Welcome, secretary. Ms. Albright good morning. Very good to be with you. Absolutely. Chipping in will be others and rasmussen. Maybe if we could kick off a question about the pandemic, it feels like the authoritarians are getting a free pass to implement more of what they would love to impose on the citizens ranging from surveillance to more traditional military tactics and you wrote the world is paying a high price for this. I took that as a reference to china, but feel free to correct me if it was in reference to other countries. We have a situation where many countries believe that china is mishandling has been handling this better than the u. S. What is the outlook . By keepingt clearly china madg information away from people and also arresting those in china that were coming forth with the truth. What is interesting, and this is the real paradox, clearly societies need to have some kind of rules when the virus has taken over and clearly there are rules about social distancing and Wearing Masks and things which does mean there is a role for government in terms of creating the rules and making sure they are carried out. The question is how that doesnt disintegrate into a total advantage for the authoritarian governments. The chinese have taken advantage of that. There has been kind of a return of the virus in china and we are again seeing across various lockups and aspects that are a danger. The part that is difficult and i think one has to in a discussion like the one we are having today is trying to recognize what is the role of the Central Government in trying to help develop those rules with when the virus is spreading and to have a government that recognizes the scientific basis of it and then figures out how to allow local authorities and countries to follow the rules and gives the people a chance to exist within a democratic society. I think we should not underestimate the difficulties in this. Maybe i will throw in a question on hong kong. China is using the pandemic as a cover to push through changes and limitations on the rights of hong kong that had been attempting last year. What do you think the world needs to do to stop that . Ms. Albright one has to notice. I was in hong kong for the turnover. The excitement of that, there were certain parts of the basic law that allowed for the council to have a set of laws to be able to move towards a different kind of a system two systems and how to figure it out. They are using it as an excuse. There is no question about it. What i find interesting is there are certain countries that have been able to control the virus, and taiwan is one of them. One of the things i hesitate to say is countries that have Women Leaders have been able to control the virus better. New zealand, taiwan, germany, finland, norway. The question is how democracy is controlled. What are the various rules and tactics, how is that carried out, it is more consulting with the people and seeing the people as part of the solution, not the problem and certain characteristics women have in the way they govern and clearly understanding the science of issues, understanding the people are partners in trying to solve it and caring about the wellbeing of the people. This is an important part, not pitting one group of people against another. There are various aspects to it. Democracies can control the virus and i think they need to focus on that while those that have authoritarian tendencies are using it to push even further and create really an authoritarian government. Some of them say it is because we are trying to control the virus when actually they are trying to control the people and have power. Picking up some of the results from the alliances democratic perceptions index, something that struck me is fewer and fewer people believe their own countries are democratic. Even those who live in democracies where you have a situation where half of america doesnt really identify with the u. S. As a democracy anymore. Maybe that is about the polarization of politics. I dont want to speak on behalf of everyone who answered that. What is your take on that situation there and that global trend . Is it something we need to be worried about in democracies themselves, that they will disintegrate . Ms. Albright i am worried about that and i wrote a book called fascism, a warning, before the virus issue and tried to figure out what was going on. Fascism is not an ideology. It is a method for taking power. I looked at the history of fascism which begins with mussolini. What happened was italy felt disrespected and not think for not thanked for the role they played in the first world war. Their economy was a problem. There were divisions already in society. And all of a sudden, this character mussolini was a good speaker, outsider, and was understood how power was gotten, and he then this is what is interesting. He and hitler came to power constitutionally, because in the case of italy, King Emmanuel turned it over to mussolini. The best quote in the book was was, ifolini which you pluck a chicken one feather at a time, nobody notices. We saw that in a variety of places. We were talking about europe, orban is a perfect example who had been seeking power in hungary. Hungary had problems as a result of world war i, feeling they had been betrayed from the treaty. I remember doing a survey in the early 1990s. We asked this of every country. The piece of your country is in a neighboring country. 80 agreed so. Orban has operated on that. On the basis of keeping refugees out and to some extent trying to deal with the virus and declaring a National Emergency and working off of that. What happens if you have a leader intent on gaining power, they can use a crisis to really justify it. You have to understand that that kind of leader thinks he is above the law, thinks the media is an enemy of the people and then there is the other thing which is to pit align yourself with one group and pit it against another. That is the power procedure that takes place. We have seen it in hungary, the philippines, venezuela and to some extent in poland. As nationalism rises in a number of countries, it becomes a tool for saying we are better than you are and undermines trying to deal with the virus which knows no borders. Before the audience joined us, we were chatting about social media. Those points you are making reminds me that a lot of these discussions can happen very quickly and at scale but still privately and out of the public eye and out of the way of accountability because of social media. In a sense you can do everything quick with social media whether it is good or bad. Wonder if you have reflections about what we might need to do to make sure those platforms are not doing harm in the way they now may be when it comes to democracy. Ms. Albright when social media became obvious, i remember i am chairman of the board of the National Democratic institute which is part of the endowment for democracy