>> former president jimmy carter,ing advocate for the treatment of women and girls. >> i've seen tangible examples of how horribly women and girls are treated. >> gender violence, he brings an extremely important voice to the conversation. >> studying and memorizing the gettysburg address. >> gluten are free. why do you enjoy it? >> it makes you fat. >> we begin with a call for action from former president jimmy carter. , the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. false interpretation of religious text almost exclusive by powerful male leaders, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls. growing tolerance of violence and warfare following the example set by the u.s. has also played a role as violence has encouraged more violence. for that i'm honored to welcome the 39th president of the united states and the 2002 noble peace prize winner. good to have you with us. >> delighted. >> you have redefined what it's like to be a former president of the united states. you are the only one who won the nobel peace prize after leaving the white house. you have traveled all over the world, doing humanitarian efforts from the carter center to habitat for humanity. you have written two does books. that? >> as a matter of fact, this is my 28th book. >> i apologize! >> the carter center is active in 79 different countries. since i've left the white house, that's what we have done, gotten to know people in all nations, in third world countries where women and girls are especially abused. people who can do something about it, i have 23 recommendations in the book that can solve some of these problems, particularly in the united states, a lot of the problems that occur in the poorest countries, the back countries of the world we might call them, also ex at extant in the united states. for instance, slavery, slavery is much greater than it was in the 19th century when black people were brought out of africa in europe and the united states. there is $32 billion of human trafficking in the world every year and the taint reported leas year owners t and the state department reported that 80% of those sold into slavery are imirls for sex purposes. >> and thousands of them into the united states. >> 100,000 in the united states. not all of them were sold across borders. but the number one place in america for this human slavery traffic is in atlanta. because we have the largest airport on earth. and also, because a lot of our passengers on the airplanes come from a third world, from the southern part of the world where the girls can be bought cheaper. so you can buy a pimp or brothel owner can buy a girl for about a thousand dollars if she comes from africa or southern asia or latin america. >> we got all sort of social media responses, a viewer named heather she asked, how can we fight trafficking in the u.s? >> well, i think the united states has to take the basis. there is a -- i'm talking about girls and women because as i say girls comprise 80% of the people sold into slavery. there is an international convention of the united states called a convention on the end of discrimination against women. cedaw. and the united states has refused to ratify this treaty, this convention that exists because we don't want to have anything to do with the united nations and the very conservative senate. there is another one called the law against violence against women and the international version ever that requires that every country tabulate not only their own crimes but decrease the criminality of action against women and girls al and l prisoners or slaves recordless whether they are women. the worst places for sexual abuse in america are two of our greatest institutions, one is universities. >> where we're seeing an epidemic of sexual assault. >> one out of four girls enrolled in american universities are raped or have sexual abuse while she's in college. only a fourth are reported, 1/6 as much in the civilian environment. >> and the other is the military. >> the military. >> you were a navy officer. what do you think -- >> a commanding officer doesn't want to admit in his chain of command in his company in his battalion that a lot of sexual abuse takes place. so he discourages the women from reporting it when they are taughted. same thing happens to the college presidents, to emery university or hard o harvard orf chicago or so forth. >> prosecution of sexual assault out of the chain of command -- >> i'm really disappointed. they made some slight improvements about how much you can harass a woman who is raped in court. there was a very horrible case of a midshipman in the naval academy where i attended, she was interrogated by the football player's defender, lawyer, 21 hours in three days and she asked to be left off, that off for the next day, because she was tired. and the judge ruled against her and made her testify on saturday as well. and they asked her horrendous questions, like how many times have you kissed a boy, what kind of underwear were you wearing, have you ever had sex relations, before you came to the naval academy, how wide do you open your mouth when you give oral sex to a boy? don't make a charge officially against your rapist that says. >> this is a horrible abuse across the world and you say it's the biggest worldwide challenge we face. >> it's unaddressed. >> it's unaddressed. in a world where we are facing nuclear proliferation, why do you think that is the biggest challenge? >> let's look at the number of people that die because of this. we know about 35 million people were killed in the second world war, right? and during the war between the states or the second world war 600,000 people were killed. at this moment there are 160 million girls who are missing because they have been killed by their parents. either at birth, they strangled the baby because it's a girl and they need to have boys, or because they now have sonograms and they can detect the sex of a fetus when it's still an embryo and they can selectively abort that child because it's female. almost a generation of girls are missing from the earth because they have been killed. >> the chapter of the book called genocide of girls. possibly the most precise one because you address that very issue. >> for instance china and india limit the size of families. if the family doesn't have social security, they want to have boys. if they can only have a maximum of one or two children, they want to make sure they have boys. a movie coming out, it's a girl, a very famous movie, a woman from yintd said with -- india said without shame that she strangled eight children when they were infants because they were girls. united states needs to take leadership role in stopping this mandatory prostitution and take action to correct these problems. >> you are deeply religious but you are critical in the role of religion to women and girls. >> i'm a christian. there is nothing in the acts of jesus christ that women. as a matter of fact, jesus was a champion of women's rights and made women of a higher status than ever before him. the beebl, the old test -- the bible, the old testament, new testament, the writings of paul, whether you want woman inferior. >> it is men interpreting it. >> it is. >> as paul pointed out there were 25 leaders that he mentioned dismissal i think in 16th chapter of acts and about half those are women at very high levels. nowadays, of course in the catholic church a woman cannot be a priest or a de deacon. and in the southern of the baptist convention, a woman can't teach boys in the classroom. >> you and mrs. carter left the southern baptist convention because of their position on women. you have been hopeful of pope francis. >> i visited with pope john paul ii, an almost total inflexibility there, but i wrote pope francis a letter describing some of the issues in the book and helped him to prevent or minimize the position of women and girls. i didn't ask him to change the church's position on women of course, but he wrote me a very nice letter back, the position of women in the church needed to be strengthened and would be. >> i know you said that president obama has not. >> my other predecessors, i'm not criticizing president obama because you know i've been out of office for 35 years. and it's natural for a president to consult other presidents if he wants to who have been more recently in the white house. so i think that george w. bush and bill clinton have been there just before him and i don't think it's reasonable to expect president obama to go back 35 years and recess recollect an old democrat who was there. >> what about the criticism that you are too independent, that you don't take guidance very well and don't play well with official washington? >> i'm always protecting the integrity of the president. i haven't been anywhere in the world that i didn't get at least tacit approval of the president before i went. a few presidents have asked me not to go, president obama did, president clinton, and president george h. wmplet bus w. bush asked me not ogo because there were places that were dangerous. the carter center had a policy of going into areas that, we don't have redescraints or restrictions of whom we meet. we can meet with leaders with whom the u.s. government has no relationships and the u.s. government will call on me as i go into north korea, cuba, palestinian factions, nepal and meet with a maoist, they asked me to ask questions and to bring back some answers. >> a final question for you. you have been critical of edward snowden, you believe that he broke the law with some of the revelations he made. but at the same time you think it was important that some of this be brought to light. >> i do. >> you said you're concerned that your e-mails are being looked at by the nsa, and when you have sensitive topics, you do handwritten letters. the head of the nsa has said they are not looking at your e-mails. >> that's a relief to know. i remember when the head of nsa one of them said that they didn't monitor american -- they didn't record american telephone calls. and it turned out later that he didn't tell the congress truth. but you know i haven't really worried about it. i don't have anything to conceal but there are some times when i don't want some of my private messages to be read. there's no doubt nsa has recorded every telephone call and every e-mail message sent in the united states. they don't actually read the text but they know which message has occurred. they know which transmission has taken place and if they want to later on they can get permission from a very quiescent fisa court. i was concerned after watergate and that sort of thing that intelligence sometimes abused people. i know that the fbi did abuse martin luther king jr. and so forth. so we have a law passed called the fisa law in 1978 that absolutely prevented any american intelligence agency from spying on even one american communication unless they got a court order ahead of time certifying that it was a threat to american security. and that prevailed until after 9/11. and then that law was liberalized. and i think the law was changed quite a lot. and in my opinion when the congress changed it, the intelligence committee knew what was in the bill but the rest of the members of coming didn't have access to those secrets. so the laws were passed and i think fsa and others have exceeded the grant of freedom that the congress gave them and exceeded their intrusion into the private affairs of americans, yes. >> the book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. president carter, it's an honor to have you with us. best of luck on your book and on your humanitarian efforts. and i hope you visit us on the 29th book. >> al jazeera america presents the system with joe berlinger >> i think the prosecutor has the greatest power of anyone anybody in our society >> lawyers are entrusted to seek the truth... >> i did't shoot anybody, i don't have anything to do with nothin' >> but some don't play by the rules >> the way the courts have treated him, made me sick >> and it's society that pays the price >> prosecutors have unique power to take away your personal liberties >> i just want justice... >> the system with joe burlinger only on al jazeera america to research the causes and possible cougars of gun violence in america. some 70,000 people attended the national rifle association's annual meeting this spring. on the agenda, passing a federal law that would allow gun owners with school carry permits to pack their guns in states where concealed care is banned. loaded guns in some circumstances to be brought into bars, churches, school zones, government buildings even airport areas outside security checkpoints. >> we as georgians believe in the right of the people to defend themselves and therefore we believe in the second amendment. and today i will put into law a gun bill that heralds self-defense, personal liberties and public safety. >> the little wonder then that georgia congressman jack kingston has chained his tune, now that he's campaigning for the senate. he now calls for banning the centers for disease control, will not be included in the appropriations bill. for more we're joined by congresswoman caroline maloney. and with us from atlanta is dr. mark rosenburg, president and director of the fasks for task force for human health, he led the gun violent research no. it was defunded in the 1990s. after newtown, about gun violence now he's completely changed his tune and as i just said, he's talking about the president wanting gun grabbing initiatives. what do you say to him? >> what's so threatening about doing research? we research everything, as researchers can point out. alone are we with gun safety research in that they are initiatives to prohibit. i would say no area should be so wall off that we can't research and find cures and solutions. i thought after sandy hook that there would be a lot of pro-gun safety, that the background checks would pass. but research, we need it in order to build a case. and the amount of gun violence in our world is staggering. 33,000 people a year die from gun violence. 32,000 people a year, 91,000 children under the able of 12 were killed by gun violence. why not? way to see if background checks work if safety locks work. >> policy isn't set without research to back it up. >> you need data to progress, and without the data you are stopping the progress. we have a bill in to the center for disease control for gun research. >> senator, i know you're a gun advocate, you like the shoot. now gun violence is seen as a public health issue because as the congresswoman said, tens of thousands of people are killed every year by gun violence and it's costing us tens of billions in medical cost. what can research for gun violence help? >> one, you mentioned 30,000 people a year are killed by guns. so we want to prevent some of those deaths. especially suicides and many, many of those deaths that are very preefntable. but we have -- preventible. we have another problem at the same time. our gun rights are threatened. the rights of legitimate gun owners are under threat. what we have got odo is find a way to reduce both firearm injuries and deaths and protect the rights of legitimate gun owners. if we probably only wanted to do one of those things, you wouldn't need research. don't allow any discussion let alone any discussion about firemafirearm injuries and deat. if all you wanted to do was prevent firearm injuries and deaths then take guns away from civilians. the problem is we want to solve both problems at the same time, and there are ways to do it. but if you want to figure out what works to achieve both of these goals at the same time, you need to do research to find out the answer. and rye anonymity, we don't know -- right now, we don't know what works. we don't know that letting more people carry concealed weapons in public will save lives and security, we don't know if that will protect legitimate gun owners. we're asking politicians to sign bills when they don't know what the impact of those bills would be. it's not fair of us to ask them to pass on bills if we don't give them evidence on what works and what doesn't. we're flying blind in an area that affects health and safety. >> congresswoman, you've mentioned a whole bunch of different are initiatives, including making gun ceag legal, to limit large capacity magazines, renew the assault weapons ban and require insurance for gug owners. isn't it a forgone conclusion that in an election year none of that will move forward? >> well you always try. i think his point you can do both is true. you can find common ground. there's no reason you can't research ways to prevent gun deaths and absolutely ensure that law abiding rightful citizens can bear arms. it is in our constitution. so none of my bills would take guns away from a law-abiding person and one who can rightfully own one. but as we learned in webster, new york, many mentally ill people get illegal guns and this particular case right after sandy hook, a man got a straw purchaser to get him some illegal guns and set fire to his house and proceeded to kill fire officers and police officers who were coming to save him. obviously a very ill person. we need to look at mental health and crack down on illegal gun trafficking. that should be like having a cup of water every day. why in the world, it is not legal to traffic in guns. most nra leaders i know say they absolutely support this bill, why can't we pass it? even common sense measures that even the nra supports we can't pass. >> dr. rosenburg, the nra's chief lobbyist chris cox said they were promoting an idea that gun are ownership is a disease that needs to be eradicated. should the cdc not be the place where this research is conducted? >> first you need to realize when people don't like the results that they're getting from honest scientific research, they try to discourage the researchers and the methods. the nra did not like the research that suggested that having a firearm at your home does not protect you but puts you at 300% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a homicide and 500% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a suicide. so the nra didn't like the fact that the research, very legitimate, high-quality research, showed that putting a gun in your home did not protect you. cdc is the only background and the epidemiologic skills to look at the picture, the picture of mental illness and what happens when the adjudicated mentally ill have firearms. the department of justice can look at what happens when convicted felons and criminals have firearms. but the cdc has the skill to check the impact on the population at as a whole. we fund them here -- >> there is research by other agencies. >> absolutely and the ban is unique to gun safety. i don't know of any other area of research where you're literally banned from this type of research. now president did an scuff order that said research could take place in this area and our legislation supports his executive order and makes it clear that the dick amendment did not research for gun safety. >> dr. rosenburg, the cdc has not been funded to do anything on gun safety since the 1990s. but you have written that we have spent billions of dollars since the 1970s on70s on prevention of traffic deaths. could the same help in this situation? >> obviously it could. obviously, jay dickey has over the years become a friend and we've both influenced each other and we both agree that this research is so important. it is a matter of life and death and jay dickey would today say that was a mistake and we need to do everything we can to get the research going again. >> an important discussion considering how many people are dying, and i appreciate you two joining us today. americans spend billions on health and diet products, how are we supposed to know what to buy and eat these days? countless mixed messages about what's good for us, what's bad for us, certainly not more than in the last couple of weeks. focusing on saturated fats, red wine or dark chocolate or gluten is a poison or gluten free is a positive fact. andrew wile,ing university of arizona health sciences center, he is a columnist for prevention magazine and a best selling author, true food, seasonable, sustainable, and pure. good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> let's start with saturated fats. the ones that effect most people, for centuries we have been told, don't eat high fat diets. the american heart association advocates for low fat diet. now we've got dr. oz, all sorts of papers and boorks that say maybe saturated fats aren't that bad for you after all. >> it may be that saturated fats are not that bad for us. i don't think we circulate eat them with abandon. it may be that all saturated fats are not created equal. for example, the saturated fat in meat is not great for your heart or arteries. whereas, the saturated are fat in dairy products may have a protective effect. >> the book that came out that said, the big fat surprise, saying butter is better for you than vegetable oils. >> i think olive oil is much better but keep in mind you have a saturated fat budget and decide how you want to spend it. do you want to have ietion cream once in a while, steak once in a while? i choose to spend my budget on high quality cheese. cheeses that come from cows that graze at high altitudes as in switzerland, italy and france which have a better high fat profile. i wouldn't say eat processed cheese with abandon. >> there was no increase, even for high senate intake people, in the risk of cancer or heart disease. >> the problem of these studies are metaanalyses, i don't think we know enough yet. another problem is, when we look at saturated fat, the question is many what is it replaced with in the diet? it's replaced with carbohydrates, which is more of a problem. >> i found that years ago on larry king live, you said saturated fats may not be the problem, the problems may be carbs. >> exactly. >> when these low fat diets came in a lot of people have gotten fatter. >> high glycemic carbohydrates, which are problematic. >> 30% of americans would like to cut back on gluten intake. only 1.8 million americans have celiac disease. a problem with gluten. many people have the nonceliac gluten sensitivity. >> the problem is, we can test for celiac disease we can't test for gluten sensitivity. somebody hears from a neighbor that gluten is a problem. i go to the doctor and ask is this the cause of my problem? we have very few directions if that could be a problem. >> but gluten has become a massive industry. you have to go out there -- >> massive industry. there are a lot of gluten free junk foods out there as well. often when people go on a gluten free diet, they are not imbibing in gluten and that may make them are more gluten sensitivity is unknown in china and japan. >> what does that say? >> the real problem may be the microbiome, the gut are bacteria we carry. it looks like the organisms we have in our gut are major determinants of sensitivity, reactivity and allergy. increase of increasing use of antibiotics, increasing use of industrialized food, a decrease in breast needing and a startling increase in i s c delivery in caesa caesarrian cloifer. >> we'll be back with admonish of "consider this." >> khaled hosseini author of the best selling novel "the kite runner" talks about his hopes for his homeland. >> no change will come to afghanistan unless it's initiated by the afghan's themselves... >> and the inspiration for his latest novel. >> the idea for the book came from painful acts of sacrifice. >> every saturday join us for exclusive, revealing, and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. >> talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america >> hundreds of days in detention. >> al jazeera rejects all the charges and demands immediate release. >> thousands calling for their freedom. >> it's a clear violation of their human rights. >> we have strongly urged the government to release those journalists. >> journalism is not a crime. >> nature is wondrous but it can also be brutal and horrifying. our next guest wrote a book about it, nature is trying to kill you. a tour through the dark side of the world. the host of monsters inside me on animal planet. great to have you with us, dan. >> great to be here. >> you start the book with the really disgusting thing that happened to you. which i don't want to get into. the title of the book how is mother nature trying to kill me? >> everybody has the idea that it's a loving kind thing that wants to make us healthier, if things are balanced they must be good for you. that's kind of true but mother nature is looking out for itself, and you're calories, and there are pret tors predators who would love to take you apart. it's the reason why breaking bad is more interesting to watch than cinderella. you never get to otherwise that are absolutely the best parts. >> talking about dark side, you break up the book into different chapters, following seven deadly sins. and your main premise is what characterizes, is: >> animals to pass on their own dna. they don't care about the specious, they don't care about the ecosystem, they just care about themselves. there are a bunch mice on this island and sea birds. but when the mice arrived there in 1810, they started eating eggs and then sea bird chicks a live and very quickly they started evolving and the last 200 years, they become two to three times the size of a normal mouse and they swarm a baby albatross and eat it alive. they themselves will die because they don't have any food left. they are thinking about themselves and not the ecosystem. >> you wrote your ph.d. theses about how vampire bats move. you talk about bats being the ultimate buzz kill for some tungara fra. that are about to make love. >> one of the bats i really love is called a frog eating bat. one of the frogs that the bat eats is a tungara fra. and are are they're stuck right? males are either -- they got really like to you know pass on my dna and have a romantic time with you but i also don't want to been by a bat. >> you also have a rinella frog. >> sometimes the female gets the upper hand like she does with this frog that's going to get eaten by the bat. there's actually a male and the mating season is so intense that at the end of it many females have died from the onslaught of what went on in that pond. i won't get into that. aafter they've died, some males will squeeze the female, and glet are eggs out, and fertilize those eggs. it's functional necrophilia. you're like what, why? >> i'm the oldest about six kids, i thought i knew all about sibling rivalry. let's start with one, sand tiger sharks. >> just incredible. the ma pla is pregnant and they have babies inside of her that's of different ages. the older is going to break out of its egg sack, and swim around inside the mom and eat its siblings so it doesn't have to compete with them in the reeled world. >> and ver owes hatches,. >> pecking and trying to kill its younger sibling and it usually succeeds out of 200 nests that were observed it worked 199 times. only one younger sibling survived. 1569 pecks. >> snowy owls are beautiful. >> they are beautiful but they don't know how much food there is going to be for their eggs so they have a strategy for their reproduction, where the oldest sibling gets all the the food at once. the younger siblings are going to die unless there's a lot of food. >> finally emperor peg quin penguins are very selfish right? >> they each have an egg and it's a beautiful story of them standing together to share heat. any male on the outside of the huddle will push its way to the middle and stay there. anyone in the middle will stay there too. you have penguins who are selfishly moving to the warm eggs place. >> the book is mother nature is trying to kill you. a lively tour through the natural world. dan riskin. we'll be real reporting that brings you the world. >> this is a pretty dangerous trip. >> security in beirut is tight. >> more reporters. >> they don't have the resources to take the fight to al shabaab. >> more bureaus, more stories. >> this is where the typhoon came ashore. giving you a real global perspective like no other can. >> al jazeera, nairobi. >> on the turkey-syria border. >> venezuela. >> beijing. >> kabul. >> hong kong. >> ukraine. >> the artic. real reporting from around the world. this is what we do. al jazeera america. america mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now this. >> did dracula have it right? the fictional vampire fed on the blood of others. and it kept him vibrant. older mice could be kept young by infusions of blood from younger mice, improving memory and learning. dr. amy majorrers is a professor of stem sel cell and regenera tf biology. could you explain the basis of the experiment with mice and what you found? >> thank you, sure, i would be happy to. we were searching for substances in the bloodstream that might affect the ability of tissues to retain themselves or repair themselves after injury. we found a protein called gdf 11 abundant in the blood of younger animals but declines with age. along with the emergence of several dysfunction muscle wasting and weakness, decreased activity in the brain and defects in the cardiac muscle as well. we found when we added this protein back to older animals we could actually reverse those signs of aging. >> somehow the protein activists stem cells that exist in -- activates stem cells and that's somehow produces the effect? >> we found that when gdf 11 was added back to the blood streams, improved the schedule schedule tal system and the brain. that translated into a more robust capacity of the brain around the skeletal muscle to function. >> i saw one quote that i thought was particularly interesting. this not only slows the clock but reverses the clock? >> so it does look like in fact we are able by adding back this protein that's normally lost with age to restore some activity in the muscle and in the brain that normally would not be there. so it does seem that we're restoring it. it's important to understand that we don't know for certain that this is actually a direct reversal of the processes that brought these cells to the aged state but it does restore function that's similar to what you would see in youth. >> this is obviously in its early stages but how translatable do you think these results could be in mice to humans? >> we're very excited about the possibility of translating this to humans. the gdf is identical between miez and humans. we want to understand more specifically its regulation in humans and how we might apply to it human aging related diseases. >> the fact that you have isolated it, could it be conceivably be taken in the form of a pill or would you actually have to have some sort of a blooz transfusion? >> it probably -- blood transfusion? >> we don't think we will go forward with blood transfusions in our work, we have this protein that we're very interested in seeing how it's regulated. i believe we'll be able to figure that out over the next few years and that will lead us with better options how to target this so we can for instance increase the body's own production of this protein later in life or target the effects of in protein more specifically. >> what kind of time frame do you think you'll need to figure this out for humans? >> so it's always of course very difficult to predict these things. but i think it's very reasonable to expect at least the first clinical trials that will build on the results we've reported here, within the next five years. >> could it be, to use, you know, the most popular way of looking at it, i guess, a fountain of youth for humans? >> so i think of it more as understanding ways to maintain healthy function, and healthy aging later in life. and so we're really focusing not so much on life span extension but really in extending the years that the body functions very well. >> now are you concerned that in some way the protein could cause some sort of of sces excessive reaction? >> we don't see any increase in the incidence of cancer in the older animals that have been treated with that protein. so far we've only treated animals for 60 days and we would like to look longer and more extensively at this reaction. >> it's a fascinating study. thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. >> thank you very >> the show may be over but the conversation continues. you can find us on twitter @ajconsiderthis. we'll see you next time. >> hello, everybody and welcome to jazz -- al jazeera america. john siegenthaler has the night off. you are watching the only live national newscast at this hour. just ahead, showdown. there's a new wave of protests in the california city where us about loads of immigrants were turned back. watch out! hurricane arthur has weakened but it's packing a punch as it moves up the east coast. yosemite, like you have never seen before.
what's ahead. >> former president jimmy carter,ing advocate for the treatment of women and girls. >> i've seen tangible examples of how horribly women and girls are treated. >> gender violence, he brings an extremely important voice to the conversation. >> studying and memorizing the gettysburg address. >> gluten are free. why do you enjoy it? >> it makes you fat. >> we begin with a call for action from former president jimmy carter. , the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. false interpretation of religious text almost exclusive by powerful male leaders, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls. growing tolerance of violence and warfare following the example set by the u.s. has also played a role as violence has encouraged more violence. for that i'm honored to welcome the 39th president of the united states and the 2002 noble peace prize winner. good to have you with us. >> delighted. >> you have redefined what it's like to be a former president of the united states. you are the only one who won the nobel peace prize after leaving the white house. you have traveled all over the world, doing humanitarian efforts from the carter center to habitat for humanity. you have written two does books. that? >> as a matter of fact, this is my 28th book. >> i apologize! >> the carter center is active in 79 different countries. since i've left the white house, that's what we have done, gotten to know people in all nations, in third world countries where women and girls are especially abused. people who can do something about it, i have 23 recommendations in the book that can solve some of these problems, particularly in the united states, a lot of the problems that occur in the poorest countries, the back countries of the world we might call them, also ex at extant in the united states. for instance, slavery, slavery is much greater than it was in the 19th century when black people were brought out of africa in europe and the united states. there is $32 billion of human trafficking in the world every year and the taint reported leas year owners t and the state department reported that 80% of those sold into slavery are imirls for sex purposes. >> and thousands of them into the united states. >> 100,000 in the united states. not all of them were sold across borders. but the number one place in america for this human slavery traffic is in atlanta. because we have the largest airport on earth. and also, because a lot of our passengers on the airplanes come from a third world, from the southern part of the world where the girls can be bought cheaper. so you can buy a pimp or brothel owner can buy a girl for about a thousand dollars if she comes from africa or southern asia or latin america. >> we got all sort of social media responses, a viewer named heather she asked, how can we fight trafficking in the u.s? >> well, i think the united states has to take the basis. there is a -- i'm talking about girls and women because as i say girls comprise 80% of the people sold into slavery. there is an international convention of the united states called a convention on the end of discrimination against women. cedaw. and the united states has refused to ratify this treaty, this convention that exists because we don't want to have anything to do with the united nations and the very conservative senate. there is another one called the law against violence against women and the international version ever that requires that every country tabulate not only their own crimes but decrease the criminality of action against women and girls al and l prisoners or slaves recordless whether they are women. the worst places for sexual abuse in america are two of our greatest institutions, one is universities. >> where we're seeing an epidemic of sexual assault. >> one out of four girls enrolled in american universities are raped or have sexual abuse while she's in college. only a fourth are reported, 1/6 as much in the civilian environment. >> and the other is the military. >> the military. >> you were a navy officer. what do you think -- >> a commanding officer doesn't want to admit in his chain of command in his company in his battalion that a lot of sexual abuse takes place. so he discourages the women from reporting it when they are taughted. same thing happens to the college presidents, to emery university or hard o harvard orf chicago or so forth. >> prosecution of sexual assault out of the chain of command -- >> i'm really disappointed. they made some slight improvements about how much you can harass a woman who is raped in court. there was a very horrible case of a midshipman in the naval academy where i attended, she was interrogated by the football player's defender, lawyer, 21 hours in three days and she asked to be left off, that off for the next day, because she was tired. and the judge ruled against her and made her testify on saturday as well. and they asked her horrendous questions, like how many times have you kissed a boy, what kind of underwear were you wearing, have you ever had sex relations, before you came to the naval academy, how wide do you open your mouth when you give oral sex to a boy? don't make a charge officially against your rapist that says. >> this is a horrible abuse across the world and you say it's the biggest worldwide challenge we face. >> it's unaddressed. >> it's unaddressed. in a world where we are facing nuclear proliferation, why do you think that is the biggest challenge? >> let's look at the number of people that die because of this. we know about 35 million people were killed in the second world war, right? and during the war between the states or the second world war 600,000 people were killed. at this moment there are 160 million girls who are missing because they have been killed by their parents. either at birth, they strangled the baby because it's a girl and they need to have boys, or because they now have sonograms and they can detect the sex of a fetus when it's still an embryo and they can selectively abort that child because it's female. almost a generation of girls are missing from the earth because they have been killed. >> the chapter of the book called genocide of girls. possibly the most precise one because you address that very issue. >> for instance china and india limit the size of families. if the family doesn't have social security, they want to have boys. if they can only have a maximum of one or two children, they want to make sure they have boys. a movie coming out, it's a girl, a very famous movie, a woman from yintd said with -- india said without shame that she strangled eight children when they were infants because they were girls. united states needs to take leadership role in stopping this mandatory prostitution and take action to correct these problems. >> you are deeply religious but you are critical in the role of religion to women and girls. >> i'm a christian. there is nothing in the acts of jesus christ that women. as a matter of fact, jesus was a champion of women's rights and made women of a higher status than ever before him. the beebl, the old test -- the bible, the old testament, new testament, the writings of paul, whether you want woman inferior. >> it is men interpreting it. >> it is. >> as paul pointed out there were 25 leaders that he mentioned dismissal i think in 16th chapter of acts and about half those are women at very high levels. nowadays, of course in the catholic church a woman cannot be a priest or a de deacon. and in the southern of the baptist convention, a woman can't teach boys in the classroom. >> you and mrs. carter left the southern baptist convention because of their position on women. you have been hopeful of pope francis. >> i visited with pope john paul ii, an almost total inflexibility there, but i wrote pope francis a letter describing some of the issues in the book and helped him to prevent or minimize the position of women and girls. i didn't ask him to change the church's position on women of course, but he wrote me a very nice letter back, the position of women in the church needed to be strengthened and would be. >> i know you said that president obama has not. >> my other predecessors, i'm not criticizing president obama because you know i've been out of office for 35 years. and it's natural for a president to consult other presidents if he wants to who have been more recently in the white house. so i think that george w. bush and bill clinton have been there just before him and i don't think it's reasonable to expect president obama to go back 35 years and recess recollect an old democrat who was there. >> what about the criticism that you are too independent, that you don't take guidance very well and don't play well with official washington? >> i'm always protecting the integrity of the president. i haven't been anywhere in the world that i didn't get at least tacit approval of the president before i went. a few presidents have asked me not to go, president obama did, president clinton, and president george h. wmplet bus w. bush asked me not ogo because there were places that were dangerous. the carter center had a policy of going into areas that, we don't have redescraints or restrictions of whom we meet. we can meet with leaders with whom the u.s. government has no relationships and the u.s. government will call on me as i go into north korea, cuba, palestinian factions, nepal and meet with a maoist, they asked me to ask questions and to bring back some answers. >> a final question for you. you have been critical of edward snowden, you believe that he broke the law with some of the revelations he made. but at the same time you think it was important that some of this be brought to light. >> i do. >> you said you're concerned that your e-mails are being looked at by the nsa, and when you have sensitive topics, you do handwritten letters. the head of the nsa has said they are not looking at your e-mails. >> that's a relief to know. i remember when the head of nsa one of them said that they didn't monitor american -- they didn't record american telephone calls. and it turned out later that he didn't tell the congress truth. but you know i haven't really worried about it. i don't have anything to conceal but there are some times when i don't want some of my private messages to be read. there's no doubt nsa has recorded every telephone call and every e-mail message sent in the united states. they don't actually read the text but they know which message has occurred. they know which transmission has taken place and if they want to later on they can get permission from a very quiescent fisa court. i was concerned after watergate and that sort of thing that intelligence sometimes abused people. i know that the fbi did abuse martin luther king jr. and so forth. so we have a law passed called the fisa law in 1978 that absolutely prevented any american intelligence agency from spying on even one american communication unless they got a court order ahead of time certifying that it was a threat to american security. and that prevailed until after 9/11. and then that law was liberalized. and i think the law was changed quite a lot. and in my opinion when the congress changed it, the intelligence committee knew what was in the bill but the rest of the members of coming didn't have access to those secrets. so the laws were passed and i think fsa and others have exceeded the grant of freedom that the congress gave them and exceeded their intrusion into the private affairs of americans, yes. >> the book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. president carter, it's an honor to have you with us. best of luck on your book and on your humanitarian efforts. and i hope you visit us on the 29th book. >> it's a chilling and draconian sentence... it simply cannot stand. >> its disgraceful... the only crime they really committed is journalism... >> they are truth seekers... >> all they really wanna do is find out what's happening, so they can tell people... >> governments around the world all united to condemn this... >> as you can see, it's still a very much volatile situation... >> the government is prepared to carry out mass array... >> if you want free press in the new democracy, let the journalists live. to research the causes and possible cougars of gun violence in america. some 70,000 people attended the national rifle association's annual meeting this spring. on the agenda, passing a federal law that would allow gun owners with school carry permits to pack their guns in states where concealed care is banned. loaded guns in some circumstances to be brought into bars, churches, school zones, government buildings even airport areas outside security checkpoints. >> we as georgians believe in the right of the people to defend themselves and therefore we believe in the second amendment. and today i will put into law a gun bill that heralds self-defense, personal liberties and public safety. >> the little wonder then that georgia congressman jack kingston has chained his tune, now that he's campaigning for the senate. he now calls for banning the centers for disease control, will not be included in the appropriations bill. for more we're joined by congresswoman caroline maloney. and with us from atlanta is dr. mark rosenburg, president and director of the fasks for task force for human health, he led the gun violent research no. it was defunded in the 1990s. after newtown, about gun violence now he's completely changed his tune and as i just said, he's talking about the president wanting gun grabbing initiatives. what do you say to him? >> what's so threatening about doing research? we research everything, as researchers can point out. alone are we with gun safety research in that they are initiatives to prohibit. i would say no area should be so wall off that we can't research and find cures and solutions. i thought after sandy hook that there would be a lot of pro-gun safety, that the background checks would pass. but research, we need it in order to build a case. and the amount of gun violence in our world is staggering. 33,000 people a year die from gun violence. 