Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20141224

As we stop putting our heads in the hand and think we are above everyone else it is shameful we have not done that. What will come behind that are reforms that will make a profound difference. Finally, what we have to do is demand from our elected leaders that they not simply be tough on crime, but they be smart, that they care about Public Safety and what we included Public Safety. Things like the health of our poorest and the quality of education and the opportunity for people to be safe and secure in the neighborhoods and communities. We have to ask the questions. Sometimes it does not take more than someone saying, do we have too many people in jail or prisons . Let me hear what you have to say about that. About these talk issues. Heres what happened in these executions were people were being tortured, suffering. Should we stop . Should we stop . Do we have a criminal Justice System that is unfair to the poor. She we do Something Different . Is it to racist . Those are the questions that we have asked on the profound human rights issues that is becoming a dominant issue for our society. All i can say is, i am so happy thank you very much. [applause] thank you. [applause] Staten Island republican congressman Michael Grimm pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion tuesday. That is exactly seven weeks after winning reelection to a third term. He spoke to a capitol Hill Reporter about the story. Republican new york congressman, Michael Grimm pleads guilty to tax of usin evn today. She has details on that guilty plea. He represents Staten Island and brookland. What did you hear . What are these charges . What is he pleading guilty to . In late april, it was revealed that congressman graham from Staten Island and brookland was being handed a 20 count federal indictment involving his ownership and operation of a Health Food Store prior to his election to congress. Ofhas been accused withholding more than 1 million from the government and tax evasion, tax fraud, wire fraud, hiring undocumented immigrants, paying employees of the book, a wholender oath, i a whol host of allegedly in conduct. He had been maintaining his an innocence. He was able to survive reelection in november. He was set to go to trial in february. Today, he went to court in brooklyn and decided to plead guilty to one of the 20 counts himisconduct lodged against and he chose to plead guilty to tax evasion. Heap leads guilty to one count what happens next in this case . Unclear why he chose that over others. He may be alleging that he only gets one thing wrong did one thing wrong. He is only speaking to that particular count. He says this is something that many people do and it wasnt done out of malicious intent. It wasnt done to hurt anybody or try to skirt the law. He acknowledges that it was a mistake. He did it. He is sorry. He tried to downplay the fairies and as it in court today to the judge and in speaking to reporters outside the courthouse. What comes next is that he will be sentenced in early june. He could face prison time. In the meantime, he still plans to serve in congress. If he is able to survive this. It is not clear if he is going to be censured by his colleagues or if the leadership will ask him to resign. This is a Million Dollar mistake that we are talking about here. One of your colleagues tweeted that he is not going to be resigning, or at least he says he will not. Lets take a look at that tweet saying, resigning, absolutely not. Happen before i was in congress and for the past four years of and a strong Effective Member of congress. What is their reaction . What are their options . They have a few options. Line here is that a member of congress can continue to serve while under a conviction. Certainly not when they are in prison, but he these new developments in his case dont preclude him continuing to serve. There are options that leadership can do. They can strip him of his leadership. He is not serving on another committee. They can strip him his vote on the house floor. That is another way they can render him irrelevant. Him that hean tell does not have any other options and step aside. They can continue to alienate and marginalize them isolate him, rather, intel he has no choice but to leave. If people do not want to make deals with him. We saw that with another congressman, a republican from florida last year who was arrested for cocaine possession. He tried to survive it. He took a leave of absence to go to rehab. He thought he could weather the storm. It was not viable for him in that situation. He was just reelected who is waiting in the wings in upe he either does not go for another election or if he is forced out of office . Both congressional , the nationalrms Republican Campaign committee, they are being quiet. Certainly, they are working behind the scenes to prepare the strongest candidate possible in the event he has to step aside and a special election is triggered. The democrats have a lot of stake in this. They feel a democratic couldnger from brooklyn challenge him in this last cycle. He ended up not being as strong of a candidate as they would like. He suffered a certain amount of embarrassment. They could not find a candidate Strong Enough to beat him. It seems like it would have been a shooin. It was not. Recruit still hoping to , a Staten Island born and bred democrat. Fromtually served 20082010 and was swept out of office by Michael Grimm. He spoke to cq roll call today and confirm that people are calling him. , but being recruited declined to say whether he would accept the challenge should opportunity arise. You can find her reporting at rollcall. Com and also on twitter. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. On the next washington journal, peter wainer discusses a recent poll on whether americans feel 2015 will be a better year than 2014. After that, shane harris looks at the rise of the military internet complex, exploring the militarys use of cyberspace to wage war. Plus, we will take your phone calls, facebook contents, and tweets. Washington journal is live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Sunday on q a, Washington Post fact checker columnist on his biggest pinocchios of 2014 award, given to politicians and political groups he believes made the biggest false claims of the past year. Democrats tend to get more upset at him. They have bought into the myth of the liberal media. They think the media is on their side. , soblicans firmly believe they kind of expect that they frombe its a reporter the Washington Post calling, they will not be fair to me. I hope that over the last four years i have done enough back partiesh, tweeted both treated both parties with equal fervor that people will come to be grudgingly say youre somebody we can do business with. The Senate Majority packed which is affiliated with harry reid, they stopped answering my questions midway through the Campaign Season because they felt they were not hitting a fair shake from it. Easterny night at 8 00 on cspans q a. Next, Hillary Clinton talks about women and business and their impact on the Global Economy. This event was held at georgetown university. [applause] good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to welcome all of you. Thank you for joining us for the special event. Today we celebrate the International Council on womens is his leadership, previously establish that the state department and now relaunched here at georgetowns institute for women, peace, and security. On this occasion, we have the great privilege of hearing reflections on the power of womens economic participation from the founder of the council, the honorable Hillary Rodham clinton. A pleasures welcoming sector clinton to our campus. Ill will have the honor of introducing her just a minute. First, i want to say a few words about the council. The International Council on womens is his leadership was founded by secretary clinton during her time as the 67th United States secretary of state. The mission of the council is to examine the most pressing issues as they pertain to womens economic dissipation. Members of the council include prominent global Women Leaders from the private sector, government, and Civil Society. We will have the chance to hear from four distinct members of little later in the program. The issues that the council will focus on are deeply resonant with the mission of this university. The Economic Empowerment of women and the promotion of gender equality, equal access to capital and markets, and the building of capacity in skills all reflect our tradition of social justice, our commitment to equal opportunity, and our dedication to the common good. The issues are at the very heart of how we at georgetown conceive of our place in our global family. I wish to express my gratitude ambassador for her ongoing leadership of the Georgetown Institute for women, pease, and security, and for her vision and welcoming the council to georgetown. At this moment in time, we recognize that no nation can fullest potential if any segment of its population is abused, neglected, or pressed , or disenfranchised. If their voices and talents are ignored, their promise and possibility remain unrealized. In this context that we are greatly honored to house the International Council on womens Business Leadership and believe deeply in the impact that can make throughout our world. In the words of secretary clinton, including more women at the top of organizations, businesses, and the Public Sector is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. It is good for business. It is good for results. It is now my honor to introduce our speaker today, for nearly four decades and in verys roles, secretary clinton has. Hampioned womens issues she has strengthened opportunities for womens political, economic, and social engagement and has long been a voice for the disenfranchised. And her acclaimed speech and beijing in 1995, she declared that human rights are womens rights and womens rights are human rights. It is a defining moment for the global womens rights movement. Throughout her career of service and advocacy, then his first lady, next as United States senator, and most recently as secretary of state, she has worked not only to highlight womens contributions, but to create and institutionalize new policies. Her efforts continue to ensure greater recognition of the roles of women in economic development, peace building, and political systems around the world. Here at georgetown we are honored by her dedication as the honorary founding chair of our institute for women, peace, and security. Now, ladies and general and, it is my deep privilege to introduce to the stage the honorable Hillary Rodham clinton. [applause] hello, georgetown. Oh my goodness. Hello. Oh, my goodness. Thank you very much. Be back ats great to georgetown. President ,hank the not only for those really kind remarks, but for his real understanding and commitment to the issue that we are here to discuss today, and that is the empowerment and participation of women and girls, and in particular, in the economy. , iore i turn to that subject want to express my personal feelings about the loss of dean carol lancaster. Carol was a great colleague over the last years. I traveled with her, worked with secretary,en i was we looked for and created a lot of partnerships with the school of foreign service. So, my thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends and the entire university community. She would really have loved to be here. She would have heartily approved of this gathering. She was instrumental in the creation of the first ever anywhere in the world Georgetown Institute for women, peace, and security. So for me, this is yet another wonderful opportunity to talk about the work that georgetown is doing in partnership with so many others. The model that georgetown is providing to the institute, which is on the brink of being replicated in other places around the world who recognize the significance of taking the subject of women, peace, and security and integrating them within a worldclass Academic Institution like georgetown. One of the partners, one of the new partners, for the institute is the International Council on womens leadership in business. This is a council that i started with the ambassador when i served as secretary of state. Data thatood from the , and whatle to gather we saw as the challenges confronting women here and around the world, that economic participation needed much more attention. Many very pleased that so Women Business leaders from around the globe were willing to join this council. The council has now moved to establish its permanent home from the state department to georgetown. Leaders have traveled from across the world from every hemisphere, every continent to participate. Thank theticularly to cochairs, sharif blair, who is who wasay traveling in asia. My friend,ateful to your fellow georgetown