Joining us today, senator to discuss your book. Thank you for having me. Im excited to be here. Host i wanted to start, your entire story has so many emotional movements on moments. As a congressional editor and love the portion where you say people tell me on the first editor to have a baby in office but now, the first to give birth. [laughter] but it tells you the average age for a senator to give birth in office we need more women senators and younger senators. Host the passages are fantastic but i hope we can have a candid conversation what that looks like on the personal level to be a very tradition bound institution. How awkward was that . Talk me through. You use the phrase with abreast on the senate floor. [laughter] as soon as i became pregnant it was through ivf. I was trying. We began having the conversations. The senate even then with democrats in the minority we were pretty evenly divided. I knew we would need every single vote. Senate rule says i cannot take Maternity Leave i can introduce legislation or vote. I cannot even give birth in illinois i had to do in dc otherwise i would be stuck there. You cannot take a newborn baby on the airplane. From the beginning i knew we would have to work through a lot of issues including the senate rules. Theres no way for me to get on the floor to vote with my baby unless they change the rules. That was almost a ninemonth long process of negotiations with amy klobuchar. And orin hatch was the lead committee chairman. Host what does that experience tell you and show you how far washington has to go to be truly feminist with the ability to represent . Because as you point out others raise children. One thing i learned you can find allies in unexpected places. Once a senators knew i was having these conversations and negotiating. Orin hatch really didnt want to change the rules. What will the babies dress code going to be . As a mom are you seriously asking me if the baby would adhere to a Senate Dress Code . Must have a blazer and shoes. She wears a beanie. I will not take that off. She would be in for the pajamas. I could put shoes on that. I will put a blazer on her. I did that day. But i had members, republican members, marco rubio i hardly ever agree said tammy, i am with you. I will stick up for you. I wish i couldve brought my young kids to the floor. We need to do this. We need to change the rules. And roy blunt said tammy i will be the next chairman. I will change the rules. I remember when i was in the house how great it was when i can bring my children to the floor progressive as he became chairman, the same wiki change the rules for me. Host that is fascinating. And it brings me to another question as a hill person i consider that photograph of you entering the building to vote Iconic Holding her baby daughter. You have been in the public eye for so long. You address this but how did that feel different now not just a public figure. I am very jealous of guarding my daughters privacy. You will rarely see pictures to see their fullface. Sometimes you will see media has captured it. But i am most no ways on never post pictures with their face. They can decide whether or not they want to post pictures of themselves on social media. But it was important for me to do my job as a working mom. Are fighting for working moms everywhere so it was very symbolic for all of the moms who work outside of the home as well. To see me break down that barrier i could show even a senator has to fight to bring her kid onto the floor to do her job. Host talk about very common experiences that women dont talk about, you were very candid about ivf and how tough that was. That is something a lot of women are starting to share more and more to get rid of the unnecessary shame attached to it. You talked about it matter of fact and your initial experience with the doctor in a Catholic Hospital who did not give you your full options. You can walk through with that shows you trying to help press healthcare policy to be more inclusive with fertility options. I was a congresswoman at the time. That was a learning experience. Prior i was at the v. A. I also use them for the healthcare. At the time so had very limited services. Every v. A. Hospital has a civilian Teaching Hospital as a partner. The v. A. I go to happens to be a Catholic Institution which i didnt ever think about ever go to them for mammograms or routine care. But when they return on referred me to Maternity Services the doctor did not even examine me or take me into the clinic. She met me in the waiting room. Your 43 years old. You are too old. You have less than a 3 percent chance of getting pregnant. The best you can do is go home and enjoy your husband and sent me on my way. Not knowing anything about treatments i believed her. This is a doctor and hospital i have received excellent care. It never even occurred to me. Had no reason to believe i was to all that 43 to get pregnant. I had been trying for ten years. So my husband enjoyed that line about enjoy your husband but then two years later i was speaking at a women in leadership seminar when a woman who was there the question was asked, had you manager Work Life Balance i try but i regret i could never have children because then i struggled and cannot get pregnant now i am 44 or 45. A woman said you are not too old go to this doctor. At northwestern in chicago. He has knocked up every single woman over 40 in chicago. Go to him. I didnt believe her. Was very polite she continue to pester me every month. Finally i went i went in to see the doctor who said you work with me and go to the process. Theres no reason why you cannot get pregnant and he examined be one examine me. Eighteen months to the day i was pregnant. I dont want anybody else to be misled the way i was. I said i thought