32,000 people a year, 91,000 children under the able of 12 were killed by gun violence. why not? way to see if background checks work if safety locks work. >> policy isn't set without research to back it up. >> you need data to progress, and without the data you are stopping the progress. we have a bill in to the center for disease control for gun research. >> senator, i know you're a gun advocate, you like the shoot. now gun violence is seen as a public health issue because as the congresswoman said, tens of thousands of people are killed every year by gun violence and it's costing us tens of billions in medical cost. what can research for gun violence help? >> one, you mentioned 30,000 people a year are killed by guns. so we want to prevent some of those deaths. especially suicides and many, many of those deaths that are very preefntable. but we have -- preventible. we have another problem at the same time. our gun rights are threatened. the rights of legitimate gun owners are under threat. what we have got odo is find a way to reduce both firearm injuries and deaths and protect the rights of legitimate gun owners. if we probably only wanted to do one of those things, you wouldn't need research. don't allow any discussion let alone any discussion about firemafirearm injuries and deat. if all you wanted to do was prevent firearm injuries and deaths then take guns away from civilians. the problem is we want to solve both problems at the same time, and there are ways to do it. but if you want to figure out what works to achieve both of these goals at the same time, you need to do research to find out the answer. and rye anonymity, we don't know -- right now, we don't know what works. we don't know that letting more people carry concealed weapons in public will save lives and security, we don't know if that will protect legitimate gun owners. we're asking politicians to sign bills when they don't know what the impact of those bills would be. it's not fair of us to ask them to pass on bills if we don't give them evidence on what works and what doesn't. we're flying blind in an area that affects health and safety. >> congresswoman, you've mentioned a whole bunch of different are initiatives, including making gun ceag legal, to limit large capacity magazines, renew the assault weapons ban and require insurance for gug owners. isn't it a forgone conclusion that in an election year none of that will move forward? >> well you always try. i think his point you can do both is true. you can find common ground. there's no reason you can't research ways to prevent gun deaths and absolutely ensure that law abiding rightful citizens can bear arms. it is in our constitution. so none of my bills would take guns away from a law-abiding person and one who can rightfully own one. but as we learned in webster, new york, many mentally ill people get illegal guns and this particular case right after sandy hook, a man got a straw purchaser to get him some illegal guns and set fire to his house and proceeded to kill fire officers and police officers who were coming to save him. obviously a very ill person. we need to look at mental health and crack down on illegal gun trafficking. that should be like having a cup of water every day. why in the world, it is not legal to traffic in guns. most nra leaders i know say they absolutely support this bill, why can't we pass it? even common sense measures that even the nra supports we can't pass. >> dr. rosenburg, the nra's chief lobbyist chris cox said they were promoting an idea that gun are ownership is a disease that needs to be eradicated. should the cdc not be the place where this research is conducted? >> first you need to realize when people don't like the results that they're getting from honest scientific research, they try to discourage the researchers and the methods. the nra did not like the research that suggested that having a firearm at your home does not protect you but puts you at 300% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a homicide and 500% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a suicide. so the nra didn't like the fact that the research, very legitimate, high-quality research, showed that putting a gun in your home did not protect you. cdc is the only background and the epidemiologic skills to look at the picture, the picture of mental illness and what happens when the adjudicated mentally ill have firearms. the department of justice can look at what happens when convicted felons and criminals have firearms. but the cdc has the skill to check the impact on the population at as a whole. we fund them here -- >> there is research by other agencies. >> absolutely and the ban is unique to gun safety. i don't know of any other area of research where you're literally banned from this type of research. now president did an scuff order that said research could take place in this area and our legislation supports his executive order and makes it clear that the dick amendment did not research for gun safety. >> dr. rosenburg, the cdc has not been funded to do anything on gun safety since the 1990s. but you have written that we have spent billions of dollars since the 1970s on70s on prevention of traffic deaths. could the same help in this situation? >> obviously it could. obviously, jay dickey has over the years become a friend and we've both influenced each other and we both agree that this research is so important. it is a matter of life and death and jay dickey would today say that was a mistake and we need to do everything we can to get the research going again. >> an important discussion considering how many people are dying, and i appreciate you two joining us today. americans spend billions on health and diet products, how are we supposed to know what to buy and eat these days? countless mixed messages about what's good for us, what's bad for us, certainly not more than in the last couple of weeks. focusing on saturated fats, red wine or dark chocolate or gluten is a poison or gluten free is a positive fact. andrew wile,ing university of arizona health sciences center, he is a columnist for prevention magazine and a best selling author, true food, seasonable, sustainable, and pure. good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> let's start with saturated fats. the ones that effect most people, for centuries we have been told, don't eat high fat diets. the american heart association advocates for low fat diet. now we've got dr. oz, all sorts of papers and boorks that say maybe saturated fats aren't that bad for you after all. >> it may be that saturated fats are not that bad for us. i don't think we circulate eat them with abandon. it may be that all saturated fats are not created equal. for example, the saturated fat in meat is not great for your heart or arteries. whereas, the saturated are fat in dairy products may have a protective effect. >> the book that came out that said, the big fat surprise, saying butter is better for you than vegetable oils. >> i think olive oil is much better but keep in mind you have a saturated fat budget and decide how you want to spend it. do you want to have ietion cream once in a while, steak once in a while? i choose to spend my budget on high quality cheese. cheeses that come from cows that graze at high altitudes as in switzerland, italy and france which have a better high fat profile. i wouldn't say eat processed cheese with abandon. >> there was no increase, even for high senate intake people, in the risk of cancer or heart disease. >> the problem of these studies are metaanalyses, i don't think we know enough yet. another problem is, when we look at saturated fat, the question is many what is it replaced with in the diet? it's replaced with carbohydrates, which is more of a problem. >> i found that years ago on larry king live, you said saturated fats may not be the problem, the problems may be carbs. >> exactly. >> when these low fat diets came in a lot of people have gotten fatter. >> high glycemic carbohydrates, which are problematic. >> 30% of americans would like to cut back on gluten intake. only 1.8 million americans have celiac disease. a problem with gluten. many people have the nonceliac gluten sensitivity. >> the problem is, we can test for celiac disease we can't test for gluten sensitivity. somebody hears from a neighbor that gluten is a problem. i go to the doctor and ask is this the cause of my problem? we have very few directions if that could be a problem. >> but gluten has become a massive industry. you have to go out there -- >> massive industry. there are a lot of gluten free junk foods out there as well. often when people go on a gluten free diet, they are not imbibing in gluten and that may make them are more gluten sensitivity is unknown in china and japan. >> what does that say? >> the real problem may be the microbiome, the gut are bacteria we carry. it looks like the organisms we have in our gut are major determinants of sensitivity, reactivity and allergy. increase of increasing use of antibiotics, increasing use of industrialized food, a decrease in breast needing and a startling increase in i s c delivery in caesa caesarrian cloifer. >> we'll be back with admonish of "consider this." >> al jazeera america presents the system with joe berlinger >> i think the prosecutor has the greatest power of anyone anybody in our society >> lawyers are entrusted to seek the truth... >> i did't shoot anybody, i don't have anything to do with nothin' >> but some don't play by the rules >> the way the courts have treated him, made me sick >> and it's society that pays the price >> prosecutors have unique power to take away your personal liberties >> i just want justice... >> the system with joe burlinger only on al jazeera america >> on tech know, an amazing new species is discovered... >> kind of like we're watching little architects in action >> one of natures mysteries solved... >> i don't think it's a spider or mite >> in the amazon rainforest >> we're gonna try to get one in the act of actually making the structure >> tech know, every saturday go where science meets humanity. >> this is some of the best driving i've every done, even though i can't see. >> tech know. >> we're here in the vortex. only on al jazeera america. >> tomorrow. >> i know that i'm being surveilled. >> freedom at risk. >> your agency deceived the american people. >> tracking every move. >> the nsa's actually doing this on a universal scale. >> could you be next? >> if helping kids with their homework is terrorism activity, then... i guess so. >> faultlines. al jazeera america's hard hitting, >> they're blocking the door... >> groundbreaking, >> we have to get out of here... >> truth seeking, award winning, investigative documentary series: "collect it all". tomorrow, 7 eastern. only on al jazeera america. >> khaled hosseini author of the best selling novel "the kite runner" talks about his hopes for his homeland. >> no change will come to afghanistan unless it's initiated by the afghan's themselves... >> and the inspiration for his latest novel. >> the idea for the book came from painful acts of sacrifice. >> every saturday join us for exclusive, revealing, and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. >> talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america >> nature is wondrous but it can also be brutal and horrifying. our next guest wrote a book about it, nature is trying to kill you. a tour through the dark side of the world. the host of monsters inside me on animal planet. great to have you with us, dan. >> great to be here. >> you start the book with the really disgusting thing that happened to you. which i don't want to get into. the title of the book how is mother nature trying to kill me? >> everybody has the idea that it's a loving kind thing that wants to make us healthier, if things are balanced they must be good for you. that's kind of true but mother nature is looking out for itself, and you're calories, and there are pret tors predators who would love to take you apart. it's the reason why breaking bad is more interesting to watch than cinderella. you never get to otherwise that are absolutely the best parts. >> talking about dark side, you break up the book into different chapters, following seven deadly sins. and your main premise is what characterizes, is: >> animals to pass on their own dna. they don't care about the specious, they don't care about the ecosystem, they just care about themselves. there are a bunch mice on this island and sea birds. but when the mice arrived there in 1810, they started eating eggs and then sea bird chicks a live and very quickly they started evolving and the last 200 years, they become two to three times the size of a normal mouse and they swarm a baby albatross and eat it alive. they themselves will die because they don't have any food left. they are thinking about themselves and not the ecosystem. >> you wrote your ph.d. theses about how vampire bats move. you talk about bats being the ultimate buzz kill for some tungara fra. that are about to make love. >> one of the bats i really love is called a frog eating bat. one of the frogs that the bat eats is a tungara fra. and are are they're stuck right? males are either -- they got really like to you know pass on my dna and have a romantic time with you but i also don't want to been by a bat. >> you also have a rinella frog. >> sometimes the female gets the upper hand like she does with this frog that's going to get eaten by the bat. there's actually a male and the mating season is so intense that at the end of it many females have died from the onslaught of what went on in that pond. i won't get into that. aafter they've died, some males will squeeze the female, and glet are eggs out, and fertilize those eggs. it's functional necrophilia. you're like what, why? >> i'm the oldest about six kids, i thought i knew all about sibling rivalry. let's start with one, sand tiger sharks. >> just incredible. the ma pla is pregnant and they have babies inside of her that's of different ages. the older is going to break out of its egg sack, and swim around inside the mom and eat its siblings so it doesn't have to compete with them in the reeled world. >> and ver owes hatches,. >> pecking and trying to kill its younger sibling and it usually succeeds out of 200 nests that were observed it worked 199 times. only one younger sibling survived. 1569 pecks. >> snowy owls are beautiful. >> they are beautiful but they don't know how much food there is going to be for their eggs so they have a strategy for their reproduction, where the oldest sibling gets all the the food at once. the younger siblings are going to die unless there's a lot of food. >> finally emperor peg quin penguins are very selfish right? >> they each have an egg and it's a beautiful story of them standing together to share heat. any male on the outside of the huddle will push its way to the middle and stay there. anyone in the middle will stay there too. you have penguins who are selfishly moving to the warm eggs place. >> the book is mother nature is trying to kill you. a lively tour through the natural world. dan riskin. we'll be >> al jazeera america presents >> yeah, i'm different. i wanna do what god asks of me... 15 stories, 1 incredible journey >> edge of eighteen coming september only on al jazeera america america mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now this. >> did dracula have it right? the fictional vampire fed on the blood of others. and it kept him vibrant. older mice could be kept young by infusions of blood from younger mice, improving memory and learning. dr. amy majorrers is a professor of stem sel cell and regenera tf biology. could you explain the basis of the experiment with mice and what you found? >> thank you, sure, i would be happy to. we were searching for substances in the bloodstream that might affect the ability of tissues to retain themselves or repair themselves after injury. we found a protein called gdf 11 abundant in the blood of younger animals but declines with age. along with the emergence of several dysfunction muscle wasting and weakness, decreased activity in the brain and defects in the cardiac muscle as well. we found when we added this protein back to older animals we could actually reverse those signs of aging. >> somehow the protein activists stem cells that exist in -- activates stem cells and that's somehow produces the effect? >> we found that when gdf 11 was added back to the blood streams, improved the schedule schedule tal system and the brain. that translated into a more robust capacity of the brain around the skeletal muscle to function. >> i saw one quote that i thought was particularly interesting. this not only slows the clock but reverses the clock? >> so it does look like in fact we are able by adding back this protein that's normally lost with age to restore some activity in the muscle and in the brain that normally would not be there. so it does seem that we're restoring it. it's important to understand that we don't know for certain that this is actually a direct reversal of the processes that brought these cells to the aged state but it does restore function that's similar to what you would see in youth. >> this is obviously in its early stages but how translatable do you think these results could be in mice to humans? >> we're very excited about the possibility of translating this to humans. the gdf is identical between miez and humans. we want to understand more specifically its regulation in humans and how we might apply to it human aging related diseases. >> the fact that you have isolated it, could it be conceivably be taken in the form of a pill or would you actually have to have some sort of a blooz transfusion? >> it probably -- blood transfusion? >> we don't think we will go forward with blood transfusions in our work, we have this protein that we're very interested in seeing how it's regulated. i believe we'll be able to figure that out over the next few years and that will lead us with better options how to target this so we can for instance increase the body's own production of this protein later in life or target the effects of in protein more specifically. >> what kind of time frame do you think you'll need to figure this out for humans? >> so it's always of course very difficult to predict these things. but i think it's very reasonable to expect at least the first clinical trials that will build on the results we've reported here, within the next five years. >> could it be, to use, you know, the most popular way of looking at it, i guess, a fountain of youth for humans? >> so i think of it more as understanding ways to maintain healthy function, and healthy aging later in life. and so we're really focusing not so much on life span extension but really in extending the years that the body functions very well. >> now are you concerned that in some way the protein could cause some sort of of sces excessive reaction? >> we don't see any increase in the incidence of cancer in the older animals that have been treated with that protein. so far we've only treated animals for 60 days and we would like to look longer and more extensively at this reaction. >> it's a fascinating study. thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. >> thank you very >> the show may be over but the conversation continues. you can find us on twitter @ajconsiderthis. we'll see you next time. pass the american dream - a good job, a home for the family, a better future for the kids. tonight - hardworking families left goodnight, and what can be done to help. i'll show you how the face of the middle class has changed in a proud american city, and how those in the middle banded together to help revitalize another city. plus, where in middle class families, where they are finding affordable homes, all part of our indepth coverage of the middle class - rebuilding the
>> former president jimmy carter,ing advocate for the treatment of women and girls. >> i've seen tangible examples of how horribly women and girls are treated. >> gender violence, he brings an extremely important voice to the conversation. >> studying and memorizing the gettysburg address. >> gluten are free. why do you enjoy it? >> it makes you fat. >> we begin with a call for action from former president jimmy carter. , the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. false interpretation of religious text almost exclusive by powerful male leaders, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls. growing tolerance of violence and warfare following the example set by the u.s. has also played a role as violence has encouraged more violence. for that i'm honored to welcome the 39th president of the united states and the 2002 noble peace prize winner. good to have you with us. >> delighted. >> you have redefined what it's like to be a former president of the united states. you are the only one who won the nobel peace prize after leaving the white house. you have traveled all over the world, doing humanitarian efforts from the carter center to habitat for humanity. you have written two does books. that? >> as a matter of fact, this is my 28th book. >> i apologize! >> the carter center is active in 79 different countries. since i've left the white house, that's what we have done, gotten to know people in all nations, in third world countries where women and girls are especially abused. people who can do something about it, i have 23 recommendations in the book that can solve some of these problems, particularly in the united states, a lot of the problems that occur in the poorest countries, the back countries of the world we might call them, also ex at extant in the united states. for instance, slavery, slavery is much greater than it was in the 19th century when black people were brought out of africa in europe and the united states. there is $32 billion of human trafficking in the world every year and the taint reported leas year owners t and the state department reported that 80% of those sold into slavery are imirls for sex purposes. >> and thousands of them into the united states. >> 100,000 in the united states. not all of them were sold across borders. but the number one place in america for this human slavery traffic is in atlanta. because we have the largest airport on earth. and also, because a lot of our passengers on the airplanes come from a third world, from the southern part of the world where the girls can be bought cheaper. so you can buy a pimp or brothel owner can buy a girl for about a thousand dollars if she comes from africa or southern asia or latin america. >> we got all sort of social media responses, a viewer named heather she asked, how can we fight trafficking in the u.s? >> well, i think the united states has to take the basis. there is a -- i'm talking about girls and women because as i say girls comprise 80% of the people sold into slavery. there is an international convention of the united states called a convention on the end of discrimination against women. cedaw. and the united states has refused to ratify this treaty, this convention that exists because we don't want to have anything to do with the united nations and the very conservative senate. there is another one called the law against violence against women and the international version ever that requires that every country tabulate not only their own crimes but decrease the criminality of action against women and girls al and l prisoners or slaves recordless whether they are women. the worst places for sexual abuse in america are two of our greatest institutions, one is universities. >> where we're seeing an epidemic of sexual assault. >> one out of four girls enrolled in american universities are raped or have sexual abuse while she's in college. only a fourth are reported, 1/6 as much in the civilian environment. >> and the other is the military. >> the military. >> you were a navy officer. what do you think -- >> a commanding officer doesn't want to admit in his chain of command in his company in his battalion that a lot of sexual abuse takes place. so he discourages the women from reporting it when they are taughted. same thing happens to the college presidents, to emery university or hard o harvard orf chicago or so forth. >> prosecution of sexual assault out of the chain of command -- >> i'm really disappointed. they made some slight improvements about how much you can harass a woman who is raped in court. there was a very horrible case of a midshipman in the naval academy where i attended, she was interrogated by the football player's defender, lawyer, 21 hours in three days and she asked to be left off, that off for the next day, because she was tired. and the judge ruled against her and made her testify on saturday as well. and they asked her horrendous questions, like how many times have you kissed a boy, what kind of underwear were you wearing, have you ever had sex relations, before you came to the naval academy, how wide do you open your mouth when you give oral sex to a boy? don't make a charge officially against your rapist that says. >> this is a horrible abuse across the world and you say it's the biggest worldwide challenge we face. >> it's unaddressed. >> it's unaddressed. in a world where we are facing nuclear proliferation, why do you think that is the biggest challenge? >> let's look at the number of people that die because of this. we know about 35 million people were killed in the second world war, right? and during the war between the states or the second world war 600,000 people were killed. at this moment there are 160 million girls who are missing because they have been killed by their parents. either at birth, they strangled the baby because it's a girl and they need to have boys, or because they now have sonograms and they can detect the sex of a fetus when it's still an embryo and they can selectively abort that child because it's female. almost a generation of girls are missing from the earth because they have been killed. >> the chapter of the book called genocide of girls. possibly the most precise one because you address that very issue. >> for instance china and india limit the size of families. if the family doesn't have social security, they want to have boys. if they can only have a maximum of one or two children, they want to make sure they have boys. a movie coming out, it's a girl, a very famous movie, a woman from yintd said with -- india said without shame that she strangled eight children when they were infants because they were girls. united states needs to take leadership role in stopping this mandatory prostitution and take action to correct these problems. >> you are deeply religious but you are critical in the role of religion to women and girls. >> i'm a christian. there is nothing in the acts of jesus christ that women. as a matter of fact, jesus was a champion of women's rights and made women of a higher status than ever before him. the beebl, the old test -- the bible, the old testament, new testament, the writings of paul, whether you want woman inferior. >> it is men interpreting it. >> it is. >> as paul pointed out there were 25 leaders that he mentioned dismissal i think in 16th chapter of acts and about half those are women at very high levels. nowadays, of course in the catholic church a woman cannot be a priest or a de deacon. and in the southern of the baptist convention, a woman can't teach boys in the classroom. >> you and mrs. carter left the southern baptist convention because of their position on women. you have been hopeful of pope francis. >> i visited with pope john paul ii, an almost total inflexibility there, but i wrote pope francis a letter describing some of the issues in the book and helped him to prevent or minimize the position of women and girls. i didn't ask him to change the church's position on women of course, but he wrote me a very nice letter back, the position of women in the church needed to be strengthened and would be. >> i know you said that president obama has not. >> my other predecessors, i'm not criticizing president obama because you know i've been out of office for 35 years. and it's natural for a president to consult other presidents if he wants to who have been more recently in the white house. so i think that george w. bush and bill clinton have been there just before him and i don't think it's reasonable to expect president obama to go back 35 years and recess recollect an old democrat who was there. >> what about the criticism that you are too independent, that you don't take guidance very well and don't play well with official washington? >> i'm always protecting the integrity of the president. i haven't been anywhere in the world that i didn't get at least tacit approval of the president before i went. a few presidents have asked me not to go, president obama did, president clinton, and president george h. wmplet bus w. bush asked me not ogo because there were places that were dangerous. the carter center had a policy of going into areas that, we don't have redescraints or restrictions of whom we meet. we can meet with leaders with whom the u.s. government has no relationships and the u.s. government will call on me as i go into north korea, cuba, palestinian factions, nepal and meet with a maoist, they asked me to ask questions and to bring back some answers. >> a final question for you. you have been critical of edward snowden, you believe that he broke the law with some of the revelations he made. but at the same time you think it was important that some of this be brought to light. >> i do. >> you said you're concerned that your e-mails are being looked at by the nsa, and when you have sensitive topics, you do handwritten letters. the head of the nsa has said they are not looking at your e-mails. >> that's a relief to know. i remember when the head of nsa one of them said that they didn't monitor american -- they didn't record american telephone calls. and it turned out later that he didn't tell the congress truth. but you know i haven't really worried about it. i don't have anything to conceal but there are some times when i don't want some of my private messages to be read. there's no doubt nsa has recorded every telephone call and every e-mail message sent in the united states. they don't actually read the text but they know which message has occurred. they know which transmission has taken place and if they want to later on they can get permission from a very quiescent fisa court. i was concerned after watergate and that sort of thing that intelligence sometimes abused people. i know that the fbi did abuse martin luther king jr. and so forth. so we have a law passed called the fisa law in 1978 that absolutely prevented any american intelligence agency from spying on even one american communication unless they got a court order ahead of time certifying that it was a threat to american security. and that prevailed until after 9/11. and then that law was liberalized. and i think the law was changed quite a lot. and in my opinion when the congress changed it, the intelligence committee knew what was in the bill but the rest of the members of coming didn't have access to those secrets. so the laws were passed and i think fsa and others have exceeded the grant of freedom that the congress gave them and exceeded their intrusion into the private affairs of americans, yes. >> the book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. president carter, it's an honor to have you with us. best of luck on your book and on your humanitarian efforts. and i hope you visit us on the 29th book. >> al jazeera america presents >> i'm not a genius, but... i feel like that kid that doesn't need to go to practice. >> 15 stories one incredible journey edge of eighteen coming september only on al jazeera america ♪ i voted for culture... ...with a 'k.' how are you? 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>> what's so threatening about doing research? we research everything, as researchers can point out. alone are we with gun safety research in that they are initiatives to prohibit. i would say no area should be so wall off that we can't research and find cures and solutions. i thought after sandy hook that there would be a lot of pro-gun safety, that the background checks would pass. but research, we need it in order to build a case. and the amount of gun violence in our world is staggering. 33,000 people a year die from gun violence. 32,000 people a year, 91,000 children under the able of 12 were killed by gun violence. why not? way to see if background checks work if safety locks work. >> policy isn't set without research to back it up. >> you need data to progress, and without the data you are stopping the progress. we have a bill in to the center for disease control for gun research. >> senator, i know you're a gun advocate, you like the shoot. now gun violence is seen as a public health issue because as the congresswoman said, tens of thousands of people are killed every year by gun violence and it's costing us tens of billions in medical cost. what can research for gun violence help? >> one, you mentioned 30,000 people a year are killed by guns. so we want to prevent some of those deaths. especially suicides and many, many of those deaths that are very preefntable. but we have -- preventible. we have another problem at the same time. our gun rights are threatened. the rights of legitimate gun owners are under threat. what we have got odo is find a way to reduce both firearm injuries and deaths and protect the rights of legitimate gun owners. if we probably only wanted to do one of those things, you wouldn't need research. don't allow any discussion let alone any discussion about firemafirearm injuries and deat. if all you wanted to do was prevent firearm injuries and deaths then take guns away from civilians. the problem is we want to solve both problems at the same time, and there are ways to do it. but if you want to figure out what works to achieve both of these goals at the same time, you need to do research to find out the answer. and rye anonymity, we don't know -- right now, we don't know what works. we don't know that letting more people carry concealed weapons in public will save lives and security, we don't know if that will protect legitimate gun owners. we're asking politicians to sign bills when they don't know what the impact of those bills would be. it's not fair of us to ask them to pass on bills if we don't give them evidence on what works and what doesn't. we're flying blind in an area that affects health and safety. >> congresswoman, you've mentioned a whole bunch of different are initiatives, including making gun ceag legal, to limit large capacity magazines, renew the assault weapons ban and require insurance for gug owners. isn't it a forgone conclusion that in an election year none of that will move forward? >> well you always try. i think his point you can do both is true. you can find common ground. there's no reason you can't research ways to prevent gun deaths and absolutely ensure that law abiding rightful citizens can bear arms. it is in our constitution. so none of my bills would take guns away from a law-abiding person and one who can rightfully own one. but as we learned in webster, new york, many mentally ill people get illegal guns and this particular case right after sandy hook, a man got a straw purchaser to get him some illegal guns and set fire to his house and proceeded to kill fire officers and police officers who were coming to save him. obviously a very ill person. we need to look at mental health and crack down on illegal gun trafficking. that should be like having a cup of water every day. why in the world, it is not legal to traffic in guns. most nra leaders i know say they absolutely support this bill, why can't we pass it? even common sense measures that even the nra supports we can't pass. >> dr. rosenburg, the nra's chief lobbyist chris cox said they were promoting an idea that gun are ownership is a disease that needs to be eradicated. should the cdc not be the place where this research is conducted? >> first you need to realize when people don't like the results that they're getting from honest scientific research, they try to discourage the researchers and the methods. the nra did not like the research that suggested that having a firearm at your home does not protect you but puts you at 300% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a homicide and 500% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a suicide. so the nra didn't like the fact that the research, very legitimate, high-quality research, showed that putting a gun in your home did not protect you. cdc is the only background and the epidemiologic skills to look at the picture, the picture of mental illness and what happens when the adjudicated mentally ill have firearms. the department of justice can look at what happens when convicted felons and criminals have firearms. but the cdc has the skill to check the impact on the population at as a whole. we fund them here -- >> there is research by other agencies. >> absolutely and the ban is unique to gun safety. i don't know of any other area of research where you're literally banned from this type of research. now president did an scuff order that said research could take place in this area and our legislation supports his executive order and makes it clear that the dick amendment did not research for gun safety. >> dr. rosenburg, the cdc has not been funded to do anything on gun safety since the 1990s. but you have written that we have spent billions of dollars since the 1970s on70s on prevention of traffic deaths. could the same help in this situation? >> obviously it could. obviously, jay dickey has over the years become a friend and we've both influenced each other and we both agree that this research is so important. it is a matter of life and death and jay dickey would today say that was a mistake and we need to do everything we can to get the research going again. >> an important discussion considering how many people are dying, and i appreciate you two joining us today. americans spend billions on health and diet products, how are we supposed to know what to buy and eat these days? countless mixed messages about what's good for us, what's bad for us, certainly not more than in the last couple of weeks. focusing on saturated fats, red wine or dark chocolate or gluten is a poison or gluten free is a positive fact. andrew wile,ing university of arizona health sciences center, he is a columnist for prevention magazine and a best selling author, true food, seasonable, sustainable, and pure. good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> let's start with saturated fats. the ones that effect most people, for centuries we have been told, don't eat high fat diets. the american heart association advocates for low fat diet. now we've got dr. oz, all sorts of papers and boorks that say maybe saturated fats aren't that bad for you after all. >> it may be that saturated fats are not that bad for us. i don't think we circulate eat them with abandon. it may be that all saturated fats are not created equal. for example, the saturated fat in meat is not great for your heart or arteries. whereas, the saturated are fat in dairy products may have a protective effect. >> the book that came out that said, the big fat surprise, saying butter is better for you than vegetable oils. >> i think olive oil is much better but keep in mind you have a saturated fat budget and decide how you want to spend it. do you want to have ietion cream once in a while, steak once in a while? i choose to spend my budget on high quality cheese. cheeses that come from cows that graze at high altitudes as in switzerland, italy and france which have a better high fat profile. i wouldn't say eat processed cheese with abandon. >> there was no increase, even for high senate intake people, in the risk of cancer or heart disease. >> the problem of these studies are metaanalyses, i don't think we know enough yet. another problem is, when we look at saturated fat, the question is many what is it replaced with in the diet? it's replaced with carbohydrates, which is more of a problem. >> i found that years ago on larry king live, you said saturated fats may not be the problem, the problems may be carbs. >> exactly. >> when these low fat diets came in a lot of people have gotten fatter. >> high glycemic carbohydrates, which are problematic. >> 30% of americans would like to cut back on gluten intake. only 1.8 million americans have celiac disease. a problem with gluten. many people have the nonceliac gluten sensitivity. >> the problem is, we can test for celiac disease we can't test for gluten sensitivity. somebody hears from a neighbor that gluten is a problem. i go to the doctor and ask is this the cause of my problem? we have very few directions if that could be a problem. >> but gluten has become a massive industry. you have to go out there -- >> massive industry. there are a lot of gluten free junk foods out there as well. often when people go on a gluten free diet, they are not imbibing in gluten and that may make them are more gluten sensitivity is unknown in china and japan. >> what does that say? >> the real problem may be the microbiome, the gut are bacteria we carry. it looks like the organisms we have in our gut are major determinants of sensitivity, reactivity and allergy. increase of increasing use of antibiotics, increasing use of industrialized food, a decrease in breast needing and a startling increase in i s c delivery in caesa caesarrian cloifer. >> we'll be back with admonish of "consider this." >> on the stream, >> from attic space to a spare room, americans are baking on sharing for a little extra cash, but is there a downside to this new 26 billion dollar sharing economy? >> the stream on al jazeera america >> the violence has continued just a couple of miles from here >> just a short while ago we heard a large air strike very close by... >> people here are worried that this already serious situation may escalate. >> for continuing coverage of the israeli - palestinian conflict, stay with al jazeera america your global news leader. >> on tech know, >> what if there was a miracle? >> grace's stem cells are in this box. >> that could save the live of your child... >> we're gonna do whatever we can >> would yo give it a try? >> cell therapy is gonna be the next big advance in medicine >> tech know, every saturday go where science meets humanity. >> this is some of the best driving i've every done, even though i can't see. >> tech know. >> we're here in the vortex. only on al jazeera america. >> the most celebrated speech in american history is a funeral , speech, president abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. students at a tiny vermont boarding school, where boys with learning disabilities memorized the address. a new of freedom, the address, its create is award winning ken burns whom i spoke with about the address, on our pream "talk to al jazeera." ken, great to have you with us. the civil war of course was your big break through, although you had been nominated for oscars before at that point. why did you decide to go back and deal with an important part of that era? >> people ask me how do i choose my projects and i say they choose me. this one chose me, across the connecticut border, putney, vice mayor, they asked me to be a judge at this gettysburg memorization ceremony. i wept. i cried at the inspirational nature of it, someone needs to take a flix on this. -- a film on this. help the kids with context over the years and finally at the 150 is approaching, i said we got to to do this. i got to put my money where my mouth is, about the historic struggles of these boys. programmatic aspect to it which is challenging the rest of the country to do something in unison, to have everybody do it. if these boys can do it we can too. >> you have got actors singers sports stars. all sorts of people to do it. >> fourscore and seven years ago. >> our fathers brought fort on this continent, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. >> now we are engaged in a great civil war. >> testing that a nation or any nation so dedicated can long endure. >> we have lost our educational mojo, lots of are reasons, lots of hammering, we asked people to stop memorizing stuff. it was rote and no relevance. we reached out and no one said no. and history is a table around which we can still have a civil discourse. we've got bill o'reilly and rachel madow, all the five living presidents contributing to this. do they see eye to eye on day-to-day events? no of course not. but do you love abraham lincoln, to appeal to the better angels of our nature, abraham lincoln would say so. >> in memorization in many ways might lead to greater understanding. let's take a look at the process that the boys at putney school go through. >> our fathers. >> brought forth. >> to the proposition. >> that all men are created equal. >> it ends up being a lot of work for a lot of them. but it has all sorts of tremendous effects. >> it does. you know they all suffer from some sort of learning difference. it might be dyslexia, disgraph disgraphia, adhd, but they are terrified with public recitation. some of them have language difficulties that make it hard to memorize or to speak. and so they help each other. it's a boarding school for kids that should be still at home. and they are held together by the loving kind isness of the school. the kids help each other and they sort of emerge from their struggles and it is such an amazingly inspirational thing that takes place here. >> especially son that day, when they go in front of the public and speak about it. let's see that. >> that we here highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vein. >> that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom. and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. [cheering and applause] >> so that is beautiful max. i took that with my smartphone because i realized we were covering the parental reactions while they were giving the address. but when i saw him coming back and i had known that max had knew the speech cold but was terrified about doing it in public. and an hour before he wasn't going to do it but he did it and did it magnificently and then came back and sort of melted into his mother that expresses all the are -- >> it was amazing. back. >> nature is wondrous but it can also be brutal and horrifying. our next guest wrote a book about it, nature is trying to kill you. a tour through the dark side of the world. the host of monsters inside me on animal planet. great to have you with us, dan. >> great to be here. >> you start the book with the really disgusting thing that happened to you. which i don't want to get into. the title of the book how is mother nature trying to kill me? >> everybody has the idea that it's a loving kind thing that wants to make us healthier, if things are balanced they must be good for you. that's kind of true but mother nature is looking out for itself, and you're calories, and there are pret tors predators who would love to take you apart. it's the reason why breaking bad is more interesting to watch than cinderella. you never get to otherwise that are absolutely the best parts. >> talking about dark side, you break up the book into different chapters, following seven deadly sins. and your main premise is what characterizes, is: >> animals to pass on their own dna. they don't care about the specious, they don't care about the ecosystem, they just care about themselves. there are a bunch mice on this island and sea birds. but when the mice arrived there in 1810, they started eating eggs and then sea bird chicks a live and very quickly they started evolving and the last 200 years, they become two to three times the size of a normal mouse and they swarm a baby albatross and eat it alive. they themselves will die because they don't have any food left. they are thinking about themselves and not the ecosystem. >> you wrote your ph.d. theses about how vampire bats move. you talk about bats being the ultimate buzz kill for some tungara fra. that are about to make love. >> one of the bats i really love is called a frog eating bat. one of the frogs that the bat eats is a tungara fra. and are are they're stuck right? males are either -- they got really like to you know pass on my dna and have a romantic time with you but i also don't want to been by a bat. >> you also have a rinella frog. >> sometimes the female gets the upper hand like she does with this frog that's going to get eaten by the bat. there's actually a male and the mating season is so intense that at the end of it many females have died from the onslaught of what went on in that pond. i won't get into that. aafter they've died, some males will squeeze the female, and glet are eggs out, and fertilize those eggs. it's functional necrophilia. you're like what, why? >> i'm the oldest about six kids, i thought i knew all about sibling rivalry. let's start with one, sand tiger sharks. >> just incredible. the ma pla is pregnant and they have babies inside of her that's of different ages. the older is going to break out of its egg sack, and swim around inside the mom and eat its siblings so it doesn't have to compete with them in the reeled world. >> and ver owes hatches,. >> pecking and trying to kill its younger sibling and it usually succeeds out of 200 nests that were observed it worked 199 times. only one younger sibling survived. 1569 pecks. >> snowy owls are beautiful. >> they are beautiful but they don't know how much food there is going to be for their eggs so they have a strategy for their reproduction, where the oldest sibling gets all the the food at once. the younger siblings are going to die unless there's a lot of food. >> finally emperor peg quin penguins are very selfish right? >> they each have an egg and it's a beautiful story of them standing together to share heat. any male on the outside of the huddle will push its way to the middle and stay there. anyone in the middle will stay there too. you have penguins who are selfishly moving to the warm eggs place. >> the book is mother nature is trying to kill you. a lively tour through the natural world. dan riskin. we'll be >> i'm ali velshi, the news has become this thing where you talk to experts about people, and al jazeera has really tried to talk to people, about their stories. we are not meant to be your first choice for entertainment. we are ment to be your first choice for the news. @jvé >> this, is what we do.vé >> al jazeera america. this. >> did dracula have it right? the fictional vampire fed on the blood of others. and it kept him vibrant. older mice could be kept young by infusions of blood from younger mice, improving memory and learning. dr. amy majorrers is a professor of stem sel cell and regenera tf biology. could you explain the basis of the experiment with mice and what you found? >> thank you, sure, i would be happy to. we were searching for substances in the bloodstream that might affect the ability of tissues to retain themselves or repair themselves after injury. we found a protein called gdf 11 abundant in the blood of younger animals but declines with age. along with the emergence of several dysfunction muscle wasting and weakness, decreased activity in the brain and defects in the cardiac muscle as well. we found when we added this protein back to older animals we could actually reverse those signs of aging. >> somehow the protein activists stem cells that exist in -- activates stem cells and that's somehow produces the effect? >> we found that when gdf 11 was added back to the blood streams, improved the schedule schedule tal system and the brain. that translated into a more robust capacity of the brain around the skeletal muscle to function. >> i saw one quote that i thought was particularly interesting. this not only slows the clock but reverses the clock? >> so it does look like in fact we are able by adding back this protein that's normally lost with age to restore some activity in the muscle and in the brain that normally would not be there. so it does seem that we're restoring it. it's important to understand that we don't know for certain that this is actually a direct reversal of the processes that brought these cells to the aged state but it does restore function that's similar to what you would see in youth. >> this is obviously in its early stages but how translatable do you think these results could be in mice to humans? >> we're very excited about the possibility of translating this to humans. the gdf is identical between miez and humans. we want to understand more specifically its regulation in humans and how we might apply to it human aging related diseases. >> the fact that you have isolated it, could it be conceivably be taken in the form of a pill or would you actually have to have some sort of a blooz transfusion? >> it probably -- blood transfusion? >> we don't think we will go forward with blood transfusions in our work, we have this protein that we're very interested in seeing how it's regulated. i believe we'll be able to figure that out over the next few years and that will lead us with better options how to target this so we can for instance increase the body's own production of this protein later in life or target the effects of in protein more specifically. >> what kind of time frame do you think you'll need to figure this out for humans? >> so it's always of course very difficult to predict these things. but i think it's very reasonable to expect at least the first clinical trials that will build on the results we've reported here, within the next five years. >> could it be, to use, you know, the most popular way of looking at it, i guess, a fountain of youth for humans? >> so i think of it more as understanding ways to maintain healthy function, and healthy aging later in life. and so we're really focusing not so much on life span extension but really in extending the years that the body functions very well. >> now are you concerned that in some way the protein could cause some sort of of sces excessive reaction? >> we don't see any increase in the incidence of cancer in the older animals that have been treated with that protein. so far we've only treated animals for 60 days and we would like to look longer and more extensively at this reaction. >> it's a fascinating study. thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. >> thank you very >> the show may be over but the conversation continues. you can find us on twitter @ajconsiderthis. we'll see you next time. >> welcome to aljazeera america, i'm del walters, and these are the stories we're following for you. investigators on the way to the crash site. but pointing the fingers at each other for the downed airliner. >> these are emergency personnel who have been on the scene for a couple of hours this morning, and as you see, they're holding sticks with white cloth on top of them. and they're marking bodies. >> and they're running out of sticks. who and why are the questions to be answered, but the reality for many