alum, the first ambassador for global womens issues for spearheading so much of this work. When we first convened this council at the state department there may of 2012 have been more than a few Foreign Policy traditionalists thinking, is it really worth a secretary of states time to start a program on womens economic participation . Is this the type of issue that demands sustained and highlevel attention . As i wrote about in my book, hard choices, then describe the four years that i was privileged to service secretary, the answer for me is very clearly yes. When you are in a position in a world that we have around us today, you are of course have to deal with the immediate crises, with the brewing crises, with the crises over the horizon, but you also have to look for ways of leveraging the kind of outcomes that you hope are achievable here in our country and, more poorly, around the world that will lead to greater peace, prosperity, and progress. Of course there is a very compelling moral case to be made. From ord never shy away saying that womens rights are human rights. There is also pragmatic case it undergirds that moral imperative. As the first lady traveling across africa, everywhere i looked i saw women working. I saw them working in their fields, in their market stalls, curing water, curing firewood, selling crafts. I asked some of the economist we were meeting with, how you evaluate the contributions that women make to the economy . I will never forget. One reply, we dont. They dont participate. Met was classic Economic Analysis he meant the formal economy. One doesmy of the jobs in offices or factories. The work that sustain families, that created opportunities for these women to gather some income in the markets or to produce enough food to feed their families with maybe a little left over, it was just not counted. That got me thinking. What would happen if women informalorking in the economy . I said to the economist, wouldnt your analysis mean that you would not be counting what they were doing in the informal economy, but the economy would stop . He said, yes, that is a point. [laughter] it is a point we are finally beginning to grapple with. It is true that if more women have the opportunity to participate fully in the formal economy, they, their families and their communities, will prosper. For example, we know that in india, where women spend an average of six hours a day theorming unpaid labor Gross Domestic Product would womeny 1. 7 trillion if participated in the formal labor ,orce at the same level as men or even if the work they were now doing, like in those market stalls if their activities were more respected, they would be included in the calculation of the formal economy. I know there must be some economic students here. I hope you will think about this issue. How do you evaluate the work in the socalled informal economy . More women tot move from the informal economy to the formal economy. That is what the council is focused on. It iso want, in so far as possible, to evaluate the contributions from the informal economy. Unfortunately, a new global report released as this week confirms that despite some small improvement, the gender gap in economic participation and opportunity remains high around the world. The consequences are significant. That gap and workforce participation between men and women around the world, gdp would grow by nearly 12 by 2030. At the state department, as we began to try to integrate ,omens participation opportunities, and right into our foreignpolicy objectives, we began to look for and ask for the creation of more data. If you present this kind of data about what it would mean for the gross semester product of nations and regions, and even of the world that is acceptable and compelling, hence start nodding, even among skeptical leaders in the public and private sectors. That is why at the Clinton Foundation, my daughter chelsea and i are heading up an initiative called, no ceilings. We are collecting and analyzing a vast amount of data to map out and girls haves and girl made since the conference in beijing, but also to highlight the gaps that remain. Nearly two decades after the united nationsconference called for in the platform for action full participation it in every aspect of society, a growing number of leaders have come to understand how important this is. They see that we cannot afford to leave talent on the sidelines or money on the table. We began rolling out our thinking behind this agenda at apeconference concerning that the United States was sponsoring in 2011. Apec San Francisco declaration of the momentum building. It focuses on the mosers obstacles women face in business, access to capital, access to markets, skills training, capacity building, and leadership. These challenges have guided the work of this council as well. Two, access to capital and leadership. Globally, researchers estimate that the financing gap for where thed businesses greatest acceleration of growth occurs that is where most of the jobs come from that gap between financing womens businesses and mens businesses is around 285 billion. Yet, we know that if more women have access to credit, more businesses would get off the ground, more jobs will be created, more revenue generated. Similarly, women still face fewer opportunities to rise up the corporate ladder and hold leadership positions. Only 5 of the ceos of Fortune Global Companies are women. This is despite the fact that it is now been very convincingly shown that when women have a seat at the Corporate Board perspectives often improve Corporate Governance and performance. Through our Councils Partnership and our programs, we have made some encouraging progress in these areas, but we know there is more to be done. Laws and regulations are still on the books and more than 100 countries that limit womens economic participation. There is a substantial gender connectivity and mobile use. Abilities toomens take advantage of new opportunities. Of all and economies women enter the workforce, new challenges emerge. The Prime Minister was elected in japan, he said one of the best things he could do to get the economy moving again would be to get women into the workforce he called it conomics. With him about what he meant by this and what his government was trying to do about it. He spoke about the obstacles discouraging japanese women, in a highlyen developed country, from entering the workplace and the cultural shift needed to break out those expandingnd flexibility in the workplace, access to child care and elder care would boost productivity and allow more parents, men as tol as women, to work work full days. Women are primarily responsible for both childcare and elder care. The kind oft alternatives that exist in many other societies. Rate of a very low coming intorkers the country. He is opening the door to the whole debate around workfamily balance and around the care that is necessary to be provided. There is nothing more important than caring for ones family members. How is that accomplished in a way that will benefit individual families and the entire country . In the obstacles here United States as well. Four in 10 primary breadwinners are now women. Yet american women still make less than men for doing the same job. The lack of flexible and predictable scheduling, affordable childcare, paid sick leave and paid leave, we are one of the few countries without it. It keeps too many women on the sidelines. If you ask ago, while we were in waiting for ourthou granddaughter to make her appearance, a nurse came to me and said thank you for fighting for paid leave. Shewent on to tell me that sees families every day who struggle to balance work and parenthood. In fact, she does it herself even while she is taking care of someone elses baby her thoughts are with her own. What if her child gets sick . How will she be in two places at once . This is the constant interior dialogue that goes on for the vast majority of women, mothers in our country. So we know that we have made progress. The women on this council are clear. Are clear evidence of that and some of the brightest minds in the world are gathered here. Leaders, diplomats, heads of multilateral organizations, senior government officials, issue experts and they are helping us think through how we solve these challenges. I will give you a great example we just heard about from our counsel. One of our councilmembers from indonesia said she had done a study of markets because most of the people, 90 , of the people working in markets, which is still the place where most of the people in the world, not supermarkets but real, on the ground local markets get their food, get their goods that they need to run their households she did a study. 90 of the people working in the markets are women. Availableno toilets for women in the numbers that they represent. Think about it. It is such a simple thing. Here is certainly no childcare so is there a safe place you can leave your child while you are wrestling around trying to sell in the marketplace . And maybe your hours are going to be severely restricted because there is no place to use a restroom. Husbandly met with my the new Prime Minister of india, Prime Minister modi. He is very focused on basics like sanitation. Girls, as they get older, cannot go to school if there is no sanitation. Women cant get very far from home because there is no toilet. So we in this council are looking at everything from truly thatost basic barriers enable girls and women to go on to higher education, enable them to be in the workforce aware away from their homes for some period during the day, all the way to how do we get more women on Corporate Boards and into executive positions. We are really here today to invite the students of georgetown to help us problem solve, to think through ideas that you might be either aware and shareking about with the institute for women peace and security as we continue this work. In a few minutes, there will be a Panel Discussion with leaders from the united kingdom, israel, indonesia, and the United States. So we can get into more depth on some of these issues. Finally on the global agenda. I have come a long way since had those discussions back in africa in the 1990s where it just didnt register that there was a problem. Worry in the informal economy. Everybody knew that but it did not account for anything. There was no real effort made to open the doors to try to help more women get into the formal economy. So we need to be looking at what have worked in communities around the world. We need to scale and sustain past ideas, collaborate, bring have a greathat partnership between the public and the private sector and Civil Society because, if you look at the data that has been generated by the world bank, by the imf, by the oecd, by private sector wherets, we, in a time the Global Growth rate is not yet what it needs to be, it is not really fully recovered from the Great Recession and crisis 2009, we have made more progress comparatively in the United States but we still have millions of americans who have not recovered their income, who dont have job security, who are longterm unemployed. So why would we ignore any solution that might work . And if you look at the data, ad i invite you all to do that and we are going to be producing more data through the Clinton Foundation no ceilings initiative, it is very clear that the more women we can get to participate fully and get ,aid equal pay for equal work the faster our economy will recover and economies across the world likewise. That haveojections been calculated, if we could get womens Labor Force Participation to equal mens are really staggering. In developed countries, it could 10 . Ght percent, 9 , in less developed countries so thiso be 30 to 40 issue about how we create jobs in the Global Economy today, for men and for women, have we really help prepare young people for the jobs that are going to be available through education to training, this is going be one of the most significant questions for Public Policy and for privatesector decisionmakers. As those of you who are students here graduate and go into the world of work, we need more entrepreneurship. We need to encourage more young people to start businesses. We need more seed capital. We need more crowdfunding. We need more access. We need more mentoring. And teaching about Business Plans and how you deal with the economy and the stresses you will face. We have a whole menu of issues that will be relevant to men and women. But if we say some extra attention to getting women into the formal economy, it will be good for everybody. We cannot get ahead in the United States or anywhere by doing what we used to do because that is not the world in which we live today. We have to unlock the potential of every person and grow the. Conomys of every nation it is the only way we are going to be able to Grow Together and middleclass that is dynamic and strong and creating jobs and