i couldnt get pregnant and i was too old. He said where did you go . Because thats a Catholic Institution as a Catholic Church they do not support ivf specifically because its fertilization of an egg outside of the human body. That happens a lot. So i included this in the book because i want other women and other families who try to start a family to know that they have options. And it is a struggle but it is worth it. Have two beautiful girls one at 46 and then another right after i turned 50. Host it is incredible. You go into this in great depth. I wonder how you contextualize the story we didnt even get to the rest. And with healthcare policy there are very few members who have your direct experience with these choices of working women that they make every day. Did you think about this as you are working or was that separate quick. Everything i have experienced a bring to work with me because i think it makes me a better Public Servant for my constituents. I also told my Staff Members as they go through their lives with experiences. What the point of working for United States senator if you cannot work on your Passion Projects . I have been working very hard on reproductive rights not just as a Progressive Democratic women take on peoples attention including my republican colleagues. If you support the persons of amendments of fertilized egg is a full person with rights you will make ivf out of reach for most people. My doctor said if this passes, tammy i could be convicted of manslaughter if i put fertilized eggs and you knowing that probably two of them will not take because they are human beings and has rights. Think about what you are doing when you pass legislation on reproductive access for women. I bring that to the table. I wrote about it and letters to my colleagues and a speak up all the time. Is not just about choice in terms of abortion but to want to have children and have techniques beyond my grasp because of these laws that havent seen consequences most people dont even think about. Host i covered this but you raised this issue and had a discussion during the confirmation process. Talking to more of your colleagues like the senators that were allies and access on the floor does it make them more open to talking about it . I think so. Time and again whether we talk about the post office and then to support the u. S. Postal service i get my medication through the mail. Its one thing for the mail to be the couple of days late but if it is three weeks late and is my medication for phantom pain people are suffering. I also think i bring to the table i introduced the mom act talking about the high Maternal Mortality rates among african of american women they need to support their not listen to in the childbirth process. And the diaper needs act talking on talk about people cannot afford diapers for their children in daycare not because itll have access to daycare but access to diapers if they are choosing between food and diapers if you drop off a child you have to include diapers then you cant that your child in daycare then you can go to work. So i think it makes a better legislator. And my colleagues have their own experience that they are helpful to them as well. Host s now going back to the earlier chapters in your life you discussed, i was struck reading the New York Times review because they had the thought that i had. There are certain parallels to dreams of my father. You get extremely personal. Your style of writing is very different from president obama. He could be a little ornate but i just like you get down to it. So what was that like . So discuss who your influences were because you are so candid what it was like growing up to have the vision of america and your life in america and you get really personal. Did you say this is the way senator duckworth would talk quick. I really enjoyed born of crime. The title was amazing. Very personal about being born biracial in south africa even his parents got together and had him. And my parents met each other and fell in love and had me my dad and home state of virginia could not have married my mother because it had not yet passed in virginia. And i learned so much about apartheid to the individual on the black side of the equation and the white side. I wanted to do the same thing for the experience of growing up biracial in asia. I wanted to teach the reader about what it was like to grow up in Southeast Asia post vietnam but also why i still believe america is worth it. America is worth fighting for. My sexual daughter abigail asked me the question. Mommy you dont have legs. She wants me to teach her to ride her bike. But i cant run alongside of her to push the bike. So she said why couldnt somebody elses mommy or daddy go to iraq and lose their legs . Why you . I wanted to show her america is worth it. Democracy is worth it. It began me growing up has an american in Southeast Asia. To understand what a privilege it was that i was an american. But i can leave the wartorn country when i wanted to because i had the passport and another children could not because they were abandoned by their fathers but i was not abandoned by mine. Host speaking of your father, his experience in the v. A. System, was the first chapter in a chapter you continued later on as somebody grappling with the v. A. So talk readers through was at personally painful to explore . With the political talk about this. My dad dont go to the v. A. To get the care and the support that they need because they think they are okay and they are saving the care for their buddies. My dad time and again lied and said i would find. I dont need anything you take care of the other guys. Which is what you learn to do in the service and look out for your buddy. But they took that to the most extreme form. I write