which was started by president reagan who thought democracies were not good about explaining themselves visavis communism. It has been interesting to study how democracy took hold after the end of the cold war and a trend towards democratizatoin. I always thought when countries democracy, iy for always said, we are all the same, everybody is ready for democracy, to make decisions about their own lives. What happened i have to tell you, we thought the rise in social media was democratize in many ways because people would have access to information and ways of participating. It turns out to have been a doubleedged sword. The question, and there is a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of how the platforms are used, how not to get into the process, in a democracy, you dont want censorship but how do you keep the material that is wrong or inducing to violence out of it. These are the big issues democracies have to deal with in a way that is not authoritarian frankly. You would agree it is a complex issue and it is in many ways i was thinking even made more complicated by the virus because all of a sudden we have to figure out ways to attract people and how is that done. It is the pandoras box of major proportions. It is a truly essential problem that needs to be discussed between the people and the government. It needs to be discussed by journalists themselves and by academics, experts and i think it is one of the not so hidden issues that will make the next phase of International System much more complicated than before. I dont think we are going back to anything that happened before the virus. We need to think anew about structures, participation, and the role of information. You raised a gender leadership role earlier on. If i could talk about gender and the general population, i got in trouble by suggesting the pandemic was hitting women harder than men. That might not always be true in the death rate, but it has reminded us of the structural inequalities women are facing and those get amplified by what it does to our economy. What is your advice to those looking to address inequalities around the world seeing as we do not have an administration that is jumping onto the topic . Ms. Albright what is essential is to recognize it. Part of the problem is they have not talked enough about who is affected by what. One of the issues is in the strong obviously now at the moment and i think for a long time in the United States is how it has affected our black population and stimulated a discussion about systemic racism. So that is one of the issues. It has affected women in a number of different ways because many of them are the caregivers and they are the ones that have to continue to give care to their family. Question is when they they are not enough jobs, one thing we do know, women are laid off. Even when they are not, dont get paid the same amount as the men. The other part, and this is the combination of all of the problems that are there and make this particular period difficult is that there are refugees and immigrants many of whom are women who end up in some of the refugee camps. They get infected from what goes on there. One thing leads to another and the whole issue of how the pandemic has operated within the refugee population, many of whom are women. The other part that happens is there is violence against women and that is more likely to come up when there is, when there are excruciating problems and people are under stress and there are various instincts or whatever one calls it that needed to be stopped and violence against women is one of them. In many ways women are a large proportion of the victims of the pandemic which affects their life and livelihood. You have lived through so many turning points in history from world war ii to 1968, 1989, 911. Do you think we will look back at 2020 or do you feel it as a turning point in modern history . What can we do to make it a turning point that we will be proud of . Ms. Albright i will say if one looks at the elements and how it is affecting not just one country but everybody in the world, it is interesting to know there are very few countries that have totally not been affected or they dont know what their statistics are. It makes us realize we need to sort out how institutional structures work internationally and domestically, what the role of technology is in all of this and who it affects. I think it is a turning point. I hate this cliche. It happens to work. A crisis can be an opportunity. I said even before all of this, and i wrote my fascism book before, we need to recognize that the International System was not working. Some of them need refurbishing. So a lot of the institutions we have worked with internationally and domestically were created out of world war ii. Some were modified after the end of the cold war. I had an interesting time working with rasmussen, secretary general of nato, to deal with the changes on that. I think one can see this as a major turning point and needs to be seen as an opportunity to rethink how we deal with Global Pandemic that requires International Cooperation and how it affects our government. From what you said earlier, you need a government to make rules about how to deal with a pandemic. How do you make sure the government does not overstep its bounds and the chicken ends up being bald . It is now time for me to introduce dean fritz meyer. You made us think of a final question. All the work you did, how much harder would it have been if you did not have membership of International Organizations like the World Health Organization or if you were cutting off those . I am going to assume you disagree with president trumps decision to undercut those organizations. How much harder would it have been to do your job without those organizations . Ms. Albright it would have been impossible. I had been ambassador to the u. N. Before i was secretary of state. I understood the importance of the relationships. We were dealing with serious issues where there was ethnic cleansing taking place. We wanted to undertake whatever we had to do with partners multilaterally. I teach at georgetown and i teach a course that talks about the national security. What you need are partners and especially at the end of the 20th century, you needed partners. I was the first secretary of state in the 21st century. We were constantly building bridges to the 21st century. It has turned out to be even more complicated having started with the terrorist threat and looking towards Climate Change and now this pandemic. There is no question you need International Organizations to Work Together and to complement and work and recognize the National Governments and how they fit into an International System. One other fact is to realize there are other stakeholders which is the private sector. Whether it is corporation, ngos, universities, you need everybody working on what are complicated new problems and