>> former president jimmy carter,ing advocate for the treatment of women and girls. >> i've seen tangible examples of how horribly women and girls are treated. >> gender violence, he brings an extremely important voice to the conversation. >> studying and memorizing the gettysburg address. >> gluten are free. why do you enjoy it? >> it makes you fat. >> we begin with a call for action from former president jimmy carter. , the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. false interpretation of religious text almost exclusive by powerful male leaders, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls. growing tolerance of violence and warfare following the example set by the u.s. has also played a role as violence has encouraged more violence. for that i'm honored to welcome the 39th president of the united states and the 2002 noble peace prize winner. good to have you with us. >> delighted. >> you have redefined what it's like to be a former president of the united states. you are the only one who won the nobel peace prize after leaving the white house. you have traveled all over the world, doing humanitarian efforts from the carter center to habitat for humanity. you have written two does books. that? >> as a matter of fact, this is my 28th book. >> i apologize! >> the carter center is active in 79 different countries. since i've left the white house, that's what we have done, gotten to know people in all nations, in third world countries where women and girls are especially abused. people who can do something about it, i have 23 recommendations in the book that can solve some of these problems, particularly in the united states, a lot of the problems that occur in the poorest countries, the back countries of the world we might call them, also ex at extant in the united states. for instance, slavery, slavery is much greater than it was in the 19th century when black people were brought out of africa in europe and the united states. there is $32 billion of human trafficking in the world every year and the taint reported leas year owners t and the state department reported that 80% of those sold into slavery are imirls for sex purposes. >> and thousands of them into the united states. >> 100,000 in the united states. not all of them were sold across borders. but the number one place in america for this human slavery traffic is in atlanta. because we have the largest airport on earth. and also, because a lot of our passengers on the airplanes come from a third world, from the southern part of the world where the girls can be bought cheaper. so you can buy a pimp or brothel owner can buy a girl for about a thousand dollars if she comes from africa or southern asia or latin america. >> we got all sort of social media responses, a viewer named heather she asked, how can we fight trafficking in the u.s? >> well, i think the united states has to take the basis. there is a -- i'm talking about girls and women because as i say girls comprise 80% of the people sold into slavery. there is an international convention of the united states called a convention on the end of discrimination against women. cedaw. and the united states has refused to ratify this treaty, this convention that exists because we don't want to have anything to do with the united nations and the very conservative senate. there is another one called the law against violence against women and the international version ever that requires that every country tabulate not only their own crimes but decrease the criminality of action against women and girls al and l prisoners or slaves recordless whether they are women. the worst places for sexual abuse in america are two of our greatest institutions, one is universities. >> where we're seeing an epidemic of sexual assault. >> one out of four girls enrolled in american universities are raped or have sexual abuse while she's in college. only a fourth are reported, 1/6 as much in the civilian environment. >> and the other is the military. >> the military. >> you were a navy officer. what do you think -- >> a commanding officer doesn't want to admit in his chain of command in his company in his battalion that a lot of sexual abuse takes place. so he discourages the women from reporting it when they are taughted. same thing happens to the college presidents, to emery university or hard o harvard orf chicago or so forth. >> prosecution of sexual assault out of the chain of command -- >> i'm really disappointed. they made some slight improvements about how much you can harass a woman who is raped in court. there was a very horrible case of a midshipman in the naval academy where i attended, she was interrogated by the football player's defender, lawyer, 21 hours in three days and she asked to be left off, that off for the next day, because she was tired. and the judge ruled against her and made her testify on saturday as well. and they asked her horrendous questions, like how many times have you kissed a boy, what kind of underwear were you wearing, have you ever had sex relations, before you came to the naval academy, how wide do you open your mouth when you give oral sex to a boy? don't make a charge officially against your rapist that says. >> this is a horrible abuse across the world and you say it's the biggest worldwide challenge we face. >> it's unaddressed. >> it's unaddressed. in a world where we are facing nuclear proliferation, why do you think that is the biggest challenge? >> let's look at the number of people that die because of this. we know about 35 million people were killed in the second world war, right? and during the war between the states or the second world war 600,000 people were killed. at this moment there are 160 million girls who are missing because they have been killed by their parents. either at birth, they strangled the baby because it's a girl and they need to have boys, or because they now have sonograms and they can detect the sex of a fetus when it's still an embryo and they can selectively abort that child because it's female. almost a generation of girls are missing from the earth because they have been killed. >> the chapter of the book called genocide of girls. possibly the most precise one because you address that very issue. >> for instance china and india limit the size of families. if the family doesn't have social security, they want to have boys. if they can only have a maximum of one or two children, they want to make sure they have boys. a movie coming out, it's a girl, a very famous movie, a woman from yintd said with -- india said without shame that she strangled eight children when they were infants because they were girls. united states needs to take leadership role in stopping this mandatory prostitution and take action to correct these problems. >> you are deeply religious but you are critical in the role of religion to women and girls. >> i'm a christian. there is nothing in the acts of jesus christ that women. as a matter of fact, jesus was a champion of women's rights and made women of a higher status than ever before him. the beebl, the old test -- the bible, the old testament, new testament, the writings of paul, whether you want woman inferior. >> it is men interpreting it. >> it is. >> as paul pointed out there were 25 leaders that he mentioned dismissal i think in 16th chapter of acts and about half those are women at very high levels. nowadays, of course in the catholic church a woman cannot be a priest or a de deacon. and in the southern of the baptist convention, a woman can't teach boys in the classroom. >> you and mrs. carter left the southern baptist convention because of their position on women. you have been hopeful of pope francis. >> i visited with pope john paul ii, an almost total inflexibility there, but i wrote pope francis a letter describing some of the issues in the book and helped him to prevent or minimize the position of women and girls. i didn't ask him to change the church's position on women of course, but he wrote me a very nice letter back, the position of women in the church needed to be strengthened and would be. >> i know you said that president obama has not. >> my other predecessors, i'm not criticizing president obama because you know i've been out of office for 35 years. and it's natural for a president to consult other presidents if he wants to who have been more recently in the white house. so i think that george w. bush and bill clinton have been there just before him and i don't think it's reasonable to expect president obama to go back 35 years and recess recollect an old democrat who was there. >> what about the criticism that you are too independent, that you don't take guidance very well and don't play well with official washington? >> i'm always protecting the integrity of the president. i haven't been anywhere in the world that i didn't get at least tacit approval of the president before i went. a few presidents have asked me not to go, president obama did, president clinton, and president george h. wmplet bus w. bush asked me not ogo because there were places that were dangerous. the carter center had a policy of going into areas that, we don't have redescraints or restrictions of whom we meet. we can meet with leaders with whom the u.s. government has no relationships and the u.s. government will call on me as i go into north korea, cuba, palestinian factions, nepal and meet with a maoist, they asked me to ask questions and to bring back some answers. >> a final question for you. you have been critical of edward snowden, you believe that he broke the law with some of the revelations he made. but at the same time you think it was important that some of this be brought to light. >> i do. >> you said you're concerned that your e-mails are being looked at by the nsa, and when you have sensitive topics, you do handwritten letters. the head of the nsa has said they are not looking at your e-mails. >> that's a relief to know. i remember when the head of nsa one of them said that they didn't monitor american -- they didn't record american telephone calls. and it turned out later that he didn't tell the congress truth. but you know i haven't really worried about it. i don't have anything to conceal but there are some times when i don't want some of my private messages to be read. there's no doubt nsa has recorded every telephone call and every e-mail message sent in the united states. they don't actually read the text but they know which message has occurred. they know which transmission has taken place and if they want to later on they can get permission from a very quiescent fisa court. i was concerned after watergate and that sort of thing that intelligence sometimes abused people. i know that the fbi did abuse martin luther king jr. and so forth. so we have a law passed called the fisa law in 1978 that absolutely prevented any american intelligence agency from spying on even one american communication unless they got a court order ahead of time certifying that it was a threat to american security. and that prevailed until after 9/11. and then that law was liberalized. and i think the law was changed quite a lot. and in my opinion when the congress changed it, the intelligence committee knew what was in the bill but the rest of the members of coming didn't have access to those secrets. so the laws were passed and i think fsa and others have exceeded the grant of freedom that the congress gave them and exceeded their intrusion into the private affairs of americans, yes. >> the book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. president carter, it's an honor to have you with us. best of luck on your book and on your humanitarian efforts. and i hope you visit us on the 29th book. >> on the stream, >> what's the real impact of the group calling itself islamic state? does it have the power and reach to effect global oil prices and your security. join us on the stream >> the stream on al jazeera america to research the causes and possible cougars of gun violence in america. some 70,000 people attended the national rifle association's annual meeting this spring. on the agenda, passing a federal law that would allow gun owners with school carry permits to pack their guns in states where concealed care is banned. loaded guns in some circumstances to be brought into bars, churches, school zones, government buildings even airport areas outside security checkpoints. >> we as georgians believe in the right of the people to defend themselves and therefore we believe in the second amendment. and today i will put into law a gun bill that heralds self-defense, personal liberties and public safety. >> the little wonder then that georgia congressman jack kingston has chained his tune, now that he's campaigning for the senate. he now calls for banning the centers for disease control, will not be included in the appropriations bill. for more we're joined by congresswoman caroline maloney. and with us from atlanta is dr. mark rosenburg, president and director of the fasks for task force for human health, he led the gun violent research no. it was defunded in the 1990s. after newtown, about gun violence now he's completely changed his tune and as i just said, he's talking about the president wanting gun grabbing initiatives. what do you say to him? >> what's so threatening about doing research? we research everything, as researchers can point out. alone are we with gun safety research in that they are initiatives to prohibit. i would say no area should be so wall off that we can't research and find cures and solutions. i thought after sandy hook that there would be a lot of pro-gun safety, that the background checks would pass. but research, we need it in order to build a case. and the amount of gun violence in our world is staggering. 33,000 people a year die from gun violence. 32,000 people a year, 91,000 children under the able of 12 were killed by gun violence. why not? way to see if background checks work if safety locks work. >> policy isn't set without research to back it up. >> you need data to progress, and without the data you are stopping the progress. we have a bill in to the center for disease control for gun research. >> senator, i know you're a gun advocate, you like the shoot. now gun violence is seen as a public health issue because as the congresswoman said, tens of thousands of people are killed every year by gun violence and it's costing us tens of billions in medical cost. what can research for gun violence help? >> one, you mentioned 30,000 people a year are killed by guns. so we want to prevent some of those deaths. especially suicides and many, many of those deaths that are very preefntable. but we have -- preventible. we have another problem at the same time. our gun rights are threatened. the rights of legitimate gun owners are under threat. what we have got odo is find a way to reduce both firearm injuries and deaths and protect the rights of legitimate gun owners. if we probably only wanted to do one of those things, you wouldn't need research. don't allow any discussion let alone any discussion about firemafirearm injuries and deat. if all you wanted to do was prevent firearm injuries and deaths then take guns away from civilians. the problem is we want to solve both problems at the same time, and there are ways to do it. but if you want to figure out what works to achieve both of these goals at the same time, you need to do research to find out the answer. and rye anonymity, we don't know -- right now, we don't know what works. we don't know that letting more people carry concealed weapons in public will save lives and security, we don't know if that will protect legitimate gun owners. we're asking politicians to sign bills when they don't know what the impact of those bills would be. it's not fair of us to ask them to pass on bills if we don't give them evidence on what works and what doesn't. we're flying blind in an area that affects health and safety. >> congresswoman, you've mentioned a whole bunch of different are initiatives, including making gun ceag legal, to limit large capacity magazines, renew the assault weapons ban and require insurance for gug owners. isn't it a forgone conclusion that in an election year none of that will move forward? >> well you always try. i think his point you can do both is true. you can find common ground. there's no reason you can't research ways to prevent gun deaths and absolutely ensure that law abiding rightful citizens can bear arms. it is in our constitution. so none of my bills would take guns away from a law-abiding person and one who can rightfully own one. but as we learned in webster, new york, many mentally ill people get illegal guns and this particular case right after sandy hook, a man got a straw purchaser to get him some illegal guns and set fire to his house and proceeded to kill fire officers and police officers who were coming to save him. obviously a very ill person. we need to look at mental health and crack down on illegal gun trafficking. that should be like having a cup of water every day. why in the world, it is not legal to traffic in guns. most nra leaders i know say they absolutely support this bill, why can't we pass it? even common sense measures that even the nra supports we can't pass. >> dr. rosenburg, the nra's chief lobbyist chris cox said they were promoting an idea that gun are ownership is a disease that needs to be eradicated. should the cdc not be the place where this research is conducted? >> first you need to realize when people don't like the results that they're getting from honest scientific research, they try to discourage the researchers and the methods. the nra did not like the research that suggested that having a firearm at your home does not protect you but puts you at 300% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a homicide and 500% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a suicide. so the nra didn't like the fact that the research, very legitimate, high-quality research, showed that putting a gun in your home did not protect you. cdc is the only background and the epidemiologic skills to look at the picture, the picture of mental illness and what happens when the adjudicated mentally ill have firearms. the department of justice can look at what happens when convicted felons and criminals have firearms. but the cdc has the skill to check the impact on the population at as a whole. we fund them here -- >> there is research by other agencies. >> absolutely and the ban is unique to gun safety. i don't know of any other area of research where you're literally banned from this type of research. now president did an scuff order that said research could take place in this area and our legislation supports his executive order and makes it clear that the dick amendment did not research for gun safety. >> dr. rosenburg, the cdc has not been funded to do anything on gun safety since the 1990s. but you have written that we have spent billions of dollars since the 1970s on70s on prevention of traffic deaths. could the same help in this situation? >> obviously it could. obviously, jay dickey has over the years become a friend and we've both influenced each other and we both agree that this research is so important. it is a matter of life and death and jay dickey would today say that was a mistake and we need to do everything we can to get the research going again. >> an important discussion considering how many people are dying, and i appreciate you two joining us today. americans spend billions on health and diet products, how are we supposed to know what to buy and eat these days? countless mixed messages about what's good for us, what's bad for us, certainly not more than in the last couple of weeks. focusing on saturated fats, red wine or dark chocolate or gluten is a poison or gluten free is a positive fact. andrew wile,ing university of arizona health sciences center, he is a columnist for prevention magazine and a best selling author, true food, seasonable, sustainable, and pure. good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> let's start with saturated fats. the ones that effect most people, for centuries we have been told, don't eat high fat diets. the american heart association advocates for low fat diet. now we've got dr. oz, all sorts of papers and boorks that say maybe saturated fats aren't that bad for you after all. >> it may be that saturated fats are not that bad for us. i don't think we circulate eat them with abandon. it may be that all saturated fats are not created equal. for example, the saturated fat in meat is not great for your heart or arteries. whereas, the saturated are fat in dairy products may have a protective effect. >> the book that came out that said, the big fat surprise, saying butter is better for you than vegetable oils. >> i think olive oil is much better but keep in mind you have a saturated fat budget and decide how you want to spend it. do you want to have ietion cream once in a while, steak once in a while? i choose to spend my budget on high quality cheese. cheeses that come from cows that graze at high altitudes as in switzerland, italy and france which have a better high fat profile. i wouldn't say eat processed cheese with abandon. >> there was no increase, even for high senate intake people, in the risk of cancer or heart disease. >> the problem of these studies are metaanalyses, i don't think we know enough yet. another problem is, when we look at saturated fat, the question is many what is it replaced with in the diet? it's replaced with carbohydrates, which is more of a problem. >> i found that years ago on larry king live, you said saturated fats may not be the problem, the problems may be carbs. >> exactly. >> when these low fat diets came in a lot of people have gotten fatter. >> high glycemic carbohydrates, which are problematic. >> 30% of americans would like to cut back on gluten intake. only 1.8 million americans have celiac disease. a problem with gluten. many people have the nonceliac gluten sensitivity. >> the problem is, we can test for celiac disease we can't test for gluten sensitivity. somebody hears from a neighbor that gluten is a problem. i go to the doctor and ask is this the cause of my problem? we have very few directions if that could be a problem. >> but gluten has become a massive industry. you have to go out there -- >> massive industry. there are a lot of gluten free junk foods out there as well. often when people go on a gluten free diet, they are not imbibing in gluten and that may make them are more gluten sensitivity is unknown in china and japan. >> what does that say? >> the real problem may be the microbiome, the gut are bacteria we carry. it looks like the organisms we have in our gut are major determinants of sensitivity, reactivity and allergy. increase of increasing use of antibiotics, increasing use of industrialized food, a decrease in breast needing and a startling increase in i s c delivery in caesa caesarrian cloifer. >> we'll be back with admonish of "consider this." >> on tech know, >> what if there was a miracle? >> grace's stem cells are in this box. >> that could save the live of your child... >> we're gonna do whatever we can >> would yo give it a try? >> cell therapy is gonna be the next big advance in medicine >> tech know, every saturday go where science meets humanity. >> this is some of the best driving i've every done, even though i can't see. >> tech know. >> we're here in the vortex. only on al jazeera america. >> the most celebrated speech in american history is a funeral , speech, president abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. students at a tiny vermont boarding school, where boys with learning disabilities memorized the address. a new of freedom, the address, its create is award winning ken burns whom i spoke with about the address, on our pream "talk to al jazeera." ken, great to have you with us. the civil war of course was your big break through, although you had been nominated for oscars before at that point. why did you decide to go back and deal with an important part of that era? >> people ask me how do i choose my projects and i say they choose me. this one chose me, across the connecticut border, putney, vice mayor, they asked me to be a judge at this gettysburg memorization ceremony. i wept. i cried at the inspirational nature of it, someone needs to take a flix on this. -- a film on this. help the kids with context over the years and finally at the 150 is approaching, i said we got to to do this. i got to put my money where my mouth is, about the historic struggles of these boys. programmatic aspect to it which is challenging the rest of the country to do something in unison, to have everybody do it. if these boys can do it we can too. >> you have got actors singers sports stars. all sorts of people to do it. >> fourscore and seven years ago. >> our fathers brought fort on this continent, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. >> now we are engaged in a great civil war. >> testing that a nation or any nation so dedicated can long endure. >> we have lost our educational mojo, lots of are reasons, lots of hammering, we asked people to stop memorizing stuff. it was rote and no relevance. we reached out and no one said no. and history is a table around which we can still have a civil discourse. we've got bill o'reilly and rachel madow, all the five living presidents contributing to this. do they see eye to eye on day-to-day events? no of course not. but do you love abraham lincoln, to appeal to the better angels of our nature, abraham lincoln would say so. >> in memorization in many ways might lead to greater understanding. let's take a look at the process that the boys at putney school go through. >> our fathers. >> brought forth. >> to the proposition. >> that all men are created equal. >> it ends up being a lot of work for a lot of them. but it has all sorts of tremendous effects. >> it does. you know they all suffer from some sort of learning difference. it might be dyslexia, disgraph disgraphia, adhd, but they are terrified with public recitation. some of them have language difficulties that make it hard to memorize or to speak. and so they help each other. it's a boarding school for kids that should be still at home. and they are held together by the loving kind isness of the school. the kids help each other and they sort of emerge from their struggles and it is such an amazingly inspirational thing that takes place here. >> especially son that day, when they go in front of the public and speak about it. let's see that. >> that we here highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vein. >> that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom. and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. [cheering and applause] >> so that is beautiful max. i took that with my smartphone because i realized we were covering the parental reactions while they were giving the address. but when i saw him coming back and i had known that max had knew the speech cold but was terrified about doing it in public. and an hour before he wasn't going to do it but he did it and did it magnificently and then came back and sort of melted into his mother that expresses all the are -- >> it was amazing. back. >> al jazeera america presents >> yeah, i'm different. i wanna do what god asks of me. >> 15 stories one incredible journey edge of eighteen coming september only on al jazeera america >> today >> prop 8, really made us think about this process of coming out. >> meet the committed couples >> gay marriages, straight marriages... have the same challenges. >> it's all about having the same options as everybody else. >> that fought for equality >> saying "i do" changed everything. >>every saturday, join us for exclusive, revealing and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. "talk to al jazeera" today 5 eastern only on al jazeera america >> nature is wondrous but it can also be brutal and horrifying. our next guest wrote a book about it, nature is trying to kill you. a tour through the dark side of the world. the host of monsters inside me on animal planet. great to have you with us, dan. >> great to be here. >> you start the book with the really disgusting thing that happened to you. which i don't want to get into. the title of the book how is mother nature trying to kill me? >> everybody has the idea that it's a loving kind thing that wants to make us healthier, if things are balanced they must be good for you. that's kind of true but mother nature is looking out for itself, and you're calories, and there are pret tors predators who would love to take you apart. it's the reason why breaking bad is more interesting to watch than cinderella. you never get to otherwise that are absolutely the best parts. >> talking about dark side, you break up the book into different chapters, following seven deadly sins. and your main premise is what characterizes, is: >> animals to pass on their own dna. they don't care about the specious, they don't care about the ecosystem, they just care about themselves. there are a bunch mice on this island and sea birds. but when the mice arrived there in 1810, they started eating eggs and then sea bird chicks a live and very quickly they started evolving and the last 200 years, they become two to three times the size of a normal mouse and they swarm a baby albatross and eat it alive. they themselves will die because they don't have any food left. they are thinking about themselves and not the ecosystem. >> you wrote your ph.d. theses about how vampire bats move. you talk about bats being the ultimate buzz kill for some tungara fra. that are about to make love. >> one of the bats i really love is called a frog eating bat. one of the frogs that the bat eats is a tungara fra. and are are they're stuck right? males are either -- they got really like to you know pass on my dna and have a romantic time with you but i also don't want to been by a bat. >> you also have a rinella frog. >> sometimes the female gets the upper hand like she does with this frog that's going to get eaten by the bat. there's actually a male and the mating season is so intense that at the end of it many females have died from the onslaught of what went on in that pond. i won't get into that. aafter they've died, some males will squeeze the female, and glet are eggs out, and fertilize those eggs. it's functional necrophilia. you're like what, why? >> i'm the oldest about six kids, i thought i knew all about sibling rivalry. let's start with one, sand tiger sharks. >> just incredible. the ma pla is pregnant and they have babies inside of her that's of different ages. the older is going to break out of its egg sack, and swim around inside the mom and eat its siblings so it doesn't have to compete with them in the reeled world. >> and ver owes hatches,. >> pecking and trying to kill its younger sibling and it usually succeeds out of 200 nests that were observed it worked 199 times. only one younger sibling survived. 1569 pecks. >> snowy owls are beautiful. >> they are beautiful but they don't know how much food there is going to be for their eggs so they have a strategy for their reproduction, where the oldest sibling gets all the the food at once. the younger siblings are going to die unless there's a lot of food. >> finally emperor peg quin penguins are very selfish right? >> they each have an egg and it's a beautiful story of them standing together to share heat. any male on the outside of the huddle will push its way to the middle and stay there. anyone in the middle will stay there too. you have penguins who are selfishly moving to the warm eggs place. >> the book is mother nature is trying to kill you. a lively tour through the natural world. dan riskin. we'll be >> al jazeera america presents a global finacial powerhouse >> the roman catholic church, they have an enormous amount of power >> accusations of corruption... >> there is a portion of the budget that takes care of all the clerical abuse issues. >> now we follow the money and take you inside the vatican's financial empire. >> when it comes to money, this is one of the sloppiest organizations on earth... >> al jazeera america presents... holy money only on al jazeera america the night's events, a smarter start to your day. mornings on al jazeera america this. >> did dracula have it right? the fictional vampire fed on the blood of others. and it kept him vibrant. older mice could be kept young by infusions of blood from younger mice, improving memory and learning. dr. amy majorrers is a professor of stem sel cell and regenera tf biology. could you explain the basis of the experiment with mice and what you found? >> thank you, sure, i would be happy to. we were searching for substances in the bloodstream that might affect the ability of tissues to retain themselves or repair themselves after injury. we found a protein called gdf 11 abundant in the blood of younger animals but declines with age. along with the emergence of several dysfunction muscle wasting and weakness, decreased activity in the brain and defects in the cardiac muscle as well. we found when we added this protein back to older animals we could actually reverse those signs of aging. >> somehow the protein activists stem cells that exist in -- activates stem cells and that's somehow produces the effect? >> we found that when gdf 11 was added back to the blood streams, improved the schedule schedule tal system and the brain. that translated into a more robust capacity of the brain around the skeletal muscle to function. >> i saw one quote that i thought was particularly interesting. this not only slows the clock but reverses the clock? >> so it does look like in fact we are able by adding back this protein that's normally lost with age to restore some activity in the muscle and in the brain that normally would not be there. so it does seem that we're restoring it. it's important to understand that we don't know for certain that this is actually a direct reversal of the processes that brought these cells to the aged state but it does restore function that's similar to what you would see in youth. >> this is obviously in its early stages but how translatable do you think these results could be in mice to humans? >> we're very excited about the possibility of translating this to humans. the gdf is identical between miez and humans. we want to understand more specifically its regulation in humans and how we might apply to it human aging related diseases. >> the fact that you have isolated it, could it be conceivably be taken in the form of a pill or would you actually have to have some sort of a blooz transfusion? >> it probably -- blood transfusion? >> we don't think we will go forward with blood transfusions in our work, we have this protein that we're very interested in seeing how it's regulated. i believe we'll be able to figure that out over the next few years and that will lead us with better options how to target this so we can for instance increase the body's own production of this protein later in life or target the effects of in protein more specifically. >> what kind of time frame do you think you'll need to figure this out for humans? >> so it's always of course very difficult to predict these things. but i think it's very reasonable to expect at least the first clinical trials that will build on the results we've reported here, within the next five years. >> could it be, to use, you know, the most popular way of looking at it, i guess, a fountain of youth for humans? >> so i think of it more as understanding ways to maintain healthy function, and healthy aging later in life. and so we're really focusing not so much on life span extension but really in extending the years that the body functions very well. >> now are you concerned that in some way the protein could cause some sort of of sces excessive reaction? >> we don't see any increase in the incidence of cancer in the older animals that have been treated with that protein. so far we've only treated animals for 60 days and we would like to look longer and more extensively at this reaction. >> it's a fascinating study. thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. >> thank you very >> the show may be over but the conversation continues. you can find us on twitter @ajconsiderthis. we'll see you next time. good morning to you and ' think to al jazerra american live from new york city i am morgan radford. recovering bodies from malaysia fly 17. this why pro-russian rebels are accused of tampering with evidence. israel's ground invasion of gaza continues as rockets continue rockets to fly. ♪ ♪
>> former president jimmy carter,ing advocate for the treatment of women and girls. >> i've seen tangible examples of how horribly women and girls are treated. >> gender violence, he brings an extremely important voice to the conversation. >> studying and memorizing the gettysburg address. >> gluten are free. why do you enjoy it? >> it makes you fat. >> we begin with a call for action from former president jimmy carter. , the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. false interpretation of religious text almost exclusive by powerful male leaders, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls. growing tolerance of violence and warfare following the example set by the u.s. has also played a role as violence has encouraged more violence. for that i'm honored to welcome the 39th president of the united states and the 2002 noble peace prize winner. good to have you with us. >> delighted. >> you have redefined what it's like to be a former president of the united states. you are the only one who won the nobel peace prize after leaving the white house. you have traveled all over the world, doing humanitarian efforts from the carter center to habitat for humanity. you have written two does books. that? >> as a matter of fact, this is my 28th book. >> i apologize! >> the carter center is active in 79 different countries. since i've left the white house, that's what we have done, gotten to know people in all nations, in third world countries where women and girls are especially abused. people who can do something about it, i have 23 recommendations in the book that can solve some of these problems, particularly in the united states, a lot of the problems that occur in the poorest countries, the back countries of the world we might call them, also ex at extant in the united states. for instance, slavery, slavery is much greater than it was in the 19th century when black people were brought out of africa in europe and the united states. there is $32 billion of human trafficking in the world every year and the taint reported leas year owners t and the state department reported that 80% of those sold into slavery are imirls for sex purposes. >> and thousands of them into the united states. >> 100,000 in the united states. not all of them were sold across borders. but the number one place in america for this human slavery traffic is in atlanta. because we have the largest airport on earth. and also, because a lot of our passengers on the airplanes come from a third world, from the southern part of the world where the girls can be bought cheaper. so you can buy a pimp or brothel owner can buy a girl for about a thousand dollars if she comes from africa or southern asia or latin america. >> we got all sort of social media responses, a viewer named heather she asked, how can we fight trafficking in the u.s? >> well, i think the united states has to take the basis. there is a -- i'm talking about girls and women because as i say girls comprise 80% of the people sold into slavery. there is an international convention of the united states called a convention on the end of discrimination against women. cedaw. and the united states has refused to ratify this treaty, this convention that exists because we don't want to have anything to do with the united nations and the very conservative senate. there is another one called the law against violence against women and the international version ever that requires that every country tabulate not only their own crimes but decrease the criminality of action against women and girls al and l prisoners or slaves recordless whether they are women. the worst places for sexual abuse in america are two of our greatest institutions, one is universities. >> where we're seeing an epidemic of sexual assault. >> one out of four girls enrolled in american universities are raped or have sexual abuse while she's in college. only a fourth are reported, 1/6 as much in the civilian environment. >> and the other is the military. >> the military. >> you were a navy officer. what do you think -- >> a commanding officer doesn't want to admit in his chain of command in his company in his battalion that a lot of sexual abuse takes place. so he discourages the women from reporting it when they are taughted. same thing happens to the college presidents, to emery university or hard o harvard orf chicago or so forth. >> prosecution of sexual assault out of the chain of command -- >> i'm really disappointed. they made some slight improvements about how much you can harass a woman who is raped in court. there was a very horrible case of a midshipman in the naval academy where i attended, she was interrogated by the football player's defender, lawyer, 21 hours in three days and she asked to be left off, that off for the next day, because she was tired. and the judge ruled against her and made her testify on saturday as well. and they asked her horrendous questions, like how many times have you kissed a boy, what kind of underwear were you wearing, have you ever had sex relations, before you came to the naval academy, how wide do you open your mouth when you give oral sex to a boy? don't make a charge officially against your rapist that says. >> this is a horrible abuse across the world and you say it's the biggest worldwide challenge we face. >> it's unaddressed. >> it's unaddressed. in a world where we are facing nuclear proliferation, why do you think that is the biggest challenge? >> let's look at the number of people that die because of this. we know about 35 million people were killed in the second world war, right? and during the war between the states or the second world war 600,000 people were killed. at this moment there are 160 million girls who are missing because they have been killed by their parents. either at birth, they strangled the baby because it's a girl and they need to have boys, or because they now have sonograms and they can detect the sex of a fetus when it's still an embryo and they can selectively abort that child because it's female. almost a generation of girls are missing from the earth because they have been killed. >> the chapter of the book called genocide of girls. possibly the most precise one because you address that very issue. >> for instance china and india limit the size of families. if the family doesn't have social security, they want to have boys. if they can only have a maximum of one or two children, they want to make sure they have boys. a movie coming out, it's a girl, a very famous movie, a woman from yintd said with -- india said without shame that she strangled eight children when they were infants because they were girls. united states needs to take leadership role in stopping this mandatory prostitution and take action to correct these problems. >> you are deeply religious but you are critical in the role of religion to women and girls. >> i'm a christian. there is nothing in the acts of jesus christ that women. as a matter of fact, jesus was a champion of women's rights and made women of a higher status than ever before him. the beebl, the old test -- the bible, the old testament, new testament, the writings of paul, whether you want woman inferior. >> it is men interpreting it. >> it is. >> as paul pointed out there were 25 leaders that he mentioned dismissal i think in 16th chapter of acts and about half those are women at very high levels. nowadays, of course in the catholic church a woman cannot be a priest or a de deacon. and in the southern of the baptist convention, a woman can't teach boys in the classroom. >> you and mrs. carter left the southern baptist convention because of their position on women. you have been hopeful of pope francis. >> i visited with pope john paul ii, an almost total inflexibility there, but i wrote pope francis a letter describing some of the issues in the book and helped him to prevent or minimize the position of women and girls. i didn't ask him to change the church's position on women of course, but he wrote me a very nice letter back, the position of women in the church needed to be strengthened and would be. >> i know you said that president obama has not. >> my other predecessors, i'm not criticizing president obama because you know i've been out of office for 35 years. and it's natural for a president to consult other presidents if he wants to who have been more recently in the white house. so i think that george w. bush and bill clinton have been there just before him and i don't think it's reasonable to expect president obama to go back 35 years and recess recollect an old democrat who was there. >> what about the criticism that you are too independent, that you don't take guidance very well and don't play well with official washington? >> i'm always protecting the integrity of the president. i haven't been anywhere in the world that i didn't get at least tacit approval of the president before i went. a few presidents have asked me not to go, president obama did, president clinton, and president george h. wmplet bus w. bush asked me not ogo because there were places that were dangerous. the carter center had a policy of going into areas that, we don't have redescraints or restrictions of whom we meet. we can meet with leaders with whom the u.s. government has no relationships and the u.s. government will call on me as i go into north korea, cuba, palestinian factions, nepal and meet with a maoist, they asked me to ask questions and to bring back some answers. >> a final question for you. you have been critical of edward snowden, you believe that he broke the law with some of the revelations he made. but at the same time you think it was important that some of this be brought to light. >> i do. >> you said you're concerned that your e-mails are being looked at by the nsa, and when you have sensitive topics, you do handwritten letters. the head of the nsa has said they are not looking at your e-mails. >> that's a relief to know. i remember when the head of nsa one of them said that they didn't monitor american -- they didn't record american telephone calls. and it turned out later that he didn't tell the congress truth. but you know i haven't really worried about it. i don't have anything to conceal but there are some times when i don't want some of my private messages to be read. there's no doubt nsa has recorded every telephone call and every e-mail message sent in the united states. they don't actually read the text but they know which message has occurred. they know which transmission has taken place and if they want to later on they can get permission from a very quiescent fisa court. i was concerned after watergate and that sort of thing that intelligence sometimes abused people. i know that the fbi did abuse martin luther king jr. and so forth. so we have a law passed called the fisa law in 1978 that absolutely prevented any american intelligence agency from spying on even one american communication unless they got a court order ahead of time certifying that it was a threat to american security. and that prevailed until after 9/11. and then that law was liberalized. and i think the law was changed quite a lot. and in my opinion when the congress changed it, the intelligence committee knew what was in the bill but the rest of the members of coming didn't have access to those secrets. so the laws were passed and i think fsa and others have exceeded the grant of freedom that the congress gave them and exceeded their intrusion into the private affairs of americans, yes. >> the book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. president carter, it's an honor to have you with us. best of luck on your book and on your humanitarian efforts. and i hope you visit us on the 29th book. ah, got it. these wifi hotspots we get with our xfinity internet service are all over the place. hey you can stop looking. i found one. see? what do you think a wifi hotspot smells like? i'm thinking roast beef. want to get lunch? get the fastest wifi hotspots and more coverage on the go than any other provider. xfinity, the future of awesome. that's why i always choose the fastest intern.r slow. the fastest printer. the fastest lunch. turkey club. the fastest pencil sharpener. the fastest elevator. the fastest speed dial. the fastest office plant. so why wouldn't i choose the fastest wifi? i would. switch to comcast business internet and get the fastest wifi included. comcast business. built for business. to research the causes and possible cougars of gun violence in america. some 70,000 people attended the national rifle association's annual meeting this spring. on the agenda, passing a federal law that would allow gun owners with school carry permits to pack their guns in states where concealed care is banned. loaded guns in some circumstances to be brought into bars, churches, school zones, government buildings even airport areas outside security checkpoints. >> we as georgians believe in the right of the people to defend themselves and therefore we believe in the second amendment. and today i will put into law a gun bill that heralds self-defense, personal liberties and public safety. >> the little wonder then that georgia congressman jack kingston has chained his tune, now that he's campaigning for the senate. he now calls for banning the centers for disease control, will not be included in the appropriations bill. for more we're joined by congresswoman caroline maloney. and with us from atlanta is dr. mark rosenburg, president and director of the fasks for task force for human health, he led the gun violent research no. it was defunded in the 1990s. after newtown, about gun violence now he's completely changed his tune and as i just said, he's talking about the president wanting gun grabbing initiatives. what do you say to him? >> what's so threatening about doing research? we research everything, as researchers can point out. alone are we with gun safety research in that they are initiatives to prohibit. i would say no area should be so wall off that we can't research and find cures and solutions. i thought after sandy hook that there would be a lot of pro-gun safety, that the background checks would pass. but research, we need it in order to build a case. and the amount of gun violence in our world is staggering. 33,000 people a year die from gun violence. 32,000 people a year, 91,000 children under the able of 12 were killed by gun violence. why not? way to see if background checks work if safety locks work. >> policy isn't set without research to back it up. >> you need data to progress, and without the data you are stopping the progress. we have a bill in to the center for disease control for gun research. >> senator, i know you're a gun advocate, you like the shoot. now gun violence is seen as a public health issue because as the congresswoman said, tens of thousands of people are killed every year by gun violence and it's costing us tens of billions in medical cost. what can research for gun violence help? >> one, you mentioned 30,000 people a year are killed by guns. so we want to prevent some of those deaths. especially suicides and many, many of those deaths that are very preefntable. but we have -- preventible. we have another problem at the same time. our gun rights are threatened. the rights of legitimate gun owners are under threat. what we have got odo is find a way to reduce both firearm injuries and deaths and protect the rights of legitimate gun owners. if we probably only wanted to do one of those things, you wouldn't need research. don't allow any discussion let alone any discussion about firemafirearm injuries and deat. if all you wanted to do was prevent firearm injuries and deaths then take guns away from civilians. the problem is we want to solve both problems at the same time, and there are ways to do it. but if you want to figure out what works to achieve both of these goals at the same time, you need to do research to find out the answer. and rye anonymity, we don't know -- right now, we don't know what works. we don't know that letting more people carry concealed weapons in public will save lives and security, we don't know if that will protect legitimate gun owners. we're asking politicians to sign bills when they don't know what the impact of those bills would be. it's not fair of us to ask them to pass on bills if we don't give them evidence on what works and what doesn't. we're flying blind in an area that affects health and safety. >> congresswoman, you've mentioned a whole bunch of different are initiatives, including making gun ceag legal, to limit large capacity magazines, renew the assault weapons ban and require insurance for gug owners. isn't it a forgone conclusion that in an election year none of that will move forward? >> well you always try. i think his point you can do both is true. you can find common ground. there's no reason you can't research ways to prevent gun deaths and absolutely ensure that law abiding rightful citizens can bear arms. it is in our constitution. so none of my bills would take guns away from a law-abiding person and one who can rightfully own one. but as we learned in webster, new york, many mentally ill people get illegal guns and this particular case right after sandy hook, a man got a straw purchaser to get him some illegal guns and set fire to his house and proceeded to kill fire officers and police officers who were coming to save him. obviously a very ill person. we need to look at mental health and crack down on illegal gun trafficking. that should be like having a cup of water every day. why in the world, it is not legal to traffic in guns. most nra leaders i know say they absolutely support this bill, why can't we pass it? even common sense measures that even the nra supports we can't pass. >> dr. rosenburg, the nra's chief lobbyist chris cox said they were promoting an idea that gun are ownership is a disease that needs to be eradicated. should the cdc not be the place where this research is conducted? >> first you need to realize when people don't like the results that they're getting from honest scientific research, they try to discourage the researchers and the methods. the nra did not like the research that suggested that having a firearm at your home does not protect you but puts you at 300% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a homicide and 500% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a suicide. so the nra didn't like the fact that the research, very legitimate, high-quality research, showed that putting a gun in your home did not protect you. cdc is the only background and the epidemiologic skills to look at the picture, the picture of mental illness and what happens when the adjudicated mentally ill have firearms. the department of justice can look at what happens when convicted felons and criminals have firearms. but the cdc has the skill to check the impact on the population at as a whole. we fund them here -- >> there is research by other agencies. >> absolutely and the ban is unique to gun safety. i don't know of any other area of research where you're literally banned from this type of research. now president did an scuff order that said research could take place in this area and our legislation supports his executive order and makes it clear that the dick amendment did not research for gun safety. >> dr. rosenburg, the cdc has not been funded to do anything on gun safety since the 1990s. but you have written that we have spent billions of dollars since the 1970s on70s on prevention of traffic deaths. could the same help in this situation? >> obviously it could. obviously, jay dickey has over the years become a friend and we've both influenced each other and we both agree that this research is so important. it is a matter of life and death and jay dickey would today say that was a mistake and we need to do everything we can to get the research going again. >> an important discussion considering how many people are dying, and i appreciate you two joining us today. americans spend billions on health and diet products, how are we supposed to know what to buy and eat these days? countless mixed messages about what's good for us, what's bad for us, certainly not more than in the last couple of weeks. focusing on saturated fats, red wine or dark chocolate or gluten is a poison or gluten free is a positive fact. andrew wile,ing university of arizona health sciences center, he is a columnist for prevention magazine and a best selling author, true food, seasonable, sustainable, and pure. good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> let's start with saturated fats. the ones that effect most people, for centuries we have been told, don't eat high fat diets. the american heart association advocates for low fat diet. now we've got dr. oz, all sorts of papers and boorks that say maybe saturated fats aren't that bad for you after all. >> it may be that saturated fats are not that bad for us. i don't think we circulate eat them with abandon. it may be that all saturated fats are not created equal. for example, the saturated fat in meat is not great for your heart or arteries. whereas, the saturated are fat in dairy products may have a protective effect. >> the book that came out that said, the big fat surprise, saying butter is better for you than vegetable oils. >> i think olive oil is much better but keep in mind you have a saturated fat budget and decide how you want to spend it. do you want to have ietion cream once in a while, steak once in a while? i choose to spend my budget on high quality cheese. cheeses that come from cows that graze at high altitudes as in switzerland, italy and france which have a better high fat profile. i wouldn't say eat processed cheese with abandon. >> there was no increase, even for high senate intake people, in the risk of cancer or heart disease. >> the problem of these studies are metaanalyses, i don't think we know enough yet. another problem is, when we look at saturated fat, the question is many what is it replaced with in the diet? it's replaced with carbohydrates, which is more of a problem. >> i found that years ago on larry king live, you said saturated fats may not be the problem, the problems may be carbs. >> exactly. >> when these low fat diets came in a lot of people have gotten fatter. >> high glycemic carbohydrates, which are problematic. >> 30% of americans would like to cut back on gluten intake. only 1.8 million americans have celiac disease. a problem with gluten. many people have the nonceliac gluten sensitivity. >> the problem is, we can test for celiac disease we can't test for gluten sensitivity. somebody hears from a neighbor that gluten is a problem. i go to the doctor and ask is this the cause of my problem? we have very few directions if