about this the example in illinois as the director of the state department, the federal v. A. Said there were 800,000 veterans in illinois. I knew there were at least one. 2 million because that is how many individual veterans applied for license plates for the secretary of state. The v. A. Is undercounting 400,000 veterans in illinois. So when they go to build a new hospital they say illinois is only 800,000 it doesnt need the additional hospital we will build. That means illinois doesnt get the hospital. And those other 4000 that are not being counted do need help to help is not they are it has gone somewhere else. I spent a lot of time telling veterans even if you dont plan to use it go sign up so they know you are there. The best way to take care of your buddy is not to enroll in the v. A. But to enroll so they know you are there and you are counted. I run into this all the time. They are in the mode of taking care of their buddies or sacrificing for the team instead of watching out for themselves and it hurts the team when they dont get the care they need. Host you eloquently say in the book its just a matter of the culture of taking care of veterans. Is your hope that telling your story can help that to happen quick. I hope so. All the stories in the book of me growing up in asia and to be so lucky i was american or to talk about being hungry when i was in my teens and my dad lost his job and was unemployed four or five years in his fifties. I tell the stories to people because i know people have lost a job. They cant get another one and they are behind in their rent literally one day away from homelessness the way we were and they are just scraping by where they can and choosing between do i feed my kids or take medicine . All of those things. I show that you are not alone. There are people like me in positions of power who try our best to solve the problem. But despite all of that the safety nets were there. I did get the food stamps. I could go to a Public School to graduate from. I could graduate from college for my bachelors degree. All of that was available and a could join the army to become a senator one day. I want to make sure the safety nets are there for other people. Host another question about your inspirations. With the Current Situation with the anti Asian Hate Crime a terrifying moment for a lot of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the country. You are working on legislation to address this, but when you are writing this book i imagine we were in the coronavirus but how do that into your mind talking about your experience to people who might suffer discrimination here in america . About the chapter about being discriminated against when i was in asia because i was half white. I was going for being half white and insulted and treated differently by my asian cousins because i was halfway and didnt fit in with the asian community. Then i talk about being another later on in that happened before coronavirus hit. I hope people understand this is a universal experience among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. We are the ones after our ancestors going from the civil war had it taken away from them in the chinese exclusion act veterans actually had the citizenship taken away that they had earned due to the chinese exclusion act. Are the only population that has a family play into internment camps in the middle of the war and fought for the country even as family members just because they were of japanese descent or even look like they would be of japanese descent. I had people come up to me while i was wearing the uniform of my nation but saying where are you really from . Duckworth is not your name. That is your husbands name. No. I am a duckworth. I have been here since the revolution. This past year was really hard on the a api community. It is always been here but now to be the target of hate crimes part of it because the president of the United States was using hate speech the president was saying the country virus and blaming the chinese for the virus but not saying the peoples republic of china but the chinese the chineseamericans so they were committing hate crimes against them has been really dramatic for the Aapi Community it grew over 160 percent and we know most hate crimes against aapi are reported. It is reported anything other than a hate crime. Host i do wonder if you got the chance to reopen your book what we are seeing now is there anything more how you would address the otherness issue . Maybe a little more time talking about how it when it mattered. In my helicopter that day i talk at length about the shootdown as part of the helicopter crew it doesnt matter if you are rich or poor or black or white. Ive been part of cruise we are a bag of skittles. And we are all americans. And thats why i love the army. It didnt matter who i was if i was a halfbreed asian girl for good only mattered if i could shoot straight and if i could carry the load when someone needed help. I probably spent more time on that than a racial perspective just because of the meritocracy. Host it is a good segue to the portion of the book where you talk about that. Another New York Times interview you talk about i dont like to listen to pop culture about war because its emotional. How hard was it to put this on paper . It was hard but i did in one single sitting. Is very cathartic. By did have to go back and talk to a lot of people. I dont have a lot of memory what happened past landing the aircraft. I reached up to do the emergency engine shut down because we had a fire. I passed out. I came to within the hour have lots of conversations but i dont remember any of that. The doctors and nurses at the emergency room in baghdad give me a drug to sedate me but they knew the side effect would