opportunities for generations to come. With this new grandchild of hours, we spent a lot of time looking at her [laughter] and a lot of time thinking about and we want to do for her there certainly is no doubt that her parents and her grandparents and her extended family will do all that we can to make sure she has every opportunity to fulfill her own godgiven potential. About theo worry world that she will inherit as an adult. What will be the opportunity available to her and to others in 20 to 25 years as they enter adulthood . Here in our country, we call it the american dream. Others have different variations on that, but we have always believed that every generation, by working hard, can do better than the last. We have been confident and optimistic through hard times. We have rebounded. We have shown resilience. But we need to make some adjustments. Our system has to be better prepared to deal with the realities of the world we are in today. You are getting great preparation here at georgetown, one of the premier places for your education. But you should not have to be someone who goes to georgetown or, in our case, the granddaughter of a former president who also happened to go to georgetown. [laughter] tools and tohe have the support of your community as well as your family. Bill and i talk a lot. We came from different that grounds, but, boy, did we have extraordinary opportunities. He, from arkansas, me, from outside of chicago. In addition to the Public Schools in the public parks, and the stable Economic Opportunities that were passed together by our respective families over time, the hard work that went into that, we believed that there was this unlimited potential out there. That is what i want you to believe. But not just you. People your age not very far from here who may be didnt finish high school, maybe are in the workforce, could not dream of being in this magnificent gaston hall, but who are part of our larger community, our web of responsibility. We will do so much better if we remember that we should find a. Ay to help everybody and this council is looking specifically about how we help girls and women to fulfill their own economic intentional economic potential. Thank you all very much. [applause] so now to expand on what secretary clinton said about doing what every country wants economies,wth its create jobs, ensure inclusive prosperity for its people, we are going to have a conversation among four remarkable women who, as you heard, come from four different. Different parts of the world. And that comprise different parts, the socalled golden triangle, the private sector, civilment, and nonprofit society philanthropy. After we have a conversation among ourselves, we will open students for questions. So think about what you might want to ask them. I will ask the panelists, as i introduce you, if you would please come forward and take your seats. So i want to welcome back cheri blaire. Foundation for women which supports entrepreneurs in developing countries, providing them with skills, technology, networks, and access to capital so they can better contribute to their economies. She has had a distinguished legal career and is well known for her work in human rights law. Today, she also shares on the strategy, a law firm. She is married to the former Prime Minister of the u. K. Tony blair. Cheri, happy to have you. [applause] and for nuven is the global strategy and marketing officer for bank of america. And a member of the companys executive management. She also leads bank of americas Corporate Social Responsibility program which uses the capabilities of the company and its Global Platform to work with a range of partners. Been on everyedly list as one of the most powerful women in banking. We want to welcome you back to georgetown. The honorable is the former minister of trade and later the minister for tourism and the Creative Economy in indonesia. She is a powerful leader who has been called the woman behind. Ndonesias Economic Growth she is regarded as a wellknown Economic Expert on trade and she is she has also been on the faculty of economics in the university of indonesia and is widely published as a professional economist. Theyre in mind that indonesia is southeast asias most populous country and its largest economy. [applause] oh for a strauss is the chairperson of the board of the strauss group, on International Corporation with a portfolio of five companies and thousands of employees around the world. , has been ranked among the top business women in the world. She is also the president of jasmine, a program that works who jewish and arab women are engaged in small and mediumsized businesses in israel. An effective combining of Free Enterprise and social responsibility. We welcome her with us today. [applause] so thank you all for being here. Secretaryheard clinton talk about the importance of womens participation in the economy and certainly the role that Women Entrepreneurs have in starting Small Businesses and growing largelyir potential is untapped around the world. You have a foundation now that has been doing extraordinary work in training and mentoring women in entrepreneurship. Give us a sense of what a difference that makes and how in aartner with others collaborative way to ensure that this work can go on. The difference it makes, if you can make [indiscernible] in the formal economy is vast. Both for the economy itself and its growth, but also for the impact it has on their families and their communities. Research shows time and time again that women reinvest all the money that they make back into the home and into the wider community. So it makes Good Business sense help women participate. As for the foundation, we have tried to work with small and mediumsized entrepreneurs in developing countries, in particular africa, the middle east and asia, to help them expand and grow their business, partly by giving them capacity training, partly by giving them andrtunities for mentoring particularly by harnessing the power of technology. I think one of the ways that we have done that most successfully is by not trying to do it all ourselves but by partnering with , other nonprofit associations working in this area and also within the private sector and with government. A great exfo is our mentoring platform which was highlighted in the International Council in the Business Leaders last report. Addition, we team up aanks to google, we now have mentoring platform that operates in 25 Different Countries and we have reached now nearly 1500 women mentees. We have match them with men and women mentors across the world to so how do we find our mentees . By partnering with other organizations, such as the u. S. Ngos thatrtment and are already working in this area, asking them do they have women on their rogue rams who would benefit from a consistent yearlong support of two hours a month over the internet from somebody who tries to help them grow and expand their business . Where do we find our mentors . People come along and apply to join but we also have great business partnerships very for example, the partnership we have america, where rank of america has 125 mentors from bank of america. Individualthe partnerships on the platform, we also support the women so they can talk to each other. We have a network of information and advice. We recently entered into a Great Partnership with facebook where facebook now has a special area on facebook where they are giving our women mentees training on how to use facebook to expand and grow the marketing of their businesses. Very interesting to us, not only to see the impact this has made on the women. Hemselves overwhelmingly, 99 of the women mentees in this last intake and increase their confidence. 94 of them gained in their business knowledge. 84 of them got new Business Opportunities because of the mentoring platform. What was interesting in bank of america is that 100 of the bank of america mentors also found that they grew in their own knowledge and confidence and experience of the world. I think that made active america rather happy. Interestingly, we heard this today, too, in the council. Many women set of businesses and many of those is this is fail. 27 of our mentees with bank of america said, had it not been advice from their mentor, their business may have gone under. So i think we need to support women in this way. The great thing about the internet is that it means i can be sitting in london or new york or in mumbai and i could be supporting a woman in kenya or in israel or in indonesia. A resource fors the world. Thank you cheerie. Mentoring and training are extremely important. I remember meeting with some young entrepreneurs and they all had developed a terrific Business Strategy and they wanted to really start their and access to capital is not so easy. Tank oru run a very big you are close to run that big bank. I am wondering how can Financial Institutions be more creative in responding to this need . It is not just the world over without the United States. It includes the United States as well. I remember traveling with Hillary Clinton once when a woman in desperation said to her we have a terrific business plan. We know this is going to work. We have a niche, but we cant get that first loan. And then she said the best ideas die in bank parking lots. A way to we create solve some of this enormous challenges . Of course, we give a banks their best, they are like a financial transportation system. They should be helping economies move forward through the movement of money. It is sure that emma for the most part, you are giving Small Business knows Small Business loans to summit with a track record. When you dont have a track record, what do you do . That is true inside the u. S. And outside the u. S. One mechanism, a couple that we have tried to use and we are not financialhink the Services Industry is getting more savvy about this. Fives our Community Development Financial Institutions. They dont require the same amount of history in terms of making money or a game plan, but they do require a sort of handson approach. I give money to cd if cdfis. The banks are sort of feeling this. They provide a below market the cdfis along with grant dollars. The cdfi can give to these early companies, very small loans, up to 50,000, 60,000, even 200,000. It can be for housing but it is more specifically for Small Business. We have done a billion dollars of this kind of lending over the last several years. But we havent focused our smallion on womens businesses, very Small Businesses, as much as we could have. Two, we haveear or taken a very specific amount of money, 10 million with of lending, and worked with elizabeth Street Capital tory burch in trying to find these women and get the movement going. We are beginning to work with cherie outside the u. S. Through the calvert foundation. It is a partnership. A thirda nonprofit and party a government sort of exercise to get some money flowing into these businesses, very Small Businesses. Ofra, thats moved to another kind of challenge. A couple of years ago, i visited the jasmine project in tel aviv which was working to support small andewish mediumsized businesses run by women in israel. I later learned i did not know in my first visit, but i later learned you were instrumental in its leadership. Was a project that was indeed making a difference. So why did you get involved. You are a top businesswoman. Why did you get involved in being so catalytic in making this project succeed . And you you think that business women and others in business, because we need all the good men in this, can contribute to efforts of peace and security . Well, i have a few minutes to talk about my most important , to talk about israel Small Businesses and peace. Excuse me if i will not cover all of this in three minutes. You can go a little longer than it is a very important topic. It starts really with the fact that i realize, like all of you in many ways, i was privileged. I was privileged in really given the chance to be part of a great business which my grandmother, by the way, started. I thought it obvious. I thought its obvious i would get the chance. I thought its obvious that i was asked to work really, really hard. And if i prove myself, i will get any job i want in the world, by the way. The first opportunity was here in the u. S. I was accepted to work at estee lauder. It really starts with giving a chance to others and to me especially. When i became the chair of our business, i thought its obvious that, if you work hard and you do everything you can, you get thrive. The first interview i gave as a chair, i asked how is it to be a woman in the Business World . What do you mean . Really realized, when i looked at the numbers, i was the only chairperson in tel aviv of a hundred companies. So the beginning was really nice to be by myself. [laughter] really. But then i really realized it was not the case and i decided to use the fact that i am influential and, yes, it