This is sean for cspan and this will be broadcast on book tv. We ask that a silencer cell phones and since it is being filmed, the q a will need to be holding this microphone if you have a question. Then i will be around with the microphone. Before you speak have the microphone enhance. As want to mention were having a fantastic event sunday afternoon at 4 00 oclock. Kelly will be here, shes the editor of the feminists essay collection called here we are. Its a collection for ages 12 and up. If you have a young feminists in your life its a fabulous collection and it has essays from everyone. Come out and meet kelly she will be here along with christine, one of our most incredible young adult writers. I hope we see you again. Tonight we are thrilled to welcome back a native alyssa monaco. [applause] liss new book is who thought this was a good idea another questions you should have answers to when you work in the white house. Militia is chief operating officer. Previously she served as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff at under president obama. Earlier in her career she was director of scheduling for senator john kerrys president ial campaign in 2004. She currently serves on the board of trustees for the john f. Kennedy center for the performing arts and is a contributing editor at marie claire. Shell be signing books after she speaks. We have them available for purchase at the front desk. Grab one before you head back to have it signed. Please join me in welcoming alyssa. [applause] i thought i would read a little from the book and then we can do q a if that works for everybody. My selection was picked by my best friend of 30 years. Over the years my parents let me hold my own hand a lot. I think there was just hope my sister not which are not to be good people. They didnt care of how successful are prominent or wealthy we would be. So dance classes, the extra curricular choice for, send girls no matter your generational era. I took cap, ballet and jazz for 12 years and what i lacked a natural ability and made up for in enthusiasm. I danced in the wings of finale because of my height. I assumed if i was sweating i was succeeding. My sister was a killer, a great dancer. As i got older i realize because i can see an example of someone so suited to dance, like me but i was investing a lot of time in hours each week and something is not that good it. It made me feel bad i never had a solo. I never had a solo, mom. I was 16 when i finally tell my mom i wanted to quit although quitting is a thing people are taught never to do shouldnt flip out. She did lose her mind about not having a circular saw my college application. She said it was okay. If you do it responsibly, quitting something that is not benefiting you, whether it is dance classes that everyone is taking or soul sucking job that has nothing to do with your interested in can change your life. When you finish dance i did not set it round cruising the highways and byways of rhinebeck. I was first flute in the band and school. I took french. I babysat for a family down the street every saturday night and i also worked at the enemy barn. That was back in the day. I would wrap the flowers and wet paper towels the newspapers to prepare them for the long trips back to the city with tourists every sunday. This is not some barn. It was an actual bar with power tools in a tiny space heater. My best friend cara visited me every weekend and brought me super donuts or a bagel. I loved it there. I also had a job as a checker. Oldschool, a Grocery Store in the center of town. Anyone has worked at kmart, walmart or their local Grocery Store may not believe me but i really liked it. Sure, some days you want to hang with your friends instead, but i was good at bagging groceries. It meant that i could afford tickets to see fish or god Straight Line of the grateful dead. I could buy crystals, they are very cool then. And dresses from winter sun. I also learned a lot about people, what they bought who use coupons, who didnt, who helped to pack and who just are there and waited who watched you scan every item in question the pri price. Our store was only one of a cute view that accepted food stamps in the area which gave me more perspective than anything else experience growing up. A moment when you see them a woman with a kid or an older person trying to figure out what food stamps cover. The humiliation they can endure why holding up the liner having to put things back. Forever for my opinion on how we should help those in need humanely and respectfully. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who would disagree. Years later were having a discussion about food stamps in the white house. My job was never policy focus. I scheduled, coordinated and planned to with times and dates and personalities. I often said in a policy meeting so i can understand priorities and use my judgment as my team decided. Out of 100 different choices per day how best to use a president s time. This discussion was a followup to conversation obama had with someone else. He would often gather senior staff to talk over issues after meeting with a particular person. Because of the economic recession there are a lot of people on food stamps at the beginning of his presidency. The number dropped but we didnt have meetings about what was happening at the moment because if you just dealing with things as their happening youre not preparing about things to come out of the blue. This meeting was in the roosevelt room but i was not sitting at the table. I was sitting along the wall. Seating is limited in the west wing. The chairs are huge and not that many people fit around the conference tables, many are historical or have other significance. Invitations to meetings are exclusive. Everyone in the room needs a good reason for being there. From the beginning of my career politics i hadnt imposed policy about swimming in my own lane and not over commenting on things i was not an expert on. In this case i cannot take the rods of this ivy educated gay. They were talking about the limits on what food stamps cover in town. I could tell none of them ever knew a person who had ever needed food stamps. I raised my hand, something i think i only did what i wanted to talk and told them it was what it was like to see people humiliated in line trying to buy generic cereal, canned soup and milk. For