block my short term memory. They did everybody coming through as an act of mercy. I am grateful to that. But i had to talk and hear what happened in the intervening time. I found it incredibly rewarding the things that i said and did im very proud of. I was not a hero that day. I didnt kill anybody to safety. But until they sedated me, i was watching out for my crew. As a soldier and army officer, ultimately that was vindication for who i was at my core. Watching out for my guys until the end. Host that is such a remarkable experience to have those conversations. Did you have other people helping you . I did. It was a group project. Over the years i was at walter reed on the nurse in charge of the emergency room had come up to me and said i know who you are. This was within five minutes of being wounded. You came to my emergency room i want you to know what you did. He came to my room and he gave me the number that i could track down the medevac medic and he put me in touch so it ended up being a little Facebook Group in the Hospital Unit and medevac unit like a snowball once i found one person me find two people than three people. Before long i was in touch with all sorts of folks some in civilian life they were all reaching out and talk to each other. It became very human for the others as well. Because many of them once they treat you in baghdad, what happened to the patient they dont know if the patients died or survived. So for many of them it was closure and one in particular that intubated me he said i have haunted him for 15 years with my final words to him before he sedated me. He thanked me for letting him know i was okay. Host was he impressed that now you are a senator . [laughter] and military you dont talk politics where they are on the political spectrum but they know. Every day is a gift. Because every day since that day i was shot down has been a gift. I should have died. The only reason i survived is the heroism of my crew and the doctors and nurses and all the people who took care of me. Every day is literally a gift. I tried to convey that but know that you are my northstar and i never want you to make you ashamed or embarrassed to save me by what i have done. Host it is an interesting contrast with trevor noah his born of crime is very upfront about the trauma you experienced a lot of trauma that yet you chose something that is a very joyful sentiment. Did you have discussions with others quick. We had all sorts of discussions. There is a saying strong in the book in places. Triple amputee from vietnam. It was all sorts of things. That one day when i was talking to the publishers into my collaborator, i was talking about the shootdown and they said every day of my life they asked me i had a tough day at work. I dont know a healthcare fighter something. I said im exhausted today. We had a tough day and i said that every day is a gift. Every day i have is one im surprised that i have. They said thats the title. Because thats how i live my life. Every day i say thank you to carry me out of that field in iraq and then i say okay what can i do today to live up to them for what they did for me on that day. Sometimes the brainstorming and then you say it out loud. So more logistical question, i was so impressed that you have the time to write this. You mentioned you wrote the part in one sitting. Does your husband take over childcare duties . I do it in bits and pieces. When i would do the proposal for the book i was writing it up in the notes app on the airplane see have a noun have to sit there and then on long flights going back to iraq, i just that and wrote. I would just write bits and pieces and put it together. Then once i had the book deal i got in december and it was due august 2020 i knew i had to get it done. I just hunker down and wrote. Even just ten minutes writing a paragraph. Its just a process. I had a great collaborator who worked with me. In my senior senator i talked about how he found me in the hospital gave me a new mission. I sent some copies two different folks. Im a big fan of Sherrod Brown and his wife is also led New York Times and a bestselling author and then they gave me feedback. I had a lot of people helping me along the way. Host i love that that they are reaching out with great detail. What was the hardest part of the book to write . But there might be another part that you found quick. Actually my Early Childhood was the hardest part. It was not an accident it was intentional. Its not on me but the fact this aircraft did a remarkable piece of flying and landed the bird in one piece thats why we are all alive. I want to honor his expertise and he had distinguished flying cross with his actions on that day. I always say its not a crash but it is a landing. It was an amazing effort to pilot tree one pilot. So to reliving poverty in hawaii and also ellie Start Talking about in recent years as the nation has been in more of a recession and talk about it more and the fact i was on food stamps i was very ashamed for a long time in my early twenties and thirties. I thought that was a failure. Not until i realized that was success. Because we never gave up as a family. To this day dont get between me and the penny on the ground i will get between you i will roll over you with my wheelchair. That something to be proud of with the american peoples help with the food stamps and the free lunch program, we should be more open about that. There are families that are food insecure right now to know that there is hope. Host it makes sense although i would not expect you to choose that part. Talk about trevor noah. And in that same interview of the New York Times a referenced earlier, you referenced you talk about other books like white rage like you would like to see even the president read it. Wish i