is not always that nice really to help of theomen be part Business World. For us in the Business World, it is all about the bottom line so it is a business case. Look at the numbers. There are articles. It makes sense to invest in women. But still, i am involved in this issue for the last five years and to move the needle it is difficult. Like every business that we start, entrepreneurship, you need a vision. You need a very Detailed Program to make it happen. So i am in this journey. I will share with you some of my iserience and a lot of it really not yet shown in numbers. So within our business, any business. In the p l, we have expenses. One of them is really salaries or how much we pay. This is what we ask in any board meeting. And the other is how much we can spend on buying bird so in parts influence, we cant how much we pay but who do we pay for. So how many women do we have in our workforce . I started to measure it. Women in management and 5050 women on everything we did and it will move and it will happen. No, it doesnt. It is about education. It is about the next generation. It is about doing it together, the whole management, men and women. So this is within the organization. About, ok, how much do we spend on procurement and buying. That is only the question i knew how to answer until i became one of the Women Council and and then i learned diversity in suppliers is an issue. So its a long answer to how did i get to this thing which is called Small Businesses and actually, when i came back from , i asked a procurement manager in our company who do we buy from. He said, what do you mean . How many Women Businesses . How many men . He said, you never asked it. I said, ok, i started to ask. Action, you know what . Its about that. Is about those questions. That is what it means, that it matters. It took us a year and a half to know exactly who are the owners of the businesses we buy from. That is how i actually said yes when i was asked to be the head of jaffe, a womenowned business. Ist made a difference for me that it is about jewish and arabowned businesses in and every country, when you look at the diversity, women is not one color, one shape. No, it is about the same the diversity. Its in the u. S. It is in every country. Ahad the privilege to be chair for an organization that speaks in three languages, arabic, english and hebrew, because the women who are a part of our organization do not speak one language. Nesw is that. So inclusiveness is that. News, it is the about the war, aggression, all the things that we in the middle east suffer from. This is an island, jewish and arab women sitting together. It is about our business. It is about empowerment in it is about making money, feeding family. It is about business. But it is also really talking about or looking at what does it mean when we share the same goals. Needhing of peace, if you an optimistic voice year, it can be done just because i can see it. And we have this dream that one everyn area error in arab country, you will see adjustments to in that moment at the moment, we really cannot because of the situation in the middle east. So Women Empowerment and women owned businesses is a movement. If we Work Together and the u. S. Is a vital voice. If u. S. Yourself, you americans, if it is important that you express your opinion, that you will influence, i can say very clearly yes. Democracy matters. Thank you all. [applause] so minister, we have gone from nonprofit area to business. You have been in government for many years with portfolios that are extremely important to the economy of indonesia. How important is the partnership with government in all of this . And what are some of the challenges you had to confront indonesia still confronts because this is still , but inuing process terms of moving women from informal economy to the formal economy and growing their role in the formal economy . Thank you. Im very pleased to be here today to share the experiences m a developing company developing country and a policymakers the point. Transforming yourself from thinking about it and implementing policy is an interesting journey for me in the last 10 years in government. Than just reflecting just where did the switch come from. Thethe switch became switch came before i became the minister when i was working on millennium goals on poverty. We were in africa and we were talking about village empowerment and how important it was to have decisionmaking done by the villagers, what the money would be used for to help the village. It turned out that, when you had them and decide what they wanted the money to be used for, they wanted it to be used for a parabola so they could watch football. And the women wanted the money to be used for having a piping system so they didnt have to spend three hours a day getting. Ater that was kind of the light switch and me and said, ok, its not just about Women Participation in the economy. It is even more basic than that. It is about the decisionmaking from the beginning as to what the money should be allocated to and that was an important lesson for me going into government, as to how important it was to involve the women in the decisionmaking. Talking aboutn informal to formal peer it is even more basic than that. So when we went into government, we had very much that in the back of our minds so that, when we were implementing policy, when you say mainstreaming gender, it sounds so good and so easy to do on paper. But when you actually try to implement it on the ground, it is not always that easy. So we tried very hard to think and we always tried to influence the men, of course, because we were still even though we had doubled the number of women in the cabinet at the time from two to 4 [laughter] president was actually very openminded and he gave very important portfolios to women. I was in charge of trade and she was in charge of finance. Theere able to influence policy making. I will give you a few examples as to how in practice, if you lly have to think about it secretary clinton mentioned the example of the traditional markets. As minister of trade, one of my first jobs was to revitalize traditional markets. That is all Informal Sector. The traders are women. 90 of the people who shop are women. Into the market, i was aghast because the toilets were not designed for women. Because it was the men who were designing the markets during the construction. And then i was seeing women working in the markets and they had babies and they had children running around in the mess of the market and i said this is not right. And that is when i started to introduce you have to redesign the market because it is the women who are working there, etc. , etc. We managed to make sure there are Childcare Centers and toilets that were poorly designed. And guess what . You know what the prophet centers were . The ldcare center and they were the prophet centers. It is more business. The cashad to deliver transfer program after the rays of the fuel price, all of the empiricals i am a great believer in the data, it goes back to my parabola and water example. If you give the women the money for the Cash Transfer because you are talking about giving it to the poor, more likely, it will be used to put food on the table and save a little bit for the education. The empirics show that. So we wanted to give the money to the women and our president supported it didnt unfortunately, because of the regulation, because of the family cart it is the men who are the head of the family. We couldnt do it. Eventually, we served to develop programs where we get ashley wee the money to women could actually give the money to women. Cash for work during a crisis is not just for men. It has to be for women, too. Just make it for making roads. It has to also be for women. You have to really think about it and show the economic value. Or women we used a lot of the arguments and i think we really appreciate what secretary clinton did in 2011 to put it on the table that its about the economics. It is about the business. Women have that value. It is not just about equality and human rights. It is about economics. Int really helped us a lot pushing forth the argument as a policymaker as well as including the men in the policymaking table. Again, then we transformed it into the business side, including the access to capital and the micro financing where we found that women i will give you just one more example. I am giving you real examples of how we try to deal with the issues. When you look at the micro enterprises, i think our number inw that early 23 of fmes indonesia are being run by women. It turns out it is because of and they are smaller businesses than the menowned businesses and they have less access to capital. So there are institutional and cultural constraints. Women are less confident to go to the bank to go get a loan. One of the reasons given is, well, i am afraid i cannot pay back my loan. The moment somebody gets sick in my family, i am the one who has to take care of that sick person. Then i cannot pay my debt and i dont want to be in the position to not be able to pay my debt. So some of our banks and it became Good Business they bundled the financing package with insurance and savings because they also worry about the education saving, saving enough for the education of the kids. So a number of our banks came up with microcredit that bundled the Banking Services with the insurance and the savings and taught the women and gave them confidence. Dont worry, if somebody falls sick, there is insurance here. And that really worked. And the government supported that in the Financial Inclusion agenda that we developed later on. So these are real life examples where its not just we are not just talking about going from informal to formal. We are just taking care of the formal. And giving Financial Literacy and confidence are women, to be able to just go into a bank and the banks have also figured out that this is very psychologically they dont even have the confidence to enter into a nicelooking office. So they bring the banks to the villages. Weathers mobile banking or creating a more covetable situation for the women to be given just the Financial Literacy to begin with. So those are just some of the challenges that i faced and i really look forward to working more on these issues. You are actually far ahead in some ways because we are starting to catch up understanding that credit and savings and insurance all matter in these propositions. Are going to go one quick around here and then open it up to questions. So be ready for that to cherie, on have made a big footprint showing us that we have a gender. Ap in mobile technology and we have with us on the council a representative from intel. They have done a big study on the gender gap on the intricate the internet. Why is it critical to close this gender gap . What will happen to women in the 21st century economy if we dont address this . It is definitely true that knowledge is key on this. In todays world, the mobile phone in particular i think is the poor persons computer and the poor persons access to knowledge. So going back to what we just heard about in indonesia, we did a program called the business , which was based we had it in tanzania, and in nigeria. Are students year from the Economics Department and they will probably agree with me that sometimes the Business Concepts arent necessarily natural. I met many women with businesses who think, so long as i produce things and keep churning them out, surely, i will have a successful business. Where in fact, it is all about, and was the the pno difference between capital and income. There are all sorts of concept you deal with when you take on other employees. So we tried to put together using text messaging, a nano mba. Basic tips for business women using the mobile phone. T four Text Messages a week with information worked on with local universities so it was properly specific information they needed to know for their countries. It was in the local language. Course. Ave that we just today, thanks to the Exxon Mobil Foundation, we were able to publish the results. It shows quite clearly, if you can give targeted information to the women like the women in the market that you were talking about, they will take that information and use it in their business and actually turn those businesses into even more of a success or sometimes stuff them becoming a failure. And we believe that we can use that even more. What we want to do now, because that was with Exxon Mobil Foundation and. But it was only on handsets. To butt to take it nokia handsets pay but now we want to take it to more. There are women out there already doing business they do not have access to the formal Education System that we all take for granted. But that doesnt mean they cant learn and benefit from Business Training delivered using the poor persons computer, which is the mobile phone. So that is something that we want to see. I know the council