them to realize what they couldnt get and how ridiculous it was that sports drinks were covered but Something Like sunny delight which is much cheaper than orange juice and has a decent amount of vitamins, was not. There was nothing they could do. I can feel my face get read in high is place like the white house theoretically what you say should be based on facts, figures and evidence. If your face is red arent showing too much emotion . I dont know, but i got my point across. It was not a conversation intended to resolve or change anything at the moment. The president made it clear he was on my side. , so i figure you guys might have questions maybe we should just go to questions. I can read more if you dont have questions. To greet me to read more . Okay. Here we go. How much more . Oh hello. The best part about those jobs in high school, all of which i gained some satisfaction from and remember family even at the time was thinking i would rather be watching 902s ten. They come in a poor way to rationalize what my career seem to work my life was going off course. If i am never good at anything else im good at this. You might think its depressing but it has given me comfort. Theres no greater feeling of independence than to provide for yourself. Nine if you had a job and youll probably hate job separates points out your life you can leave and be okay. When it came time for me to play college i had one of those moments where i needed to remember at the end of the day, at least i was really good at making groceries. [laughter] that if i didnt get into harvard or even chose to apply i would end up where i was supposed to end up. The time was 92 94. No email, no internet. Drove to barnes noble and bought the u. S. College guidebook. We spent hours taking pages and talking about were wanted to go. I underlined addresses in the summer before my senior year i wrote a way to asked for applications. We visited georgetown, berkeley, stanford, and uc santa cruz. The places i apply to, the university of vermont, university of wisconsin, cornell, brown, georgetown, albany and and myself. I did my essays which no one proofread. I wrote the essays and study fr the sats and did well, especially verbal. My mom did help me thought the checks for the application space. If you havent seen sent almost fire you cannot fully understand my mindset at the time. I really wanted to go to georgetown. The movie takes place one year after group of friends graduates from the tries to find their way in the world. For some reason, even though i havent thought much about getting into politics at the time, i wanted to be alec. Amazing. He was a very selfimportant 22yearold working on a Congressional Campaign and cheating on his livein girlfriend. Who is too good for him. The characters were very weird role models, they drank a lot, couple of them did a lot of coke and they spent too much money. They were attractive, funny and ultimately made it out alive. I credit this to the fact they had gone to georgetown. [laughter] i thought that if i got in i could access some of the backpack energy. I was top ten in my class and by top ten i mean number 11. Out of 76 and not short on confidence. Who wouldnt want me . I got all my rejections for saint anne april. After returning from our second pilgrimage to georgetown where i have bought a car sticker because i was so convinced i was going to get it, got home to realize cashier had forgot to put the sticker in the bag. Later, when my dad got the mail and i open my very thin letter from georgetown and all of the others, we realized it was a sign. Signs like this only work in retrospect. I am choosing between the university of vermont and the university wisconsin. Coming from such a small town i worried i be to fish out of water from medicine so i happily applied and i registered for housing and a meal plan and all the things that make you feel like your new life is about to start, i never step foot on campus. [laughter] kind of funny when you think about it. Sometimes i do leap and then look. Sometimes it works out great, other times things couldve gone a little bit better. If i have a sense of myself in high school, i lost it in college. This was the first time i realized money matter and how you spent it matter more. Since my family put value on getting the most out of our car i thought for tour station wagons were aces because they lasted forever. I had no idea who i was. A group in a town where you didnt know who had money and who did it. The wealthiest family were probably the quiet veterinarians and they drove beat up suburbans and waken ears. I dont really remember anyone wearing makeup. Save little gave her up for me. I were close from gap or marshals of my hairstyle was from a bowl cut to a shake. Think about it when hits eddie betters was shorter and the layers were more similar to the rachel. It wasnt all bad, is good friends with my roommate amy and our flow had a lot of indigo girl listening sessions. A lot of talks about what bugged you out. They could describe any number of situations. When you encounter someone weird, when he smoked bad pot, when you had experienced your first bout of insomnia because the guy insight did not sit next to you and you can figure out why. What respect this is very fun. My classes at me branch out. I majored in french and became good at japanese which i signed up for a win. One semester i took a course in rural sociology which focused on poverty in the northeast kingdom of vermont and i later use rather to make small talk with oprah while at an obama event in iowa. It was very good, she was super impressed. From the beginning of sophomore year i began to realize my french major was not taking me in the direction i wanted to go. Vermont is very political people say what they think. They disagree without being disagreeable and have discussions without fighting. State and local officials were always on campus. Governor howard dean came to register to vote. I got to jump on a reviled republicans car. I found myself with a contract with america is a terrible time. I found myself gravitating toward the political stuff whether on or off campus. That winter i decided to apply for an internship with Bernie Sanders. Bernie, the revolution. With spring break rolled around i found out the budget for the French Department was being cut and it might not be offered as a major. I thought