could ask you a question, what book would you have anybody working on the hill is a reporter or staffer read . I would rather have a reading list because it does talk about the pendulum swing of our nation every time we have a major Civil Rights Movement and success and stepping forward. But there is a backlash that is part of the nations history. I think people should understand those in the military and that experience the war i always wanted. Thats a good book about the iraq war and afghanistan in my generation of troops were thinking after not having been at war over ten years. And that comingofage story and what that is for military men and women. I would have a long list. And with apartheid in south africa read that. A reading list is fair. Another book question i was so struck this is not a political memoir a lot of times members have their eye and something higher but youre just telling a story. Is as the book for everyone if they honestly had no idea who you were. This book is really for my daughters. I want them to read and understand the struggles that i went through. And that america provided me the privilege and help along the way. And that america is worth it. I truly wrote this just for my girls. But also for others to understand this democracy is worth fighting for. To give people a perspective as to why i believe in the programs i believe in. Why i support more food stamps and more money for public education. I support the policies that i do or how i got to this position based on my experiences. And i hope people get that as well. But this is a love letter to me nation permit for my daughters so they would understand why i was willing to compromise their life. Why i cant teach my daughter to ride a bike that is a cost to her i made a decision before she was even born but i would still do it again in the same position. Because our democracy and this union is worth the struggle to become a more perfect union. Host speaking of your daughters one portion made me laugh out loud but when you said what is daddys name and what is mommys name and she said in the professional voice tammy duckworth. [laughter] was it tough to talk about your Current Situation as a working mom . To have them maintain their privacy . How did you wrestle with that quick. If you asked me about it when i first ran for office i would not have talked about it but after having my kids are having gone through Senate Campaign while on ivf and trying to get pregnant. I decided i had to talk about it for other moms are women that are struggling with fertility issues. Because people would come up to me and have this idea with the heroics with the treatment and i want people to know there is no such thing of Work Life Balance. It is a lie. Its a lie that is perpetuated the person nation and families in the long run. There is a worklife balance we must pass things like universal family leave, paid family leave. We need to have it and here is why. The fact military women. In 2014 they have to report back even if they had a cesarean even added a duty station was afghanistan they have to do that. That is wrong. I got into that portion it was deeply personal as a mom. I wanted to say i struggled and i see your struggles i had to pump out my breast milk sitting on a toilet stall. I was trying to do the best for my daughter. So i felt to have left it out would have been a disservice. Host you mentioned not even the senate is set up to support that. Now the book is out, were talking today i imagine youre doing other public appearances, to what extent do you want other female leadership to tell stories like this quick. I hope more people step forward to speak about the struggle. I understand as a leader i have to step forward and take charge. Sometimes, this is exhausting. You just cant and you have to set up boundaries. I want to be realistic about that. I get called all the time by women who want to run for office. Especially younger women who have younger children. I tell them i had a huge temper tantrum when i was on my campaign. Was of may baby daughter and the campaign i was feeling adequate. Even as the world saw me as a Senate Candidate who had it all together. And want more women who achieve success to be up front its not just work harder. I was working as hard as i possibly could and barely pulling it together. But i did it. I did make an is a message i want to tell to other families. You can make it. But it is hard. Its not easy but its worth it in the end. Host absolutely. Part of all that, now we see now the average age of motherhood is growing. You became a mom of two at 50. Is there anything in writing this recalling what that was like that surprised you . Actually because of my daughters they make me do all the things that maybe if i was a mom in my mid twenties i would not have appreciated. Im calmer, and more patient. But i also think it has given me a second youthfulness. That on the swing with my kids. I dont think i would do that if i didnt have to. Or go to the aquarium just the other day my two yearold has this great belly laugh running from fish tank to fish tank. Just a day of laughter. I say go for it. Its that old line it to be a 50 yearold with kids were 50 yearold without kids and wishing that you had some of you talk with somebody who back to college why dont you do that . You are 65 and four years you are 69 anyway. You might is obese 69 yearold with a college degree. Do it. Host very, very good point. You mentioned earlier senior senator durbin he played a central role in your political career. I wonder if you had conversations with him that shaped that part of the book or any notable dialogue about this quick. I shared, when i wrote the first half of the book i shared it with him. Talk about my writing style its an army writing style