will be involved in how we can work with the Big Companies in the tech field to actually show how mobile can be a force for good. There are so many good examples today from the kind of information that can come to people who would ordinarily not get it in terms of health information, vital health information, to knowing where the market is on a given day. Exactly. App thatid a mobile was for rural women who were selling agricultural goods and who used after work up to a day at a time to get the wholesalers to actually get the goods. When they get there, they did not necessarily have the ones they wanted your we transferred that through the wholesalers onto a computer on the wholesaler and the mobile phone for the women sellers and they saw 200 to 300 turnover. , shef the women said to me was a widow, she and her two children were getting one meal a day. Mealsey were getting two a day and the children were going to school. This is a letter is forming thing. There is so much we can do with mobile valueadded services. That is just early starting. Lets go to the other and of the spread the spectrum. A lot of talk today about women in Corporate Boards and women bumping against the ceiling in management, women with all kinds of degrees and yet they seem stuck in some ways. I have a friend who says its not a Glass Ceiling or a sticky floor. It is just a layer of men. [laughter] you atdo we and how do bank of america i know you have been very much focused on what you can do to move women within your company, the kind of internal prospects. How do you do some of that and what you think we need to do generally . , i think we need to do more period. And that thick layer of men, we need to thin out. We have gone through a sea change, the financial Services Industry. Generally, when there is chaos, there is opportunity. I would say that in your personal life and i think it is true also in a very large company. The womens voices at a table have made a real difference in our company in recent years. , ourhird of our board board of directors, are women. Half the management of the womeny, vp and above, are. I do think that has made a huge difference in terms of just the conversation, let alone the progress weve made. So it isnt what was wrong with the men here it is simply that women need to be at the table in in economic terms if the women arent in business, then we are tying one hand behind our back no matter what country you are from. So that has been a big thing for us to the other thing is, in just having the relationship with cherie or the vital voices or the tory burch foundation, we find our own women very enthused by this opportunity. We now have men that are participating in the cherie foundation, mentoring, because they feel just as much satisfaction. It gets everybody thinking about lets be a little more entrepreneurial. Lets think a little more progressively. In our case, we are a huge company but we have 15 Million People that mostly do their banking on mobile banking in a completely developed world. Veryhey have some of the same questions about Financial Literacy. On financialram literacy for years. I think people think it is like paint drying. They dont like it. Partnerswhen we became , we Online Education interviewed our own people, let alone the marketplace. We did it we redid everything and we got basic. It was in these digestible bites. Createyou tell me how to a nest day, please hold up the paycheck and tell me why i am only taking home half of what i thought i made. Practical, it makes a difference. A mix of people in your company feel better about you. Theally have to thank nonprofits that we have worked with because they have enlightened us. , we talked a lot about the power of small and mediumsized businesses and it has been particularly hard or women to be able to move into the space urine that when they do, to ensure that they can grow. Give us just a quick snapshot of smallate of womenowned and mediumsized businesses in israel. Just to put in a different light the whole idea of small andhimsized businesses academics we are here in the academy world, actually, small and mediumsized businesses is a ministry a measurement of entrepreneurship. What you see in emerging markets or developing countries is that usually women or Small Businesses open because they want to provide food to their family and kids. In developed countries by the way, israel is one of them it is a measurement of entrepreneurship. People as a whole open businesses because they are entrepreneurs. So really, when you think about economy, everybody talks about entrepreneurship as a measurement or a way to grow the economy. Smallmediumsized businesses are the vehicle to make it happen during so when i suited to really look at the numbers and understand what it means and where we are on this curve, it is a different way to talk to our government about why is it so important. And when we looked at the theers, we saw actually amount of womenowned businesses is very small. Is access totor capital, mentoring. Women all around the world, no matter which country, which type of country it is, we have the same issues. So lets hear. Globalization means anything for small and mediumsized businesses for women. Issues, obstacles and opportunities are the same and we can really start to share how to really help small and mediumsized is mrs. So in israel, this is a natural because it does reflect things that are in every country, even very rich countries. They have within their society emerging markets. So they are the ones who are privileged and they are participating in the economy. And there are always those emerging markets. Whether its because religion that makes them at the outskirts of society or because of the color of the skin or a hundred things. So whatever it is that we shared here, it is really relevant to every country. So in our own country, in my aretry, israel, there jewish and arabs. So the jewish women have more access to capital than the arab women. There are a lot of reasons why, but, most of them do not have records and really banks and they really want to see a few years of really work. The other thing that is common to all of us, women, when they give birth, stayathome. We dont really think about the fact that, if we stayathome, we dont have records. So when we go to the bank, we have this gap. We didnt work for a while. We cared for our children. The other thing is, in our country, im sure in every country as well, but religious women, whether we are Ultra Orthodox Jewish women or religious muslims women or religious christian women, they have an issue of going out of the house. So Small Businesses are great opportunities. If we say religion matters. And we say it is part of the society. Small businesses, mobile phones, computer really allows family, much more women to participate. In israel, what we discovered in israel, that is what we discovered. It doesnt matter if it is the neighborhood that we grew up or the university where we study, we have our friends and family. And if we dont reach out and look at other numbers and try to meet other cultures, which is exactly what happened to me i really discovered that there are so many things i dont see within our society and we are a small writing. So i can imagine in countries that are much larger. Small businesses usually represent the whole society because it is about employing one or employing to and its a great way may be too close or to give an answer to the number one risk that the World Economic forum says is a risk, which is the gap between the rich and the poor. So maybe we sit here and we talk ways toe of the great solve one of the things that threatens actually the whole world. Excellent. Think here. I am going to end up here after i ask one more question. Maybe you can begin to lineup. Said that we you are not going to achieve higher growth and more equitable dissolution of income without womens per dissipation. And you and he went on to say we need to figure out how we can forward gender issues and mainstream them. A decade inonclude government. Yourselfce do you have as you go on but to all of us as we close that gap . I think we have to continue showingcacy as well as best practices and good examples of what works and what doesnt work. I believe in numbers. I have been using the numbers that fairly clinton started in 2011 and the final effect, howley 5 i think for the u. S. Who are women in board members. 50 at the it is entry level, it is 5 at the ceo level. The numbers are much smaller for asia. Japan is one of the lowest. I think japan is less than 1 at ceo and 2 for where members. Indonesia is better. Those numbers i do use at every level. Participation for women. The number on the boards. On every level. Women owned businesses. These are numbers we use. How are important to show much you are missing in terms of the potential of women. It is half of your human capital. We make that argument. The most important, what are the obstacles that caused this . If you start with the women on the board, why is there a funnel effect . The three constraints are the family balance, family and career balance. Anywhere and anytime model. For you to go up in the corporate model is anywhere, anytime. You have to move tomorrow to london. That is how you advance your career. Unless the merit or performance system is changed, you cannot advance. The role of technology helps, working from home. But hes have to change in the way they evaluate companies have to change in the way they womente performance in and men. That has to come from enlightened, from the men who are still running the boards and in charge. It is not just about us. This is the room of the converted. The battle is out there, the unconverted, then unconverted the nonconverted. Having more women on the board gives you more profitability. These are numbers we need to push forward. I amnk being, mentoring believer in mentoring. Giving women combatants. Confidence. Whatever model, there are different models. Achieved here who have some level of success, it is on us to help the younger women. I am a little bit of a role model. I did not intend to be. I was the first woman to come a phdto my country with in economics. Im married and having to bring children, despite my mother telling me not to do a phd because i would never get married. Im afraid im going to be overqualified. I say, look at me. This is a cultural thing. I dont know of this is across countries were not read there is a cultural thing in my part of the world where if a girl wants to do well, that is not so good. It is good for a boy, not a girl. These are the debunking of myths we have to do. He. Re considered balls ballsy. Behavior, the men are considered good leaders. These are cultural issues we continue to face, but we should never give up. Continue to work on the unconverted. Show by example. Get have projects, good examples. Technology. I think technology is a great answer. A lot of the Informal Sector in my country, it is women working from home. Making handicrafts and food. Selling online. I would encourage all of us to work hard on that as a tool for women. We have some of those cultural issues here, too. Can you tell us your name . The school you are in and your question . Who it is directed to . Some buddy pass class must be starting . I am a law student. I am from china. Thank you for coming to share your perspective. I really appreciate it. I have two questions. Myre both addressed first question is, is there any or qualification for the Mentorship Program . Does having a business idea suffice to the program . Thatd, we would all agree the Women Entrepreneur culture is more profound in a country like u. S. And u. K. Then helping than developing countries. Toit part of your strategy cultivate the culture in developing countries . Reach up to the people who do not have the notion yet . Im going to take a couple more questions. And then the panel can finish by answering whichever one is appropriate. My name is nicole. Im a student in the sfs. My question, first of all, say five women have achieved things many of us could possibly never dream of achieving and probably never well . Yet on a scale, for me, a lot of these achievements seem to be directed towards a microscale. You bringn is, how do these achievements to a macro forum . How do you identify the flaws in government and Financial Systems a macro scale . Have you bridge that gap, not only between gender but between development . That is a wallop. Another one . Thank you so much for being here. I am a senior in the school of business. I have been involved in the georgetown entrepreneurship initiative. One of the things i have learned is how important entrepreneurial ecosystems are to accelerating growth and innovation. Having resources and entrepreneurs any physical proximity makes it easier for people to pursue those. How do you is, cultivate those selfsustaining ecosystems in developing countries so that innovation and change can be systemic . As opposed to