that could be a problem. >> but gluten has become a massive industry. you have to go out there -- >> massive industry. there are a lot of gluten free junk foods out there as well. often when people go on a gluten free diet, they are not imbibing in gluten and that may make them are more gluten sensitivity is unknown in china and japan. >> what does that say? >> the real problem may be the microbiome, the gut are bacteria we carry. it looks like the organisms we have in our gut are major determinants of sensitivity, reactivity and allergy. increase of increasing use of antibiotics, increasing use of industrialized food, a decrease in breast needing and a startling increase in i s c delivery in caesa caesarrian cloifer. >> we'll be back with admonish of "consider this." >> the most celebrated speech in american history is a funeral , speech, president abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. students at a tiny vermont boarding school, where boys with learning disabilities memorized the address. a new of freedom, the address, its create is award winning ken burns whom i spoke with about the address, on our pream "talk to al jazeera." ken, great to have you with us. the civil war of course was your big break through, although you had been nominated for oscars before at that point. why did you decide to go back and deal with an important part of that era? >> people ask me how do i choose my projects and i say they choose me. this one chose me, across the connecticut border, putney, vice mayor, they asked me to be a judge at this gettysburg memorization ceremony. i wept. i cried at the inspirational nature of it, someone needs to take a flix on this. -- a film on this. help the kids with context over the years and finally at the 150 is approaching, i said we got to to do this. i got to put my money where my mouth is, about the historic struggles of these boys. programmatic aspect to it which is challenging the rest of the country to do something in unison, to have everybody do it. if these boys can do it we can too. >> you have got actors singers sports stars. all sorts of people to do it. >> fourscore and seven years ago. >> our fathers brought fort on this continent, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. >> now we are engaged in a great civil war. >> testing that a nation or any nation so dedicated can long endure. >> we have lost our educational mojo, lots of are reasons, lots of hammering, we asked people to stop memorizing stuff. it was rote and no relevance. we reached out and no one said no. and history is a table around which we can still have a civil discourse. we've got bill o'reilly and rachel madow, all the five living presidents contributing to this. do they see eye to eye on day-to-day events? no of course not. but do you love abraham lincoln, to appeal to the better angels of our nature, abraham lincoln would say so. >> in memorization in many ways might lead to greater understanding. let's take a look at the process that the boys at putney school go through. >> our fathers. >> brought forth. >> to the proposition. >> that all men are created equal. >> it ends up being a lot of work for a lot of them. but it has all sorts of tremendous effects. >> it does. you know they all suffer from some sort of learning difference. it might be dyslexia, disgraph disgraphia, adhd, but they are terrified with public recitation. some of them have language difficulties that make it hard to memorize or to speak. and so they help each other. it's a boarding school for kids that should be still at home. and they are held together by the loving kind isness of the school. the kids help each other and they sort of emerge from their struggles and it is such an amazingly inspirational thing that takes place here. >> especially son that day, when they go in front of the public and speak about it. let's see that. >> that we here highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vein. >> that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom. and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. [cheering and applause] >> so that is beautiful max. i took that with my smartphone because i realized we were covering the parental reactions while they were giving the address. but when i saw him coming back and i had known that max had knew the speech cold but was terrified about doing it in public. and an hour before he wasn't going to do it but he did it and did it magnificently and then came back and sort of melted into his mother that expresses all the are -- >> it was amazing. back. primetime news. >> welcome to al jazeera america. >> stories that impact the world, affect the nation and touch your life. >> i'm back. i'm not going anywhere this time. >> only on al jazeera america. >> now available, the new al jazeea america mobile news app. get our exclusive in depth, reporting when you want it. a global perspective wherever you are. the major headlines in context. mashable says... you'll never miss the latest news >> they will continue looking for survivors... >> the potential for energy production is huge... >> no noise, no clutter, just real reporting. the new al jazeera america mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now >> nature is wondrous but it can also be brutal and horrifying. our next guest wrote a book about it, nature is trying to kill you. a tour through the dark side of the world. the host of monsters inside me on animal planet. great to have you with us, dan. >> great to be here. >> you start the book with the really disgusting thing that happened to you. which i don't want to get into. the title of the book how is mother nature trying to kill me? >> everybody has the idea that it's a loving kind thing that wants to make us healthier, if things are balanced they must be good for you. that's kind of true but mother nature is looking out for itself, and you're calories, and there are pret tors predators who would love to take you apart. it's the reason why breaking bad is more interesting to watch than cinderella. you never get to otherwise that are absolutely the best parts. >> talking about dark side, you break up the book into different chapters, following seven deadly sins. and your main premise is what characterizes, is: >> animals to pass on their own dna. they don't care about the specious, they don't care about the ecosystem, they just care about themselves. there are a bunch mice on this island and sea birds. but when the mice arrived there in 1810, they started eating eggs and then sea bird chicks a live and very quickly they started evolving and the last 200 years, they become two to three times the size of a normal mouse and they swarm a baby albatross and eat it alive. they themselves will die because they don't have any food left. they are thinking about themselves and not the ecosystem. >> you wrote your ph.d. theses about how vampire bats move. you talk about bats being the ultimate buzz kill for some tungara fra. that are about to make love. >> one of the bats i really love is called a frog eating bat. one of the frogs that the bat eats is a tungara fra. and are are they're stuck right? males are either -- they got really like to you know pass on my dna and have a romantic time with you but i also don't want to been by a bat. >> you also have a rinella frog. >> sometimes the female gets the upper hand like she does with this frog that's going to get eaten by the bat. there's actually a male and the mating season is so intense that at the end of it many females have died from the onslaught of what went on in that pond. i won't get into that. aafter they've died, some males will squeeze the female, and glet are eggs out, and fertilize those eggs. it's functional necrophilia. you're like what, why? >> i'm the oldest about six kids, i thought i knew all about sibling rivalry. let's start with one, sand tiger sharks. >> just incredible. the ma pla is pregnant and they have babies inside of her that's of different ages. the older is going to break out of its egg sack, and swim around inside the mom and eat its siblings so it doesn't have to compete with them in the reeled world. >> and ver owes hatches,. >> pecking and trying to kill its younger sibling and it usually succeeds out of 200 nests that were observed it worked 199 times. only one younger sibling survived. 1569 pecks. >> snowy owls are beautiful. >> they are beautiful but they don't know how much food there is going to be for their eggs so they have a strategy for their reproduction, where the oldest sibling gets all the the food at once. the younger siblings are going to die unless there's a lot of food. >> finally emperor peg quin penguins are very selfish right? >> they each have an egg and it's a beautiful story of them standing together to share heat. any male on the outside of the huddle will push its way to the middle and stay there. anyone in the middle will stay there too. you have penguins who are selfishly moving to the warm eggs place. >> the book is mother nature is trying to kill you. a lively tour through the natural world. dan riskin. we'll be >> on the stream, >> they sacrifice their lives for the country. so why are some are some of america's men and women in uniform stuggling to put food on the table join us on the stream. on aljazeera america >> tech know. >> we're here in the vortex. only on al jazeera america. this. >> did dracula have it right? the fictional vampire fed on the blood of others. and it kept him vibrant. older mice could be kept young by infusions of blood from younger mice, improving memory and learning. dr. amy majorrers is a professor of stem sel cell and regenera tf biology. could you explain the basis of the experiment with mice and what you found? >> thank you, sure, i would be happy to. we were searching for substances in the bloodstream that might affect the ability of tissues to retain themselves or repair themselves after injury. we found a protein called gdf 11 abundant in the blood of younger animals but declines with age. along with the emergence of several dysfunction muscle wasting and weakness, decreased activity in the brain and defects in the cardiac muscle as well. we found when we added this protein back to older animals we could actually reverse those signs of aging. >> somehow the protein activists stem cells that exist in -- activates stem cells and that's somehow produces the effect? >> we found that when gdf 11 was added back to the blood streams, improved the schedule schedule tal system and the brain. that translated into a more robust capacity of the brain around the skeletal muscle to function. >> i saw one quote that i thought was particularly interesting. this not only slows the clock but reverses the clock? >> so it does look like in fact we are able by adding back this protein that's normally lost with age to restore some activity in the muscle and in the brain that normally would not be there. so it does seem that we're restoring it. it's important to understand that we don't know for certain that this is actually a direct reversal of the processes that brought these cells to the aged state but it does restore function that's similar to what you would see in youth. >> this is obviously in its early stages but how translatable do you think these results could be in mice to humans? >> we're very excited about the possibility of translating this to humans. the gdf is identical between miez and humans. we want to understand more specifically its regulation in humans and how we might apply to it human aging related diseases. >> the fact that you have isolated it, could it be conceivably be taken in the form of a pill or would you actually have to have some sort of a blooz transfusion? >> it probably -- blood transfusion? >> we don't think we will go forward with blood transfusions in our work, we have this protein that we're very interested in seeing how it's regulated. i believe we'll be able to figure that out over the next few years and that will lead us with better options how to target this so we can for instance increase the body's own production of this protein later in life or target the effects of in protein more specifically. >> what kind of time frame do you think you'll need to figure this out for humans? >> so it's always of course very difficult to predict these things. but i think it's very reasonable to expect at least the first clinical trials that will build on the results we've reported here, within the next five years. >> could it be, to use, you know, the most popular way of looking at it, i guess, a fountain of youth for humans? >> so i think of it more as understanding ways to maintain healthy function, and healthy aging later in life. and so we're really focusing not so much on life span extension but really in extending the years that the body functions very well. >> now are you concerned that in some way the protein could cause some sort of of sces excessive reaction? >> we don't see any increase in the incidence of cancer in the older animals that have been treated with that protein. so far we've only treated animals for 60 days and we would like to look longer and more extensively at this reaction. >> it's a fascinating study. thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. >> thank you very >> the show may be over but the conversation continues. you can find us on twitter @ajconsiderthis. we'll see you next time. real reporting that brings you the world. >> this is a pretty dangerous trip. >> security in beirut is tight. >> more reporters. >> they don't have the resources to take the fight to al shabaab. >> more bureaus, more stories. >> this is where the typhoon came ashore. giving you a real global perspective like no other can. >> al jazeera, nairobi. >> on the turkey-syria border. >> venezuela. >> beijing. >> kabul. >> hong kong. >> ukraine. >> the artic. real reporting from around the world. this is what we do. al jazeera america. >> hello, and welcome to the news hour. it's good to have you here with us. coming up on this program, the u.s. launches airstrikes against the islamic state in northern iraq. washington said that it wants to prevent a genocide. the three day ceasefire ends in gaza with both sides launching attacks against the other. an uneasy alliance in
i overheard he meant. he meant the old confederate fight against change. brought back in the 21st century to battle anything marked obama. anything that says this man was elected president of the united states. now in this third battle of bull run, the rebel cry in stars and bars are rejoining the cause. they speak of secession and nullification and all the old language leading up to the war between the states. they cheer openly at ripping apart the political party. this time it's the republicans, to free them from total war. alongside the battlefield where the women and children once watched we saw the limbaughs and ericksons that turned out to cheerlead. like the women who got their name back in the earlier time from general hooker. yes, there's money in war. even this phony war of filibusters and jibes at part police. a confederacy of hate. david corn for mother jones and sam stein with "huffington post." i kept thinking and watching, gentlemen, i don't know whether just the name or the brand is the right way to do it. the obama brand. they see red when they see this. the people not just from the south or the southwest, because even in new york state there's 10% or 20% joining the tea party. i heard it the other night at new york. they're there. they have an attitude of anger that's almost inexplicable. almost hard to define. yet when they hear obama, that's where they flash to. that's the sound of the guns they rush to. >> we've been involved in the political cultural war for the last five years. and it's not abating. it's getting worse. as obama continues to be president and as he racks up policy wins particularly with obama care it's just driving the other side crazy. now, people like jim demint and heritage action and tea partiers, i'm not sure they're motivated exactly by hate of obama. but they are exploiting that. that is the fuel for their libertarian ideology, whatever. >> that's the brand. the united states senate which i used to look up to in the country. senator. he gives that up. he says i want to fight the enemy out there. he joined the heritage foundation. nobody in past history could explain it. why would you give up to help legislate unless you're not interested in legislation? >> he's probably making a lot more money. >> could be. >> personal angle here. but these people, you're right. they're not interested in governance or policy. the tea party people, this is one thing i don't think boehner -- >> i think it's the fight itself. >> they want to disrupt. they want to fight and disrupt. they don't want compromises. they don't want deals. they don't want policy wins. they want to fight and destroy. >> sam, respond to this. on the right, the lesson from the government shutdown seems to be the republican party itself caved. here's rush limbaugh the cheerleader on the hard right this week. let's listen to rush. >> i was pondering if i can ever remember a greater political disaster in my lifetime, if i can ever remember a time when a political party just made a decision not to exist. >> congressman tim huelskamp told "the washington post," we'll be looking for any opportunity. we took a shot at it and we fell short. i think we're waiting around for another battle over obama care. meanwhile, conservative blogger eric erickson said conservatives should pick off so-called moderates in the gop. quote, the last time the major leaders of an american political party tried to compromise their way to power, the party broke apart giving us the republicans. this fight too will break apart the gop. there will be a fundamentally altered party of new faces. never before have the people seemed less dependent on a party apparatus to play in primaries. i'm not sure how you'd answer this, sam, but i'm fascinated with this statement that they want to break apart the republicans like they once did the wigs over secession. that was particularly the democratic party that came from that. but this idea that our job is to basically take over and alter a major political party, take the party of lincoln and use the name because it's out there and turn it into a right wing thing that's capable of fighting all things modern. >> well, you know, i guess what's remarkable for me is the bubble that this exists in. for rush limbaugh to call it a cave without any context to how bad they were being damaged in the polls. how ineffectual the strategy was and to how much pain it was causing a good chunk of the country is silly. >> let's go to a tea party expert, matt kibbe of freedom works. let's listen to him back. >> grassroots activists have an ability to self-organize, to fund candidates they're more interested in. going right around the republican national committee and the senatorial committee. that's the new reality. everything's more democratized. republicans should come to terms with that. they want to control things from the top down and if they do that, there will absolutely be a split. but my prediction would be that we take over the republican party and they go the way of the wakes. >> what do you make of that? the only thing i can remember is around vietnam wartime watching the democratic convention as a grad student and thinking, i think the anti-war people want to take over the party in the instance of stopping the war. it had gone on too long in '68. they weren't thinking about changing the party necessarily. these people are interested in a total, what do they call it some alternative they're trying to create using the shape of the republican party. >> the analogy is right but then you have to consider the context which makes matt kibbe's remarks relatively on base, i think. you have a system in the country giving more power and authority to solitary individual donors. it's taken away the power from the party committees and put it in the individual's hand. essentially one person can say i want to bankroll this one candidate. the second thing is we're living in this time with an incredible libertarian bent. it's a backlash from the bush years and it's being profoundly seen in the republican tent. they were upset with tarp spending, but they were really upset with what happened in iraq. and they thought that the party lost its roots as sort of a quasi isolation. there's a backlash to that. finally, let me add one thing. the internet and social media facilitated a lot of this. candidates can connect with so many more people and voters. that's put fuel to the fire when you look at rand paul who have incredible grassroots mobilization techniques. >> none of us three can read minds or hearts. when we say somebody is a racist, when you try to suppress the black vote, that's palpable. you may not like them because they're democrats, as nasty as it is. it seems like the big fight we're talking about tonight is the real anger was against bush w., w. bush, for spending all that money and not vetoing. they're far too adventurous, too much iraq, afghanistan, too much more coming. the real fight seems to be with their party establish. as opposed to with obama. the face they put on posters is not mitch mcconnell's face. they put obama's face. >> i disagree slightly. >> explain that. >> i think everything sam said is true. it led to conservative movement including the republican party. i do think the anger they've felt about obama is as equal part of that. they're looking for the republican party to express that anger. >> republicans don't hate obama as much as they do? >> if you're voting for anything that doesn't stop obama care, then you're supporting obama care. all this is being driven in part by the donors that sam talked about but because the base of the party, the primary voting base has moved so far to the right because of this political cultural backlash against obama. >> thank you, david corn, guys. i think we're on the same page roughly. it's the brand. it's the name. it may not be ethnic although a lot of its i think. coming up, republican kamikaze caucus is back at work insisting if they stand firm next time they'll defund the affordable care act. guess who is leading the charge? mr. ted cruz. plus -- mad money, angry money. many have had it with the tea party and sitting on checkbooks. as one bundler put it, why do i want to fuel a fire that's going to consume us? why gop troubles in virginia may be a sign of things to come countrywide. finally, i was lucky enough to attend a dinner in new york city last night headlined by steve colbert. >> i am proud to be america's most famous catholic. i'm sure the cardinal is thinking, stephen, pride is a sin. so is envy, so we're even. >> the most famous catholic. interesting. i never heard that one before. this is "hardball," the place for politics. e gulf, bp had two: help the gulf recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. our commitment has never been stronger. wears off. 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[ male announcer ] find gevalia in the coffee aisle or at gevalia.com welcome back to "hardball." the government may be open now, for now, of course the threat of default pushed off for now. but extremists in the republican party are getting geared up for what they call the fight. listen to ted cruz when asked about his resolve. >> so you would do it again? >> i would do anything and i will continue to do anything i can to stop the train wreck that is obama care. >> and in today's wall street journal, jim demint explains this fight is just getting underway. quote, it's worth explaining why my organization, the heritage foundation and other conservatives chose this moment to fight and why we will continue to fight. the reason is simple. to protect the american people from the harmful effects of this law. for anyone who thought the slap in the face chastened any of these guys, not so. we've only just begun. steve mcmahon, gentlemen, you go against each other if you have a different view here. i heard one word from the right, fight. it wasn't so much an issue that obama care is the one on the table right now. it's this sort of -- the cause. it is like the old civil war guys that never forgot the war and kept fighting. we got to win the fight. we got to win the cause. there's something so gut in this. i don't think it's going away no matter how many treaties they sign. >> you know, within the republican party, every republican does not like obama care. all republican in the congress voted against obama care. this is not a strategic fight within the republican party. it's a tactical fight. and for jim demint to say that the other republicans are part of the surrender caucus, he's doing it for one reason. he wants to raise money off of a tea party that hates obama and this is the best way to do it. >> let's talk about tactics. you go to a bank and take money out, withdrawal, or go with a with a gun and shoot the bank teller to take the money. that's tactics. i think it's a difference between robbing the bank and making a withdrawal. you can still want the money. but there are different ways of getting it are very important. you can oppose capital punishment. you're not going to burn down the prison system. there's all kinds of ways to oppose things. >> almost every republican outside of ted cruz thought shutting down the government was stupid. john boehner warned against it. mitch mcconnell warned against it. you're absolutely right. there's ways to do it. had we kept the focus on the failures of obama care, we'd have more. >> why were they into going along with this. boehner the last day. mitch mcconnell the last two or three days. why did they sustain this to fight for something and averting for it if they didn't have a belief in that approach? >> because this is where the strategy is. >> they were leading from behind. >> yes, they were. >> i think they had to walk members through it. from boehner's perspective, he didn't have the votes to do anything else until he had the votes. >> let me try something. if he had gotten outside the box and -- i'll come up with cuts, across the board cuts, take them back to where they were at another time. would they have changed their direction, or did it have to be obama? >> it had to be obama care. this had to be the thing. this is what we talked about all august. you know what, they had to walk through the process. it wasn't a good process. it was a painful process. the leaders said don't do this. the followers wanted to do it. they walked through it. that's how it happened. >> chris is absolutely right. the words you're hearing from them is fight. ted cruz said we will do whatever it takes. he didn't learn a lesson. what he got was exactly what he wanted. he got attention. he's the front-runner in the republican -- >> you're a regular political guy like i was and you are. a regular person. you play within the legality and the generally accepted rules of politics. you don't attack peoples kids, you don't do a lot of weird things, don't use gas in wars. this thing where he said i would do anything, that's what appeals to the extreme right. they want that ruthless anything goes stuff. i would do anything? >> i'm not going to defend ted cruz. >> i don't have to explain it. i think he explained it himself. >> ted cruz does not run the republicans in the senate. mitch mcconnell does. i think mcconnell said we're not going to go down this path again. i think -- >> the voice of reason. >> one indispensable man. >> we're two to one on -- it was mcconnell. he did what the president couldn't do. >> he saved it. >> he did. >> makes it harder to beat in a general election. >> mitch mcconnell was running things when the government shut down. he was running things for 17 days while it was shut down. mitch mcconnell, he did what president president and everyone else couldn't do, working with harry reid. ultimately, the guys in the house had to decide to surrender. mcconnell didn't make them do that. >> do you have a candidate against him? >> against mitch, no. >> who wins the primary and the general in kentucky? >> i think that the primary is going to weaken mcconnell. he's balancing that through. he need today look tough on obama care. >> will he be re-elected? >> i think he'll lose in the general election. >> your voice weakened. >> i want to put you in a box on that one. i don't think you believe that. i think he gets re-elected because the cojones he showed in standing up to the wacko birds, i think they are impressed with it. >> he's the one -- for kentucky to get rid of him would be a huge mistake. the other thing about the tea party challenges, if you mount a real challenge, orrin hatch did. >> john mccain. >> if you fight it out, you'll win. if you like robert bennett, the rules are against you -- >> i think it helps to have a personality. >> it does. >> anyway -- >> i will say this. mitch mcconnell did his job this week. it was a good thing for the country. >> mcconnell expressed confidence to the extreme republicans and learned the lesson in the showdown shutdown. there's no politics in the second kick of a mule. there will not be a government shutdown. we fully acquainted our new members what a losing strategy that is. john, i think that's true. but there's more likelihood that come january there could be a shutdown of some length. but i do think your party and the country got a wakeup call about screwing around with the debt ceiling. i think people who watch the finance pages, retired people. once you're 75 years old, the people watching know this, you can't get another job and make a ton of money. this is it. your kitty, what you've been able to save and build with interest rates, compound interest, you don't want that screwed with. >> john boehner and mitch mcconnell worked this out, there was never going to be a debt default, never going to happen. i said this on the show many amongst months ago. that wasn't going to happen. john boehner wouldn't let it happen. >> what did he tell us? >> he told the 30 members of the moderate caucus, he wouldn't going to let it happen. it got out. >> it's my problem with him, i have a lot of problems with boehner. but my big problem is he knew at the end you pull the plug, for all the days and weeks the economy was getting hurt and the shakiness we showed to the world was not good for us in the long run. if an airplane makes a rough landing, you're not getting on that plane again. he hurt us. yet all the time he knew -- >> i think john boehner had the cards he had, he played them as well as he had. >> to save his seat. >> he saved the seat. he unified the caucus. >> thanks. have a nice weekend you guys. great guys. i was at last night's al smith dinner where the great steven colbert made the first roman catholic to run for president. >> since he first shattered the stained glass ceiling, america has seen a flood of catholic presidents from john f. kennedy, to jfk, to good old jack kennedy. >> much more when we return. this is "hardball," the place for politics. heart healthy, huh?! ugh! actually progresso's soup has pretty bold flavor. i love bold flavors! i'd love it if you'd open the chute! 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[ male announcer ] don't be like the burns. just one pepcid® complete works fast and lasts. it guides you to a number that will change it guides you to a number your life: your sleep number setting. it even knows you by name. now it's easier than ever to experience deep, restful sleep with the sleep number bed's dualair technology. at the touch of a button, the sleep number bed adjusts to each person's ideal comfort and support. and you'll only find it at a sleep number store. where right now our newest innovations are available with 36-month financing. sleep number. comfort individualized. chris matthews is here. good to see you, chris. how are you? everybody knows chris is host of "hardball." got some good news, chris. it turns out that having "hardball" is now covered by obama care. >> time now for the sideshow. last night i had the honor of joining the dinner in new york city. it was the 68th time the event has been held since 1945 and honors the great al smith, who was the first roman catholic to be nominated for president by a major political party. the dinner celebrates politics and religion while it may be buttoned up, the humor isn't. this year was no exception with stephen colbert making a characteristically hilarious keynote speech. >> i love being up here in the white tie section. it's a bit of a gated community. don't get me wrong, you people down there in, let's say, the black tie neighborhood are very nice. i love black ties. some of my best friends are black tied. and as a catholic engaged in the world of politics, i love this dinner has no separation of church and state. as the journalist theodore white put it, the al smith dinner is a ritual of american politics. so for those keeping track, the american rituals are this dinner and the republicans sacrificing 2014 to ted cruz's ego. it was a pretty republican crowd last night. he went on to recognize the contributions he and his fellow catholics have made to politics over the years. >> this event has an illustrious history. it began in 1945 to honor al smith, a man who fought for government housing, public schools, labor laws to protect women and children, and went on to become the first presidential candidate of a major party who was catholic. and since he first shattered the stained glass ceiling, america has seen a flood of catholic presidents from john kennedy to jfk to good-old jack kennedy. [ laughter ] you could got have found a more perfect keynote speaker tonight because i am proud to be america's most famous catholic. and i'm sure the cardinal is thinking, stephen, pride is a sin. well, cardinal so is envy, so we're even. [ laughter ] that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. coming up next, your business with jj ramberg. [ male announcer ] pillsbury grands biscuits. delicious, but say i press a few out flat, add some beef, sloppy joe sauce and cheese, fold it all up and boom! delicious unsloppy joes perfect for a school night. pillsbury grands biscuits. make dinner pop. ♪ pillsbury grands biscuits. (announcer) answer the call of the grill with new friskies grillers, full of meaty tenders and crunchy bites. i have a big meeting when we land, but i am so stuffed up, i can't rest. [ male announcer ] nyquil cold and flu liquid gels don't unstuff your nose. they don't? alka seltzer plus night fights your worst cold symptoms, plus has a decongestant. 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i'm antonio mora, here's more of what's ahead. >> former president jimmy carter,ing advocate for the treatment of women and girls. >> i've seen tangible examples of how horribly women and girls are treated. >> gender violence, he brings an extremely important voice to the conversation. >> studying and memorizing the gettysburg address. >> gluten are free. why do you enjoy it? >> it makes you fat. >> we begin with a call for action from former president jimmy carter. , the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. false interpretation of religious text almost exclusive by powerful male leaders, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls. growing tolerance of violence and warfare following the example set by the u.s. has also played a role as violence has encouraged more violence. for that i'm honored to welcome the 39th president of the united states and the 2002 noble peace prize winner. good to have you with us. >> delighted. >> you have redefined what it's like to be a former president of the united states. you are the only one who won the nobel peace prize after leaving the white house. you have traveled all over the world, doing humanitarian efforts from the carter center to habitat for humanity. you have written two does books. how do you find the energy to do that? >> as a matter of fact, this is my 28th book. >> i apologize! >> the carter center is active in 79 different countries. since i've left the white house, that's what we have done, gotten to know people in all nations, in third world countries where women and girls are especially abused. people who can do something about it, i have 23 recommendations in the book that can solve some of these problems, particularly in the united states, a lot of the problems that occur in the poorest countries, the back countries of the world we might call them, also ex at extant ie united states. for instance, slavery, slavery is much greater than it was in the 19th century when black people were brought out of africa in europe and the united states. there is $32 billion of human trafficking in the world every year and the taint reported leas year owners t and the state department reported that 80% of those sold into slavery are imirls for sex purposes. >> and thousands of them into the united states. >> 100,000 in the united states. not all of them were sold across borders. but the number one place in america for this human slavery traffic is in atlanta. because we have the largest airport on earth. and also, because a lot of our passengers on the airplanes come from a third world, from the southern part of the world where the girls can be bought cheaper. so you can buy a pimp or brothel owner can buy a girl for about a thousand dollars if she comes from africa or southern asia or latin america. >> we got all sort of social media responses, a viewer named heather she asked, how can we fight trafficking in the u.s? >> well, i think the united states has to take the leadership on an entire-world basis. there is a -- i'm talking about girls and women because as i say girls comprise 80% of the people sold into slavery. there is an international convention of the united states called a convention on the end of discrimination against women. cedaw. and the united states has refused to ratify this treaty, this convention that exists because we don't want to have anything to do with the united nations and the very conservative senate. there is another one called the law against violence against women and the international version ever that requires that every country tabulate not only their own crimes but decrease the criminality of action against women and girls al and l prisoners or slaves recordless whether they are women. the worst places for sexual abuse in america are two of our greatest institutions, one is universities. >> where we're seeing an epidemic of sexual assault. >> one out of four girls enrolled in american universities are raped or have sexual abuse while she's in college. only a fourth are reported, 1/6 as much in the civilian environment. >> and the other is the military. >> the military. >> you were a navy officer. what do you think -- >> a commanding officer doesn't want to admit in his chain of command in his company in his battalion that a lot of sexual abuse takes place. so he discourages the women from reporting it when they are taughted. same thing happens to the college presidents, to emery university or hard o harvard orf chicago or so forth. >> prosecution of sexual assault out of the chain of command -- >> i'm really disappointed. they made some slight improvements about how much you can harass a woman who is raped in court. there was a very horrible case of a midshipman in the naval academy where i attended, she was interrogated by the football player's defender, lawyer, 21 hours in three days and she asked to be left off, that off for the next day, because she was tired. and the judge ruled against her and made her testify on saturday as well. and they asked her horrendous questions, like how many times have you kissed a boy, what kind of underwear were you wearing, have you ever had sex relations, before you came to the naval academy, how wide do you open your mouth when you give oral sex to a boy? don't make a charge officially against your rapist that says. >> this is a horrible abuse across the world and you say it's the biggest worldwide challenge we face. >> it's unaddressed. >> it's unaddressed. in a world where we are facing nuclear proliferation, why do you think that is the biggest challenge? >> let's look at the number of people that die because of this. we know about 35 million people were killed in the second world war, right? and during the war between the states or the second world war 600,000 people were killed. at this moment there are 160 million girls who are missing because they have been killed by their parents. either at birth, they strangled the baby because it's a girl and they need to have boys, or because they now have sonograms and they can detect the sex of a fetus when it's still an embryo and they can selectively abort that child because it's female. almost a generation of girls are missing from the earth because they have been killed. >> the chapter of the book called genocide of girls. possibly the most precise one because you address that very issue. >> for instance china and india limit the size of families. if the family doesn't have social security, they want to have boys. if they can only have a maximum of one or two children, they want to make sure they have boys. a movie coming out, it's a girl, a very famous movie, a woman from yintd said with -- india said without shame that she strangled eight children when they were infants because they were girls. united states needs to take leadership role in stopping this mandatory prostitution and take action to correct these problems. >> you are deeply religious but you are critical in the role of religion to women and girls. >> i'm a christian. there is nothing in the acts of jesus christ that derogates women. as a matter of fact, jesus was a champion of women's rights and made women of a higher status than ever before him. the beebl, the old test -- the bible, the old testament, new testament, the writings of paul, whether you want woman inferior. >> it is men interpreting it. >> it is. >> as paul pointed out there were 25 leaders that he mentioned dismissal i think in 16th chapter of acts and about half those are women at very high levels. nowadays, of course in the catholic church a woman cannot be a priest or a de deacon. and in the southern of the baptist convention, a woman can't teach boys in the classroom. >> you and mrs. carter left the southern baptist convention because of their position on women. you have been hopeful of pope francis. >> i visited with pope john paul ii, an almost total inflexibility there, but i wrote pope francis a letter describing some of the issues in the book and helped him to prevent or minimize the position of women and girls. i didn't ask him to change the church's position on women of course, but he wrote me a very nice letter back, the position of women in the church needed to be strengthened and would be. >> i know you said that president obama has not. >> my other predecessors, i'm not criticizing president obama because you know i've been out of office for 35 years. and it's natural for a president to consult other presidents if he wants to who have been more recently in the white house. so i think that george w. bush and bill clinton have been there just before him and i don't think it's reasonable to expect president obama to go back 35 years and recess recollect an old democrat who was there. >> what about the criticism that you are too independent, that you don't take guidance very well and don't play well with official washington? >> i'm always protecting the integrity of the president. i haven't been anywhere in the world that i didn't get at least tacit approval of the president before i went. a few presidents have asked me not to go, president obama did, president clinton, and president george h. wmplet bus w. bush ast ogo because there were places that were dangerous. the carter center had a policy of going into areas that, we don't have redescraints or restrictions of whom we meet. we can meet with leaders with whom the u.s. government has no relationships and the u.s. government will call on me as i go into north korea, cuba, palestinian factions, nepal and meet with a maoist, they asked me to ask questions and to bring back some answers. >> a final question for you. you have been critical of edward snowden, you believe that he broke the law with some of the revelations he made. but at the same time you think it was important that some of this be brought to light. >> i do. >> you said you're concerned that your e-mails are being looked at by the nsa, and when you have sensitive topics, you do handwritten letters. the head of the nsa has said they are not looking at your e-mails. >> that's a relief to know. i remember when the head of nsa one of them said that they didn't monitor american -- they didn't record american telephone calls. and it turned out later that he didn't tell the congress truth. but you know i haven't really worried about it. i don't have anything to conceal but there are some times when i don't want some of my private messages to be read. there's no doubt nsa has recorded every telephone call and every e-mail message sent in the united states. they don't actually read the text but they know which message has occurred. they know which transmission has taken place and if they want to later on they can get permission from a very quiescent fisa court. i was concerned after watergate and that sort of thing that intelligence sometimes abused people. i know that the fbi did abuse martin luther king jr. and so forth. so we have a law passed called the fisa law in 1978 that absolutely prevented any american intelligence agency from spying on even one american communication unless they got a court order ahead of time certifying that it was a threat to american security. and that prevailed until after 9/11. and then that law was liberalized. and i think the law was changed quite a lot. and in my opinion when the congress changed it, the intelligence committee knew what was in the bill but the rest of the members of coming didn't have access to those secrets. so the laws were passed and i think fsa and others have exceeded the grant of freedom that the congress gave them and exceeded their intrusion into the private affairs of americans, yes. >> the book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. president carter, it's an honor to have you with us. best of luck on your book and on your humanitarian efforts. and i hope you visit us on the 29th book. >> i hope to do so. >> "consider this" will be right back. back. to research the causes and possible cougars of gun violence in america. some 70,000 people attended the national rifle association's annual meeting this spring. on the agenda, passing a federal law that would allow gun owners with school carry permits to pack their guns in states where concealed care is banned. loaded guns in some circumstances to be brought into bars, churches, school zones, government buildings even airport areas outside security checkpoints. >> we as georgians believe in the right of the people to defend themselves and therefore we believe in the second amendment. and today i will put into law a gun bill that heralds self-defense, personal liberties and public safety. >> the little wonder then that georgia congressman jack kingston has chained his tune, now that he's campaigning for the senate. he now calls for banning the centers for disease control, will not be included in the appropriations bill. for more we're joined by congresswoman caroline maloney. and with us from atlanta is dr. mark rosenburg, president and director of the fasks for te for human health, he led the gun violent research no. it was defunded in the 1990s. after newtown, about gun violence now he's completely changed his tune and as i just said, he's talking about the president wanting gun grabbing initiatives. what do you say to him? >> what's so threatening about doing research? we research everything, as researchers can point out. alone are we with gun safety research in that they are initiatives to prohibit. i would say no area should be so wall off that we can't research and find cures and solutions. i thought after sandy hook that there would be a lot of pro-gun safety, that the background checks would pass. but research, we need it in order to build a case. and the amount of gun violence in our world is staggering. 33,000 people a year die from gun violence. 