they teach you to do active writing you get to the point in keep sentences short. You do it. So that is how i write because that is how the army taught me. Im very plainspoken after 23 years in the army. He came back and said it is very moving. I learned about a lot of your experience as a child i can see why you are you made me cry in the passage of the shootdown could you tone down the Army Language a little bit . I dont think that would be your future career. He could even say the f bomb. [laughter] i gave him a copy i said i am sorry. I toned it down. [laughter] he is always watching out for me. I said i did not tone it down. I dont swear that much. He said i didnt thank you would. [laughter] i am very much myself in the book. Host but going back to the stylistic conversation did anybody else read that and say give you color or just say be you . Back everybody said just be me. I think i did a good job of describing things. I wanted to show what cambodia was like. Before it was just right. My Early Childhood memory was sitting in a car because it was a french colony at one point and the flowers in the mango trees. Theres a lot of description in the book. It was just a description of my style of writing. I needed to be true to myself. Absolutely. 100 percent succeeded in that. One portion of the book, when you were going to fertility treatments, thats incredibly tough to go through the ivf process let alone on a political campaign. Did you consider saying more about that . Or more to put into words . You talk about it in other parts you say it succeeded after a lot of failures. How did you navigate that quick. The book could only be so long. You have constraints on how many pages i didnt want to write 500 pages i wanted them to get through and that was enjoyable. Im sure some people will cry when they with a part of the shootdown but there is proud moments as well. I felt that i treated it and it front but in my own life i dont well on things for a long time. That is how im. It was tough and insect. Even have a chapter about that it sucked and i own it and now im moving on. Now i am addressing being a working mom two girls under the age of six and a good senator at the same time. Im always moving on with the next phase. Acknowledge what happened. I cant dwell on it. I dont have the time. After this interview i still have to go stuffed easter baskets and we are 48 hours away from easter egg hunt. I just dont have the time to be dwelling on the past. Host absolutely. But i am wondering how constituents shape this. Did you have conversations with your personal life and how that inspired you in any particular way quick. Definitely. My constituents are why i was able to write this book. Over the last four years in the house and in the senate as i talked to constituents come i then prompted to tell stories i have never told before i never told people my dad was out of a job for five years and we were struggling. Was the only one putting food on the table for our family for a time. Finally started to talk about that because emmett folks that were laid off and i look into the audience saying im 52 years old what will i do . And it hit me. I just started to talk about my dad in that meeting. I never spoke to him being out of work before. The staff said i did not know that about you. So it is my constituents after i had my two girls i started to talk about ivf and then people would come up and say thank you for talking. One person said because of you i tried ivf and now i have my baby. That constituents have made me comfortable and trying to relate to them to hear to them come i can share experiences with them. That is got me to the place i cannot write this book. I cannot open myself and share the stories and they learn to recognize it. These are stories people have gone through and i hope people can see themselves in my story if there the first person to go to college, if they have been asked where you from. Because even though they are americans if they have to fight to try to get some support to be a working mom come i hope they see themselves in this book. Host that is beautiful. I wonder also thinking about your future in different ways. Sometimes we see members that spend more time with their family. You have a young family. Have you had time to evaluate that . No. I have a sixyearold and a three yearold i have College Tuition come up. I cannot stop working for another 18 years at least. [laughter] that is a real problem. My oldest daughter will get my husbands g. I. Bill that i use mine for the phd so i have to hustle. [laughter] being a senator is an amazing job. I love it as Company Commander so im happy to be a United States senator. My job i think makes me a better mom. I plan on doing this for a long time to come. Host wonderful. Defendant writing another book . Oh my god. [laughter] lets see how this one goes if it is well received. As i said, i didnt write this book just to tell my story. I wrote to tell america story as an example and then to really answer my daughters question. Its really for them. I write a letter to my daughters that i think moms and dads might recognize to speak to your child as an adult it from your current experience. If i write another book may be about that. Visitors i talked to in the book at walter reed there are characters there and korean war veterans. Both of them are in pts and a physical therapist and in their eighties became this couple about amputees and they were so honest about what life is like and then milkshake man and the one who lost his legs and handing out milkshakes paid out of his own pockets literally for years. Love to tell those stories in more detail. Host i think that is a fantastic book idea. This is a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for your time. I hope