maybe a snowing all fresh thinking we know all the answers as opposed to maybe us thinking we know all the answers . In relation to the question who are mentees are, we aim it to those with an existing business. We found we get more progress with somebody who has a business and wants to take it to the next stage. That is not to say that we dont also have startup businesses. When they started, we had a lot of young women in particular starting businesses. We have found that they need the sort of ecosystem that the third question was talking about. The mentoring was actually much more helpful to women who had already started on their business journey. Wento a stage where they quite sure what was next. Mentors,re looking for we are looking for people of seven years experience. We dont want the ceo to beatty to be the mentor. Their experience is so remote. We are looking for people who are on their journey to becoming ceo but still have practical, handson experience. I did want to Say Something about ecosystems. Enterprise development program. We have done a lot and israel, lebanon. We are about to take it to the uae. Group and doller coaching, and then take a Smaller Group and over a year, incubationusiness and support. When we did our first project, 40 women, we managed to create over that year 16 new jobs. I think ecosystems are important. I think you have a point. How do we encourage entrepreneurship . Im not sure that the world is not full of entrepreneurs. I think it is, but it is not often acknowledge. What they are doing, the hairdresser, they are entrepreneurs. But nobody has ever told them that is what they do. Nobodys ever help them help them. That is why the facebook opportunity, which helps women to use facebook to get friends for chilly who that virtually has been such a success. I will try to come up with a brief explanation for the macro. There has been a change where transparency is more at the forefront. It is not that you like everything you see. But you see it all. All, and allows you to reorder things. Ofany walk of life, because social media, because the world has become less the two shall, or human, and i dont mean that in a soft way. Institutional, more human, and i dont mean that in a soft way. Whether you look at the arab spring or what happened with the financial Services Industry, transparency is more prominent. More people are at the table. There is very little you cannot do. That is a huge difference. And yound thing is were saying how do you scale these ideas . There is nothing that happens, you do not begin anything on a big scale. It. Bet ia the largest companies, you see how it is going to go. You test and learn. You expand. All the things were talking about here, whether it is maria or myself, each of us will take some thing away and apply it. That is how businesses go. You dont just arrived on the stage, doing something big. He began in a small way. It, if it works, you develop it more. I would say both of those things. Expectt thing, i would all the people to achieve whatever we have achieved and more. That is sort of a given. That is the hope of everybody. The next generation is bigger and better than we are. Turn to them for last comments, im going to take one more. They can factor it into their answer. My name is anna im a senior in the school of business. Study in antly of a bloomberg article that nine out of 10 women on wall street were said they believed their male counterparts earned more. What reason do you see for this differential between mems and men, and what are some solutions you would propose . Quickly, i think the first thing, if you think that is happening, ask. Be bold. Secondly, i cant speak for every industry, but because of the way of the world in Human Resources, as a woman in a position, looking at what the other people are making, you ask and check. You have Human Resources verify. You are not wondering. Once you know, it will change. We are the result of the last hundred years. If you look at the next hundred years, there is more data. Everybody talks about it. The World Economic forum, it used to be a small room where women now it is mainly on the main stage. The gap between women and men. Whether it is capital, education, it is measured. There is more data. That means there is more to be done. You, the young people who study now, have more women. More opportunities than our generation had. Everybody talks about it. The numbers are there. Even kind of punishment of not doing the right thing is there. On a positive, to the future, i most of those things like measurement, understanding it is the right ethical thing. Moral thing. It is about the business case. It is all there. I think things will be better. Right if wee make the right effort to ask for them, insist on them. The men will join us. If it feels that we are unique, yes, we are unique. The last hundred years, it was less of an issue. Now you are the next generation of president s, ministers. About these things when they ran for their seats. I think it will be easier. Women, in the next 100 years. I think we are way ahead compared to 100 years ago or even 20 years ago. The study in our universities was showing girls were underperforming academically. They did not want to lose out getting a boyfriend. This is empirically shown in our case. 20 years later, they are not academically underperforming. They dore getting not worry about that. The battle is still out there. I believe in the economic argument very much. That is the one that is going to win the battle. Women are the economic drivers. Sense andconomic business sense. Right from birth all the way to when they are corporate leaders, we have to make sure whether it is a policy regulation that has to be changed, in institution that has to be changed, or a cultural mindset from birth, 05. Access to education, equal access to education. It is about building human capital. All the way to Job Opportunities and access to capital. These are oral the stops we have to continue to advocate and make the policy changes. It is not just women who will make it. It has to be the men. There is a huge education we have to do. I am sure all of us in the room and the Younger Generation will be continuing to do this together. Thank you. Perfect last words. The journey continues. Before we all thank our panelists, i want to think the Council Members here. Airplane schedules have intervened for some. I want to thank the women and messengers who are here. I just noticed so many of you are here. [applause] it is wonderful to have you. Thank one of our guests for coming. She spent more than a decade in now isin myanmar and running her own ngo. Thank you. [applause] and claudia. A former attorney general of guatemala. They have made great progress in terms of justice in that country. [applause] to all of the Women Leaders here, the inspiration. We wish you well. The council has a lot of work to do. Final thanks to our extraordinary panel. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] on christmas eve, we will bring you a number of National Tree lighting ceremonies. Here is a preview. Mr. President. Mrs. Obama. Mrs. Robinson. Happy christmas. Hello, everybody. Is it really ready to count down . We are going to start from five. We want to say thanks, first of all, to tom and rita. We hope they are ready. We hope everybody watching at home is getting in the christmas spirit. We are going to start counting down right now. Three, two, one. [applause] the nationalve christmas Tree Lighting ceremony tomorrow night. We will also show you the white house decorations and the Tree Lighting ceremony with members of congress. Investigative journalist Cheryl Atkinson claims the government hacked into her personal and Work Computers while she was a correspondent for cbs. And then, an update on the open enrollment for health insurance. Later, seth rogen talks politics and humor. Q a, Glenn Kessler on his biggest note as of 2014 pird gnocchi owes 2014. Os of democrats tend to get more upset at them. They believe the media is on their side. Republicans firmly believe in the myth of the liberal media. They are not going to be fair. I kind of think, i hope, over the last four years, i have done tweetedackandforth, both parties with equal fervor, that people will grudgingly say, you are somebody we can do business with. Panow the Senate Majority c, associated with harry reid, they stopped answering my questions midway through the Campaign Season because they felt they were not getting a fair shake from me to read sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific. Up next, a conversation with former cbs reporter sheryl cheryl attkins. She joined us on washington journal. Cheryl. Re back with n november, stonewalled my fight for truth against the forces of obstruction, intimidation, and harassment in obamas washington. Remind viewers why you left cbs this past year and why you wrote this book. Guest the short version is theres nothing left for me to do. We specialized in investigative reporting and in the last couple years those stores had a difficult if not impossible time off and getting on cbs news, so i felt there was no point. Host you wrote the book why . Guest a lot of people had expressed to me fellow journalists as well as people in the public that they sensed something was going on culturally in journalism and with the news. We would share reflections on what we thought was happening and a trance and i thought it would be a topic of interest. Host you wrote in the book that what is even more dangerous is today, government and big corporations might as well be one and the same. So it is not just what is going on at the networks but it is larger than that. Explained. Guest it is intertwined, in my view. Corporations have coopted many congressional committees as well as members of congress with Campaign Contributions and other links and ties. To some degree they have coopted some in the media with corporate and advertising interests. In my views congress is not always doing a good job at oversight. The presidency is not doing a good job in his oversight function. What we have now is politics and corporations in some respects are allowed to put out when i call propaganda largely unchecked because of oversight roles not being fulfilled. Host what about the other side of it, the consumer, the consumer of investigative journalists . There not an update the an appetite there . Guest i think there is a huge appetite for it and that is what was somewhat baffling for us at cbs and other places as well. People liked the watchdog reporting we do. They dont like much about the news media these days, polls show, but they do like that role, and people at a hard time figuring out why at the one hand the public has a thirst for this information but on the other hand we are having so much, getting it published and on television. Host what did you hear from Network Executives about the pieces you would bring forward . Our viewers are familiar with your work on fast and furious, benghazi, etc. Guest it depends on the time period. The management changed over the years. Furious, thend management at the time were very excited about these stories and encourage them and all the way up the line, even to the time i cbs, including the top executives at cbs news, were very complementarity and encouraging of my work. But that did not always translate to the broadcast, which had different managers and appetites and interests, especially the last couple years. Host as you pitched a story, brought it up, they would ask for what, more, more, more, and then what . Guest the lights would go off. You would go 100 miles an hour practically overnight to zero and it was hard to tell whether interest would go from full course to nothing wider interest would go from full course to nothing. We would wonder and speculate and we were not privy to the decisions but it became a pattern, amongst organize push me that formed to some reason certain managers would decide lets not go there anymore after on the one hand telling me initially that they wanted the stories and they like to the stories and wanted as many as we could do on that topic. Host what are you doing out . Guest since march ive been freelancing for a number of organizations. I have not wanted to work for anybody fulltime so when people would offer me jobs i would say how about buying a story from time to time . My one requirement was that they couldnt do what i felt that some yes certainly not most people at guest, but some managers had done in the past myple years, which is in view skew the story can make it come out the way they want instead of the way the facts tell the story. You dont have to publish a story every few but you cant change the essence of the truth of it. You cannot put your personal interest into it. I have had good luck with a number of outlets that have been happy to take those stories. Host there is a market there. Do you think that is where Investigative Journalism is headed . Guest i cantguest