32,000 people a year, 91,000 children under the able of 12 were killed by gun violence. why not? way to see if background checks work if safety locks work. >> policy isn't set without research to back it up. >> you need data to progress, and without the data you are stopping the progress. we have a bill in to the center for disease control for gun research. >> senator, i know you're a gun advocate, you like the shoot. now gun violence is seen as a public health issue because as the congresswoman said, tens of thousands of people are killed every year by gun violence and it's costing us tens of billions in medical cost. what can research for gun violence help? >> one, you mentioned 30,000 people a year are killed by guns. so we want to prevent some of those deaths. especially suicides and many, many of those deaths that are very preefntable. but we have -- preventible. we have another problem at the same time. our gun rights are threatened. the rights of legitimate gun owners are under threat. what we have got odo is find a way to reduce both firearm injuries and deaths and protect the rights of legitimate gun owners. if we probably only wanted to do one of those things, you wouldn't need research. don't allow any discussion let alone any discussion about firemafirearm injuries and deat. if all you wanted to do was prevent firearm injuries and deaths then take guns away from civilians. the problem is we want to solve both problems at the same time, and there are ways to do it. but if you want to figure out what works to achieve both of these goals at the same time, you need to do research to find out the answer. and rye anonymity, we don't know -- right now, we don't know what works. we don't know that letting more people carry concealed weapons in public will save lives and security, we don't know if that will protect legitimate gun owners. we're asking politicians to sign bills when they don't know what the impact of those bills would be. it's not fair of us to ask them to pass on bills if we don't give them evidence on what works and what doesn't. we're flying blind in an area that affects health and safety. >> congresswoman, you've mentioned a whole bunch of different are initiatives, including making gun ceag legal, to limit large capacity magazines, renew the assault weapons ban and require insurance for gug owners. isn't it a forgone conclusion that in an election year none of that will move forward? >> well you always try. i think his point you can do both is true. you can find common ground. there's no reason you can't research ways to prevent gun deaths and absolutely ensure that law abiding rightful citizens can bear arms. it is in our constitution. so none of my bills would take guns away from a law-abiding person and one who can rightfully own one. but as we learned in webster, new york, many mentally ill people get illegal guns and this particular case right after sandy hook, a man got a straw purchaser to get him some illegal guns and set fire to his house and proceeded to kill fire officers and police officers who were coming to save him. obviously a very ill person. we need to look at mental health and crack down on illegal gun trafficking. that should be like having a cup of water every day. why in the world, it is not legal to traffic in guns. most nra leaders i know say they absolutely support this bill, why can't we pass it? even common sense measures that even the nra supports we can't pass. >> dr. rosenburg, the nra's chief lobbyist chris cox said they were promoting an idea that gun are ownership is a disease that needs to be eradicated. should the cdc not be the place where this research is conducted? >> first you need to realize when people don't like the results that they're getting from honest scientific research, they try to discourage the researchers and the methods. the nra did not like the research that suggested that having a firearm at your home does not protect you but puts you at 300% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a homicide and 500% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a suicide. so the nra didn't like the fact that the research, very legitimate, high-quality research, showed that putting a gun in your home did not protect you. cdc is the only background and the epidemiologic skills to look at the picture, the picture of mental illness and what happens when the adjudicated mentally ill have firearms. the department of justice can look at what happens when convicted felons and criminals have firearms. but the cdc has the skill to check the impact on the population a as a whole. we fund them here -- >> there is research by other agencies. >> absolutely and the ban is unique to gun safety. i don't know of any other area of research where you're literally banned from this type of research. now president did an scuff order that said research could take place in this area and our legislation supports his executive order and makes it clear that the dick amendment did not research for gun safety. >> dr. rosenburg, the cdc has not been funded to do anything on gun safety since the 1990s. but you have written that we have spent billions of dollars since the 1970s on70s on prevenn of traffic deaths. could the same help in this situation? >> obviously it could. obviously, jay dickey has over the years become a friend and we've both influenced each other and we both agree that this research is so important. it is a matter of life and death and jay dickey would today say that was a mistake and we need to do everything we can to get the research going again. >> an important discussion considering how many people are dying, and i appreciate you two joining us today. americans spend billions on health and diet products, how are we supposed to know what to buy and eat these days? countless mixed messages about what's good for us, what's bad for us, certainly not more than in the last couple of weeks. focusing on saturated fats, red wine or dark chocolate or gluten is a poison or gluten free is a positive fact. andrew wile,ing university of arizona health sciences center, he is a columnist for prevention magazine and a best selling author, true food, seasonable, sustainable, and pure. good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> let's start with saturated fats. the ones that effect most people, for centuries we have been told, don't eat high fat diets. the american heart association advocates for low fat diet. now we've got dr. oz, all sorts of papers and boorks that say maybe saturated fats aren't that bad for you after all. >> it may be that saturated fats are not that bad for us. i don't think we circulate eat them with abandon. it may be that all saturated fats are not created equal. for example, the saturated fat in meat is not great for your heart or arteries. whereas, the saturated are fat in dairy products may have a protective effect. >> the book that came out that said, the big fat surprise, saying butter is better for you than vegetable oils. >> i think olive oil is much better but keep in mind you have a saturated fat budget and decide how you want to spend it. do you want to have ietion cream once in a while, steak once in a while? i choose to spend my budget on high quality cheese. cheeses that come from cows that graze at high altitudes as in switzerland, italy and france which have a better high fat profile. i wouldn't say eat processed cheese with abandon. >> there was no increase, even for high senate intake people, in the risk of cancer or heart disease. >> the problem of these studies are metaanalyses, i don't think we know enough yet. another problem is, when we look at saturated fat, the question is many what is it replaced with in the diet? it's replaced with carbohydrates, which is more of a problem. >> i found that years ago on larry king live, you said saturated fats may not be the problem, the problems may be carbs. >> exactly. >> when these low fat diets came in a lot of people have gotten fatter. >> high glycemic carbohydrates, which are problematic. >> 30% of americans would like to cut back on gluten intake. only 1.8 million americans have celiac disease. a problem with gluten. many people have the nonceliac gluten sensitivity. >> the problem is, we can test for celiac disease we can't test for gluten sensitivity. somebody hears from a neighbor that gluten is a problem. i go to the doctor and ask is this the cause of my problem? we have very few directions if that could be a problem. >> but gluten has become a massive industry. you have to go out there -- >> massive industry. there are a lot of gluten free junk foods out there as well. often when people go on a gluten free diet, they are not imbibing in gluten and that may make them are more gluten sensitivity is unknown in china and japan. >> what does that say? >> the real problem may be the microbiome, the gut are bacteria we carry. it looks like the organisms we have in our gut are major determinants of sensitivity, reactivity and allergy. increase of increasing use of antibiotics, increasing use of industrialized food, a decrease in breast needing and a startling increase in i se c d r caesarrian cloifer. >> we'll be back with admonish of "consider this." >> the most celebrated speech in american history is a funeral, speech, president abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. students at a tiny vermont boarding school, where boys with learning disabilities memorized the address. a new of freedom, the address, its create is award winning ken burns whom i spoke with about the address, on our pream "talk to al jazeera." ken, great to have you with us. the civil war of course was your big break through, although you had been nominated for oscars before at that point. why did you decide to go back and deal with an important part of that era? >> people ask me how do i choose my projects and i say they choose me. this one chose me, across the connecticut border, putney, vice mayor, they asked me to be a judge at this gettysburg memorization ceremony. i wept. i cried at the inspirational nature of it, someone needs to take a flix on this. -- a film on this. help the kids with context over the years and finally at the 150 is approaching, i said we got to to do this. i got to put my money where my mouth is, about the historic struggles of these boys. programmatic aspect to it which is challenging the rest of the country to do something in unison, to have everybody do it. if these boys can do it we can too. >> you have got actors singers sports stars. all sorts of people to do it. >> fourscore and seven years ago. >> our fathers brought fort on this continent, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. >> now we are engaged in a great civil war. >> testing that a nation or any nation so dedicated can long endure. >> we have lost our educational mojo, lots of are reasons, lots of hammering, we asked people to stop memorizing stuff. it was rote and no relevance. we reached out and no one said no. and history is a table around which we can still have a civil discourse. we've got bill o'reilly and rachel madow, all the five living presidents contributing to this. do they see eye to eye on day-to-day events? no of course not. but do you love abraham lincoln, to appeal to the better angels of our nature, abraham lincoln would say so. >> in memorization in many ways might lead to greater understanding. let's take a look at the process that the boys at putney school go through. >> our fathers. >> brought forth. >> to the proposition. >> that all men are created equal. >> it ends up being a lot of work for a lot of them. but it has all sorts of tremendous effects. >> it does. you know they all suffer from some sort of learning difference. it might be dyslexia, disgraph disgraphia, adhd, but they are terrified with public recitation. some of them have language difficulties that make it hard to memorize or to speak. and so they help each other. it's a boarding school for kids that should be still at home. and they are held together by the loving kind isness of the school. the kids help each other and they sort of emerge from their struggles and it is such an amazingly inspirational thing that takes place here. >> especially son that day, when they go in front of the public and speak about it. let's see that. >> that we here highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vein. >> that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom. and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. [cheering and applause] >> so that is beautiful max. i took that with my smartphone because i realized we were covering the parental reactions while they were giving the address. but when i saw him coming back and i had known that max had knew the speech cold but was terrified about doing it in public. and an hour before he wasn't going to do it but he did it and did it magnificently and then came back and sort of melted into his mother that expresses all the are -- >> it was amazing. >> "consider this" will be right back. back. >> i'm joie chen, i'm the host of america tonight, we're revolutionary because we're going back to doing best of storytelling. we have an ouportunity to really reach out and really talk to voices that we haven't heard before... i think al jazeera america is a watershed moment for american journalism >> every saturday join us for exclusive, revealing, and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. rosie perez >> i had to fight back, or else my ass was gonna get kicked... >> a tough childhood... >> there was a crying, there was a lot of laughter... >> finding her voice >> i was not a ham, i was ham & cheese... >> and turning it around... >> you don't have to let your circumstance dictate who you are as a person >> talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america >> nature is wondrous but it can also be brutal and horrifying. our next guest wrote a book about it, nature is trying to kill you. a tour through the dark side of the world. the host of monsters inside me on animal planet. great to have you with us, dan. >> great to be here. >> you start the book with the really disgusting thing that happened to you. which i don't want to get into. the title of the book how is mother nature trying to kill me? >> everybody has the idea that it's a loving kind thing that wants to make us healthier, if things are balanced they must be good for you. that's kind of true but mother nature is looking out for itself, and you're calories, and there are pret tor predators whd love to take you apart. it's the reason why breaking bad is more interesting to watch than cinderella. you never get to otherwise that are absolutely the best parts. >> talking about dark side, you break up the book into different chapters, following seven deadly sins. and your main premise is what characterizes, is: >> animals to pass on their own dna. they don't care about the specious, they don't care about the ecosystem, they just care about themselves. there are a bunch mice on this island and sea birds. but when the mice arrived there in 1810, they started eating eggs and then sea bird chicks a live and very quickly they started evolving and the last 200 years, they become two to three times the size of a normal mouse and they swarm a baby albatross and eat it alive. they themselves will die because they don't have any food left. they are thinking about themselves and not the ecosystem. >> you wrote your ph.d. theses about how vampire bats move. you talk about bats being the ultimate buzz kill for some tungara fra. that are about to make love. >> one of the bats i really love is called a frog eating bat. one of the frogs that the bat eats is a tungara fra. and are are they're stuck right? males are either -- they got really like to you know pass on my dna and have a romantic time with you but i also don't want to been by a bat. >> you also have a rinella frog. >> sometimes the female gets the upper hand like she does with this frog that's going to get eaten by the bat. there's actually a male and the mating season is so intense that at the end of it many females have died from the onslaught of what went on in that pond. i won't get into that. aafter they've died, some males will squeeze the female, and glet are eggs out, and fertilize those eggs. it's functional necrophilia. you're like what, why? >> i'm the oldest about six kids, i thought i knew all about sibling rivalry. let's start with one, sand tiger sharks. >> just incredible. the ma pla is pregnant and they have babies inside of her that's of different ages. the older is going to break out of its egg sack, and swim around inside the mom and eat its siblings so it doesn't have to compete with them in the reeled world. >> and ver owes hatches,. >> pecking and trying to kill its younger sibling and it usually succeeds out of 200 nests that were observed it worked 199 times. only one younger sibling survived. 1569 pecks. >> snowy owls are beautiful. >> they are beautiful but they don't know how much food there is going to be for their eggs so they have a strategy for their reproduction, where the oldest sibling gets all the the food at once. the younger siblings are going to die unless there's a lot of food. >> finally emperor peg quin pene very selfish right? >> they each have an egg and it's a beautiful story of them standing together to share heat. any male on the outside of the huddle will push its way to the middle and stay there. anyone in the middle will stay there too. you have penguins who are selfishly moving to the warm eggs place. >> the book is mother nature is trying to kill you. a lively tour through the natural world. dan riskin. we'll be back with more of "consider this." sider this." >> now inroducing, the new al jazeea america mobile news app. get our exclusive in depth, reporting when you want it. a global perspective wherever you are. the major headlines in context. mashable says... you'll never miss the latest news >> they will continue looking for suvivors... >> the potential for energy production is huge... >> no noise, no clutter, just real reporting. the new al jazeera america mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now the night's events, a smarter start to your day. mornings on al jazeera america this. >> did dracula have it right? the fictional vampire fed on the blood of others. and it kept him vibrant. older mice could be kept young by infusions of blood from younger mice, improving memory and learning. dr. amy majorrers is a professor of stem sel cell and regenera tf biology. could you explain the basis of the experiment with mice and what you found? >> thank you, sure, i would be happy to. we were searching for substances in the bloodstream that might affect the ability of tissues to retain themselves or repair themselves after injury. we found a protein called gdf 11 abundant in the blood of younger animals but declines with age. along with the emergence of several dysfunction muscle wasting and weakness, decreased activity in the brain and defects in the cardiac muscle as well. we found when we added this protein back to older animals we could actually reverse those signs of aging. >> somehow the protein activists stem cells that exist in -- activates stem cells and that's somehow produces the effect? >> we found that when gdf 11 was added back to the blood streams, improved the schedule schedule tal system and the brain. that translated into a more robust capacity of the brain around the skeletal muscle to function. >> i saw one quote that i thought was particularly interesting. this not only slows the clock but reverses the clock? >> so it does look like in fact we are able by adding back this protein that's normally lost with age to restore some activity in the muscle and in the brain that normally would not be there. so it does seem that we're restoring it. it's important to understand that we don't know for certain that this is actually a direct reversal of the processes that brought these cells to the aged state but it does restore function that's similar to what you would see in youth. >> this is obviously in its early stages but how translatable do you think these results could be in mice to humans? >> we're very excited about the possibility of translating this to humans. the gdf is identical between miez and humans. we want to understand more specifically its regulation in humans and how we might apply to it human aging related diseases. >> the fact that you have isolated it, could it be conceivably be taken in the form of a pill or would you actually have to have some sort of a blooz transfusion? >> it probably -- blood transfusion? >> we don't think we will go forward with blood transfusions in our work, we have this protein that we're very interested in seeing how it's regulated. i believe we'll be able to figure that out over the next few years and that will lead us with better options how to target this so we can for instance increase the body's own production of this protein later in life or target the effects of in protein more specifically. >> what kind of time frame do you think you'll need to figure this out for humans? >> so it's always of course very difficult to predict these things. but i think it's very reasonable to expect at least the first clinical trials that will build on the results we've reported here, within the next five years. >> could it be, to use, you know, the most popular way of looking at it, i guess, a fountain of youth for humans? >> so i think of it more as understanding ways to maintain healthy function, and healthy aging later in life. and so we're really focusing not so much on life span extension but really in extending the years that the body functions very well. >> now are you concerned that in some way the protein could cause some sort o of scesk excessive ? >> we don't see any increase in the incidence of cancer in the older animals that have been treated with that protein. so far we've only treated animals for 60 days and we would like to look longer and more extensively at this reaction. >> it's a fascinating study. thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. >> thank you very much. >> the show may be over but the conversation continues. you can find us on twitter @ajconsiderthis. we'll see you next time. >> hi everyone. this is al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. we know where they are. the words of nigeria's top military man on the searched for the kidnapped school girls. our reporter is in the exal capl of abuja with the very latest. upo0 feet wide, u
>> former president jimmy carter,ing advocate for the treatment of women and girls. >> i've seen tangible examples of how horribly women and girls are treated. >> gender violence, he brings an extremely important voice to the conversation. >> studying and memorizing the gettysburg address. >> gluten are free. why do you enjoy it? >> it makes you fat. >> we begin with a call for action from former president jimmy carter. , the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. false interpretation of religious text almost exclusive by powerful male leaders, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls. growing tolerance of violence and warfare following the example set by the u.s. has also played a role as violence has encouraged more violence. for that i'm honored to welcome the 39th president of the united states and the 2002 noble peace prize winner. good to have you with us. >> delighted. >> you have redefined what it's like to be a former president of the united states. you are the only one who won the nobel peace prize after leaving the white house. you have traveled all over the world, doing humanitarian efforts from the carter center to habitat for humanity. you have written two does books. that? >> as a matter of fact, this is my 28th book. >> i apologize! >> the carter center is active in 79 different countries. since i've left the white house, that's what we have done, gotten to know people in all nations, in third world countries where women and girls are especially abused. people who can do something about it, i have 23 recommendations in the book that can solve some of these problems, particularly in the united states, a lot of the problems that occur in the poorest countries, the back countries of the world we might call them, also ex at extant in the united states. for instance, slavery, slavery is much greater than it was in the 19th century when black people were brought out of africa in europe and the united states. there is $32 billion of human trafficking in the world every year and the taint reported leas year owners t and the state department reported that 80% of those sold into slavery are imirls for sex purposes. >> and thousands of them into the united states. >> 100,000 in the united states. not all of them were sold across borders. but the number one place in america for this human slavery traffic is in atlanta. because we have the largest airport on earth. and also, because a lot of our passengers on the airplanes come from a third world, from the southern part of the world where the girls can be bought cheaper. so you can buy a pimp or brothel owner can buy a girl for about a thousand dollars if she comes from africa or southern asia or latin america. >> we got all sort of social media responses, a viewer named heather she asked, how can we fight trafficking in the u.s? >> well, i think the united states has to take the basis. there is a -- i'm talking about girls and women because as i say girls comprise 80% of the people sold into slavery. there is an international convention of the united states called a convention on the end of discrimination against women. cedaw. and the united states has refused to ratify this treaty, this convention that exists because we don't want to have anything to do with the united nations and the very conservative senate. there is another one called the law against violence against women and the international version ever that requires that every country tabulate not only their own crimes but decrease the criminality of action against women and girls al and l prisoners or slaves recordless whether they are women. the worst places for sexual abuse in america are two of our greatest institutions, one is universities. >> where we're seeing an epidemic of sexual assault. >> one out of four girls enrolled in american universities are raped or have sexual abuse while she's in college. only a fourth are reported, 1/6 as much in the civilian environment. >> and the other is the military. >> the military. >> you were a navy officer. what do you think -- >> a commanding officer doesn't want to admit in his chain of command in his company in his battalion that a lot of sexual abuse takes place. so he discourages the women from reporting it when they are taughted. same thing happens to the college presidents, to emery university or hard o harvard orf chicago or so forth. >> prosecution of sexual assault out of the chain of command -- >> i'm really disappointed. they made some slight improvements about how much you can harass a woman who is raped in court. there was a very horrible case of a midshipman in the naval academy where i attended, she was interrogated by the football player's defender, lawyer, 21 hours in three days and she asked to be left off, that off for the next day, because she was tired. and the judge ruled against her and made her testify on saturday as well. and they asked her horrendous questions, like how many times have you kissed a boy, what kind of underwear were you wearing, have you ever had sex relations, before you came to the naval academy, how wide do you open your mouth when you give oral sex to a boy? don't make a charge officially against your rapist that says. >> this is a horrible abuse across the world and you say it's the biggest worldwide challenge we face. >> it's unaddressed. >> it's unaddressed. in a world where we are facing nuclear proliferation, why do you think that is the biggest challenge? >> let's look at the number of people that die because of this. we know about 35 million people were killed in the second world war, right? and during the war between the states or the second world war 600,000 people were killed. at this moment there are 160 million girls who are missing because they have been killed by their parents. either at birth, they strangled the baby because it's a girl and they need to have boys, or because they now have sonograms and they can detect the sex of a fetus when it's still an embryo and they can selectively abort that child because it's female. almost a generation of girls are missing from the earth because they have been killed. >> the chapter of the book called genocide of girls. possibly the most precise one because you address that very issue. >> for instance china and india limit the size of families. if the family doesn't have social security, they want to have boys. if they can only have a maximum of one or two children, they want to make sure they have boys. a movie coming out, it's a girl, a very famous movie, a woman from yintd said with -- india said without shame that she strangled eight children when they were infants because they were girls. united states needs to take leadership role in stopping this mandatory prostitution and take action to correct these problems. >> you are deeply religious but you are critical in the role of religion to women and girls. >> i'm a christian. there is nothing in the acts of jesus christ that women. as a matter of fact, jesus was a champion of women's rights and made women of a higher status than ever before him. the beebl, the old test -- the bible, the old testament, new testament, the writings of paul, whether you want woman inferior. >> it is men interpreting it. >> it is. >> as paul pointed out there were 25 leaders that he mentioned dismissal i think in 16th chapter of acts and about half those are women at very high levels. nowadays, of course in the catholic church a woman cannot be a priest or a de deacon. and in the southern of the baptist convention, a woman can't teach boys in the classroom. >> you and mrs. carter left the southern baptist convention because of their position on women. you have been hopeful of pope francis. >> i visited with pope john paul ii, an almost total inflexibility there, but i wrote pope francis a letter describing some of the issues in the book and helped him to prevent or minimize the position of women and girls. i didn't ask him to change the church's position on women of course, but he wrote me a very nice letter back, the position of women in the church needed to be strengthened and would be. >> i know you said that president obama has not. >> my other predecessors, i'm not criticizing president obama because you know i've been out of office for 35 years. and it's natural for a president to consult other presidents if he wants to who have been more recently in the white house. so i think that george w. bush and bill clinton have been there just before him and i don't think it's reasonable to expect president obama to go back 35 years and recess recollect an old democrat who was there. >> what about the criticism that you are too independent, that you don't take guidance very well and don't play well with official washington? >> i'm always protecting the integrity of the president. i haven't been anywhere in the world that i didn't get at least tacit approval of the president before i went. a few presidents have asked me not to go, president obama did, president clinton, and president george h. wmplet bus w. bush asked me not ogo because there were places that were dangerous. the carter center had a policy of going into areas that, we don't have redescraints or restrictions of whom we meet. we can meet with leaders with whom the u.s. government has no relationships and the u.s. government will call on me as i go into north korea, cuba, palestinian factions, nepal and meet with a maoist, they asked me to ask questions and to bring back some answers. >> a final question for you. you have been critical of edward snowden, you believe that he broke the law with some of the revelations he made. but at the same time you think it was important that some of this be brought to light. >> i do. >> you said you're concerned that your e-mails are being looked at by the nsa, and when you have sensitive topics, you do handwritten letters. the head of the nsa has said they are not looking at your e-mails. >> that's a relief to know. i remember when the head of nsa one of them said that they didn't monitor american -- they didn't record american telephone calls. and it turned out later that he didn't tell the congress truth. but you know i haven't really worried about it. i don't have anything to conceal but there are some times when i don't want some of my private messages to be read. there's no doubt nsa has recorded every telephone call and every e-mail message sent in the united states. they don't actually read the text but they know which message has occurred. they know which transmission has taken place and if they want to later on they can get permission from a very quiescent fisa court. i was concerned after watergate and that sort of thing that intelligence sometimes abused people. i know that the fbi did abuse martin luther king jr. and so forth. so we have a law passed called the fisa law in 1978 that absolutely prevented any american intelligence agency from spying on even one american communication unless they got a court order ahead of time certifying that it was a threat to american security. and that prevailed until after 9/11. and then that law was liberalized. and i think the law was changed quite a lot. and in my opinion when the congress changed it, the intelligence committee knew what was in the bill but the rest of the members of coming didn't have access to those secrets. so the laws were passed and i think fsa and others have exceeded the grant of freedom that the congress gave them and exceeded their intrusion into the private affairs of americans, yes. >> the book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. president carter, it's an honor to have you with us. best of luck on your book and on your humanitarian efforts. and i hope you visit us on the 29th book. this is the 900-page document we call obamacare. it could change costs, coverage, and pretty much all of healthcare in america. my show sorts this all out. in fact, my staff has read the entire thing. which is probably more than what most members of congress can claim. we'll separate politics from policy, and just prescribe the facts. to research the causes and possible cougars of gun violence in america. some 70,000 people attended the national rifle association's annual meeting this spring. on the agenda, passing a federal law that would allow gun owners with school carry permits to pack their guns in states where concealed care is banned. loaded guns in some circumstances to be brought into bars, churches, school zones, government buildings even airport areas outside security checkpoints. >> we as georgians believe in the right of the people to defend themselves and therefore we believe in the second amendment. and today i will put into law a gun bill that heralds self-defense, personal liberties and public safety. >> the little wonder then that georgia congressman jack kingston has chained his tune, now that he's campaigning for the senate. he now calls for banning the centers for disease control, will not be included in the appropriations bill. for more we're joined by congresswoman caroline maloney. and with us from atlanta is dr. mark rosenburg, president and director of the fasks for task force for human health, he led the gun violent research no. it was defunded in the 1990s. after newtown, about gun violence now he's completely changed his tune and as i just said, he's talking about the president wanting gun grabbing initiatives. what do you say to him? >> what's so threatening about doing research? we research everything, as researchers can point out. alone are we with gun safety research in that they are initiatives to prohibit. i would say no area should be so wall off that we can't research and find cures and solutions. i thought after sandy hook that there would be a lot of pro-gun safety, that the background checks would pass. but research, we need it in order to build a case. and the amount of gun violence in our world is staggering. 33,000 people a year die from gun violence. 32,000 people a year, 91,000 children under the able of 12 were killed by gun violence. why not? way to see if background checks work if safety locks work. >> policy isn't set without research to back it up. >> you need data to progress, and without the data you are stopping the progress. we have a bill in to the center for disease control for gun research. >> senator, i know you're a gun advocate, you like the shoot. now gun violence is seen as a public health issue because as the congresswoman said, tens of thousands of people are killed every year by gun violence and it's costing us tens of billions in medical cost. what can research for gun violence help? >> one, you mentioned 30,000 people a year are killed by guns. so we want to prevent some of those deaths. especially suicides and many, many of those deaths that are very preefntable. but we have -- preventible. we have another problem at the same time. our gun rights are threatened. the rights of legitimate gun owners are under threat. what we have got odo is find a way to reduce both firearm injuries and deaths and protect the rights of legitimate gun owners. if we probably only wanted to do one of those things, you wouldn't need research. don't allow any discussion let alone any discussion about firemafirearm injuries and deat. if all you wanted to do was prevent firearm injuries and deaths then take guns away from civilians. the problem is we want to solve both problems at the same time, and there are ways to do it. but if you want to figure out what works to achieve both of these goals at the same time, you need to do research to find out the answer. and rye anonymity, we don't know -- right now, we don't know what works. we don't know that letting more people carry concealed weapons in public will save lives and security, we don't know if that will protect legitimate gun owners. we're asking politicians to sign bills when they don't know what the impact of those bills would be. it's not fair of us to ask them to pass on bills if we don't give them evidence on what works and what doesn't. we're flying blind in an area that affects health and safety. >> congresswoman, you've mentioned a whole bunch of different are initiatives, including making gun ceag legal, to limit large capacity magazines, renew the assault weapons ban and require insurance for gug owners. isn't it a forgone conclusion that in an election year none of that will move forward? >> well you always try. i think his point you can do both is true. you can find common ground. there's no reason you can't research ways to prevent gun deaths and absolutely ensure that law abiding rightful citizens can bear arms. it is in our constitution. so none of my bills would take guns away from a law-abiding person and one who can rightfully own one. but as we learned in webster, new york, many mentally ill people get illegal guns and this particular case right after sandy hook, a man got a straw purchaser to get him some illegal guns and set fire to his house and proceeded to kill fire officers and police officers who were coming to save him. obviously a very ill person. we need to look at mental health and crack down on illegal gun trafficking. that should be like having a cup of water every day. why in the world, it is not legal to traffic in guns. most nra leaders i know say they absolutely support this bill, why can't we pass it? even common sense measures that even the nra supports we can't pass. >> dr. rosenburg, the nra's chief lobbyist chris cox said they were promoting an idea that gun are ownership is a disease that needs to be eradicated. should the cdc not be the place where this research is conducted? >> first you need to realize when people don't like the results that they're getting from honest scientific research, they try to discourage the researchers and the methods. the nra did not like the research that suggested that having a firearm at your home does not protect you but puts you at 300% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a homicide and 500% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a suicide. so the nra didn't like the fact that the research, very legitimate, high-quality research, showed that putting a gun in your home did not protect you. cdc is the only background and the epidemiologic skills to look at the picture, the picture of mental illness and what happens when the adjudicated mentally ill have firearms. the department of justice can look at what happens when convicted felons and criminals have firearms. but the cdc has the skill to check the impact on the population at as a whole. we fund them here -- >> there is research by other agencies. >> absolutely and the ban is unique to gun safety. i don't know of any other area of research where you're literally banned from this type of research. now president did an scuff order that said research could take place in this area and our legislation supports his executive order and makes it clear that the dick amendment did not research for gun safety. >> dr. rosenburg, the cdc has not been funded to do anything on gun safety since the 1990s. but you have written that we have spent billions of dollars since the 1970s on70s on prevention of traffic deaths. could the same help in this situation? >> obviously it could. obviously, jay dickey has over the years become a friend and we've both influenced each other and we both agree that this research is so important. it is a matter of life and death and jay dickey would today say that was a mistake and we need to do everything we can to get the research going again. >> an important discussion considering how many people are dying, and i appreciate you two joining us today. americans spend billions on health and diet products, how are we supposed to know what to buy and eat these days? countless mixed messages about what's good for us, what's bad for us, certainly not more than in the last couple of weeks. focusing on saturated fats, red wine or dark chocolate or gluten is a poison or gluten free is a positive fact. andrew wile,ing university of arizona health sciences center, he is a columnist for prevention magazine and a best selling author, true food, seasonable, sustainable, and pure. good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> let's start with saturated fats. the ones that effect most people, for centuries we have been told, don't eat high fat diets. the american heart association advocates for low fat diet. now we've got dr. oz, all sorts of papers and boorks that say maybe saturated fats aren't that bad for you after all. >> it may be that saturated fats are not that bad for us. i don't think we circulate eat them with abandon. it may be that all saturated fats are not created equal. for example, the saturated fat in meat is not great for your heart or arteries. whereas, the saturated are fat in dairy products may have a protective effect. >> the book that came out that said, the big fat surprise, saying butter is better for you than vegetable oils. >> i think olive oil is much better but keep in mind you have a saturated fat budget and decide how you want to spend it. do you want to have ietion cream once in a while, steak once in a while? i choose to spend my budget on high quality cheese. cheeses that come from cows that graze at high altitudes as in switzerland, italy and france which have a better high fat profile. i wouldn't say eat processed cheese with abandon. >> there was no increase, even for high senate intake people, in the risk of cancer or heart disease. >> the problem of these studies are metaanalyses, i don't think we know enough yet. another problem is, when we look at saturated fat, the question is many what is it replaced with in the diet? it's replaced with carbohydrates, which is more of a problem. >> i found that years ago on larry king live, you said saturated fats may not be the problem, the problems may be carbs. >> exactly. >> when these low fat diets came in a lot of people have gotten fatter. >> high glycemic carbohydrates, which are problematic. >> 30% of americans would like to cut back on gluten intake. only 1.8 million americans have celiac disease. a problem with gluten. many people have the nonceliac gluten sensitivity. >> the problem is, we can test for celiac disease we can't test for gluten sensitivity. somebody hears from a neighbor that gluten is a problem. i go to the doctor and ask is this the cause of my problem? we have very few directions if that could be a problem. >> but gluten has become a massive industry. you have to go out there -- >> massive industry. there are a lot of gluten free junk foods out there as well. often when people go on a gluten free diet, they are not imbibing in gluten and that may make them are more gluten sensitivity is unknown in china and japan. >> what does that say? >> the real problem may be the microbiome, the gut are bacteria we carry. it looks like the organisms we have in our gut are major determinants of sensitivity, reactivity and allergy. increase of increasing use of antibiotics, increasing use of industrialized food, a decrease in breast needing and a startling increase in i s c delivery in caesa caesarrian cloifer. >> we'll be back with admonish of "consider this." >> al jazeera america presents the system with joe burlinger >> the dna testing shows that these are not his hairs >> unreliable forensics >> the problem the bureaus got is they fail, it's a big, big deal... >> convicted of unspeakable crimes did flawed lab work take away their freedom? >> i was 18 when i went in... when i came out i was 50... you don't get it back... >> shocking truths revealed >> the system with joe burlinger only on al jazeera america >> the most celebrated speech in american history is a funeral , speech, president abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. students at a tiny vermont boarding school, where boys with learning disabilities memorized the address. a new of freedom, the address, its create is award winning ken burns whom i spoke with about the address, on our pream "talk to al jazeera." ken, great to have you with us. the civil war of course was your big break through, although you had been nominated for oscars before at that point. why did you decide to go back and deal with an important part of that era? >> people ask me how do i choose my projects and i say they choose me. this one chose me, across the connecticut border, putney, vice mayor, they asked me to be a judge at this gettysburg memorization ceremony. i wept. i cried at the inspirational nature of it, someone needs to take a flix on this. -- a film on this. help the kids with context over the years and finally at the 150 is approaching, i said we got to to do this. i got to put my money where my mouth is, about the historic struggles of these boys. programmatic aspect to it which is challenging the rest of the country to do something in unison, to have everybody do it. if these boys can do it we can too. >> you have got actors singers sports stars. all sorts of people to do it. >> fourscore and seven years ago. >> our fathers brought fort on this continent, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. >> now we are engaged in a great civil war. >> testing that a nation or any nation so dedicated can long endure. >> we have lost our educational mojo, lots of are reasons, lots of hammering, we asked people to stop memorizing stuff. it was rote and no relevance. we reached out and no one said no. and history is a table around which we can still have a civil discourse. we've got bill o'reilly and rachel madow, all the five living presidents contributing to this. do they see eye to eye on day-to-day events? no of course not. but do you love abraham lincoln, to appeal to the better angels of our nature, abraham lincoln would say so. >> in memorization in many ways might lead to greater understanding. let's take a look at the process that the boys at putney school go through. >> our fathers. >> brought forth. >> to the proposition. >> that all men are created equal. >> it ends up being a lot of work for a lot of them. but it has all sorts of tremendous effects. >> it does. you know they all suffer from some sort of learning difference. it might be dyslexia, disgraph disgraphia, adhd, but they are terrified with public recitation. some of them have language difficulties that make it hard to memorize or to speak. and so they help each other. it's a boarding school for kids that should be still at home. and they are held together by the loving kind isness of the school. the kids help each other and they sort of emerge from their struggles and it is such an amazingly inspirational thing that takes place here. >> especially son that day, when they go in front of the public and speak about it. let's see that. >> that we here highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vein. >> that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom. and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. [cheering and applause] >> so that is beautiful max. i took that with my smartphone because i realized we were covering the parental reactions while they were giving the address. but when i saw him coming back and i had known that max had knew the speech cold but was terrified about doing it in public. and an hour before he wasn't going to do it but he did it and did it magnificently and then came back and sort of melted into his mother that expresses all the are -- >> it was amazing. back. >> every saturday join us for exclusive, revealing, and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. rosie perez >> i had to fight back, or else my ass was gonna get kicked... >> a tough childhood... >> there was a crying, there was a lot of laughter... >> finding her voice >> i was not a ham, i was ham & cheese... >> and turning it around... >> you don't have to let your circumstance dictate who you are as a person >> talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america >> i'm joie chen, i'm the host of america tonight, we're revolutionary because we're going back to doing best of storytelling. we have an ouportunity to really reach out and really talk to voices that we haven't heard before... i think al jazeera america is a watershed moment for american journalism >> nature is wondrous but it can also be brutal and horrifying. our next guest wrote a book about it, nature is trying to kill you. a tour through the dark side of the world. the host of monsters inside me on animal planet. great to have you with us, dan. >> great to be here. >> you start the book with the really disgusting thing that happened to you. which i don't want to get into. the title of the book how is mother nature trying to kill me? >> everybody has the idea that it's a loving kind thing that wants to make us healthier, if things are balanced they must be good for you. that's kind of true but mother nature is looking out for itself, and you're calories, and there are pret tors predators who would love to take you apart. it's the reason why breaking bad is more interesting to watch than cinderella. you never get to otherwise that are absolutely the best parts. >> talking about dark side, you break up the book into different chapters, following seven deadly sins. and your main premise is what characterizes, is: >> animals to pass on their own dna. they don't care about the specious, they don't care about the ecosystem, they just care about themselves. there are a bunch mice on this island and sea birds. but when the mice arrived there in 1810, they started eating eggs and then sea bird chicks a live and very quickly they started evolving and the last 200 years, they become two to three times the size of a normal mouse and they swarm a baby albatross and eat it alive. they themselves will die because they don't have any food left. they are thinking about themselves and not the ecosystem. >> you wrote your ph.d. theses about how vampire bats move. you talk about bats being the ultimate buzz kill for some tungara fra. that are about to make love. >> one of the bats i really love is called a frog eating bat. one of the frogs that the bat eats is a tungara fra. and are are they're stuck right? males are either -- they got really like to you know pass on my dna and have a romantic time with you but i also don't want to been by a bat. >> you also have a rinella frog. >> sometimes the female gets the upper hand like she does with this frog that's going to get eaten by the bat. there's actually a male and the mating season is so intense that at the end of it many females have died from the onslaught of what went on in that pond. i won't get into that. aafter they've died, some males will squeeze the female, and glet are eggs out, and fertilize those eggs. it's functional necrophilia. you're like what, why? >> i'm the oldest about six kids, i thought i knew all about sibling rivalry. let's start with one, sand tiger sharks. >> just incredible. the ma pla is pregnant and they have babies inside of her that's of different ages. the older is going to break out of its egg sack, and swim around inside the mom and eat its siblings so it doesn't have to compete with them in the reeled world. >> and ver owes hatches,. >> pecking and trying to kill its younger sibling and it usually succeeds out of 200 nests that were observed it worked 199 times. only one younger sibling survived. 1569 pecks. >> snowy owls are beautiful. >> they are beautiful but they don't know how much food there is going to be for their eggs so they have a strategy for their reproduction, where the oldest sibling gets all the the food at once. the younger siblings are going to die unless there's a lot of food. >> finally emperor peg quin penguins are very selfish right? >> they each have an egg and it's a beautiful story of them standing together to share heat. any male on the outside of the huddle will push its way to the middle and stay there. anyone in the middle will stay there too. you have penguins who are selfishly moving to the warm eggs place. >> the book is mother nature is trying to kill you. a lively tour through the natural world. dan riskin. we'll be we'll be >> i'm ali velshi, the news has become this thing where you talk to experts about people, and al jazeera has really tried to talk to people, about their stories. we are not meant to be your first choice for entertainment. we are ment to be your first choice for the news. the news, go deeper and get more perspectives on every issue. al jazeera america. this. >> did dracula have it right? the fictional vampire fed on the blood of others. and it kept him vibrant. older mice could be kept young by infusions of blood from younger mice, improving memory and learning. dr. amy majorrers is a professor of stem sel cell and regenera tf biology. could you explain the basis of the experiment with mice and what you found? >> thank you, sure, i would be happy to. we were searching for substances in the bloodstream that might affect the ability of tissues to retain themselves or repair themselves after injury. we found a protein called gdf 11 abundant in the blood of younger animals but declines with age. along with the emergence of several dysfunction muscle wasting and weakness, decreased activity in the brain and defects in the cardiac muscle as well. we found when we added this protein back to older animals we could actually reverse those signs of aging. >> somehow the protein activists stem cells that exist in -- activates stem cells and that's somehow produces the effect? >> we found that when gdf 11 was added back to the blood streams, improved the schedule schedule tal system and the brain. that translated into a more robust capacity of the brain around the skeletal muscle to function. >> i saw one quote that i thought was particularly interesting. this not only slows the clock but reverses the clock? >> so it does look like in fact we are able by adding back this protein that's normally lost with age to restore some activity in the muscle and in the brain that normally would not be there. so it does seem that we're restoring it. it's important to understand that we don't know for certain that this is actually a direct reversal of the processes that brought these cells to the aged state but it does restore function that's similar to what you would see in youth. >> this is obviously in its early stages but how translatable do you think these results could be in mice to humans? >> we're very excited about the possibility of translating this to humans. the gdf is identical between miez and humans. we want to understand more specifically its regulation in humans and how we might apply to it human aging related diseases. >> the fact that you have isolated it, could it be conceivably be taken in the form of a pill or would you actually have to have some sort of a blooz transfusion? >> it probably -- blood transfusion? >> we don't think we will go forward with blood transfusions in our work, we have this protein that we're very interested in seeing how it's regulated. i believe we'll be able to figure that out over the next few years and that will lead us with better options how to target this so we can for instance increase the body's own production of this protein later in life or target the effects of in protein more specifically. >> what kind of time frame do you think you'll need to figure this out for humans? >> so it's always of course very difficult to predict these things. but i think it's very reasonable to expect at least the first clinical trials that will build on the results we've reported here, within the next five years. >> could it be, to use, you know, the most popular way of looking at it, i guess, a fountain of youth for humans? >> so i think of it more as understanding ways to maintain healthy function, and healthy aging later in life. and so we're really focusing not so much on life span extension but really in extending the years that the body functions very well. >> now are you concerned that in some way the protein could cause some sort of of sces excessive reaction? >> we don't see any increase in the incidence of cancer in the older animals that have been treated with that protein. so far we've only treated animals for 60 days and we would like to look longer and more extensively at this reaction. >> it's a fascinating study. thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. >> thank you very >> the show may be over but the conversation continues. you can find us on twitter @ajconsiderthis. we'll see you next time. it's the american dream, a good job, a home for your family, a better future for your children. somewhere along the way, that reality. >> paycheck to paycheck. enough? treadmill. >> to keep middle class families from falling behind. >> people are struggling today. >> their struggle is the story of today's america, a country that counts on those in the middle to lead on the path to prosperity.
