah, ah ah, this is dw news live from berlin. ukraine prepares to restart great exports from the black sea despite a russian missile attack in odessa. the strike came less than a day after the 2 sides agreed to a grain export deal. if it fails, the global food crisis could get even worse.