figure out what is next. I think there is something new being bo of all of this. Rne it is not Television News are people watching the evening newscasts, 30 minutes of that everyday. It is probably people hunting around on the web for different sources that they trust or sources on a particular topic and i dont know what will be the paradigm that is new out of this. Host were talking to Sharyl Attkisson, her book stonewalled , in your reporting over the years for cbs. Currently still in investigative journalist. Host what is it about the Obama Administration in particular . Had soi think they have many controversies that they have worked so hard to controversialize reporting of. They have been more aggressive, most journalists would agree, and tried to in trying to manage information and controversialize news outlets that publish these stores, attacking whistleblowers inside federal agencies that there to tell the truth. Like i say, the news outlets that have the audacity to report it. They have worked very hard to control the message and controversialize the stories and people who report them and it is a more aggressive effort than what we have seen from other administrations we have covered. But to be sure, other administrations have tried to manage the message. Host so how does it compare to the bush years and continues before that . Clinton years before that . Guest journalists who have more experience than i have have come to a consensus, including reporters from the new york times, the Washington Post, usa today, they have said that this is the Worst Administration for transparency and press freedom that they have dealt with, and that has been my expense as well, not to say that the others have been a piece of cake, because administrations and the federal bureaucracy want to keep information from the public and manage the message. Each one has gotten worse than the last that i have covered. Host is there, though, a line where the administration, when it comes to topsecret and classified information, like with benghazi fast and furious, where they cannot default certain information . Guest sure. The president on the day he came to office said that he ordered agencies to air on the side of disclosure and all most all information gathered on behalf be publiclic should information with exceptions in cases Like National security like you are talking about. But what we have seen from this administration and others as reductionsely invoke and intentions or even ignore freedom of information requests entirely for illegitimate reasons, and then when you go to court to try to fight back, when you find when some of the documents are ordered release, they never should have been withheld, there was no basis for the withholding, these are not National Security secrets. Recently some fast and furious documents were released after a couple of years. The president had invoked executive privilege to keep them secret and theres nothing in most of them that ive seen that would justify executive privilege or any kind of privilege to withhold these from subpoena. Documentsembarrassing to the administration but they certainly are public documents, as have been acknowledged by their release. That is improper use of executive privilege and improper use of withholdings and reactions of freedom of information law. Host have you seen a story on the networks . Guest i have not. There has been some good print printgood investigative work, on the misuse of the freedom of information act, not just this administration, but past ones as well. They have perverted the law that was intended to facilitate the release of Public Information into something that helps them obstruct and delay the information. The federal agencies have done this, the administration has done this. The law is basically useless from the standpoint of a news basis. If you are try to get information out to the public on a timely basis, you cant give that appeared host up. Host miltons first in philadelphia, democratic caller. Caller hello . Host you are on the air. Caller happy holidays. I hope you will make my point. As far as you, Sharyl Attkisson, i think you are a rightwing person because you appear on fox could where was your administration of the bush and administration, especially when it came to the iraq war and of the monday and wmds . I didnt see you do investigative reports of halliburton and these other things into motion ministers but you are going after the Obama Administration and i think you are biased. Guest thank you for your comment. I did investigate halliburton specifically contract fraud under the bush and Administration Quite heavily so you mustve missed that. I want an emmy award for investigating the bush administrations bait and switch on the tarp Bailout Program and many aspects of the bush administration. A lot of people pick up on my book more often recently my work more often recently and didnt bother to look at the history. Maybe they read this information and propaganda that has been went out but i am certainly an equal opportunity journalist ive been called a liberal so many times in the past now and i tend to be called conservative now. I dont mind, anyway people want to call me. But if you read my research of my work in the past you might change your opinion, you might not. Host your recent stories have prompted people to call you a conservative. Conservative outlets picked up your reporting. Picked up your reporting on cdc numbers on ebola. Are you concerned when the Heritage Foundation invites you to talk or you appear with the Heritage Foundation that that solidifies for people their judgment of the . At all. Ot i dont care how People Choose to judge me anymore than people who appear on cnn or other outlets apparently care how they are judged. People say i see you on fox. Well, i have been on abc this ,eek and al jazeera and cspan but they like to talk about fox because the propaganda has been out to fulfilling ou fulfill a narrative. There are liberal or nonpartisan but they wantfox this narrative to be fulfilled that if i am on fox in must mean i am conservative come even though nonconservatives are on fox news. When you talk about recent stories i have done, that is not the whole story. I want in any award last year for investigating republican freshman fundraising and hypocrisy of republicans who came to office saying they would change business in washington but we tracked them down to key largo where they were hobnobbing like oldtime politicians with lobbyists and big donors. Perfectly legal, yet a seeming contradiction to the thing that got them into office. Ive maintained investigations on both sides of the aisle but when bush was in office, more of the investigations of Government People would say that to that president and of course no more investigate of course now more investigations into government lead to president obama. Host who is they . Say you are want to a conservative because if its a story line. Guest primarily interests trying to protect the administration and certain democratic interest in making the use of bloggers such as media matters to print talking points, many of them false and incorrect. But they get picked up and put out into the lexicon of the daily talk and some people, if they dont do their own research , may see those stories and may indeed think about that is true, which i dont blame them. That is part of the game. There is been a really strong and concerted propaganda effort metry to controversialize and paint me as a conservative or someone who has a vested interest so that people who dont listen to the facts on the stories, some of which i think are very important and have really important public implications. Host we will go to our line for republicans. Al in rhode island. Kudos tos. Attkisson, you. Ive got to tell you that such a lack of Investigative Journalism in this country, it is really disgusting. Your problem cnbc and all these other channels is the secular lefties. They couldnt handle the stories you were putting out. They didnt want you to have the truth come out. That is really what the problem is. They controlled obama, obama does their bidding, that is who put them in office. That is really what the story is about. Here is your next book youve got a group of people who prosper and after they have that, it is power, and then it is control. They have control obama from start to finish, that is who is keeping him in office but you keep up the good work because you are really exceptional and thank you. Host all right, al. Sharyl attkisson. Guest i dont think there was a question there but i hear his opinion. Host what you think about the relationship between the media and the media executives . You wrote about it in your book and the Obama Administration, the ties there. Guest i didnt really talk about it in the book but im aware in washington, d. C. , many in the media have ties to government. I dont see that as the primary problem. Exist andthose ties can be problematic and should be disclosed when they are relevant, but the reason i didnt write much about it is i dont think that is the issue. I dont see it as the biggest problem. Host tucson, arizona, john, independent caller. Caller hi. The biggest problem i think you guys have is right here, right now, the amount of time you get people like me. You are willing to ask good ask why willing to [indiscernible] ask of are going to operation mockingbird for the the 1960s nce look at the symbol of Hearst Corporation host john, what is your point . Caller let me finish, let me finish. There is a lot more to talk about that you wont talk about because you wont let me come on your show because you are afraid. Host phil in maryland. Caller hi, thanks for being on the show, ms. Attkisson. I do follow you or can i organize that you have had stories on both sides and that is helpful, but i think the recent writings and comments about and ghazi illustrated benghazi about illustrate a problem. Benghazi was heavily adjudicated by House Republicans and an extensive report came out which more or less exonerated the Obama Administration. I think it speaks to the fact that these sorts of witnesses and folks that you were havealing in your writings not represented the general truths about that matter and i think it intensifies why some like me on the democratic side are skeptical of some of your work. Guest thank you. I have an entirely different interpretation of the report, as do the republican host which report are we talking about . Guest house report on benghazi he is talking about the Intelligence Committee report that came out recently, which the lead republican acknowledged is not any sort of exoneration or final word, that they look at a very tiny slice of the benghazi affair, confirming much of which i and others have reported, that there were some warning signs from all of not a specific time and date, but they were either ignored or not seen properly and more should have been done. He did not attempt to close the final word on many other issues come even though it has been mr. It is such misreported as such. In some cases it contradicted other witnesses that have testified behind closed doors for example, to the House Armed Services committee. In some cases it upheld other witnesses who have already testified that it is yet another report among many that sheds some light on the benghazi affair but as been spun propagandawise as some sort of exoneration or final word, and at least the republicans you oted say that is not the case, but there has been a lot of misreporting about it and i understand why you might think that. Piece of the a puzzle that the house selected Benghazi Committee that tries to put all this information together it will be a piece of the puzzle that they consider as they try to take all the contradictory, conflicting information. As far as i know, none of the information that has been me, by my sources, has been proven anything other than completely accurate, and usually was reported by those sources first before it was confirmed, sometimes months if not years later by others. And many of my sources are within the Obama Administration, so these certainly are not partisan republicans. In some cases they are lifelong democrats who felt really awful about the things that they saw and heard that night and step forward come sometimes at great peril to themselves and their careers, to tell what they saw as the truth. I reported a lot of that. As far as i know, all of my reporting stands 100 , and as you may know was nominated for an investigative and the award and im very proud of it, so i will continue on the track. Host the Washington Post after the report came out had this editorial, benghazi debunked. They point to this part of the report there was neither a standdown order nor a denial of Available Air support and no american was left behind. Asked mike rogers was about that, the republican, and he agreed there was contradictory information on that, and he says they went with the narrow