>> former president jimmy carter,ing advocate for the treatment of women and girls. >> i've seen tangible examples of how horribly women and girls are treated. >> gender violence, he brings an extremely important voice to the conversation. >> studying and memorizing the gettysburg address. >> gluten are free. why do you enjoy it? >> it makes you fat. >> we begin with a call for action from former president jimmy carter. , the deprivation and abuse of women and girls. false interpretation of religious text almost exclusive by powerful male leaders, to proclaim the lower status of women and girls. growing tolerance of violence and warfare following the example set by the u.s. has also played a role as violence has encouraged more violence. for that i'm honored to welcome the 39th president of the united states and the 2002 noble peace prize winner. good to have you with us. >> delighted. >> you have redefined what it's like to be a former president of the united states. you are the only one who won the nobel peace prize after leaving the white house. you have traveled all over the world, doing humanitarian efforts from the carter center to habitat for humanity. you have written two does books. that? >> as a matter of fact, this is my 28th book. >> i apologize! >> the carter center is active in 79 different countries. since i've left the white house, that's what we have done, gotten to know people in all nations, in third world countries where women and girls are especially abused. people who can do something about it, i have 23 recommendations in the book that can solve some of these problems, particularly in the united states, a lot of the problems that occur in the poorest countries, the back countries of the world we might call them, also ex at extant in the united states. for instance, slavery, slavery is much greater than it was in the 19th century when black people were brought out of africa in europe and the united states. there is $32 billion of human trafficking in the world every year and the taint reported leas year owners t and the state department reported that 80% of those sold into slavery are imirls for sex purposes. >> and thousands of them into the united states. >> 100,000 in the united states. not all of them were sold across borders. but the number one place in america for this human slavery traffic is in atlanta. because we have the largest airport on earth. and also, because a lot of our passengers on the airplanes come from a third world, from the southern part of the world where the girls can be bought cheaper. so you can buy a pimp or brothel owner can buy a girl for about a thousand dollars if she comes from africa or southern asia or latin america. >> we got all sort of social media responses, a viewer named heather she asked, how can we fight trafficking in the u.s? >> well, i think the united states has to take the basis. there is a -- i'm talking about girls and women because as i say girls comprise 80% of the people sold into slavery. there is an international convention of the united states called a convention on the end of discrimination against women. cedaw. and the united states has refused to ratify this treaty, this convention that exists because we don't want to have anything to do with the united nations and the very conservative senate. there is another one called the law against violence against women and the international version ever that requires that every country tabulate not only their own crimes but decrease the criminality of action against women and girls al and l prisoners or slaves recordless whether they are women. the worst places for sexual abuse in america are two of our greatest institutions, one is universities. >> where we're seeing an epidemic of sexual assault. >> one out of four girls enrolled in american universities are raped or have sexual abuse while she's in college. only a fourth are reported, 1/6 as much in the civilian environment. >> and the other is the military. >> the military. >> you were a navy officer. what do you think -- >> a commanding officer doesn't want to admit in his chain of command in his company in his battalion that a lot of sexual abuse takes place. so he discourages the women from reporting it when they are taughted. same thing happens to the college presidents, to emery university or hard o harvard orf chicago or so forth. >> prosecution of sexual assault out of the chain of command -- >> i'm really disappointed. they made some slight improvements about how much you can harass a woman who is raped in court. there was a very horrible case of a midshipman in the naval academy where i attended, she was interrogated by the football player's defender, lawyer, 21 hours in three days and she asked to be left off, that off for the next day, because she was tired. and the judge ruled against her and made her testify on saturday as well. and they asked her horrendous questions, like how many times have you kissed a boy, what kind of underwear were you wearing, have you ever had sex relations, before you came to the naval academy, how wide do you open your mouth when you give oral sex to a boy? don't make a charge officially against your rapist that says. >> this is a horrible abuse across the world and you say it's the biggest worldwide challenge we face. >> it's unaddressed. >> it's unaddressed. in a world where we are facing nuclear proliferation, why do you think that is the biggest challenge? >> let's look at the number of people that die because of this. we know about 35 million people were killed in the second world war, right? and during the war between the states or the second world war 600,000 people were killed. at this moment there are 160 million girls who are missing because they have been killed by their parents. either at birth, they strangled the baby because it's a girl and they need to have boys, or because they now have sonograms and they can detect the sex of a fetus when it's still an embryo and they can selectively abort that child because it's female. almost a generation of girls are missing from the earth because they have been killed. >> the chapter of the book called genocide of girls. possibly the most precise one because you address that very issue. >> for instance china and india limit the size of families. if the family doesn't have social security, they want to have boys. if they can only have a maximum of one or two children, they want to make sure they have boys. a movie coming out, it's a girl, a very famous movie, a woman from yintd said with -- india said without shame that she strangled eight children when they were infants because they were girls. united states needs to take leadership role in stopping this mandatory prostitution and take action to correct these problems. >> you are deeply religious but you are critical in the role of religion to women and girls. >> i'm a christian. there is nothing in the acts of jesus christ that women. as a matter of fact, jesus was a champion of women's rights and made women of a higher status than ever before him. the beebl, the old test -- the bible, the old testament, new testament, the writings of paul, whether you want woman inferior. >> it is men interpreting it. >> it is. >> as paul pointed out there were 25 leaders that he mentioned dismissal i think in 16th chapter of acts and about half those are women at very high levels. nowadays, of course in the catholic church a woman cannot be a priest or a de deacon. and in the southern of the baptist convention, a woman can't teach boys in the classroom. >> you and mrs. carter left the southern baptist convention because of their position on women. you have been hopeful of pope francis. >> i visited with pope john paul ii, an almost total inflexibility there, but i wrote pope francis a letter describing some of the issues in the book and helped him to prevent or minimize the position of women and girls. i didn't ask him to change the church's position on women of course, but he wrote me a very nice letter back, the position of women in the church needed to be strengthened and would be. >> i know you said that president obama has not. >> my other predecessors, i'm not criticizing president obama because you know i've been out of office for 35 years. and it's natural for a president to consult other presidents if he wants to who have been more recently in the white house. so i think that george w. bush and bill clinton have been there just before him and i don't think it's reasonable to expect president obama to go back 35 years and recess recollect an old democrat who was there. >> what about the criticism that you are too independent, that you don't take guidance very well and don't play well with official washington? >> i'm always protecting the integrity of the president. i haven't been anywhere in the world that i didn't get at least tacit approval of the president before i went. a few presidents have asked me not to go, president obama did, president clinton, and president george h. wmplet bus w. bush asked me not ogo because there were places that were dangerous. the carter center had a policy of going into areas that, we don't have redescraints or restrictions of whom we meet. we can meet with leaders with whom the u.s. government has no relationships and the u.s. government will call on me as i go into north korea, cuba, palestinian factions, nepal and meet with a maoist, they asked me to ask questions and to bring back some answers. >> a final question for you. you have been critical of edward snowden, you believe that he broke the law with some of the revelations he made. but at the same time you think it was important that some of this be brought to light. >> i do. >> you said you're concerned that your e-mails are being looked at by the nsa, and when you have sensitive topics, you do handwritten letters. the head of the nsa has said they are not looking at your e-mails. >> that's a relief to know. i remember when the head of nsa one of them said that they didn't monitor american -- they didn't record american telephone calls. and it turned out later that he didn't tell the congress truth. but you know i haven't really worried about it. i don't have anything to conceal but there are some times when i don't want some of my private messages to be read. there's no doubt nsa has recorded every telephone call and every e-mail message sent in the united states. they don't actually read the text but they know which message has occurred. they know which transmission has taken place and if they want to later on they can get permission from a very quiescent fisa court. i was concerned after watergate and that sort of thing that intelligence sometimes abused people. i know that the fbi did abuse martin luther king jr. and so forth. so we have a law passed called the fisa law in 1978 that absolutely prevented any american intelligence agency from spying on even one american communication unless they got a court order ahead of time certifying that it was a threat to american security. and that prevailed until after 9/11. and then that law was liberalized. and i think the law was changed quite a lot. and in my opinion when the congress changed it, the intelligence committee knew what was in the bill but the rest of the members of coming didn't have access to those secrets. so the laws were passed and i think fsa and others have exceeded the grant of freedom that the congress gave them and exceeded their intrusion into the private affairs of americans, yes. >> the book is a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. president carter, it's an honor to have you with us. best of luck on your book and on your humanitarian efforts. and i hope you visit us on the 29th book. to research the causes and possible cougars of gun violence in america. some 70,000 people attended the national rifle association's annual meeting this spring. on the agenda, passing a federal law that would allow gun owners with school carry permits to pack their guns in states where concealed care is banned. loaded guns in some circumstances to be brought into bars, churches, school zones, government buildings even airport areas outside security checkpoints. >> we as georgians believe in the right of the people to defend themselves and therefore we believe in the second amendment. and today i will put into law a gun bill that heralds self-defense, personal liberties and public safety. >> the little wonder then that georgia congressman jack kingston has chained his tune, now that he's campaigning for the senate. he now calls for banning the centers for disease control, will not be included in the appropriations bill. for more we're joined by congresswoman caroline maloney. and with us from atlanta is dr. mark rosenburg, president and director of the fasks for task force for human health, he led the gun violent research no. it was defunded in the 1990s. after newtown, about gun violence now he's completely changed his tune and as i just said, he's talking about the president wanting gun grabbing initiatives. what do you say to him? >> what's so threatening about doing research? we research everything, as researchers can point out. alone are we with gun safety research in that they are initiatives to prohibit. i would say no area should be so wall off that we can't research and find cures and solutions. i thought after sandy hook that there would be a lot of pro-gun safety, that the background checks would pass. but research, we need it in order to build a case. and the amount of gun violence in our world is staggering. 33,000 people a year die from gun violence. 32,000 people a year, 91,000 children under the able of 12 were killed by gun violence. why not? way to see if background checks work if safety locks work. >> policy isn't set without research to back it up. >> you need data to progress, and without the data you are stopping the progress. we have a bill in to the center for disease control for gun research. >> senator, i know you're a gun advocate, you like the shoot. now gun violence is seen as a public health issue because as the congresswoman said, tens of thousands of people are killed every year by gun violence and it's costing us tens of billions in medical cost. what can research for gun violence help? >> one, you mentioned 30,000 people a year are killed by guns. so we want to prevent some of those deaths. especially suicides and many, many of those deaths that are very preefntable. but we have -- preventible. we have another problem at the same time. our gun rights are threatened. the rights of legitimate gun owners are under threat. what we have got odo is find a way to reduce both firearm injuries and deaths and protect the rights of legitimate gun owners. if we probably only wanted to do one of those things, you wouldn't need research. don't allow any discussion let alone any discussion about firemafirearm injuries and deat. if all you wanted to do was prevent firearm injuries and deaths then take guns away from civilians. the problem is we want to solve both problems at the same time, and there are ways to do it. but if you want to figure out what works to achieve both of these goals at the same time, you need to do research to find out the answer. and rye anonymity, we don't know -- right now, we don't know what works. we don't know that letting more people carry concealed weapons in public will save lives and security, we don't know if that will protect legitimate gun owners. we're asking politicians to sign bills when they don't know what the impact of those bills would be. it's not fair of us to ask them to pass on bills if we don't give them evidence on what works and what doesn't. we're flying blind in an area that affects health and safety. >> congresswoman, you've mentioned a whole bunch of different are initiatives, including making gun ceag legal, to limit large capacity magazines, renew the assault weapons ban and require insurance for gug owners. isn't it a forgone conclusion that in an election year none of that will move forward? >> well you always try. i think his point you can do both is true. you can find common ground. there's no reason you can't research ways to prevent gun deaths and absolutely ensure that law abiding rightful citizens can bear arms. it is in our constitution. so none of my bills would take guns away from a law-abiding person and one who can rightfully own one. but as we learned in webster, new york, many mentally ill people get illegal guns and this particular case right after sandy hook, a man got a straw purchaser to get him some illegal guns and set fire to his house and proceeded to kill fire officers and police officers who were coming to save him. obviously a very ill person. we need to look at mental health and crack down on illegal gun trafficking. that should be like having a cup of water every day. why in the world, it is not legal to traffic in guns. most nra leaders i know say they absolutely support this bill, why can't we pass it? even common sense measures that even the nra supports we can't pass. >> dr. rosenburg, the nra's chief lobbyist chris cox said they were promoting an idea that gun are ownership is a disease that needs to be eradicated. should the cdc not be the place where this research is conducted? >> first you need to realize when people don't like the results that they're getting from honest scientific research, they try to discourage the researchers and the methods. the nra did not like the research that suggested that having a firearm at your home does not protect you but puts you at 300% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a homicide and 500% more risk that someone in your family will be killed in a suicide. so the nra didn't like the fact that the research, very legitimate, high-quality research, showed that putting a gun in your home did not protect you. cdc is the only background and the epidemiologic skills to look at the picture, the picture of mental illness and what happens when the adjudicated mentally ill have firearms. the department of justice can look at what happens when convicted felons and criminals have firearms. but the cdc has the skill to check the impact on the population at as a whole. we fund them here -- >> there is research by other agencies. >> absolutely and the ban is unique to gun safety. i don't know of any other area of research where you're literally banned from this type of research. now president did an scuff order that said research could take place in this area and our legislation supports his executive order and makes it clear that the dick amendment did not research for gun safety. >> dr. rosenburg, the cdc has not been funded to do anything on gun safety since the 1990s. but you have written that we have spent billions of dollars since the 1970s on70s on prevention of traffic deaths. could the same help in this situation? >> obviously it could. obviously, jay dickey has over the years become a friend and we've both influenced each other and we both agree that this research is so important. it is a matter of life and death and jay dickey would today say that was a mistake and we need to do everything we can to get the research going again. >> an important discussion considering how many people are dying, and i appreciate you two joining us today. americans spend billions on health and diet products, how are we supposed to know what to buy and eat these days? countless mixed messages about what's good for us, what's bad for us, certainly not more than in the last couple of weeks. focusing on saturated fats, red wine or dark chocolate or gluten is a poison or gluten free is a positive fact. andrew wile,ing university of arizona health sciences center, he is a columnist for prevention magazine and a best selling author, true food, seasonable, sustainable, and pure. good to have you with us. >> thank you. >> let's start with saturated fats. the ones that effect most people, for centuries we have been told, don't eat high fat diets. the american heart association advocates for low fat diet. now we've got dr. oz, all sorts of papers and boorks that say maybe saturated fats aren't that bad for you after all. >> it may be that saturated fats are not that bad for us. i don't think we circulate eat them with abandon. it may be that all saturated fats are not created equal. for example, the saturated fat in meat is not great for your heart or arteries. whereas, the saturated are fat in dairy products may have a protective effect. >> the book that came out that said, the big fat surprise, saying butter is better for you than vegetable oils. >> i think olive oil is much better but keep in mind you have a saturated fat budget and decide how you want to spend it. do you want to have ietion cream once in a while, steak once in a while? i choose to spend my budget on high quality cheese. cheeses that come from cows that graze at high altitudes as in switzerland, italy and france which have a better high fat profile. i wouldn't say eat processed cheese with abandon. >> there was no increase, even for high senate intake people, in the risk of cancer or heart disease. >> the problem of these studies are metaanalyses, i don't think we know enough yet. another problem is, when we look at saturated fat, the question is many what is it replaced with in the diet? it's replaced with carbohydrates, which is more of a problem. >> i found that years ago on larry king live, you said saturated fats may not be the problem, the problems may be carbs. >> exactly. >> when these low fat diets came in a lot of people have gotten fatter. >> high glycemic carbohydrates, which are problematic. >> 30% of americans would like to cut back on gluten intake. only 1.8 million americans have celiac disease. a problem with gluten. many people have the nonceliac gluten sensitivity. >> the problem is, we can test for celiac disease we can't test for gluten sensitivity. somebody hears from a neighbor that gluten is a problem. i go to the doctor and ask is this the cause of my problem? we have very few directions if that could be a problem. >> but gluten has become a massive industry. you have to go out there -- >> massive industry. there are a lot of gluten free junk foods out there as well. often when people go on a gluten free diet, they are not imbibing in gluten and that may make them are more gluten sensitivity is unknown in china and japan. >> what does that say? >> the real problem may be the microbiome, the gut are bacteria we carry. it looks like the organisms we have in our gut are major determinants of sensitivity, reactivity and allergy. increase of increasing use of antibiotics, increasing use of industrialized food, a decrease in breast needing and a startling increase in i s c delivery in caesa caesarrian cloifer. >> we'll be back with admonish of "consider this." >> the most celebrated speech in american history is a funeral , speech, president abraham lincoln's gettysburg address. students at a tiny vermont boarding school, where boys with learning disabilities memorized the address. a new of freedom, the address, its create is award winning ken burns whom i spoke with about the address, on our pream "talk to al jazeera." ken, great to have you with us. the civil war of course was your big break through, although you had been nominated for oscars before at that point. why did you decide to go back and deal with an important part of that era? >> people ask me how do i choose my projects and i say they choose me. this one chose me, across the connecticut border, putney, vice mayor, they asked me to be a judge at this gettysburg memorization ceremony. i wept. i cried at the inspirational nature of it, someone needs to take a flix on this. -- a film on this. help the kids with context over the years and finally at the 150 is approaching, i said we got to to do this. i got to put my money where my mouth is, about the historic struggles of these boys. programmatic aspect to it which is challenging the rest of the country to do something in unison, to have everybody do it. if these boys can do it we can too. >> you have got actors singers sports stars. all sorts of people to do it. >> fourscore and seven years ago. >> our fathers brought fort on this continent, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. >> now we are engaged in a great civil war. >> testing that a nation or any nation so dedicated can long endure. >> we have lost our educational mojo, lots of are reasons, lots of hammering, we asked people to stop memorizing stuff. it was rote and no relevance. we reached out and no one said no. and history is a table around which we can still have a civil discourse. we've got bill o'reilly and rachel madow, all the five living presidents contributing to this. do they see eye to eye on day-to-day events? no of course not. but do you love abraham lincoln, to appeal to the better angels of our nature, abraham lincoln would say so. >> in memorization in many ways might lead to greater understanding. let's take a look at the process that the boys at putney school go through. >> our fathers. >> brought forth. >> to the proposition. >> that all men are created equal. >> it ends up being a lot of work for a lot of them. but it has all sorts of tremendous effects. >> it does. you know they all suffer from some sort of learning difference. it might be dyslexia, disgraph disgraphia, adhd, but they are terrified with public recitation. some of them have language difficulties that make it hard to memorize or to speak. and so they help each other. it's a boarding school for kids that should be still at home. and they are held together by the loving kind isness of the school. the kids help each other and they sort of emerge from their struggles and it is such an amazingly inspirational thing that takes place here. >> especially son that day, when they go in front of the public and speak about it. let's see that. >> that we here highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vein. >> that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom. and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. [cheering and applause] >> so that is beautiful max. i took that with my smartphone because i realized we were covering the parental reactions while they were giving the address. but when i saw him coming back and i had known that max had knew the speech cold but was terrified about doing it in public. and an hour before he wasn't going to do it but he did it and did it magnificently and then came back and sort of melted into his mother that expresses all the are -- >> it was amazing. back. >> i'm ali velshi, the news has become this thing where you talk to experts about people, and al jazeera has really tried to talk to people, about their stories. we are not meant to be your first choice for entertainment. we are ment to be your first choice for the news. >> every saturday join us for exclusive, revealing, and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. rosie perez >> i had to fight back, or else my ass was gonna get kicked... >> a tough childhood... >> there was a crying, there was a lot of laughter... >> finding her voice >> i was not a ham, i was ham & cheese... >> and turning it around... >> you don't have to let your circumstance dictate who you are as a person >> talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america >> nature is wondrous but it can also be brutal and horrifying. our next guest wrote a book about it, nature is trying to kill you. a tour through the dark side of the world. the host of monsters inside me on animal planet. great to have you with us, dan. >> great to be here. >> you start the book with the really disgusting thing that happened to you. which i don't want to get into. the title of the book how is mother nature trying to kill me? >> everybody has the idea that it's a loving kind thing that wants to make us healthier, if things are balanced they must be good for you. that's kind of true but mother nature is looking out for itself, and you're calories, and there are pret tors predators who would love to take you apart. it's the reason why breaking bad is more interesting to watch than cinderella. you never get to otherwise that are absolutely the best parts. >> talking about dark side, you break up the book into different chapters, following seven deadly sins. and your main premise is what characterizes, is: >> animals to pass on their own dna. they don't care about the specious, they don't care about the ecosystem, they just care about themselves. there are a bunch mice on this island and sea birds. but when the mice arrived there in 1810, they started eating eggs and then sea bird chicks a live and very quickly they started evolving and the last 200 years, they become two to three times the size of a normal mouse and they swarm a baby albatross and eat it alive. they themselves will die because they don't have any food left. they are thinking about themselves and not the ecosystem. >> you wrote your ph.d. theses about how vampire bats move. you talk about bats being the ultimate buzz kill for some tungara fra. that are about to make love. >> one of the bats i really love is called a frog eating bat. one of the frogs that the bat eats is a tungara fra. and are are they're stuck right? males are either -- they got really like to you know pass on my dna and have a romantic time with you but i also don't want to been by a bat. >> you also have a rinella frog. >> sometimes the female gets the upper hand like she does with this frog that's going to get eaten by the bat. there's actually a male and the mating season is so intense that at the end of it many females have died from the onslaught of what went on in that pond. i won't get into that. aafter they've died, some males will squeeze the female, and glet are eggs out, and fertilize those eggs. it's functional necrophilia. you're like what, why? >> i'm the oldest about six kids, i thought i knew all about sibling rivalry. let's start with one, sand tiger sharks. >> just incredible. the ma pla is pregnant and they have babies inside of her that's of different ages. the older is going to break out of its egg sack, and swim around inside the mom and eat its siblings so it doesn't have to compete with them in the reeled world. >> and ver owes hatches,. >> pecking and trying to kill its younger sibling and it usually succeeds out of 200 nests that were observed it worked 199 times. only one younger sibling survived. 1569 pecks. >> snowy owls are beautiful. >> they are beautiful but they don't know how much food there is going to be for their eggs so they have a strategy for their reproduction, where the oldest sibling gets all the the food at once. the younger siblings are going to die unless there's a lot of food. >> finally emperor peg quin penguins are very selfish right? >> they each have an egg and it's a beautiful story of them standing together to share heat. any male on the outside of the huddle will push its way to the middle and stay there. anyone in the middle will stay there too. you have penguins who are selfishly moving to the warm eggs place. >> the book is mother nature is trying to kill you. a lively tour through the natural world. dan riskin. we'll be families ripped apart... >> racial profiling >> sometimes they ask questions... sometimes they just handcuff people... >> deporting dreams... destroying lives... >> this state is literally redefining what it means to be a criminal alien fault lines al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> they're locking the doors... >> ground breaking... >> we have to get out of here... >> truth seeking... award winning investigative documentary series fault lines the deported only on al jazeera america ents, a smarter start to your day. mornings on al jazeera america this. >> did dracula have it right? the fictional vampire fed on the blood of others. and it kept him vibrant. older mice could be kept young by infusions of blood from younger mice, improving memory and learning. dr. amy majorrers is a professor of stem sel cell and regenera tf biology. could you explain the basis of the experiment with mice and what you found? >> thank you, sure, i would be happy to. we were searching for substances in the bloodstream that might affect the ability of tissues to retain themselves or repair themselves after injury. we found a protein called gdf 11 abundant in the blood of younger animals but declines with age. along with the emergence of several dysfunction muscle wasting and weakness, decreased activity in the brain and defects in the cardiac muscle as well. we found when we added this protein back to older animals we could actually reverse those signs of aging. >> somehow the protein activists stem cells that exist in -- activates stem cells and that's somehow produces the effect? >> we found that when gdf 11 was added back to the blood streams, improved the schedule schedule tal system and the brain. that translated into a more robust capacity of the brain around the skeletal muscle to function. >> i saw one quote that i thought was particularly interesting. this not only slows the clock but reverses the clock? >> so it does look like in fact we are able by adding back this protein that's normally lost with age to restore some activity in the muscle and in the brain that normally would not be there. so it does seem that we're restoring it. it's important to understand that we don't know for certain that this is actually a direct reversal of the processes that brought these cells to the aged state but it does restore function that's similar to what you would see in youth. >> this is obviously in its early stages but how translatable do you think these results could be in mice to humans? >> we're very excited about the possibility of translating this to humans. the gdf is identical between miez and humans. we want to understand more specifically its regulation in humans and how we might apply to it human aging related diseases. >> the fact that you have isolated it, could it be conceivably be taken in the form of a pill or would you actually have to have some sort of a blooz transfusion? >> it probably -- blood transfusion? >> we don't think we will go forward with blood transfusions in our work, we have this protein that we're very interested in seeing how it's regulated. i believe we'll be able to figure that out over the next few years and that will lead us with better options how to target this so we can for instance increase the body's own production of this protein later in life or target the effects of in protein more specifically. >> what kind of time frame do you think you'll need to figure this out for humans? >> so it's always of course very difficult to predict these things. but i think it's very reasonable to expect at least the first clinical trials that will build on the results we've reported here, within the next five years. >> could it be, to use, you know, the most popular way of looking at it, i guess, a fountain of youth for humans? >> so i think of it more as understanding ways to maintain healthy function, and healthy aging later in life. and so we're really focusing not so much on life span extension but really in extending the years that the body functions very well. >> now are you concerned that in some way the protein could cause some sort of of sces excessive reaction? >> we don't see any increase in the incidence of cancer in the older animals that have been treated with that protein. so far we've only treated animals for 60 days and we would like to look longer and more extensively at this reaction. >> it's a fascinating study. thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. >> thank you very >> the show may be over but the conversation continues. you can find us on twitter @ajconsiderthis. we'll see you next time. >> welcome the al jazeera america and i'm del walters and here are the stories we are following you, when are the school girls going come home. >> there is a week of solid darety on the campuses in california. >> caught in the cross fire, embattle eastern region of ukraine.
will. we learned that when others are are around, we learn -- we wait for others to take responsibility. scientists have attributed major explanations to the bystander affect. first, people feel the need to be hit and socially acceptable ways. they take their cues from other people. that prompts them to either act or not act. second, and perhaps more important is the presence of other people essentially this uses responsibility. that is the essential -- essential problem. it can lead to extreme and action, and that is to the detriment of all of our bystanders and the whole society. this is precisely the condition we find ourselves in so many americans,, in particular young people do not make it to the polls on election day. they may have an opinion about who should win, they may even feel really strongly about it, but as their dates fill up, the good intention to go vote goes away. they wake up -- maybe the wake up with the intent to vote in never make it to the polls. but what does that mean? ultimately they are falling back on the bystander affect. the belief that their boats is a marginally important, if that all. we we should never assume someone else can vote in our place, because unlike a smoked- filled room, other people may not be bothered by the same things you are bothered by. i am sorry to say that young voters specifically are and have traditionally been the epitome of the bystander affect. that is the same as every count election. anything could have happened in every single vote allegedly was counted. we saw an increase in 2004. 40%, and in 2008, it jumped up college students are the young people that led that charge. there were more likely to vote in their age group. during my months on the trail, traveling to colleges, college students have opinions about politics. they understand issues and have a lot to say about than that. more importantly, as a group, students tend to be progressive. i do not mean liberal. i mean progressive. they have distinct opinions about things. more importantly, college students have the ability and the inevitable duty to lead the rest of the country. throughout this country's history, it is students that have driven great change. take civil rights. i will read about my state a little here. on february 1, 1960, four black students began a sit-in at the woolworth's lunch counter in grennsboro, north carolina. this is known as the greensboro four. they were refused service, but were allowed to sit at the counter, so they did and they sat there all day. on the second day, 20 students showed up. on the third day, 60. on the fourth day, more than 300 people went to woolworth's. six months later, the greensboro four were finally served at the lunch counter. that is not all they accomplished. those four students, they were freshmen at the time. that was an example that became an integral part of the civil rights movement, which was what ultimately integrated all kinds of places throughout the south. not only civil rights. since are the driving force behind powerful protest during the vietnam war, and students have shown their ability to get out front. after hurricane katrina, my dad took a group to the gulf coast to help rebuild houses down there. who did he turn to? college students. he was not disappointed. 700 college students joined him on that trip. during their spring break, they gave up the beach and instead, they lived on a gym floor in new orleans. they cleared debris, fixed houses, and helped their neighbors who were so desperately in need. i could go to more examples, but young people have tremendous potential power in our country. so often, we forget, do not use our voices, to not use our feet. and you have all heard the jfk quote -- ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. i actually think that in america today, it is ok to ask those questions. we expect our government to respond to our needs. the greensboro four expected more from america. for years, young people have been ignored. the obama election in 2008 the high point of youth voting in america. this is an enormous opportunity. for the first time in a long time, young people are a voting bloc that should not and cannot be ignored. do not lose that important footnote. maintain your responsibility to vote, expressed in your voice be heard, but those who make decisions on your behalf. margaret mead once said never that that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. indeed, it is the only thing that ever happened. i asked you to be that crew. i ask you to stand up to be heard and your voice matters. your vote is vital. it helps ensure you're not just working for your country, but that your country is working for you. there are other forms of responsibility outside of voting better just important. last year i left the practice of law to start the elizabeth edwards foundation, in large part to preserve her memory, but i did it to continue work she had been doing her life in helping young people fulfill their potential to succeed. to give you an idea of what we do, we run a program that helped high school students who have great potential, but lack resources and support, and we help them get prepared for and get to college. the program indicates three important things that reflect my mother -- mentorship, advocacy, and public service. it provides the best we provide mentors to the students in the program and hope they can become mentors themselves. we train the fellows to always get back to their communities for big public service projects. let me be clear, the world that you address can be big or small. you do not have to start a nonprofit. you do not have to cure a disease. sometimes responsibility is about addressing smaller communities and smaller needs. every single day you have the ability to do small things can make a difference in people's lives. my mom always taught me to call my waitresses by their names, first names. if they do not have a name tag, ask. i always ask her how her day is gone, and you are always kind. maybe that's small gesture does not seem like a lot to you, but it will be a lot to her or him. you cannot forget the small stuff. in meeting smaller needs is why i deal with the foundation and starting very small, a handful of students in the fellows program in raleigh, north carolina. if we can help just one child reach for potential, help one get to a a good college, we have succeeded. because we have made the difference, even though it might seem like a small difference. sometimes responsibility is about speaking out when you see injustice. i do a lot of work in discrimination in civil rights. i see cases where someone sat silently by. maybe they heard somebody say the n-word and never said anything about it. maybe they saw a man being inappropriate to a woman at work and kept it to themselves. maybe they saw a group laughing at a joke about homosexuals and turned a blind eye. a lot of times all you have to do is speak up. dante says the hottest place in hell are the when in terms of crisis you maintained their neutrality. it is not always that easy. responsibility is not about finding something good to do. sometimes it is about combating the bad. it is about stopping a bullet, standing up against bigotry and hatred. it is about speaking out. my mom taught me this -- you do not have to be the one who shouts loudest. being loud never changed anyone's mind. the greensboro four were right. if you are right, you can change minds with your message, not the noise. it is also not about doing favors for people. we think about it that way, like charity work, but we do it for ourselves as much as anything, because it feels good to help other people. it feels good to help your community. it feels good to both and make your voice heard. fulfilling our responsibility serves us. when we speak about the dangers of pollution, we are working to save the environment we all live then. that includes ourselves. if we refuse to be bystanders, if we take our responsibilities seriously, we lift up our society, our community, we left our country. that means we lift up ourselves, lift up those are around that, we lift up america, we lift up the world. so please do not be bystanders. be active. make a change that means something. thank you. \[applause] >> all right, we are ready to take your questions as soon as we get our mikes set up. hello? ok. >> i have a few starter questions that i had some interest in. the first one here is, do you anticipate some day, perhaps even in the distant future, you would run for political office? >> i do not currently anticipate doing so. anyone who is called upon to serve a public office, it is a very brave thing to do, an important thing to do, and i do not discount it could be a possibility if there was a pressing need. i do not plan to run for office, no. >> all right. a second question from our department here. did you watch the democratic or republican conventions on tv? if so, what were your impressions of the speakers or the content of the events? >> i did. i watched both conventions. one more than another, i guess, but i think it is hard for me to say what my impressions are entirely, because i like a format where there is more engagement between the parties, personally, versus a speaking format, but i think the important thing for america was to be able to listen to the platforms of both parties and be able to compare them, and i think ultimately, the conventions, the purpose of the conventions , and i think the convention still take a job this year to make sure that they had stands on the issues, and they were well known, and i thought a lot of the speakers did a great job, showing how passionate they are about the work they do, which is hard work. >> outside of the president, who are some of your favorite speakers? >> i always love to hear bill clinton talk, so he is always entertaining, and i thought he did a great job. >> ok, a question from a student in the audience. as a young person, who has already had so many experiences in politics in making education and career choices, looking at the issues and challenges facing youth, what insights can you all for our presidential candidates? what are they getting right, and what are they missing? >> that is a hard question. but i think one of the main things we have seen in politics recently is increasing partisanship, that is not what people want to hear. that is not responsive to the needs of young people, certainly not responsive to the needs of anyone, really, and i think that in particular, for example, politicizing things that really are not political is not useful, and my particular concern about partisanship of certain issues is that they turned young people off from politics. you are our future. we need you to be engaged, we need you to care about where our country is going, we do not need you to be turned off about things that are not the issues. those are the biggest things i have had in recent years. >> thank you. another student question. what sparked your interest and engagement in politics and law? >> i have always paid attention to politics since i was younger, but i did not get into but i sort of landed in politics, obviously. it was not really need going after a political career or anything like that. that was just look, i guess. and in terms of a law clerk, i have always wanted to go into law. i grew up with two lawyers as parents. for some people, that is a turnoff, but i heard incredible stories for but to my parents about people they were able to help and things they were able to do through the legal system and to the justice system and as advocates for people who could not advocate for themselves. i knew that that is what i always wanted, and i think the world of politics should not be that different. that is essentially what our elected officials are there today, to be an advocate of a part of the people who are not always able to do it themselves. >> on a related note, a student would like to know how someone can get involved with the elizabeth edwards foundation. >> oh, great. you can send me an e-mail. i will let you know how you can get involved. it has been a really interesting thing to start the foundation and to learn a lot about our world that i was not familiar with, think that i learned about the non-profit world. everyone is really nice. they want to help you. it is so different from the legal world, in which not everyone wants to help you. there is no competition. it is a lot of people working toward similar goals, and it has been and the lightning experience. anyone who wants to go into that war, i encourage you to do so. it is a life choice and has been a wonderful one. if you are interested in getting involved, send me an e-mail. >> and "cate" with a c. >> we had a speaker come here last week to talk about the flaws of the electoral college and how it contributes to voter apathy. what encouragement would you give young democrats to get out and vote in a state like south carolina, where they are the overwhelming minority? >> there are two things. one, i do not disagree about the electoral college. it might be antiquated. but your voice natters on whatever levels. it is not just necessarily saying that the south carolina and electoral votes are going to candidate a or candidate b. but it is off about the number of people that are getting out in south carolina, the number of young people that are getting out across the country to vote. the more you go, especially young people, the more people pay attention to you. it is a sad truth that our candidates travel to places across the country and to specific groups that they feel are wrong to get out and vote. if you get out and vote, they will pay attention to you. your ideas will get hurt, and it is important to vote in every election. it is an example you are setting for yourself every year, and maybe one day you will live in florida or ohio. you never know. >> good point. what is the purpose of a college education? >> it is a good question, and one that being asked more, especially today coming into today's economy. i pull start by saying in my college -- and my family a college education was always viewed as extremely important. my dad was the first in my family to go to college, and he likes to talk about that. for me, to go to law school, i had to go to college, but my college experience was extraordinarily enriching. he grew up in raleigh, north carolina, which i love raleigh, but in some ways it is a small town because you grow up with the same people for your entire life. i was born there and i did not leave until i was 18. i interacted with the same people for 18 years. go to college, i met people from across the country. i met people who went off after college and lived in south korea and africa, and i met people from all different walks of life and you have interesting and different viewpoints. that experience has been incredibly enriching, first of all. second of all, the academic experience of college, there is nothing that can keep but this. it forces you to expand your mind, your views, it forces you to challenge yourself in ways and i do not know of any other experience that can do that. that is why it is challenging, but it is enriching. once you move forward in your life, you will look back on your college as important. >> do you have any suggestions on how we can improve our system? >> i think money is diluting our system. i am a strong proponent of the slogan corporations are not people. the idea corporations can have an enormous impact on our system and our election process is disturbing to me, and that is a more recent phenomenon. it is something that really bothers me because elections and issues and candidates are supposed to be speaking to the populace, are supposed to be speaking to voters. the idea that corporations specifically can control what is said and push certain issues and can control what is done in congress is upsetting, because that is not necessarily working for people. usually, but often it is to the detriment of individuals, especially working people. i do not think that is right, so one thing i would say is in order to fix it is passing an amendment at this point, seeing corporations are not people. there are things states can do individually to pass similar laws, and reducing the amount of money that lobbyists can give -- or eliminating lobbyists entirely so that public officials are not influenced by money they are receiving from organizations. >> who are your political heroes? that is a very hard question. it is hard to say that martin luther king jr. is not a political hero of pretty much everyone in my generation. i certainly hope so. i am fond of hillary clinton, actually. i think she has done a lot for women and politics, and she's also -- but she is not given enough credit for her femininity, because she is a woman and being a woman has influenced a lot of who she is as a person and the way she talks to people, the way she response to questions, the way that she has formed her beliefs on certain issues. it has helped us develop our foreign policy, under her. >> that note, another question, are you heartened by the number of women at the conventions? >> i like the idea that you did not have to be masculine to be successful as a woman in the man's world of politics. it is important we as women embrace who we are and do not ever doubt that we are just as powerful and have just as many capabilities to lead it as men, and i am an enormous fan as well of elizabeth warren. she was my professor in law school, and she has been a champion for the middle-class for so long. she gave a speech at the democratic convention, and i have always been impressed by her. she is one of the smartest people that i have ever known, and she has been leading this fight against what we would call the war on the middle class for years, and now she is finally able to run for senate in massachusetts. i am extremely heartened by her decision to do that. >> another question from a student. living in d.c., you see american politics up close. how can we encourage american youth to pay as much attention to our government as they dod to the kardashians? >> that is a good question. a difficult one. i do not watch honeyboo, for the record, and i saw her on "saturday night live," but otherwise, no. i think it is hard. i think it is difficult, because we live in a society where there is cuts and glamour on one side, and then there is politics on the other. it is hard to compete with the celebrity of hollywood. i do not think politics should. i think a lot of this falls on the media to make sure there is fair and comprehensible coverage of elections of what is happening on the hill, of the major issues that we are being faced with. sometimes we do a great job with this, and sometimes less so. i do not know exactly how to fix that problem, but it is one that is worth approaching, and one that may be -- maybe one of the reasons young people are not involved in politics is that just not as interesting as watching reality television. in a way, maybe we need a reality show about politicians. so in a way, maybe we need a reality show about politicians. i don't know. >> let's not do that. what advice do you give students in the elizabeth edwards foundation about actions or projects they can take to be involved civically? >> well, one of the things that we do that our program does, and actually just so i'm very clear, we're doing our pilot program this fall in raleigh so we don't have students yet. we're in the process of applying to the program and we'll be accepting them in a couple of weeks. so i have not sat down and given advice, so i don't want to one of the things we require our students to do is to identify a problem they see in their community, an issue they would like to address them and then as a group, design and implement a community service project around that specific problem. that is to fold. obviously, one thing your teaching is the value of public service. also the value of their own ideas to make a change in the community that they see as being really important. anyone can do this. it does not take a structured to do it. anyone can start an organization or start a community service project to get others involved. it takes some sort of grass- roots work but if you see something that you think it needs to be addressed, do something about it. that is the sort of fundamental teaching that we are trying to pass along. you can all do the same things that they can, which is to find out what is wrong and try to fix it. >> how have you found your own voice and purpose? has it been difficult? have your life experiences inform your decisions about your life and career? >> i think that everyone's experience informs their own decisions. oddly, it has not been that difficult for me to figure out what i wanted to do. i went to law school in 2006 knowing that i wanted to do public interest law. it has worked out the way it has worked out for me. clearly, some things have been difficult and some are for anyone along the way, someone trying to figure out where my life is going. i wanted to take a breather knowing probably that i was going to go to law school. a lot of times it takes luck to get where you're going and a lot of times you just sort of stumbled onto something you care about. i was informed by my own life experiences and then i made a proactive efforts to go out there and found experiences that would be rewarding for myself. i did legal aid work through the legal aid bureau there and for two years of law school i spent most of my time not studying. i spent my time actually helping clients in the greater boston area to needed legal services. that made a huge impact on me. before i did that, there were parts of me that were swaying back and forth, maybe i should go into the private practice. that experience made me certain that i wanted to do public interest work. there are things that we can all do to get out there and try to gather as much information about our potential careers and to make an informed decision. >> thank you. we have a few questions back in the political arena. why do you think can decide jon huntsman are shunned by their parties? >> it is hard to be a centrist in a partisan system. that is a bad thing. it is actually interesting. this happened in 2004 during my dad's campaign as well because he was considered relatively moderate. a candidate considered moderate at the primary stages, the activist far to the right or far to the left, and they have the belief that are obviously very conservative or liberal that a candidate will speak to. that whose -- that is who the primary system is appointed to. maybe that is why the system is flawed. it is difficult to speak to what you call the base, of course. it is difficult to speak to the electorate as a whole at the same time. you end up using the argument that i can win because the independents will vote for me. there is no one filling the hole in the middle. i guess the party should be producing the best nominee. >> since the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, there have been many advancements toward civil rights hit in the lgbt community. what changes do anticipate in the coming years and decades? >> my strong belief is that in the coming decades this is sort of our generation's fight in terms of civil rights. they've got i'm a very strong opponent of gay marriage being legal across the board. -- i am a very strong proponent of gay marriage being legal across the board. one of the things that has been available is a -- that says that the lgbt has the same rights under the anti-discrimination laws as any person in a protected class. reyes, gender, national origin, age, all of these are protected classes. for some reason, sexual orientation is not protected. that is a small step that we can take right now. i work with an organization called right to work which does a lot of wonderful work in this area and i think that is coming down the line pretty soon. that will make a big difference for a lot of people because the ability for people to work in an environment where they are respected and where they are being treated fairly is huge because that is where you spend a lot of your time at work. it is important for people to feel that they are being respected. then, i think that game marriage will come sooner rather than later. president obama has endorsed it and hopefully that is something that we can work towards in the coming years, although it might take longer. it is a very politicized issue. i anticipate that being a fight worth fighting. >> i think this will be our final question because we're almost out of time. poverty was a big concern of your fathers. what can we do to do a better job to make sure that every child eats daily? >> this is a huge issue and i will say may be the one thing that i wish had been addressed at the democratic convention that really wasn't was that poverty is not a political platform and so that is one thing that makes it difficult to get anything done. i think that we can start by making it an important issue. if it is an important issue to come of the voters, then it will become an important issue to our candidates. starting by recognizing that this is a serious problem in this country and this is not just a problem around the world, it is right here in america that this has become an issue, especially in recent years. the number of people who have lost their savings, lost their homes, lost their jobs, this is affecting more and more people into poverty. there are parts of the economic platform that we can use that we need to make it a priority, especially in terms of addressing poverty. with children of living in poverty specifically, it happens very schools. free or reduced launched is important. what other ways can our schools start to serve older and living in pardee -- served children living in poverty? there are a lot of things that we can do? the problems with poverty specifically is that it is such a deep problem for people and there are just so many different services, so many different tasks that we can take. the first thing is that we can take the first up, let's start talking about it and doing something about it. >> thank you very much for your time here. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> the presidential candidates have 14 days now. the election date. mitt romney and paul ryan are spending the next two weeks on the road. we will have live coverage starting at 3:15 eastern. they will then travel to the denver area for a rally, head back to nevada, then back to io wa wednesday, then back to ohio thursday and friday. the present rallied supporters in ohio. we are planning live coverage starting at 3:50 eastern. does the president rallied supporters in ohio -- the president rallied supporters in ohio. as the president and mitt romney have finished their series of debates, third-party candidates began theirs. the libertarian candidate, gary johnson, green party candidate, jules stein, justice party candidate rocky anderson will all take part. that begins at 9:00 eastern here. >> i regularly watch "washington journal." whenever there is a hearing that is of any significance, i will tune in. i also watch c-span online. c-span gives us a affirmation that is rare in today's spin- oriented society we cannot get the kind of information that we need to make decisions for ourselves. we often have to hear it from the left or right. the great thing is that on c- span to get the information directly from the policy makers to you can make up your own mind. >> gregory evans watches c-span on time warner cable. c-span, created by american cable companies in 1979 and as a public-service premiere television provider. for a look now that the missions that the obama and running campaigns are taking on trade. this is a debate hosted by the aspen institute. it is about an hour and a half. >> if i could have your attention, i think we will try to get going and get through the program in the appointed amount of time. if i could have your attention. i'm the executive director of the program on manufacturing and 21st century here at the institute. we want to welcome you on behalf of the institute, both in the audience and those of you that are reviewing remotely. i wanted to ask our president, walter isaacson, just to say a few words. it is dangerous when your boss knows as much or as more as you about the subject matter. >> that is definitely on true. the one thing that we do know about the issue of manufactured is how important it is to america's economy and how ridiculous is it to think of an economy that does not have a healthy manufacturing sector. when we were looking at all the things we do in terms of the creation of jobs and the economy, we felt there was a huge gap because people kind of understood the reduction of manufacturing jobs in america, that was happening. nobody was as focused as they should be even though there had been a presidential commission. when tom and i and others talked, it was with the realization that understanding how to make a healthy manufacturing sector in america was key to our economy and to the 21st century. that is why it is great to have tom and this program here. [applause] >> this is the seventh of a series of programs we have been doing. our next one will be on november 28th. we will be exploring the impact of the energy renaissance on u.s. manufacturing. it will feature the head of the american chemistry council, the boston consulting group, and tom peterson for the center of climate strategy. they have recent reports on the importance of this subject. i want to thank the supporters who make the manufacturing program here possible. this includes the apollo group, madison capital partners, manufacturers institute for productivity and innovation, the national association of manufacturers, the national science foundation, a toyota motor, the u.s. chamber of commerce. today's program explores the policies needed to strengthen u.s. manufacturing in the near term. the topic of manufacturing was mentioned 15 times in tuesday's presidential debate. the two panelists are fully able to elaborate on the candidate's position but also their own deep knowledge of the subject. partner is the conference on the renaissance of american manufacturers headed by gilbert kaplan. he is an alumnus of the trade department. he is a distinguished trade lawyer responsible for many of the actions we have taken in recent years. i would like for you to introduce our panel. >> thank you all for coming today. when we started the conference on the renaissance of american manufacturing about two years ago in 2010 and when the other group i work with look at these issues, we thought that we really needed to focus more on manufacturing in the u.s.. we needed to make this a central feature of the policy debate in washington and the political debate in washington. that has been our goal. we're delighted to have this debate with the aspen institute focusing on these critical manufacturing issues. we think they're critical to the national security of the u.s., to the economic security. we also think that the relationship between trade and manufacturing is a central feature of this entire debate and it is great to have people that are so knowledgeable about international trade is our speakers. i would like to introduce grant d. aldonas who is the principal managing director of split rock international, a consulting firm that he founded in 2006. he also serves as an adjunct professor of law and a member of the board of directors of the institute for international economics laugh at georgetown university. from 2001 until 2005, he was the u.s. undersecretary of commerce for international trade. in that capacity, according to his biography, he served as the america's sales man. i hope he got a commission for all of those sales. there are a lot of exports. before assuming his position as undersecretary of commerce, he served as the chief international trade cancel to the senate finance committee and he is here on behalf of the mitt romney campaign. our other speaker from the other side of the island is dr. jared bernstein. from 2009 until 2011, he was the chief economic adviser to vice president joe biden, the executive director of the white house task force on the middle class, and a member of president obama's's economic team. dr. bernstein area of expertise include federal, state, economic and fiscal policies, income inequality, employment, earnings, international comparison and analysis of financial and housing markets and i'm also sure, manufacturing. prior to joining the obama administration, dr. bernstein was a senior economist and director of living standards at the economic policy institute in washington, d.c. we're happy to have as our moderator, hedrick smith, who was one of the great commentators and authors in the u.s. on policies and other issues and he is a pulitzer prize-winning author. for 26 years, he served as a correspondent for the "new york times" in washington. in 1971, he was a member of the pulitzer prize-winning team that produced the pentagon papers series. he won the international prize for international reporting and he was the chief correspondent. the most exciting is that he has written this great book, who has stolen the american dream which talks about what is going on in the middle class, what is when all the problems we're facing and how manufacturing relates to that. we have about 50 free copies that are out on the table out there. i hope you will take them. if you don't get them, i am sure mr. smith will not mind if you go and buy a copy of this book. >> of our object is to cover as much ground as possible. i have asked them to wait to these for 90 seconds. you can have 60 seconds in a bottle. 60 seconds for rebuttal. this is a roomful of people who know a lot about trade. we have audience around the country. i hope that you will speak american speak not washington speak. there are many who would say that americans have been over the hill on manufacturing and that we need to move to be a service economy if we're going to be globally competitive. its manufacturing really important for the american future? if so, why? what we want for manufacturing? is it jobs at home, should we have a secretary of manufacturing to go along with the cemetery of agriculture and the secretary of wall street? >> the short answer is that it is critical. 90% of the products that are introduced every year come out of the manufacturing sector. what we want our their productivity increases. this been soft employment of the cities. in terms of growth, this is where it starts. >> i completely agree. >> i would add that 70% of our need is in the sector. it is very easy to say that you get productivity and therefore you get all of these other benefits. we have seen a lot of the jobs disappear while we were getting things and productivity. 5.5 million jobs disappear. we have seen an awful lot of manufacturing jobs show up in other places. so, why is manufacturing automatically a good deal for america as a country? it is obviously good for the profits generated. what will this do for the middle class? >> i would like to point out that some of what we have seen with respect to the decline in labor employment. i would remember when motorola outsourced its logistics' and its customs operation to gps. those jobs stayed overnight in america but they were registered as a decline in manufacturing employment when the reality was the boundary had softened and it now inc. its supplier, ups. we did not lose manufacturing jobs simply by shifting them. >> when you say you want to boost manufacturing, what are you talking about? there is the constant leakage, is it production jobs you're talking about? >> what i think about a manufacturing employment, i think about the entire value chain and i want to make sure that we have investments on that in the u.s.. we want to make sure we have the best investment in varmint across all of those things. surprising how they recognize pretty easily and that in the world we live in today that a tax on their supplier does not do them anything. >> i don't hear the answer. what kinds of jobs are you talking about? production, engineering, design jobs? what will this do for the american middle-class? for the american middle class to stop losing jobs that you say have been redefined. >> in fairness, it is both. i want the engineering jobs, i want the design jobs. i want to make sure that we have a very healthy set of suppliers that are part of that value chain to serve the global consumer market. i don't want to deny that that is important. from a manufacturing perspective, they know that their suppliers have to be competitive as well. the answer is employing people better capable of the skills that can drive the global value chain. we need both, not exclusively focusing on the supply chain. >> it is a pleasure to talk we actually find a lot of areas of agreement. thank you for hosting today. here is an area where i think we disagree regarding where we are right now. i used to think as an economist, this is actually more benign than many democrats sought was. in this space we are talking about -- the plural of the anecdote, so we are getting there. the cut of manufacturing based innovation our enemies, they are negatively -- the actual proximity of the manufacturing process to the technology involved in the production is very important. there are a couple of compelling case studies on this issue. the place you have not seen that so much, this is partially in exception to the rule, and we actually see that happening there as well. we are falling behind in the solar area because we outsource too much computer chip production. and in taiwan, there is an example of a heavily subsidized initiative, with the kind of linkage between production and research together. >> i will feed this right to you. >> a big proponent of what i just said -- this hampers its ability to innovate. with the commodity manufacturing that can lock you out of the industry. with the innovations to talk about, which continued heavy trend of offshore and. >> the reality, this is the hardest case. the reality is that apple dictates the machines on the tour -- on the floor, this misunderstands what those manufacturers are doing and they them asink o fthem aof manufacturing -- and when china adopts a series of policies to pull manufacturing jobs into china, we would agree, that is a distortion that is inconsistent with how a trading industry should operate. i don't think -- we may have a difference offshore and on the margins. when i heard him speak, this comes to a different conclusion about trying to make this out. we want the clusters of innovation to be taking place in the united states. what people capable of participating in this process, and i think that -- >> i think that he is making me feel a little bit like the president felt in the first debate. the other guy is agreeing with the way to much. -- with few way too much -- with you wait too much. i think the way is to highlight the difference between the candidates. there clearly supportive of those policies. with training, of which there is an $8 billion a initiative, working with the employers and empathizing the advanced manufacturers, i don't think he talked about this enough. this is on the books, with the manufacturing clusters. the commerce department has numerous policies, to incentivize innovation. i can go into greater detail about what these are. the innovation centers of which they are running in uptown ohio. this is actually up and running. they're getting from the lab to the factory floor. they typically find a valley of death between those institutions. i think that the trend on this side of the aisle, this is going in exactly the other way. i think that you have to get down into the details that actually operational lives -- operationalize -- >> when you talk about the candidates, let's talk about the candidates -- >> i want to come back almost to, specific cases. >> let me just say in terms of the candidates, both the president and governor romney -- the talk about manufacturing jobs. let's talk about the record of each one, and talk about your own candidate and not the other candidate. we have a president who's going to bring unemployment down, with the economy with 25 million people who are unemployed part- time, or dropped out of the labor source. they say that you can believe them as they look into the future. many people are looking into this -- and this is the reversal of a decade-long trend, and you can't say that this will last forever because nobody knows the future. this is something the president has every right to braque on. this really relates to my last answer. the president has a very elaborate manufacturing agenda. he has proposed a set of changes in the tax code, to incentivize of shoring. with an elaborate set of tax plans, bringing the corporate rate down from with this, and unlike the opponents he is elaborating the base runners. there are the innovation sectors that take the production from the universities, and they're making the tax permanent, and this is a certainty for the industry. romney opposes the tax credit, and if you want to call me on time when i am going through the agenda, -- >> >> we may have those come up later. let me just ask you on the basis of the record of governor mitt romney. they were not impressed with them as the governor of massachusetts. when you look at the letter today and getting the government of the way, letting small business go, at least one person in the last debate will be worse than in 2000 and we had the worst job creation record with 1.5 million jobs in that decade. if you can separate -- if you can actually separate these things, this is very interesting. if you go to 2007, this is the worst job creation record in several decades, and 59,000 industrial components. what governor on the talks about doing paid off terribly. >> i want to know where you have these statistics. being responsible for manufacturing, and understanding what we were doing, in response to the recession that we inherited, -- >> and the corporate scandals that were putting a depressing effect on the economy, with some very significant reforms, we have education accounts and health savings accounts, >> why did they lose so many manufacturing jobs during this time? >> there were other things in the economy that affect manufacturing, not just by virtue of the things are described, which is the outsourcing -- >> there is no doubt that what we have seen over the last 20 years with the integration of global markets puts enormous downward pressure on industrial goods. this is driven a lot of productivity. any job that will be done by an algorithm, can be done by a computer. how do we train people would tell thee of rhythm does -- how the algorithm does, not saying we're doing the job at the turn of the 20th-century. >> do you have a rebuttal or would she like to move on? >> i would like to finish might last exposition. i will begin by reviving. at least your honest about this. we may have a factual disagreement here. i view the middle class as being quite strong and the middle-class did poor are in the 2000's. this is not just a function of presidential policy. i thought that was part of it and those policies were hurtful for the economy but this was an ongoing process of inequality. middle-class income was actually stagnant over the full business cycle and poverty went up in those years. i agree with his assessment of the living standard in those years. very key parts of the agenda of the president, i think these are different in important ways. they have to do with trade enforcement, as well as investment in clean energy. i thought there was a big difference on autos, and this has made a very important difference with that sector of manufacturing. >> as long as you have the rebuttal time -- >> there was a wonderful gloss on the policy of the president, and we mentioned the tax rate to rise to be the highest -- so you are having a big impact on if this is the place where they want to invest, so what does mitt romney say? we have to bring this down as a practical matter. >> the corporate tax rate. >> they need to be closing the loopholes. so let's look at an example of this. what are the policies in terms of expanding energy production? taking land and resources out of production, with the epa resisting the natural gas revolution -- with the petroleum. romney wants to eliminate these policies that are making this emblematic. he wants to build the keystone pipeline and make sure that investment is going to flow to that rather than surrender this $90 billion in tax credits that will not work in the marketplace. >> let's go into this, energy. we do have the recent development of very cheap energy are in this country through natural gas. others tell me that this is three -- $3 through a thousand cubic feet here, so let me just ask you, the. the grant is making here, the administration is tendering the development of natural gas as rapidly as possible. >> i could not disagree more. the tendering of the use of natural gas in manufacturing is the absence, the fact that the infrastructure is still young. for every $10 we spend on energy, only one of the mist or natural gas because we don't have the infrastructure to exploit that. >> and bring the gas to the manufacturer. >> and have the machinery run on that kind of gas. we're moving strongly in the right direction. we could meet the fact checkers on all the points that we disagree on. i think the president has allowed to brag about with energy production. and this is not just fracking. this is a good example of a government investment role -- and one theme of mine, and we agree on this, is the role for government in investments that have important implications in building industries within manufacturing. natural gas exploration is very much a function of early government investment in that technology. this is one of the rationales for manufacturing. on the corporate side, i have to say -- >> romney wants to go to 25%. >> we will do corporate taxes. >> let's stay with energy for a moment. >> if you think about what you just said, with the case that you are proposing, we're talking about the problem of the infrastructure not being there, why would you say that imposing the epa rule, that cuts off the possibility of using coal-fired plants now, that creates a higher cost of adaptation to get to the natural gas, why would you adopt that as a policy? >> the problem with the framing of the question is that -- it is the edie that these rules are pure cost and no benefit. the epa does not want to block energy innovation, they are trying to block the energy effect of this production. the president is for clean coal. by talking about the cost and other benefits, you are shortsighted. >> in the context of manufacturing, there is a valley of death between us and the infrastructure that allows us to get to natural gas, which i disagree with. all of the plants that are coming on line as soon we will be moving to natural gas. do i have a five-year window to invest in china rather than the united states? >> how could this be a valley of debt when you look at the actual facts of the prices and the exploration, and the amount we are pulling out of the ground. i think it was 2011, the first time in 60 years we were and next -- a net exporter of petroleum products. >> when you talk about the infrastructure of power distribution, we have low prices and lots of supplies but that the infrastructure is there to drive it into energy costs -- one reason you see people saying that we should export natural gas and coal -- >> the epa is now preventing them from using natural gas as a fieluel. >> let me shift you to the subject of china. what do we do about china? we have a $295 billion trade deficit with china, and a lot of this is in high-tech, which we thought would be our salvation. we have copyright materials all across the board, huge subsidies in china, indigenous innovation is a requirement and we have the currency problem. let me ask you if we should declare china the currency manipulator so that we can then in vogue counter strategies of tariffs? >> i am from the midwest. i grew up in a bad neighborhood in minneapolis. we were not afraid to say honest things. we were not afraid to say exactly what is really going on. they do manipulate their currency. they have been intervening in this even more because the value against the euro is rising, as the hero falls against the dollar. europe is a larger market for them than the united states. we have made some progress bar right now, we see this driving down. this is a country that is not willing to actually adopt the policies that mean that the playing field will be level, and this will be a fair competition. and from the point of view of the u.s. manufacturers who have to go to the market for their capital, the cost of capital is zero for the infrastructure in china. they say they need this to enclose the local provincial -- they are not competing for capital. this is the model of state capitalism that has to be confronted and addressed. this is where i applaud my friend, tim rice. >> we will come back. let me start on the currency question. should the president be considering china a currency manipulator? >> i am for both of them and i suspect that you are for one of them. i think if you have -- if you have the rule that people who manage the metula their currency should be labelled as such and you know that china is doing this, not labeling them seems cognitively dissonant to me. it is true, and as a member of the administration i would scratch my head in meetings with colleagues, and what people will tell you, people will tell you, we understand this and it makes sense. but if you are sitting across the table to negotiate with these people, this is not going to get them where you want to go. i have never sat at the table and negotiated. if that is the case, don't have a policy that says that we will label people, and did not label them. i don't think this would do as much as levin or schumer legislation. this is had bipartisan support with 99 republican votes, and this is the bill that would provide the administration the ability to see this, piece by piece. you have to do this product by product. i am quite certain governor romney would not. >> having worked on the hill, i am not interested at a in forcing people into a illustrative votes would have to make a political point. you can go after them on the basis -- >> there are things that you have to prove as part of this. the beauty of this in response to our friends, and is always the guys at the treasury department, who put on this and say that finances too complex. you cannot understand this. what they mean to say is leave us alone because we are happy in our sandbox. the midwestern me says, this will not work. it is hard to call the bluff. >> and there is a danger in your mind because they hold $1.20 trillion? >> the line on wall street when you owe the bank and million dollars, when you owe them $1.30 trillion, then you owe the bank. the idea that this is as much a threat as people make out as seriously wrong. those dollars have to come back with buying our goods or making investments in the united states. in my view, we want to be exporting. i want this to be sound and based on market principles. so this is where i would be headed. >> and a weaker dollar -- this would help us in that regard. >> let me change the subject. changing the subject of the chinese industrials. the former ceo of intel says it costs me $1 billion less to build in china that america. the capital costs next to nothing and the infrastructure is put in, and then there is the tax abatement for many years. how do we deal with that? do we go where we need to go and fight them on violating global rules? >> this is one of those things where i like what governor romney's strategy is. this is very aggressive with the enforcement of the rule. this is a little bit like civil rights legislation. the justice department drove a lot of issues where people said, i don't think that you can win that. and they did that to prove that there was a problem with the rules and we had to do something more. i want to be very aggressive on the enforcement side, and our own domestic law. the other side is you have to create incentives. nobody is going to push the chinese anywhere, and nobody is going to push us anywhere. we have to have a set of disciplines and then we have to have this out-compete the chinese investment. >> and this is matching. >> we are matching out subsidy for subsidy. i want to create an environment in the most dynamic region in the world so that the rules are such that everyone goes to the market. and then, i am it certain that if vietnam as part of that, they will start at out-compete china for investment. you already see this in the last trip to hong kong. because of the policy -- and we also have to try to have the shanghai reform movement in china. at the same time i want to hammer -- i want the incentive to actually come in the direction of better roles. >> only way to do this is the ways that have worked so far and to do more of that. it is true they have not labeled, and more than any administration i can think of in the past, i would include the currency as well, we should -- with the subsidy currency, and if you read the work of joe gammon, this is not just china and this is very much affecting our economy. when you get the chinese on that particular good -- the case that brought against tires was very effective. the steel case, -- >> the idea is that the international body, i am blogging on the institution. if the country to subsidize exports to your country for a larger market share, you are able to do these policies that i mentioned and impose the tariffs, that makes those exports and imports into your country more expensive. and they have been they've been protecting their rare earth. and through policies that the administration has pursued, we've imposed and i think it's been effective. >> i want to give you a chance, you can answer that. >> just as a factual matter, and i'm not going to expect to you know this. this happens to be not only somebody who was a trade lawyer, was the chief trade counsel on the committee, the department has made a series of decision dating all the way back to the second lumber dispute that actually belied the problem of what's known as the test with respect to certain subs dies. and what we have done in terms of thinking hard about duty law, and this administration hasn't done it, something any administration should do, in my view, is take a hard look at where those precedents would allow to you go after the chinese. now, if this is the fight that the chinese want to take to the w.t.o., that's where i want to have the discussion. right? because i want to either illustrate it, that we're right in imposing duties against these subdid is that pull jobs out of america, or i want to say the rules are insufficient in terms of disciplines imposed on behavior, which clearly undermines the value of the w.t.o. and the system. >> i just want to ask both of you -- >> that was not addressed to the audience. >> ok. i just want to ask both of you in practical terms, i mean, almost everybody has said one way or another, and particular challengers say, you got to get tougher with the chinese. i want to understand how the heck we can distinguish between talking the talk and walking the walk. i mean, i just -- it's just too easy to say we got to do this, that and the other thing and you've got wonderful knowledge of and explanation of, but the question is in the end, how do we know that in fact is what governor romney is going to do or president obama is going to do in a second term? >> president obama has done the actions i've described in his first term. if i wasn't clear about that, i should be. the actions against the tires, the steel are all actions that were taken in the first term. now, i actually believe that it may well -- you sound like you know what you're talking about. which doesn't mean you do. >> and i'm a lawyer, too. >> so it may well be -- >> you may discount that. >> i do. it may well be that the machinations you just described in your last answer can actually work, but i would be -- i would feel better if we actually had a simple piece of legislation of which this levin bill is that says when there is evidence of a subsidy, a currency subsidy that's leading to the kind of problems we're both very frustrated about and is robbing jobs from our economy, you can bring a case that the administration, without going through the w.t.o. and all these cuned of machinations can bring a case -- you may have to bring a case to the w.t.o., but you don't have to go to the w.t.o. to find out if you can bring a case, can bring the case in that area. to be honest, the administration has not said we're for this. i believe if it got to their desk they would sign it. >> ok, in walking the walk, how do we know? >> well, a couple things. one is clearly when he's been asked again and again and again by skeptics about what he'll do about currency, he has said, this is coming from him, not his advisors, right, that he is going to declare them a currency day one, fully understanding what flows from that in terms of action under our trade laws. meaning embracing the idea that the currency necessarily does imply a subsidy and then we have to start moving under the duty law without waiting for the legislation. >> you're saying he will declare and then he would then start doing duties? >> and there's a number of other areas where the proposals that have been discussed and that he's put forward have talked about doing things we absolutely have to do. and i'm sure jerry would agree with this. the reality of our intellectual property laws and the tools we have are not adequate for the world that our manufacturers actually operate in. a lot of the violations of our i.p. laws come to us in a component in a finished product that reaches our shore. and the way our rules work is very hard to get to that. so what we have to be doing is actually developing the tools that address the challenge that didn't use to exist. i was talking about vertical integration, that world we have an i.p. regime for. the world of global value chance, we do not have an i.p. enforcement set of tools for that world. and we need to build that. >> a very important thing to adhere, i think we should -- i think our disagreements on this may be actually pretty suttle. we both seem to agree that currency manipulation is a big problem and that we should do something administratively about it. i think i'd go further in you in terms of this legislation, but put that -- the other side of the coin is i think a very big and important difference between the two sides that hasn't come up yet. and that's the extent to which you would actually invest in domestic manufacturing here. and i'm not talking about beating the chinese at their own game. i don't want to do the kinds of state-owned enterprise investments that they do or manipulate currency. i think that stuff should be set in markets. but you know, i kicked through these ideas earlier about the innovation idea, the cluster idea, some of the tax policies idea. i think that that kind of investment, infrastructure, clean energy, would tutly be precluded by the budget that i've heard from paul ryan and from governor romney. and i think that's really important. we haven't talked about it at all. i think grant has a lot of very good ideas in this investment space. i don't think there's any money for that in governor romney's budget. this is a guy who's saying i'm going to cap spending at 20% of g.d.p. 4% is going to be on defense. that means 16% has to be for everything else. had's not looking at the cuts that that implies agency by agency, you're going to have to cut right into the bone, and a lot of these programs, many of which aren't even all that large, the kinds of innovation clusters that i've been talking about. i don't see how that investment becomes part of a budget that is that austere. >> i would say this, i have lots of friends who are alumni, we could find 4% out of $500 million that we would cut. and that wouldn't go materially to the sorts of programs that you're talking about. because in previous conversations we have agreed. i don't actually know governor romney's view of this, but i wrote a book a couple years ago about globalization of the american worker. one of the things i took away from that was the value of headstart programs. but everything's baked in a cake. by the time you hit grade school. i want a cup of milk in that child's table. >> i'm sorry. are you buying the kind of programs that government role in stimulating growth and investment in a variety of programs, such as -- >> no. what i'd buy are a suite of complementary policies that actually help individuals. what i don't buy are things that give us things of that order. the problem, of course -- >> it wasn't a failure -- >> the problem is when you expand government from -- this comes from my background due to development economics. when you expand government from a 20% tick to a 25% tick, you have to consider what that does in terms of drawing the include of lobbying and potential corruption. we just had a case today. the more money that's in the trough, the more you're encouraging this behavior. the more money that's there, the more that you attract the rent-seeking behavior, which is the worst form of entrepreneurialism. so when you say that i want to p courage these sorts of programs, i would rather encourage a suite of policies that encourage investment and allow the market to dictate where that investment should go rather than trying to put somebody in the business saying winners and losers. >> do you buy the estimate of the u.s. chamber of commerce that we're losing $1 trillion in growth in america and untold billions in exports because our transportation system is so out of date, because it takes a long to move a freight train through chicago as it does to glt it from los angeles to chicago, and that our airports and highways and bridges and all of the -- do you buy that argument? >> i'm from a town where the major bridge collapsed because of pigeon poop. yes, i do agree. jeez, we may be in a developing country. >> yeah, right. but, i mean, the next question is there a government role there? people are calling for infrastructure spending. that will mean not only construction jobs, but -- >> i got a great example. my parents were always wise enough to get me out of town in the summer. so a lot of it was spent in the boundary waters of minnesota. there is a light house there called the split rock light house. and the reason i chose that for my little business is it's a perfect example, in the absence of the investment in that lighthouse, no individual company would have invested in that, you wouldn't have opened up either the iron ranch for the u.s. steel industry or the wheat lands on both sides of the u.s. and canadian border to world trade. you needed the lighthouse. that is the sort of investment the government has to do. i think we'd agree that we've actually done a very good job of focusing -- >> where do we get the money for that now? >> the reality is we have a lot of debts we're going have to pay off. now, that may mean that on a number of programs that we otherwise have at the commerce department, those are not going to be ip vested in because we do have to take care of infrastructure first as far as i'm concerned so that a lot of the things that we do as economic development, in the economic development administration, i'd be more interested in trying to drive that money through headstart first and then through infrastructure rather than saying -- >> i mean, i'm with you on a lot of the ideas that you're espousing here, but i really think you need to take a much closer look at the budgets of your candidates here, particularly paul ryan. but also governor romney. you know, paul ryan proposes over $5 trillion of cuts. 60% of them come from low-income programs and that includes headstart. that doesn't mean that every dollar going into headstart is efficiently spent. i'm not defending every single dollar in these programs. but the commercial budget office looked at the implications of the budget that romney said he supported, numeous decades out and they found that outside of entitlements and interest on the debt and defense, there's less than 4% of g.d.p. left for all the things you just said. and you and i agree that those things are important. though investments will simply be unaffordable under the kinds of budgets that these guys are espousing, and, in fact, if we're going to have an amply funded government such that we can support a manufacturing sector in the way i think we should, that's going to involve some new revenues. and again, that's a big difference in both sides. >> but in fairness here, given where we are and the investments we have to make, why would you invest in a-123? >> i'll answer that. first of all, the a-123 case is not a good example of what you're talking about. >> they went bankrupt. >> no, it was actually absorbed by johnson controls. and i just wrote about it this morning on my blog. and you should read about that because a-123 was essentially consolidated into johnson controls and continues to create advanced battery technology. and, in fact, this blog i wrote this morning called battery-powered growth, is all about how our investments, largery from the recovery act, have made a real difference in precisely the way i tried to introduce in our introduction. where governments have planted seed capital in a key sector that is not picking a winner as much as recognizing -- as much as recognizing that there will be an economy out there, a country out there that dominates advanced battery production. i'd like it to be us. >> ok, i want to get to corporate tax reform. >> sure. >> i know you've got something else to say on the subject, but i just want to move to that topic before we run out of time here. how can we use the tax code to generate more business and jobs here at home, more manufacturing business here at home? you've got a situation here where companies that are working in america doing all their work here in america, whether they're retail companies or trucking or roads or hotels or whatever, there a paying pretty close to the maximum tax rate at 35%. and you got companies that are operating overseas, and we have a whole slew of them, i can rattle through a whole lot of them, pay zero taxes and a big reason was they had a whole lot of production overseas. now s. that a sensible system for building job growth in this country or not and try to avoid going into global and territorial taxes. talk to us about taxing here. >> i think it's a perfect example of where the obama addtion has gone wrong. a signature idea in terms of trying to provide an incentive taxwise to reshore, i guess is the phrase. misunders what thoast of these investments are. 95% of humanity lives outside the borders. to be in those markets means we have to invest in those markets. even if it's just a sales office to for our experts. the idea you would penalize that income that's generated as a means of allowing it to be competitive in the global economy is simply false. the energy sector is actually a perfect example. let's think about exxon. we used to think of it, remember the days of standard of oil and then we thought of the seven sisters in the 1950's and 1960's when we were being educated. well, the reality today is the top 25 companies in the world with the exception of exxon are all state-owned. exxon isn't in the top 20. now, the question is whether you want to raise the cost of capital for exxon because we still have the ghost in our minds, and make sure they can't compete for resources in capital with everybody else in that market or whether there are going to be what the reality of energy is and where we have to invest. the idea that we're penalizing that -- take away their tax credits. happens to be where the oil is in many instances. seems to me to be deeply inconsistent with the idea of that's where we have to be in order to compete in the global economy. >> i think you just argued that we should nationalize exxon. >> i don't think that's the route we want to go. >> i want to talk about -- >> this will be your last shot because i'm going to -- >> ok. >> corporate taxes. >> corporate taxation. it's very important in the manufacturing space for all the reasons grant mentioned. here's the thing that you got to know. i thought a lot of what grant just talked about, you know, respectfully, did get to the core difference here, which is this, the governor says he wants to bring the corporate tax rate down to 25%. it's 35%, but as you mentioned, lots of industries, there's a huge variation in the effective tax rate. we're very high in international comparisons. if you look at the actual effective rate because of all the loopholes and such and the international ones, in my view, are the most egregious, that's where you see fourth from the bottom in terms of how high our effective tax rate s the president wants to bring the rate down to 28%. the governor wants to go to 25%. you want to argue about three percentage points, i think we probably agree that either one of those would be -- would be a fine goal. but the difference is, and it's a huge difference and i would love you to address, this i will cede whatever time you need, you've got to specify how you're going to get there. mitt romney, with apologies, has absolutely been terrible in specifying how he's going to broaden the base. he says trust me, i'll get to it later. excuse me if i'm very nervous about that because the history of washington is that when people promise low rates, you get a lot of the former and not much of the latter. the president talks about accelerating the depreciation. debt financing. the way inventories are treated. transfer pricing, all this -- tax deferal. all this favorable treatment for income abroad, that stuff just insent vises the outsourcing. i'll close on this. i'll bring you back to my first comment which was that when you offshore production, you offshore innovation as well. and that is not the direct for our sector. >> you got about 15 seconds. >> sure. this highlights the problem with the president. in all honesty, he said he wants to reduce it to 28%. every budget he has actually submitted drove the rate to 44% and what it did was adapt a series of policies that actually took away things that exposed income to -- >> you're confusing federal income tax with the corporate tax. >> no, no, i'm talking in the budgets he submitted -- >> has the corporate tax rate gone up? >> the effective rate has risen to well above -- >> hasn't gone up at all. no. >> so let me go to the audience and let me just tell you that i would like to you identify yourself. wait for the ladies and gentlemen with the microphones to come around to you. please ask a question and don't make a speech and keep it relatively to the point. ok? i got one over here. >> and remember, i'm parked at a meter outside. i have a vested interest in this. >> i listened to all of what you just said about corporate tax rates. deferrals are one of the biggest abominations out there. in fact, we see 70% of the goods coming into this country from china made by american firms that went to china. went to china, all they want is access to our market. it wasn't so much about the chinese market. and then they're allowed to hold the profits offshore and boost the bottom line. this is part of the screwed-up tax system of incentives. and the question is what would you do to get rid of deferrals? >> good question. >> the answer is i'd move to a territorial system. here's why. >> you got to put that in language that other people can understand. >> sure. right now we subject every dollar a u.s. firm earns to the potential for double taxation. and we try and come back to what taxing just the income and earning in the united states is through the system of foreign tax credits and deferrals. the reality is is that taking away the deferrals, taking away the foreign tax credit is a way of saying i'm going to penalize american companies who are trying to compete in global markets. >> let me just understand what you just said means that you would not have any taxation on any foreign profits made by american corporation, is that correct? >> no american taxation. >> on income that's generated by activities that are done in those countries. >> overseas? and you and the president are on the other side saying we would get rid of the loopholes, that loophole which would cause that to be taxed without -- >> that's right. >> subject to double taxation. >> just trying to get the facts clear. >> so the president in every one of his budget, by the way, has proposed to get rid of deferral for exactly the reason the questioner raised. bnd a the way, all the -- all the tax solution that grant suggested does is it takes the deferral thing is it accepts it and makes it permanent. instead of having to store your income over there, we'll make a rule that you just never have to pay taxes on it as long as you just keep it over there. that is an incentive to go exactly the wrong way. >> you mean to take jobs overseas? >> suggesting that it's not subject to taxation is foolishness. it is subject to very high taxation -- >> in china? in china? >> wait, wait, wait, wait. excuse me. excuse me? >> if you want to go after a pharmaceutical company -- >> a trillion dollars hiding in overseas -- >> hiding? hiding? how do you know they're hiding it when the i.r.s. knows it's there? seriously? i do want to go back to the point is that you said we're getting all these things from china. i want to make a very important point because it's -- it's a misperception that drives a lot of the debate about globalization that i think is wrong. i'm holding an iphone in my hand. 6% of the value of this is the final assembly done in china. 0% of the value is what gets done in the united states. every bit of this comes to us as "an import from china." right? every bit of the value is as import from china. doesn't matter it's our 60%, the stuff that comes from japan, i think what the question goes to and i think deferral goes there, too, is we actually need to think much more deeply than we have at this point. and i'm afraid the tax debate obscures it about where value is actually created. i think in america, particularly in american manufacturing, we create value. not because of unfair competition, but we got to do that across the board. and if that drives our tax policy and it means deferral goes, i'm interested in making sure that we understand how value is created here and we tax that accordingly and we try -- >> very simple, i absolutely agree. but -- about value creation. but value creation is intimately linked with innovation. innovation is intimately linked with the production process here within our borders. and when you have the kind of tax policy that is territorial that either allows the kind of games that are being played today or it simply exempts foreign earnings from american taxation, which is what it does, you start a chain of events that outsources not just production but innovation and jobs as well. >> ok, question here? >> a great panel, and i think you covered policy issues with respect to manufacturing very well. i was very disappointed that there wasn't a better answer to your first question, which is why is manufacturing so important to the united states? and here we are in the middle of a political campaign, and we're trying to get votes and we've got a tv camera that's trying to communicate this to the public, and i think manufacturing is central to everything from national defense to innovation, to education. and i would like to ask both of these good panelists to give us an impassioned statement that they would give to their candidates about why manufacturing is important. >> it's a great question. thank you for asking it. and you're absolutely right. i think we gave that short shrift. i think we both very much tried to accentuate the importance, but not as passionately as we should have. so here's the thing -- >> this is like the first debate. >> here's my impassioned thing. not only as we mentioned is manufacturing responsible for 70% of our r&d and 0% of our patents, it's critically important for our productivist there's no way american living standards can increase without faster growth. take the manufacturing picture out of the, take the innovate out of the picture, and we don't even have the potential for higher living standards. we have a big problem in that productivity growth has been diverging from compensation. that's the story that eye different. you've got to have the growth that's necessary. it's not sufficient, it's necessary. 17% pay premium. and not just on the wage side, but on the benefit side as well. it comes right from the value added. and then there's -- >> manufacturing workers are getting -- >> 17% more than nonmanufacturing workers. and that includes not just the paycheck, but the health insurance and the pension benefits. next point, our trade deficit. our trade deficit is a drag on growth. and it's not just exports, it's net exports. you have to think about exports minus imports. and we're getting -- and the only way we can unwind that in real-time is by a stronger manufacturing sector. people who say we can do it through services are patently wrong in the near term. perhaps down the road. right now service exports are 25% of the trade deficit. >> great. go. >> let me amplify one thing. we once developed a manufacturing strategy together. we knew it was because, not only was manufacturing important in itself, but it provides -- thinking about manufacturing is a catalyst for what you want to see as good economic policy in every other aspect of american life, education, worker training. using this as the force that drives that is what's important. here's the one point and this is what i would close on. we didn't have to wait for congress to tell us to develop a manufacturing strategy. we knew what we were facing, and we knew that it required to put forward ideas to get the process moving, to trife the public policy process forward. and the goal was to release a strategy that would do that in an election year, in part because you wanted to frame the debate in a way that the issue was joined. sadly that's not what we've gotten from the obama administration. we had people in congress demanding a manufacturing strategy. >> very quick, very quick -- >> no, no, no. i want to get that lady in the back there first. i'm sorry. i thought it was her hand. go ahead, sir. >> i wanted to ask -- i wanted to ask about the media's role in all this. listening to you, the trade policies are fairly similar, at least the rhetoric is fairly similar. maybe on tax and budget where there's differences. but the problem, is it not, is sort of this treasury perspective is still out there in the media. you look at "usa today" editorials and two "washington post" editorials decrying china bashing. when in reality, the united states is just trying to get china to live up to the rules of the new national trade regime. how do we change, take what you're doing and keep the candidates focused on, whichever one is elected, really having the courage to go against that mentality when they get in, either for the first or second terms? >> great question. and it doesn't -- it doesn't let me take over where i wanted to go anyway. >> you were going there regardless. >> i can do it honestly. and it contradicts something my friend grant said a minute ago. look, by the way, i take this from a great chapter called "the evolution of u.s. trade policy," which is a must-read for everybody. it's from a book called "manufacturing, a better future for america." and it takes you through trade policy issue. and it shows the integral role of government in creating a manufacturing sector from the very beginning. i mean, tariffs were incredibly important. someone would think someone who is arguing that we actually have to have a manufacturing policy, a trade policy, push back on unfair practices by other economies, was some kind of wild-eyed, radical socialist kenyan whatever. and -- >> it was alexander ham imton. >> exactly. born in kenya? >> he was born in the caribbean islands. >> i think what these journalists -- you know, what these editorial boards are reflecting is a bias in economics that evolved a few decades ago that has been shown to be completely bereft of actual real life. if nothing else, look at the financial collapse. but certainly in the manufacturing seblingtor it's very clear. so we really need to give these people some historical perspective and make it clear. i did a presentation -- we did a presentation. my presentation recently was about how it was -- i was taking part in a "washington post" editorial that was very much in the spirit of the questioner and it called us protectionist for going after currency management. that's not protectionist. that's being a free trader. they're being protectionist. so it's topsy-turvy. >> whoa, whoa, whoa. sorry. >> we got -- i got to get more people involved. >> ok, sorry. >> i'm sorry. you get the next one. wanted toa different perspective, also very much in the news, johnson controls apparently -- there is some question about that but apparently they are making a strong bid. what i would like to get from both of you is a comment about a prior suitor who may be tried to get them, which is a chinese auto parts company. to the extent this is a firm that the united states put a lot of money in, that has technology that is valuable in some way, not defense related, should there be a policy respect to screening of that kind of a potential acquisition from a foreign company? >> you can take this wherever you want. >> i will add to the question. as you know, we have a policy in terms of investment, and we have limited that because we want to encourage investment. the time has come to realize there are different sorts of ways to our security, and the reality is if we are going to allow investment by folks who are not responsive to the cost of capital, that do not have to pay their workers the would have to with a decent set of labor institutions, we need to be thinking carefully, particularly with the fact that they are investing, as to whether that is an investment we are interested in. do we want to say investment across the board, or do we have to exercise good judgment here about the sorts of the commencement -- of investment. they're not competing the way exxon has to commit pete. i am not interested in that type of investment. just like there are standards. the things they do in their own and ensuring our economic growth. that is the kind of growth i am not interested in. >> there are so many other people. i am sorry. back there. >> thanks for an excellent discussion. i would like to ask about trade policy. we have not gotten into the free trade arrangement and where we are going and what is the difference between the two candidates. >> i am astonished the president says he signed free trade agreements. he did not sign any. he did not even launch and negotiation. the one thing he has going in it inof negotiatinon start the bush administration. manufacturers were locked out of the market. that is not a trade policy that engages in the global trading system and takes our seat at the table with an effort to design the rules in ways that not only serve our interests -- i am capable of being utterly -- but just as important adopting the system we have in the bad states is the most powerful thing we can do for economic development. the idea we want state capitalism to run rampant, we're not willing to engage in shaping the roles that make a brighter future globally is appalling. >> a response? >> i like grant's previous answer anyway. there are too big disagreements we have. the president is legitimate to take credit for the three south korea, panama, colombia, but seeing and getting a trade agreement over the hump we did is far more to the cult, and i was there for south korea. that was touch and go and very hard. i think we have friends here that may have something to say. >> remember when nancy pelosi pulled a -- >> as someone who worked on getting these trade agreements, it was a big deal. here is the thing, where i disagree pretty significantly on trade policy, which is the root of your question. i do not think these free trade agreements have nearly the impact on trade, globalization, and grant's answer would imply it. it has never happened that way. they are always advertised that way, there aren't the huge benefits, and every time it never lives up to that, and i think the people who make those claims about how dramatic the economy is on to improve because we signed a trade agreement and how many workers will benefit, are hurting themselves, because the public does not buy it at all. if you want to have more free trade policies be signed, and you have to take down this rhetoric about how they are on to solve all of our problems. they are not. >> i would do that and heart bait if everybody would stop saying -- >> i want to get back to your point about the importance of head start. i think a major piece that is missing from our total educational system is what i will call complex systems. we train people to be an expert. i will say we train them to understand their buttonhole, not understand that the but the whole is on your jacket or you are wearing the jacket or you in the repair everything is linked. we think people to think in stovepipes, and the connection so you understand the consequences of the choices you are making. i think there are dramatic changes that have to go on in our educational system, starting in kindergarten. >> you are absolutely right about that. the best work that i have seen come what we do in our educational system is weak at prepare young americans to work in the industrial economy in the early 20th century, which the great thing about what henry ford did is he created a system to replace parts. the bad thing he did was that he created replaceable people. the skills that you needed in that time or to turn their rents, any attack. if you look at what an honor worker does today, very different. very, very different, but that training is not what you are prepared to do when you're coming out of high school. where not educating people from the start in the world they are going to operate in. [indiscernible] talking about it is a wonderful way to put it, because the way we deliver in terms of raising human capital does mean -- governor romney's, it on, improving the educational system, and i would add headstart said to that. education is one of those areas where president obama and artie duncan, what have been doing -- >> we are laying off hundreds of thousands of teachers while we are saying we need better education. >> the mike is not working. just speak directly into it. >> do you hear me? i'm a professor? nyu, but i was director of ibm for 30 years. despite that, i have the greatest difficulty in following out the consequences of the various notions about making capital more easily, and the impact of that on manufacturing. i think it is complicated. i do not understand it. if others do come out hideout to them. my suggestion is that instead of emphasizing causes, we measure effects. let me be concrete in a proposal. we need a balanced trade, because we are hemorrhaging jobs through the imbalance. some years ago, warren buffett proposed a very simple and straightforward way to balance trade. and not by putting in a particular tariff on this or that. but simply by giving exporters certificates which importers had to buy. in other words, if you are successful in exporting, you get a certificate, sold on the open market, and in order to import, you have to buy the certificate. that means is an incentive to export and a limit on imports, but it does not cut down imports, just balance them to export. it balances trade. it comes from warren, who is not an idiot. >> he is smart about making money. on public policy, this is a guy who talked about taxes, but he has played the tax code like a fiddle. >> he understands that. >> i am asking for consistency. the companies he invests in do not do what you are describing. >> i am not asking him to. i am asking us to consider a proposal of his which seems to make sense which visitors the outcome of all these incentives. >> if you are saying i want action, you have to look at warren's action. he does not act in the way you are describing. .