recognizing democracy is the only answer. Thank you so much for the conversation. Time for me to leave now. You will stay on the line, but i will say goodbye and welcome dean fritz meyer from the university of denver. Ms. Albright thank you. Our session with secretary albright to announce a Strategic Partnership between the alliance of Democracy Foundation and the joseph cobles school of International Studies at the university of denmark. Let me welcome the dean to our virtual debate. Welcome. I went to Denver University in late february back when we could travel the world, touring the state, discussing the state of democracy. At the same time i had good talks with the dean and other faculty members on cooperation with my foundation. That is what we are announcing today. It brings a special significance to have secretary albright with us. Since the school is her family name through her father joseph coble, and you represent such strong american and european stories. A stronger transatlantic link does not exist. That is also in the same spirit which will guide our cooperation. What do we want to achieve . We want to establish the annual copenhagen democracy summit and also make the event in denmark for leaders who care about the health of democracy and liberal, international order. In this summit we have included students from the school at Denmark University and i hope you have all been listening diligently even though we started early in your time zone. And with these objectives in mind, i am happy to begin this partnership and we turn to the dean for his thoughts and in conclusion to secretary albright. Thank you so much. Let me first say what an honor and pleasure it is to be with you and secretary albright and all of you at the summit. We are truly delighted to be announcing the partnership with the alliance of democracies today. We started this conversation what seems an age ago but was only earlier this year in denver. So much has changed. We are pleased and happy our students have been able to attend this summit early as it might be for them and to highlight the work of our great faculty. I hope many of you in the audience caught the session yesterday on ensuring womens rights during the pandemic that was moderated by professor marie barry. At the school from the beginning really, democracy and the Transatlantic Alliance has been core concerns of the school. It is in our dna, the life journey of the founding dean and Madeleine Albrights father. His life journey caught between fascism and communism to denver, colorado, made him aware that democracy is ultimately a necessary condition for addressing all other issues and that the United States has a role and responsibility to promote it and those convictions live on at the school. There are of course many worrisome trends in the world being discussed at this summit and in the United States as well. This is also to my eye a hopeful moment. In the protests happening in the United States and around the world, there is a stirring of democracy particularly among the younger generation. There is a great optimism in protest. It demands or tends on the belief that we can make a difference. I would be remiss if i did not note today in the United States is juneteenth, the anniversary of the signing of the proclamation that freed the slaves. I hope and believe it will be a day that will become a fixture on the american civic calendar. A day to remember and celebrate to be sure but also for us to our slowo continue journey toward freedom and equality. This is an auspicious moment to launch our partnership. We will be combining the strength of the alliance of university of denver, collaborating on research, engaging students in this work, sponsoring events and hopefully soon hosting all of you at some point in denver. There is a lot of work ahead, a lot of challenges but we look forward to working with you and the alliance of democracies in this critical work. Thank you. Thank you. Now it is you, madeleine. Ms. Albright thank you. I am really sorry we are not in copenhagen which was the original plan to spend time together. You and i met 10 years ago when we were doing a review of the nato alliance. I call you secretarygeneral. I think this is truly a Perfect Alliance between your institution and the university of denver in so many different ways because there is no question, i consider myself the epitome of the euroatlantic relationship. Americans dont recognize the fertility of democracy, and we have to keep working on it. And there was Nothing Better to be a professor in a free country. He loved being at the university of denver and to be in colorado and to spend time with the young people and talk about diplomatic history and the importance of democracy and people participating in it. I think this is one of the truly great agreements that have been made, because you and i have seen each other quite a lot in between, testified together in front of congress on the problems of authoritarianism. I know your dedication to democracy and your interests in having this relationship. I think it is great to have this relationship between the Korbel School and you. Fritz is a terrific person to pull it all together. I look forward to being invited and having a chance to really link these two great organizations together and understand that democracy is under threat. And it has to be developed by understanding what the 21st entry has brought and you understand the important relationship. I thank you both for doing this and i think it is a great time in a very difficult moment to look forward and understand that there are structures that can make us functional and democratic in the 21st century. Words. K you those kind you will definitely be invited. [laughter] you,ld like to thank secretary albright, for your time today and for blessing our lew corporation with the korbe school. I look forward to working with you and with the school. Thank you. Thank you so much. And this concludes this session. Now we will turn to our session techsiness and responsibility. Editor in chief and in this connection even more thertantly, chairwoman of Danish Management Society which comprises secretaries from denmarks is in his community. Cspan has unfolded coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events. You can watch all of the Public Affairs program on television, online or on our free radio app. Be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily Washington Journal Program or our social media scene. Cspan, created by American Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. The house education and Labor Committee holds a hearing today to examine the coronavirus response. Inequitiese racial in education, health care and the workforce. Live coverage begins at noon eastern on cspan, online at www. Cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. What do you think we can do about that . 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