slice of the people that they spoke to. We know from witnesses who were there that some say firsthand that they were told not to go whether the words standdown were sent or not, some people say yes, some people say no. There were several instances of people not allowed to do the job they were to do that night. Again, they dont claim it is the final word but the press worked very hard to take this one report that is like many that have come about about benghazi and tried to make it the final word. Im not sure what it means, benghazi debunked. The city of benghazi has been debunked . The idea that there was a controversy has been debunked . Is true. Hat this report confirmed that the spirit issues and problems that we previously knew that the administration had it denied initially. I think there is been a lot of spin about the report that is not quite accurate. Special committee on benghazi, do you think that will be the final word . Guest i think that maybe the most complete picture. The problem with saying anything is the final word, to me, so many documents are being withheld by the government, so many areas of investigation have been been looked into. The Intelligence Committee, in veryew, these minis work hard in some cases to protect the interests of their committee, meaning the Intelligence Committee wants to preferably make the Intelligence Community look as though they did their job. The House Armed Services committee, when they issued their findings and reports, they tend to make it look like the military did their job. Everybody has got their own interests. The select committee will be a more wellrounded review of the conflicting information that is come out over the past couple of years, but with so much information missing, and so much time having lapsed between these attacks initially and the time of this investigation, im not sure anything will fairly be the final word. Host brenda is a republican in tallahassee, florida. Caller oh, yes, i just wanted to thank Sharyl Attkisson former boldness for her boldness and journalism. We appreciate people who can get out there and tell the truth. In her opinion, why is it that so many people that study journalism or graduate from up gettings end into the news and becoming so far left . It is obvious in the media that they dominate right now. And that is my question. Again, thank you very much for your boldness. Guest thank you. Well, im not sure i see it quite the same way as you do. Yes, i do think probably our more was liberals and conservatives, but most of my colleagues over time in my expense have worked very hard and successfully to keep their opinions and viewpoints out of their stories. But there are key gatekeepers who can work at any News Organization in editorial positions that through their a publication or broadcast regardless of what reporters and producers on the ground produce and want to report. That has happened, in some cases perhaps increasingly so in the last couple years. I think there are some managers and journalists in the business that either went to Journalism School that didnt train about the importance of keeping your own viewpoints or preconceived notions out of your story or they didnt train through journalism at all. Maybe they came up in politics or majored in things such as politics or Current Events and government and they got into the business, some of them, with the idea that they wanted to change people or make them think like they do. There are some reporters who believe they have the key to the right opinion on certain issues, and go about trying to prove that were to convince other people of their viewpoint, which is really not what journalists, news journalists should be doing. Advocacy journalists, i suppose, can be doing that sort of thing. But most of the people i work with over the years at cbs and cnn and other places did not do that and did a very good job of keeping the personal opinions out of their stories. Host long beach, california. Darrell is an independent. Hi, darrell. Good morning. Caller i know, cheryl, your skills and abilities to reveal information probably our next to none. Have you worked on about going into the propaganda station and what mr. Kerry calls rt . You would be working with larry king, abby martin, and you would have been in road to doing an interview with mr. Snowden. That is my comment. Keep up the good work. Guest i have not talked to that particular news station but i have found a number that have allowed me to work on orphaned stories, and im seeking those outlets. Fox you were recently on talking about the cdc and ebola numbers. What did you find out . When ebola dropped off the face of news coverage, it ande to suspect should not fall off altogether. I rely on sources to deal with Infectious Disease and some deal directly with the ebola crisis. They remain very much concerned. I spoke to cdc a couple of weeks ago and asked them how many were being people monitored when they come back from a country that is infected to make sure they do not have ebola, and at the time there cdc said cases the they were actively monitoring, but that seemed to me to be an important story, and when i asked where is the update on the website because cdc often will have a page for emerging and developing diseases and problems and they will update that periodically, they said were not putting this on the website. Whenan call back and ask you want that update, and that said to me there has been a decision not to put up updates. Panicking felt it was the public or it would be a better way to manage the news if the information was not so easily accessible. Host this is in the Washington Post this morning. There are sobering challenges to stop in the epidemic. Thecdc director went to african countries world of difference from his visit in august and september. Saw a world of difference from his visit in august and september. People that are very much concerned concerns are poorly how well or things are going in africa. As long as the epidemic is out bad, itol, surging, or puts us at increased risk, and they do not feel markedly safer today from that standpoint as to what is going on in west africa and they did a month or two ago. They are still very much on alert and it should be are no plates. The media should not hype the story, not scare people to death, but there is information that should be reported. Host indianapolis. Our line for democrats. Freddie. Good morning. Caller good morning. Please give me an opportunity to express what i have to say. It is very important. Thathe word what your guest said. Advocacy journalism. Is an advocacys journalism station. The reason i say that take a look at the demonstrations. Fox news has their watchers believing al sharpton is the problem, or that black people follow al sharpton. Community haslack said i am going out there because al sharpton directed me to. We asked sharpton to come and speak on our behalf and the reason being is because we know he has a big microphone. People will listen to him whether they believe him or not. People that are accusing sharpton and the followers of ,ox news or making statements black folks do not follow sharpton. We respond on our own. That is 1. I wanted to make. There is a second point i wanted to make. Are you still there . Host can you make it quick . Caller the second thing is regarding killing in black neighborhoods. Black people are fully aware that black youth are killing one another in our neighborhoods. We are still not going to give the policeman the right to kill innocent black youth based on what troubled lack youth are doing. Host all right. I will leave it. Cheryl atkinson, is there something there you want to . Eigh in on i cannot argue with his guest i cannot argue with his point. Fox news certainly has advocacy on its network from time to time. It is not monolithic. I was on the media critic show and the fox News Reporter specifically said he did not , and i saidrpton the same thing, so not everything they say it along those lines, but he is probably right if he has heard some people expressed that, and i take his point about what he neighborhoodsck and i have not really been reporting on that. Host dd on twitter wants to know as Investigative Journalism and replaced by fourprofit, salacious journalism . Guest in some instances, but those are separate things. There is some for profit journalism and some journalism that is designed as it might help and in florence it might interest in organization might have to please. Then there is journalism that is done just because it appeals to peoples interests or it is something that might grab attention, not necessarily for the right reasons, but sometimes that is the case. Host in the book you write about some in the administration pleading with you to be reasonable. What is a reasonable journalist . Guest well, it depends on who you ask. The administration, in my view, based on my experience, thanks you are reasonable and a call and tell you a story is not a story and you agree with them, which is something they did quite often. They spent a lot of time, you can see from internal emails they tried to withhold, they spent a lot of time a lot of time trying to stop with a view as damaging reporting that because of incorrect or wrong, but because they do not want it out. Reasonable reporters are those that when they call and say this is not a story and hear his wife and they agree with them. Reasonable what do reasonable reporters get in return . Get a phone call and will be told about an initiative the government wants publicized or a viewpoint the government wants. I call that often propaganda. I do not think that is a great get, as we call it in the news, so i do not care if i am on the list or not, but i will tell you managers care. They want to get that phone call. And that is very limited news. A story the government would put out for free if nobody would reported, but they handed and it out like candy. Much of ahink it is reward because that is not the kind of reporting that i care to do anyway, putting out the line of a press release that the corporation of a government wants out. Host our line for republicans. Gary. Texas. You are on with Sharyl Attkisson. Caller i wondered if you learned anything more about the government hacking into your computer, and the Mainstream Media reports on north korea corporation, a big but they did not talk about you being hacked by our own government. Finally, when the new Congress Takes over, will any of the investigative committees look into our own government hacking into your computer . I will listen to your thoughts. The first question is have we learned anything new yes. I have new information, but im not prepared to talk about that today, but we have learned quite a bit through three forensic exams and a lot of hard work by people who have wanted to help out. Hopefully more information about that for people that are interested will be forthcoming. There were people inside of cbs when i worked there that were in communication with me and were asking why werent we as cbs doing this as a major story and a couple of them said it was bigger than watergate, wired we reporting on this why arent we reporting on this ourselves that i do not have the answer. Lets say whoever did the intrusion we do not even know who did it isnt it significant and outrageous that a journalists personal and professional commuter were byed remotely that people that looked through the benghazi file, the fast and furious photographs . I cannot explain why more people are not outraged but i agree that it seems to me there should be and should have been a bigger response from the press. Long was the hacking or infiltration going on it was not just your computer, but your phone system as well your home phone . It is hard to tell. We know certain points where things were done, but we cannot necessarily tell where the first thing was done. Date where we knew things happened, dates and times where we knew these remote intrusions were refreshed using a satellite terminal or a wifi from a ritzcarlton. We know the intruders, after i became aware of this, came in and try to erase their tracks. We have come to see this because erasing tracks lees tracks that can be leaves tracks that can be analyzed. Are you paying for this out of your own pocket . The first examination was done by a confidential source as a favorite and the second was done by cbs news. The third is someone that i hired, a computer forensic expert that has continued to work to build on the debt of the other two have gotten. To releaseo you plan this information, what you discovered . To my i am deferring attorney. I am sure you sure he will have a plan. Host pursuing legal actions . Guest we are looking at legal actions, yes. Host what are they . Guest i have to defer to him. Host timeline . Guest i do not have a timeline, but in the nottoodistant future there will be information he can release publicly or will want to release publicly. Host linda. Virginia. Caller