> i would be at hominem, alph, let's look at the facts. i do not think that just a persistent trade balances, but the imbalances we have seen have been so destructive for growth, and they very much embody the kinds of problems that i've been trying to stress drop the talk in hurt in the manufacturing sector of our friend from nam was asking about earlier. that particular plan is an interesting one. it strikes me as extremely challenging, legislatively. i would think that just off the time of my head that the tax on imports would be in not trivial, and consumers would not like it. as a veteran of these debates, when you start working with the work places, things get complicated quickly. i think the cost of step that we buy and walmart goes up -- >> that strikes me as a potential issue. however, when of the reasons those costs are so low is because of the subsidies which have both been suggesting should be stopped, and that is a bit of a hatchet, but i am looking did -- i am interested in looking at those ideas. i want to thank you both very likely to discussion. it surfaced and number of disagreements in a genial way. [applause] [indiscernible] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> shortly, we will go live to henderson, nev., for a campaign rally for mitt romney. is event is the first in a blast heading apple to election day. we want to hear from you about last night as president of the bay. we're asking what were the highs and lows of the final debate. we heard from over 70,000 of you. weigh in. we asked viewers what they thought about the final presidential debate. here is what some of you had to say. am i was undecided until watching this debate. what i saw an obama tonight was presidential. what i heard was real leadership. i appreciated the fact that he was straightforward, was candid about his own position, and what i heard from romney was a parrot. >> i think governor romney won hands down all these debates. >> i am so proud of the president. he is presidential, a statesman, and when mitt romney is ask the question, he looks like a man that cannot take pressure. >> mr. romney seemed to me to be a little when she washy. earlier, he made a statement about having it back by. -- a backbone. there he states he wants to work with china. he wants to deal with pakistan. padilla i want to try some the about the moderators and the debates. i think they are one-sided, i think. i believe in governor romney, and i hope people open their eyes and take notice of what is going on in our country. >> romney etch and the questions, he did not tiptoe around them. he is not. he is straightforward. he keeps saying the same thing over and over again, and is very consistent, as to where obama has not been consistent. >> i thought the debate lagged off the questions, because they got so much away from the foreign policy, which i thought was a focus, and they started talking about domestic economy. i try to tie it into what the questions were, and i do not think either candidate stock -- they kept going back to the economy. >> i felt that governor romney had done an excellent job today, very presidential, and the main point was the end of the comment where there is hope. our family has felt were not being protected as a nation, that our borders are open, and the issue that were discuss i felt that romney is going to get my vote for short. -- for sure. >> i thought governor romney was comfortable talking about the economy. i thought obama was comfortable talking about foreign policy, and he did a better job of tying in foreign policy which our current economy. aloha. >> a list disappointed with the president. i was looking for him to lay out a strategy for foreign policy, and i found him to be the ginny carter of our generation. >> i am thinking that obama won this. romney sounded more like obama and less like himself, backing down a little bit. obama and romney -- president obama and romney both fell to say anything about the economy. >> out of all the three debates, this was obama's strongest showing. he was directed the point, straightforward, and assertive. he called out romney on some of his equivocations with such prowess and being so polite that it was admirable to watch our president defend his policies of the last four years. >> watch and engage with c-span. >> think what people saw in governor romney was someone who was energetic. he was confident. ready to be commander in chief. he did it both by doing analysis of what has gone wrong the last few years and also by laying out a path fort. -- 4. president obama was very defensive about a number of issues. i think governor romney did a good job explaining how our economic challenges and our foreign policy challenges are stitched together. governor romney believes that broad isity to lead a broa shaped by our economy. [indiscernible] ahmadinejad --a joh our ability to lead abroad is effective when our adversaries look at america at and [indiscernible] and our allies look at america [indiscernible] and friends rely on us in that situation. the state of our economy and affects our foreign policy. the ability to grow our economy is also affected by the state of the world. stable economy, stable markets, very important for america opossum economy and how we grow and export. he tied that very well together. >> a lot of people expected romney to bring up the administration's [indiscernible] was there a reason why? >> the address benghazi in the context of a broader challenge. he looked at the failures in libya and the crisis in libya in the context of turmoil throughout the region. and whether it was 30,000 people dead in syria, iran getting , orer to a nuclear bomb offm, the situation in libya where we had the first american ambassador killed. when you look at all these there is a sense of chaos in the region and an unraveling of foreign-policy. president >> in across -- the president came across strong. he has delivered on the promises he has made, together a global coalition. he talked about that this evening. ronnie came across as somebody who was [indiscernible] and that leaves a mark. [indiscernible] somebody who is uncomfortable with many of these issues, unfamiliar with policies, and somebody who is ready to -- >> governor romney less aggressive than he was a week ago. how do you think people respond? >> [indiscernible] he was prepared and ready. i think the president was also holding mitt romney;s feet to the fire when he was not the truth about his position or about a particular issue. that is how americans will perceive that when watching at home. >> tell about -- what was your reaction? >> we knew what his record is, and he we knew what he said about iraq. he said he would have kept tens of thousands of troops there. it was not aligned with his record, and that was interesting to watch. >> we have been able to show that to the american people, and everything this president has tried, hundreds of millions of dollars he has spent to make governor romney at into somebody that he is night has all been undone by these debates, and that is why it is a golden time for us. >> they are trying to portray him as an extremist. they're trying to make him unacceptable to the american people, but the debates are great. people say, wait a second, i like governor romney. i think he should lead this country, and a lot of his ideas make sense. those are things that make the big difference when it comes to polling and figuring out who was on to win and lose. [indiscernible] i did not know about that. i think governor romney is being very comfortable, and he is getting confidence and these settings, and he is showing the people he is ready to be president. [indiscernible] i think it has been very important. in our culture, debates should become a big deal. people judge presidents often by how they are doing in the debate. the president has not been able to deliver an answer for how he will lead this country over the next four years. he is proving clint eastwood right every time we do a debate. he has the message. he has nothing on the table. what is there? what are the plans for the next four years? >> he spent a lot of time in this debate. that is important because we interviewed -- [indiscernible] governor romney has been all over the net. you want steady this as a commander in chief. we will still talk about the need to end the war in afghanistan and stay vigilant against terrorism, but rebuilding our economy is the central challenge, and we think the president made that point, and we will did a lot more tomorrow and the next few days. >> on iraq, he said we did not want their troops there at all. come on iraq, governor romney has repeatedly said he believes -- he did it in 40 foreign policy speech. he said unthinkable president did not -- go to the video. governor romney, the effect of thing the president did tonight was in the governor romney down to his position. he was wrong about iraq, afghanistan, going after big lot and, has been wrong and when he went has not been wrong -- the president has been clear, and this is a debate about straight, and who do you trust for your commander in chief. the president delivered a commencement date. >> what is the headline in ohio tomorrow? >> the president was strong and romney was weak and unsteady. the president was talking about nation-building at home. one of every eight jobs in ohio is depending on the auto industry. governor romney tonight made up a fairy tale about his position on the auto rest appeared from a were president, we would be buying chinese parts here and int buying shanchevies beijing. >> was the line about bayonets off message? >> no, it was on message. secondly, he talks about our -- those strategy h numbers have shifted. of course we have more horses back then, but this is about strategy, capability, and never romney wants to turn decisions about our military strategy and our funding over to the members of congress and politicians. not our generals. my suspicion here is the exchange about military spending was a convincing section. >> think they would see some differences in approach, especially when it comes to israel, national security, and the budget, the reckless budget that president obama is proposing versus about what governor romney is calling for, when it comes to ratcheting up sanctions against iran. there are clear differences, and we saw from governor romney an agenda to not have us be subject to intense run the world that shaped a fence around the world, and i think they saw from president obama defend his own policies and the inability to lay out his policies for the future. romney did a good job of laying that out tonight. >> two weeks left. where do you think you will go starting in a momrning? >> we have momentum. things go to the battleground states, a discussion about our national security and foreign policy in the difference is there. they go very much did the discussions about the economy, and the economic strength and the national security strength and abroad are tied to one of the. there will be discussion about economic policy and debt. romney will highlight his plan for a recovery as well congressman ryan. we cannot afford four more years like the last four years, when it comes to job creation, to art that, when it comes to health care, and not when it comes to national security. >> portman said the president seems to be debating -- [indiscernible] >> it will be a close contest. i saw commentary that obama seemed to be in his approach to this debate acting as someone who was a challenger, who was behind, but we know this will be a close contest, and when i talked to you a couple weeks ago, when things look like they were going great for a bombing, this would be a close contest. now.ve a meomentum it will be hard fought in these states, but i feel very good about where we are coming out of this last debate. >> the back-and-forth on the military budget -- and they will regret that it's a for a long time, and the president informed him what the military budget is. we do not have bayonets' anymore. >> got the impression he was on the offense tonight, and i am wondering about that. >> you can be the leader and commander in chief. you saw him be very strong tonight, as his leadership has been the past four years trip romney was uncertain. the tickets between the two candidates could not be more clear, and you saw and assert the president, because he is commander in chief, and that is what the public wants. they want their leaders to be strong, understand where we want to go, and romney continues to change his positions on things, and he has been wrong. he was run in iraq, afghanistan, and tonight the public saw it. >> how important is this for your race now that you have a [indiscernible] >> and battleground states we continue to have an advantage. every single opportunity to talk about the events as between the two candidates is a success for us. we heard that in good detail tonight, an important moment, and [indiscernible] i thought it looked really unsteady. >> the romney campaign said obama [indiscernible] seemed to behave like he was behind. do you think he is an underdog? >> president was a strong and steady leader, and romney was wrong and reckless, and he is unsteady. that is what you saw tonight. that is what we have, and that is why the american public saw that night. >> we will take you live to for ason, nevada, campaign rally with mitt romney and paul ryan. an estimated 80,000 nevadans have cast their ballots. live coverage when the rally gets underway on c-span. until then, we talked with early voters to get their thoughts on last night's debate. host: early voters, teaneck in detroit. for whom did you vote and how did you vote? caller: good morning. i voted for president obama. host: how did you do it? caller: i did it by early voting, and it was quite an experience. the polls look awful. -- the polls looked full. host: why did you vote for obama? caller: are are a lot of misleading statements from romney. between him and saying the changes in all his positions, i saw him, and i watched him from the primaries on, and the republican party is from paul ryan all the way down to the senate republicans and house republicans, they have signed on to the republican party platform. mitt romney is going a against it. with the bush cronies as his advisers, i do not see any kind of way that he would be going against the party. his extreme views in my opinion are still a place, since conservatives said all they needed was a president with five working digits to sign the bill, and they are telling him what to do. host: what do you do it a try? tell us about yourself? caller: i drive a school bus. right now i am on a medical. i have been driving this for 17 years. host: for a school? caller: yes. i have watched my income status, how a change, and i watched the economy and how it has changed. also, i have been voting since i was 18. host: may we ask what age range you are in now? caller: i would be considered middle age. sometimes i feel older than that, but i am 51. host: you are very young. caller: thank you very much. first of all, america is a very good prosperous, strong country. we have some very good working individuals i'm very proud of america. if we want everybody to know that american workers are the best workers in the world. we will give it our all. here is the trick. host: the trent public schools. what would you be your assessment of the school system and the students host? caller: i have been with the students for 70 years treat the fundamental changes that in my opinion should be made basically on the administrative side so that the children can benefit, because we had a lot of mismanagement of funds, through contracts and all those sorts of things that parents did not really get into the basic numbers. they did not watch the numbers. they did not watch it, and what it did was ultimately hurt the children. now i see that they are trying to take better control of putting parental involvement with the actual services that the children received. now we are starting to see a little progress. it is not much help but it is some. we're starting to see a lot of more dedication, and that was the main thing that we really needed. host: next is devante and albuquerque. tell us about your early voting experience. we're going to move down to anna in frederick, maryland. another early voting. caller: morning. i voted by absentee ballot. i have been a democrat for 30 years, and i could no longer in good conscience really support the democratic party. i spent the last four years doing extensive research, and this is a problem with people. they look at the surface, they do not go behind what they see on the surface and look at the candidate and their background and with their air coming from. i have to tell you that i am convinced the democratic party has been hijacked. by marxists and socialists. it is no longer the democratic party of my parents, where we were taught if you want something, go work for it. no one will hand it to you on a silver platter. all i see now is people wanting everything on a silver platter. give it to me because i exist. just give it to me. i have to tell you that obama is the most divisive, deceitful president that i think we have ever had, and to sit there and blame his entire thing on bush, are we forgetting what the catalyst was that put this financial collapse in the motion? it was that committed the reinvestment act by carter and advocated by clinton, where he mandated that the banks had to make the loans to these subprime borrowers. when you are making risky loans, where people -- and there are is no qualifying, and something has to give, and at some point the whole thing has to implode. it has to collapse. that is exactly what happened. as far as obama is concerned, he is a known element. let's look at all of his decease. i will cut the deficit in half. oubled it.be the eexpanded the patriot act. this is an infringement of our rights. let's talk about "obamacare." has anybody focused on obama in 2014 will have a health advisory panel, appointees that will be able to dictate to the american people what they can and cannot receive as far as the health care is concerned. they can pass legislation without congressional authority. that is a violation of our constitution. he is setting up a dictatorship. host: up next, roberta n. ohio. tell us about your experiences as an early voter. how did you do it? caller: i voted for mr. obama. host: out early today open early voting? caller: october 2. there were lines of people, and everybody was moving. host: we have heard in the past about the voting machines in ohio. are you satisfied with the integrity of the voting process? caller:i am. host: tell us why you are supporting obama. caller: he is truly for the people, and is not out just for the people in need of what ever. he is for everyone. i feel romney has already stated how he feels about that half of america, and i think people need to wake up and realize who is out for them. everybody criticizes what obama has done, but he saved several jobs, and save many people from going to the unemployment lines and the benefit lines and this and that. everybody needs to wake up and see that he is honest, he is forthright with what he intends to do, and as far as things he has not been able to accomplish, he did not have congress backing him up you cannot blame him for whatever has not been accomplished. people need to wake up. callei work in corrections. i work with inmates. host: the county level? state level? caller: state. host: thank you for calling. caller: have you ever voted republican? host: never. who is going to win? caller: obama. host: percentage? caller: 52%. host: up next is john from north carolina. good morning. caller: how are you doing, sir? host: tell us about early voting. caller: it has already begun. i am looking forward to it. i want to go vote for president obama. host: when? caller: we are going to do it as a family, this week. my wife is in the army, says she is the voting officer for per unit. she is advocating we need to vote as a family. host: what do you do? caller: i am a stay at home dad. it has been hard to find a job, going from different states, but there has been things that have helped out by the different programs that have put in place for me to go to school to get a good-paying job. host: how many kids do you have? caller: three. host: as the military career for your wife? you find them to be republican, democrat, what? caller: my wife is a junior officer, a major, so it seems like to me a lot of the higher- ranked officers, they lean more to the republican side, and when you look at her, some senior nc 0's, theywer-rate nc are leaning toward obama. for those who are listening, when our president has had his hands tied by our congress, for them, from the date of his inauguration, they have a meeting to say that they are going to make him a one-term president, by any means necessary, to me that is treasonous in itself, for this man to not even have raised his hands to state this oath, not even do his job, to say we are right to do anything -- host: isn't that their job? caller: i never heard democrats have a meeting saying we will not make bush president, or clinton president, or jimmy carter. the other day, the house knocked down a bill that was paid that would put millions ofjust like today, the house veterans knocked down a bill that was paid for that would put millions, millions of veterans, millions of the veterans' jobs, and all republicans in the house democrats, voted against this bill, and it was paid for. it did not affect our budget. host: how old are your kids? caller: 11, 8, and two years old. host: i would think it would be easier to have a job than to stay home with those three. caller: [laughter] when you look at the fact of the things that me and my wife have put in place to where our kids will have something in the future -- we are homeowners, we own two homes. when we are gone, these houses will be passed on to our kids, about these types of situations now in the future. host: that was john in north carolina. joe in west virginia on our support governor romney outlined. virginia? caller: it open on the 24th. host: how did you do it? caller: i have not done it yet it is not open on the 24th. it starts tomorrow. i want you to give me some time. i'm a democrat, ok? i have always been a democrat. but i am voting for romney, because i do not trust obama. as far as the guy before that said that congress doesn't help him, hey, he had congress and everything for two years, the complete white house. he did nothing except his obamacare. earlier there was a guy who said he was a muslim. there was george shnopolos -- he said he was a muslim, because he was asked a question and he said "my muslim faith." go back to that tape and he himself admitted he was a muslim. i don not believe anything hehe is too busy going on these talk shows and stuff. nothing wrong with that -- if you want to do that, fine. but don't let the country go by when he is busy playing golf and going on all of these tv shows. host: we are going to have to leave it there. >> we are waiting for the start of they wrote rally for romney and paul ryan and the henderson pavilion outside las vegas. this will be the first event since last night's debate. a few more minutes. we will join it live when it gets underway. undecided voters called us this morning to give their impressions of last night's debate. host: want to talk to undecided voters only during this next segment, and tell us what you thought of the debate, what you think of each candidate. we will begin with a call from charleston, south carolina. good morning. why are you undecided? caller: good morning. i was not sure whether i wanted president obama to win or john mccain. this is my first year being able to the. i had trouble in south carolina, getting thought my voter's registration card. it took them a month for me to get my card, but i got it and i am excited about voting. i watched all three debates from the presidential candidates, and i hear a lot of conservatives talking about the navy and how they bake -- the big they think it should be. we do not need a big navy. the secretary of defense has asked the president for certain things and has asked for certain things, to so to say that our navy is weak, that is not true. host: you say that about the navy? why are you undecided? caller: looking at romney, i did see that he does want a stronger military and i was not sure about whether i want to vote for the president is because of the fact that president obama, not being able to get congress to bring together and when he came in the office, he said he would be able to do that. rummy is more moderate, and he tries to come off as. it is hard to choose one candidate or another. host: he said this is the first time you are voting. is that because of your age? caller: yes. i just turned 18. i'm a college student. that is another reason why lean towards the present even more. i cannot name 10 college students that have not received any state or federal money. when you talk about needing to take care of our own responsibilities, now citizens can pay for college out of pocket. i am one of those tunes that cannot. host: your state is probably going for mitt romney. caller: yes, but let's get copper pipethey are pretty democratic. host: columbia and charleston. caller: we have numerous projects going in building our roads and we need money towards education. i was for governor haley, our first female governor. she talks about cutting education spending. am not for voting for another conservative governor. host: tj, we appreciate your time this morning. voters isn't undecided in florida. this is frankie. tell us one thing you like or don't like about the candidates. call. both candidates are good family man. -- men. they seem to love their country. that says a lot to me. what i do not like about the candidates -- president obama -- the economy has taken a downturn. i understand what was inherited at the onset of his campaign. i do not like that we'll not see much movement over the years he has occupied the white house. as far as governor romney, he doesn't seem to have a clear, consistent plan. he seems to be changing courses sort of with the wind, so to speak. he goes from saying one thing to changing the next time he is in public. my concern is that i do not know -- i know what obama is all about because i have seen his strategy. i don't know what romney will do. he tells me he is not for medicare vouchers then he is for medicare vouchers. he says he doesn't care about the 47%, low income workers and then he said that is a mistake, that he did not mean to say that. i respect -- you have to tell me something. thomas something about the if about the deductions. theft buthe needs to tell me something. i have to stick with obama. i know about is 5-point plan. he is asked a question about what you will sacrifice to get there, doesn't give me an answer. host: how informative do you find the television commercials? caller: the television commercials are bombarding the airwaves. they are saying the same thing. i do not know how to trust those either. i want to hear, what are you going to do for me? i have a home. are you going to take the mortgage rate away from me? what are you talking about? tell me something. host: tell us a little about yourself. caller: i retired back and 2010 in jacksonville, florida. i retired with full retiree benefits. i was blessed to have been able to do that. i do not have a steady income. i have investments, retiree money. i have to be mindful about how spend it. i want to be able to have some fun. i'm stuck i am. i do not know what is coming. i just don't know. host: lambert in arlington, virginia. good morning. good thing about each candidate. caller: they are politicians. they just lie. host: where does that leave you when you go to the polls? caller: i do not know if i'm going to vote. i think the president, know what you're going to get. mitt romney has a good point. >> we will go live a romney and paul ryan outside las vegas. hello, nevada. it is great to see you guys. nike so much. nevada, are you ready to help us win this thing? that is right. not forget, or early voting already started. you can get out there, and cast your vote, we need your help. we saw last night and two other nights a man who is ready to become a great president, and his name is mitt romney, and you are going to help make in the next president of the united states. i want to thank your fantastic lieutenant governor what he has done for us, for your state, for his leadership. i want to thank my >i want to thank my buddy, dean heller. [applause] he is a true nevadan. indeed to send him back. and you have this new guy, a true citizen legislator. the kind of man who has earned your support, joe [unintelligible] sent him back, he is exactly the kind of person we need to save this country. you have great leader's right here. you know what we saw last night? we saw governor mitt romney offer this country will ideas and leadership. in so many ways. we know this right here in nevada. look at the unemployment rate. we cannot afford four more years like the last four. you know what? please, go ahead, have a seat. president obama has not only failed to lay out his second term agenda, president obama has decided that his path to reelection is to distort, is to try and distract to see if he can win this election by default. we are not going to fall for that, are we? it was four years ago when candidate barack obama was running for president and he said this -- if you do not have fresh ideas, use stealth tactics to scare voters. if you do not have a record to run on, paint your opponent as someone that people should run from. a big collection of small ideas. ladies and gentleman, that is exactly what he said for years ago, and sadly that is exactly what president obama has become. two weeks from today, he will become former president barack obama. mitt romney will be the next president of the united states. because we can do better than this. we do not have to settle for this. we do not have to settle for conduct a million americans trying to find work. we do not have to settle for 11.8% in nevada. we do not have to settle for all of these underwater mortgages. we do not have to settle for 15% of our fellow men and women living in poverty. it will take leadership. it will take a man with a plan, a proven job creator reaching across the aisle to find common ground and get results. it will take the kind of leader that we have, mitt romney. [applause] do you know what we saw last night? yet again another display of a man ready to be president. another display of someone with the demeanor, the temperament, with the skills to be a leader. what we saw last night was mitt romney being concerned about america's position in the world and president obama more concerned about his position in this race. the president has run out of ideas. that is why he is running a small campaign about small things and hoping that he can distract people from the reality in front of us. the reality is this, we can do better than this. we can get people back to work, back out of poverty and into the middle class. we can create jobs. we have so much energy in this state, this country, let's use it and get people back to work. [applause] we have a leader with a plan to create jobs. we have a leader who is a proven job creator. at a time when we have a jobs crisis in america. would it not be nice to have a job creator in the white house? ladies and gentlemen, we do not have to wait for four more years of the same. we only have to wait for two more weeks. that means in nevada, you can help us. do not forget the early voting. we can get this country back in the right spot. his name is mitt romney and he is going to be your next president of the united states. [applause] ♪ >> that is a nevada welcome. thank you, nevada. [applause] thank you, henderson. thank you, nevada. great to be with you. i need you to do something. i love the fact that you are cheering, it warms my heart, but i want you to make sure that you are early voting. early voting has already started. get out there and vote right now. [applause] my guess is that you have had the chance to watch the debate last night. maybe a couple of them. these debates have supercharged our campaigns. there is no question about it. we are seeing more and more enthusiasm and support. we are making sure that the messages of these debates keep going across the country. i had to look at the president's campaign through the eyes of those debates. well, you know, he has been reduced to trying to defend characters on sesame street. word games of various kinds. and misfired attacks, one after the other. the truth is that attacks on me are not an agenda. we have gone through four debates now, with the vice presidential debate and my debates. we have not heard an agenda from the president. that is why his campaign is taking on water and ours is full speed ahead. [applause] paul mentioned -- is two weeks from today, but you have to get your votes out there early. i want you to know, we can handle two more weeks of the attacks from barack obama, but not four more years of what he is giving us. [applause] i mean, can you afford four more years of 23 million americans looking for a job? can you afford four more years of housing prices going down to the bottom? can you afford four more years of doubling of gasoline prices? >> no. >> how about this, would you like four years where you can create 12 million new jobs? how about four years where we are able to see rising take-home pay again. how about four years where at the end of which we get nevada unemployment down to 6% or lower. [applause] look, if we are going to see a real recovery and see that kind of direction, we are going to have to have real change. unfortunately, the president today represents the status quo. his campaign slogan today is forward, which does not suggest changing, does it? a better slogan for him might be forewarned. we have seen what happens over the last four years. look, i am willing to do the work with paul ryan that it takes to change washington. the president said you cannot change washington from the inside, only the outside. we will give him that chance in a couple of weeks. if we go forward with the same direction of the last four years, he will keep amassing a deficit like this every year. america's future will look a lot like those troubled nations in europe. if on the other hand if we take the new and bold course that paul ryan and i represent, we go cap spending and get us on track. going forward with this same old policy will mean that he will cut $716 billion from medicare for our current seniors. that is the wrong way. paul ryan and i will restore those dollars to our seniors in medicare and make sure that those dollars are there for our kids and their kids. we will keep the promises made to our seniors. four more years, four more years like the last four years mean that we will cut $1 trillion out of our military. look, i have the greatest respect for the men and women who serve in our armed forces and appreciate their great sacrifice. and i will not continue to reduce the number of ships we have, the number of planes we have, the number of soldiers we have. i will make sure that we protect our military and keep them second to none in the world. [applause] four more years like the last four years, with all of the spending and borrowing you are seeing will mean that you will have an america where you have interest costs going up and up and the president will have to raise taxes $400,000 per family. he is also planning on raising taxes on a million small businesses. we have a different path, a path that will not raise taxes. we will cut taxes for the middle class, cut taxes for small businesses. we will make it easier for small businesses to grow. four more years like the last would mean that we would see obama care, meaning your health insurance premiums will go up by $2,500 per person and it invites the government into the doctor's office with you. we will reverse obama care and it's extraordinary costs. [applause] four more years like the last, we will continue to have a president playing hide and see trying to find a plan to get the economy going, the great jobs. this is a president for whom creating jobs is another stimulus. how did that first one worked out? and he says he wants to hire more teachers? we love teachers, we are happy to see more teachers, but that will not get the private sector growing. his idea of growing the economy is raising taxes. does anyone think that raising taxes creates more jobs? >> no. >> his vision for the future is a repeat of the past. we do not want to go into the past. our plan has five key steps to get the economy going, because we are serious about these things. we will finally get north american energy going using oil , gas. [applause] we will make trade work for america by opening up the markets in latin america. we have advantages there with language and time zone. we will crack down on cheaters when they steal our jobs through unfair trade practices. [applause] we're going to make training programs work for the people that need training. by the way, we can fix our own schools. we do not give our larger share of our campaign contributions to the teachers' unions. we are going to do something to fix those schools across the country, putting our kids and parents first, and the parents first, with teachers' unions going behind. [applause] #5, no. 5 is this. we will champion small business. we want small business to grow and thrive and add more jobs. we want to help small business people with lower taxes and regulators who see themselves on the same team. we are going to help small business to grow and thrive in this country. i understand small business. i did not study small business, i live small business. we will help them grow. [applause] this is a status quo candidacy. this is a message of going forward with the same policies for the next four years. that is why his campaign is slipping and ours is gaining speed. i am convinced that we can do better. i know that we can. and this is not just a matter of paul ryan and me, this is a move across the country, recognizing that we can do a better job. i have seen it from my life, the heart of the american people, a greatness. something that tells me that if we tap into it, allowing freedom to bloom if it can, we will see the economy roaring back to success. [applause] i say that because i've seen the american people and entrepreneurship of our fellow men and women. what we have within us is a great desire. we want to help each other. we americans are ready to give of ourselves to something bigger than ourselves. we are a people that love great things, patriotic, care for our communities. this is a time to call on the greatness of america. i had an experience that reminded me of that. it touched my call. -- touched my heart. i was a boy scout leader, some years ago. it was at a boy scout court of honor, we have this for my table and was seated at the end of it on the podium. the person speaking was the scoutmaster from monument, colorado. i hear someone from colorado in there. there you go. he said that there boy scout troop wanted a special flag, so they bought one. it was a flag with gold tassels around the outside. eventually at the end of the table there was a flagpole with a flag on a like the one he was describing. he said that they flew it at the capitol building. and then when it came home, they contacted nasa and ask if their flag could go up on the space shuttle. of course, space is at a premium in space. nasa said ok, we will take the flag of this. they put it on the space shuttle and he said -- you can imagine how proud the boys were, looking from their home rooms at the tv set, as they watched the shuttle takeoff and rockets go up into the air. until they saw it explode on the tv screen in front of them. he said he called nasa two weeks after the challenger disaster and asked if they had found a remnant of their flag. he said he called almost any -- almost every week for months. have you found our flag? always, no. in september there was an article in the newspaper that listed some of the debris and it mentioned the flag. he called nasa again and as a matter of fact, they said, they had a presentation to make. the boy scouts were presented with this container, blackened, and when they opened it there was the flag in perfect condition. [oohs] [applause] and then he said -- that is the flag on the flagpole next to mr. romney. i looked over and reached up, grab a hold of the flag and pulled it out. for me it was like electricity was running from my arms. i thought of the sacrifice of our sons and daughters, men and women, sacrificing, putting themselves in danger for learning, for discovery, for us. i thought about how much that typified the american character. i think about the single mother that scrims and saves so that she can have a good meal for her child by the end of the week. i think of the father with a couple of jobs so that he can afford making sure that his kids have the same kind of clothes that other kids at school have. i think of a couple that decided not to share christmas with each other, exchanging gifts, so they could instead provide a christmas for their children. i think of the young person who enlist in the military to go to college. i love those who serve -- [applause] all of those who have served in our armed services, or are serving now, please stand or raise your hand and be recognized by the audience. [applause] i love those -- i love those words in front of our national hymns. beautiful, heroes proved in liberating strife, who more themselves their country loved, and mercy more than life. the fact that they, like so many others, are living for something bigger than themselves. this is an important time for america. a time to choose the kind of america we will be. is this going to be a sacrifice for great things, or will we turn to government and expect them to do everything for us? will we have in america with an economy driven by freedom and economic opportunity, or an economy driven by low wage growth and high gasoline prices. this is the choice we will have. what i need you to do is get out there and vote early and often. not here in nevada, right, governor? the governors saying no, not here. i need you to get out and vote because on election day i need you to get your friends to vote. over the next few weeks paul ryan and i need you to get energized, get out and vote. i need you to do something, find a neighbor who voted for barack obama next time -- last time and remind him of the promises that were made and tell him about the promises that were kept. we are going to take this country with rising take-home pay to keep us strong overseas. america is coming back. this is the comeback team. i love america. i believe in you. i believe that our brightest days are ahead. thank you so much. we love you. [applause] ♪ >> there are two weeks until election day. mitt romney and paul ryan are in harrison, nevada. they are covering these rallies live with the republican ticket. phone lines ashe we get closer to the election. we are going to start off with a twitter message from a viewer -- "why does the media keep on asking questions on how to allow mitt romney win"? are you the imagemaker? we have a call from new york. caller: i have a quick comment as a proud, new york republican who is self-employed. i am so ecstatic in watching both congressman ryan and governor romney take that stage. i am so enthusiastic and can honestly say that after four years i am better off today than i was four years ago because i am watching the next president of the united states. thank you. >> next, a democrat, atlanta. caller: i wanted to say that i was a democrat and voting for president obama and that i wish him the best of luck for his four more solid years. i wanted to know, mitt romney keeps yelling he will have these 12 million jobs, but he has not explained where they're coming from. can you explain where they are coming from? >> thank you for your call. robert, republican. say, robert -- looks like we've lost robert. tricia, republican from lake zurich. caller: hi, how are you? >> good, thanks. caller: i watched all of the debates, but last night mitt romney had blue and red ties, which gave it a big signal. barack obama had on a totally blue tie, that was one thing and wanted to point out. the second thing is that mitt romney is totally right. i happen to own a small business and these federal regulations are just driving me crazy. >> thank you so much. another twitter message. "mitt romney" will protect our military and keep it second in the nation." a call from richard, independent call, texas. richard? caller: [unintelligible] >> we are having trouble hearing you. can you speak up a bit? caller: i am an independent voter out of texas and i share the sentiment from it romney, i cannot support a candidate who cannot be truthful about his own religion. he talks about being a preacher for 10 years? there is no such thing as a preacher in the lds church, not in my faith. there is a bishop, what they call a bishop. i just cannot trust the person who cannot be honest about his own fate. thank you. >> in addition to the rallies with mitt romney and paul ryan today, the president is speaking in dayton, ohio, which we have live on c-span 2. or you can see the speech from this morning in florida on c- span.org. next, democratic line, texas. you are on, richard. " caller: i am a democrat is going to vote for mitt romney and paul ryan. >> why is that? caller code they speak the truth. they do not beat around the bush. four years of obama, he has promised this and that. he loves government and we cannot make the united states and other european country, as far as the government controls us. >> you voted for president obama in the last election? caller: i sure did. >> elizabeth, lawrenceville. hello, elizabeth. caller: good afternoon, i guess. good afternoon. i am calling in to say that i will be voting for barack obama. he has taken more time than i think the average american wished to get things done, and has had obstacles to overcome, but i honestly do not see how any reasonable person or voter could imagine what he had to walk into. i will be sticking with him and i will vote for him this time. he should just basically stated course he is on. it is a slower journey than we would all like. i think we need to slow down in real life. we tell our children, be patient. the president is asking us to be patient. last night's debate was phenomenally good for him. >> bob, westminster, where listening. caller, mr. romney has not said more about the debates. everyone says that obama is doing a good job. if i am on a trip and i go 50 miles south and wind up going north, we are getting farther away from what we need. i would like to know why they did not talk about the downgrade for the first time in the united states. >> you are an independent, who do you plan to vote for? caller code definitely mitt romney. >> why is that? caller: it is just a matter of his policies nonworking. $16 trillion in debt. prices double. thanks a lot. looking at two key are up in st. paul, minnesota. bouillon to calvin, looks like we lost her. calvin, bacon springs. -- moving on to calvin, looks like we lost her. caller: when i listen to mitt romney and paul ryan is become the campaign trail, they are not wrong about what they will do for this country. when ronald reagan was a good actor and a great president, barack obama is a great president but a good actor. time to get rid of barack obama and bring the real people that care about our country. i see it every time they use speak. because our country is going to get even worse. thank you so much for the time. >> olive, california. caller: yes, i am here. in washington they have the debate and i will always feel that mitt romney always repeat the same thing over and over. you know, president obama did a good job for the four years. he came in when there was trouble with the e-mail. he did a good job and i am proud of him. caller: appreciate the call. the last one of the days from like in california. >> -- caller: hello? i want to talk about this last speech that mitt romney had in nevada. how out of touch do you have to be to talk about a shuttle crash where people died and you keep talking about a flag? he said he got electricity when he touched it? what about going to the graves of americans who died and feeling the electricity there? come on. really out of touch. i really do not want to vote for a guy who just reminds me of the next nixon, the next reagan. just sweating to the whole debate, a complete flip-flop for liar. just insane. >> we appreciate the call. that was the last one for this session of phones. another rally today for mitt romney in morrison, colorado. our live coverage continues at 7:00 eastern with the indiana u.s. senate debate between richard murdock and jove anomaly. the race is being read as a tossup. they are vying for the stew -- a seat left by dick lugar. also tonight, the third-party candidate debate. larry king moderates from chicago. the candidates are the green party, the libertarian party, the constitutional party, and the justice party. we will have that tonight on c- span. >> with the focus on the presidential debates this month, c-span is asking middle school and high-school students to send a message to the president. students will ask a question to the president about the most important issue to be considered in 2013. the competition is open to students grades 6 through 12. for complete rules, gone blind. -- go online. >> now to new york city, for more on the jewish vote. and the relationship to the republican party. tevi troy joins hank sheinkopf at hank -- at the university in new york. >> for those of you who arrived late -- the bush and clinton years, 1992 to 2008, an important time in terms of the american israeli relationship. developments in the middle east resonated with the jewish vote. we are fortunate to have with us this morning two people well- positioned to see these events unfold and share these insights with us. we will begin with dr. try, -- dr. troy, his deputy secretary of health and human services. he writes regularly for other leading can -- publications. the doctor will be followed by hank sheinkopf, who will give us a different perspective as former adviser to bill clinton and other prominent political leaders. he has worked on an estimated 700 political campaigns, according to my notes, in his long and distinguished career. we will start with dr. troy. >> good morning, thank you. i know that we have not gone to q&a yet, but it makes you wonder, hank, do you know the names of all of the people you have consulted for? >> not on purpose. >> like grandchildren. >> many of my grandchildren have not been born yet. >> i am not so sure that we will have different perspectives. we have worked together in the past. i think we will take different approaches to what we talked about in this period. i will start earlier, that is just as it is. i also want to begin with something unprecedented in these scholarly types of panels. a shameless self-promotion plug. i have these six words that most people use -- i have a book coming out. the working title, which might change, "from cicero to study, how -- snooki, how culture shapes the president." it is a look at how information that comes to the present changes over time, when we did not have the types of technologies we have today back in the olden days. obviously, our founders were limited to performances onstage. there were still the argument i want to make is that with the information it has to shout -- helped to shape their approach to israel. we can also understand a little bit about what kind of president someone is going to be by the types of materials they read. in a way, although the program says i am talking about bush, i am talking about how books shaped policies towards the people in them. what presidents have read about israel shapes their policy. we have to start with harry truman, we really do. if you go back to 1948, 1947, it was not clear that the united states would be an ally of israel or that the united states would support the creation of the state of israel. these were open questions. in fact on many of these questions, the state department was not in the right place. they were not as supportive of israel. in fact, secretary of state marshall at one point threatened to resign if he went ahead with the position. truman stood firm against a statement. he did have the u.s. vote to create the partition, he did have the u.s. recognize israel. these were important statements that he made. one of the things that i read in the article, i think you can talk about this in the conversation later, the jewish vote was important. by supporting it the way that he did, harry truman helped to secure the democratic vote for a long time to come. there are a lot of reasons why jewish people vote democratic, but amongst one of the many reasons is that early on, harry truman was supportive of the creation of the state, which helped democrats to gain the jewish vote. there are other historical reasons, lord knows that jewish people talk about them a lot, and we can talk about them later, but that really was an important step. the question is -- why did harry truman do this? another reason, harry truman was a huge reader. he was the last president not to have graduated college. think about it, president's not read during college? sort of unthinkable, today. no matter who wins this election, every president dating back to the post-1980 election will have had a degree from either harvard, yale, or in the case of george w. bush, both -- and you would not have guessed him on that, right? but back then that was not the case. harry truman, as i said, was a huge reader. he started as a child, his parents strongly encouraged his reading. insisted on it. at one point his father talked about how he saved a whole bunch of money to buy a set of mark twain's books. he also read the bible over and over again, getting his vision and conception of the jewish people from his frequent reading of the bible. there was another book that frequently influenced him, great men and famous women. it was this book about rate figures in history. one of the people featured in this book was cyrus the great, the persian king that allowed the israelites to return after the babylonian exile. 70 years after the babylonian exile, the returned from babylonia at the allowance of the persian king, who let the go back -- let the jews go back. he was very influenced by this. there is a story that truman came to give a speech in new york. he went to the seminary, 60 of blocks from here, and was introduced by eddie jacobson. his jewish friend from missouri. they had even had a haberdashery business together. jacobson blamed the demise of the business on andrew jackson. how could that be, jackson died 100 years before the business began. well, he said that instead of tending to the customers, truman was always reading biographies of and jackson. in this particular instance, when jacobson introduced truman at the event, he called truman the leader that helps to create the state of israel. helped create. remember that assisting word. helped. truman was indignant. he said -- what the mean helped? i am cyrus. he clearly had cyrus on the brain in his views of israel. doing this was obviously beneficial to the jewish people and the state of israel. it led to the u.s. alliance with the state of israel and also, as i said, helped to secure the jewish vote for democrats for a long time to come, along with other factors. let's fast-forward a number of years. the rule of thumb for a long time going forward after that point where the democrats were more pro-israel. it was just assumed going into the 1970's that the democrats were more--- more pro-israel. one of the reasons the man who assassinated robert kennedy did what he did was he did not want this pro-israel person to get into the presidency. these days you would not assassinate a presidential candidate because they were pro- israel. you have this situation where the republican party was not seen as pro-israel, as the democrats were. obviously, nixon in the 73 war got some crucial arms to the israelis. it took a while, and it seemed to be over the objections of his adviser, henry kissinger. but along with france and britain, they retreated in the 56 war. certainly in congress you had people like scoop jackson, who strongly opposed the israeli democrats. then the 1970's happened. 1976, jimmy carter becomes president with the assistance of what later became known as the neo-conservatives in the coalition for democratic majority. these are people who were disaffected and left adrift of the democratic party. they were looking for something different. they will -- were not happy of realpolitik of kissinger, but they were not happy with mcgovern either. they were looking for something different. jimmy carter seemed to be the thing that was different. he had a very pro-human rights view that seemed to appeal to these nascent neo-conservatives. when they elected him, they were disappointed on a number of levels. one was a personal perspective. they were almost completely shut out. elliott abrams has this famous, and where he said -- we did not get anything, all we got was the ambassadorship to micronesia. not even macronesia. they also said the foreign policy of carter was not sufficiently strong. and that the neo-conservative joke of the era was that the foreign policy was -- lose the country, a gain an ethnic restaurant. vietnam, afghanistan -- that was the sense. you had all of these ethnic restaurants popping up in washington, d.c. carter had difficult relationships with israel. not as bad as after he was president, i must say, but they did but heads. seen as an alternative, not good from the pro-israel effective. reagan got 39% of the jewish vote in 1980. what is a bit about that? for a republican, it was a huge achievement. over the. i am talking about, a high water mark was 39%, the lower mark was 11%. i will talked about that in a minute. that range is really the vote of jewish support or israel romney, no one says he will get a majority of the jewish vote, but if he gets into the 30's that is a good sign. there were three elections where republicans got 3% or higher of the jewish vote. even bush in '88. not for ensign nellie, republicans won all three elections. reagan talked about israel as an ally in the cold war, which was important -- . he also talked about them as being largely deficient in democracies, to say the least. reagan had that important feeling towards israel. people do not think about him being a big reader. the only way he did this was my reading "commentary magazine." he read a very famous article and in it, kirkpatrick, a democrat drifting to the right for a very strong pro-israel policy and strong and tough policy against the soviets, he argued that in recent history, no totalitarian administration or regime had ever moved a democracy, where an authoritarian regime, if treated properly, did become an autonomous democracy, suggesting the reagan foreign policy should be as tough as policy as totalitarian regimes put work with authoritarian regimes. this was a very important theme of the reagan administration. kirkpatrick entered the administration and i -- >> i believe that was all laid years. >> reagan really helped to bring jewish voters and the republican party. call he did help to bring them in, a very important development. now, after the reagan the administration, that we get george h. w. bush. as i said earlier, he hit over third -- he got over 30% the first time that he ran as the party nominee. so, bush started off with a nice base of support in the jewish community. however, he lost the support and he lost it hard. there are a number of reasons, some of them still famous to this day. he objected -- he came to a disagreement over loan guarantees for israel based on whether settlements were being built. it all sounds familiar. he gave a speech where he said he was one lonely guy fighting an army of lobbyists, seen as a tough shot across the bout at a packed -- at apac. but worst -- worse than that, the james baker comment. where he said "f the jews, they are not going to vote for a senate ways." ed koch was the first one to print that statement. it was leaked to him by his friend, jack kemp. he was a strong supporter of israel. he told ed koch about this outrageous statement. he still has not gotten over it. support for bush plummeted. i will not say that the next thing is directly related, but the elder bush was not a reader. reagan was reading magazines and getting insides. that was not bush's interest. there was one time he was going on vacation and was asked what you do on vacation. he said he would do a lot of running, a lot of tennis, lots of golf, power boating, horseshoes, and a little reading -- throwing that out for the intellectuals. there was another time out -- when he was asked about a book that influenced him in his youth. he said "catcher in the rye." it came out 10 years after he had graduated college. obviously he had not read that in his youth. he was just not a reader. some people are, some blood not, i do not hold it against them, but he was not getting ideas for how to articulate support for israel or even more generally foreign-policy from his reading, although he did in the 1992 campaign that was going badly for an, he talked about how he read truman at that time. he did read that one. following bush, in fact in the bush clinton election that i am sure that hank will talk about, the jewish vote plummeted from the 35% that he got in 88 to 11%. that is the low water mark. a 11% of the jewish vote. which, i mean -- in most pre- obama elections the black vote was 10% for republicans. the jewish vote had sent to the same place as the african- american vote for republicans. there was the israel policy, then the economy not doing well, plus he was up against a political life for our in the form of bill clinton. clinton also had a very strong pro-israel background. he had that famous statement. he was comfortable to the jewish people in domestic social policies, and on the foreign policy as well. so, they had eight years of clinton. then, the son of bush comes around, looking to step into the office after clinton retires. without the constitutional amendment, clinton might still be president, but he is not. we have that amendment. bush was running to replace him. i have a friend, an orthodox, yarmulkes wearing friend who was at an event with george w. bush around the election. bush saw him out in the crowd, grabbed him from the crowd and said -- i want you to know that i will not be like my father on israel. bush, w. bush, let's just say that, w. bush was from a very different perspective. he had grown up in the northeast, that northeastern establishment, part of the real politick world. w. bush was more from the south, an evangelical background, groups that are much more supportive of israel. bush was also a huge reader. love reading. people do not think that about him, but it happens to be the case that he would read 80 books to 90 books for year. these are serious books. karl rove once said that in the 35 years he had known george w. bush, he never saw him without a book nearby. the guy loved to read. he did not advertise it. he especially did not advertise it when he was running for governor of texas. in fact he had lost an election in 1998 against a democrat, who blistered bush for being a carpetbagger, pointy head, northeastern harvard and be of type. this is george w. bush we are talking about. bush was eviscerated on that front. after that election, bush vowed that he would never be out country'd again. and he wasn't. bush, even though he was a reader, did not talk about that until late in the second term when he was trying to change his reputation. but as hank tells you, when you try to change your reputation at that stage in the game, it is too late. nevertheless, the book that he read helped to shape his world view. he read the books of bernard lewis, a lot of neoconservatives thinkers, including ej when nick, who he would bring in to the white house. eliot cohen, who wrote about political leaders in general, including lincoln and winston churchill. later he came into the bush and administration as an advisor to condoleezza rice. he also most famously read a book on democracy by sheranzski. it so affected him, he had his senior staff to read it. he had the other come in to visit and talk about it. afterwards the authors said that bush not only read the book, that he felt it. this idea of democracy became an important influence for the second inaugural address, where bush pushed for the development of democracy in the arab world. some say that the arab spring, which has turned into an unpleasant winter, but the initial impetus came from the ideas unleashed by that speech. so, with bush we had a very pro- israel president who fought strongly that israel was