this was a site so reapply to the university of wisconsin madison to transfer in my junior year. A few weeks later i also got the Bernie Sanders internship working may through august and his congressional office. Unlike and politics. Bernie sanders, john kerry, just saying. The internship did not pay but i was able to stay with a couple of friends in burlington and apartment on south street on a liquor store. I slept on a futon more than once woke up to find a spider . Sleep. Its so gross. But it didnt matter, nothing had ever been more exciting. It was an Election Year so bernie was in the office a lot and he met with constituents more than any politician i had known. I answered phones and took down notes from voters. At night i will call people at all parts of vermont trying to raise money. I was in super successful but i did a great job of reminding people to register to vote and telling them of the bernie event to be doing around the state. From time to time i got to drive bernie around. He looked the same way he looks now. Super disheveled, gruff but fair. He would always read the newspaper even though we had the windows down, never airconditioning. Sometimes he asked about my family and explain to me what was going on in the world. I once try to impress him by telling him about the time my friends and i jumped on the car. His attitude was what else would you have been doing . Before i met bernie i have felt politics was about the adjourned show mission and nothing really happened or got fixed. Instead of focusing on the largescale changes, he showed me how to see the people whose problems he could impact insult. The people who work for him also seemed dedicated to helping his constituents. Its not necessarily true of others. Many politicians have staff made up of climbers who move from one senator to another to get up the ladder with the ultimate goal of becoming a legislative director chief of staff. Of course, some politician staff levels want to go on and run for office himself. A lot of times ambition in washington is just about being powerful. You can be powerful without a seat in congress. Bernie was so committed to his issues in vermont that politics did not seem before i left for madison i changed my major to political science. Two important things happen. First i got a call for burning from a 608 area code which is madison, wisconsin. Bernie was running late so i told the man on the line, that he might have to wait a few minutes. In the meantime i asked questions. I always try to learn about people coming in the Office Especially people who are talking to bernie. I want to know what made them important enough to get the time and attention. When i got on the phone and he had to wait a summer chance. I knew ed was a very important labor attorney. He had unionize Nfl Players Association and was a progressive leader in madison. I told him i was going to be transferring to madison. He replied that i should come see him when i arrived on campus. I work for him for two years i lived there. As a side note, ed garvey passed away about three weeks ago and he ran for governor several times and was a great human being. I was glad i actually wrote about him in here because he was wonderful. The other important thing that happened was his team invited me to be an intern in the d. C. Office the following summer. I dont know if anyone in the office will understand what that meant to me. I felt like wonder woman. I packed up and went back to my back. From babysitting from a family outside of madison a couple of times a week and all i got for my 21st birthday for my summer in d. C. Shannon was going to law school i joke to metropark and took the train to capital south. I had five outfits to rotate each week. I had tomato mayonnaise sandwiches. I walked into bernies office ready to jam. This was a different buy. The interns were competitive and i would rather bang and a jump circle all day and never have to compete. I had a minor crisis of confidence. Then i remembered that i knew 100 times more about vermont than any of these guys. I was busy every day walking briskly and professionally which are professionally getting signatures and bells on amendments, running anything and everything to offices and drafting letters to constituents. If legally blonde had come out by then i wouldve fancied myself version of elwood meets norman ray, the union organizer. When my internship ended i was convinced i would be back the following summer after graduation to start my career as a humbly committed government employee. I do not get to interact with bernie that much but it didnt matter. Working for him give me a clear picture of who i was what i wanted to do. [applause] so now it is time for questions. I can tell you a story about how the title came to be witches, do you know . President obama does not like to be cold, ever. Hes from hawaii, despite what donald trump says. It was a very end of the 2008 election and we were in pennsylvania and so is john mccain. It was supposed to snow and john mccain canceled all of the events. We are in chicago and i went in to see david, i was the one who is going to tell the man who hates the cold that he was going to keep on going. So i did, and i emailed reggie love was his personal aide and robert gibbs who became White House Press secretary. And i said hey were again and go in pennsylvania and they wrote back and said boss wants to know who thought this was a good idea. That was not the first time that happened or the last time. But i said no its fine, it will be great. My deputy, danielle who is like my work soulmate, she and i got to the office early and were sitting there and watching it on tv and it was not just snowing, was sleeting sideways and hitting him in the face. Daniel said oh my gosh, its like the worst possible scenario. We watch him and he gets his face and i did an npr interview and they played me back that actual event. And im like i was so right. Its an awesome event put at the end of the event he is drenched and full of sleep in a ghost walk offstage and put his hand up and reggie will put the phone in his hand and my phone rang ten seconds later. And i picked it up and put my head down on the desk and said its in. So mike hello, like you are awesome, amazing. John mccain canceled all of his events, youre the best. And he said where are you . And i said im at my desk. He sa