Bir breadbox sir what an honor to be here with 01 of my mentors in the senate when they came in to the senate with barely there was a woman to be seen in mid you were there this book tells the story of how you got there barbara levy at the time november 111940 from a family of jewish refugees zero words were growing up in the shadow of the holocaust somehow ends up doing to a little place Sindh Brooklyn and you did go with such grace but also the art of the talks or want to talk about what that was like growing up and how you decided. Senator you said it was an honor but i am so excited you agreed to do this because that says a lot about our relationship and i am so thrilled i will get your question in a second but the kowalski set up me and so much to me when people say why . Are you disgusted . Not all been looking for those who can carry the banner so now to have you interviewing me i could not be more thrilled by getting to the issue was my life like it in this memoir when i sat down to write it, so long ago, a first thought it would be my dad he was my idol the dentist and nine brothers and sisters and of them graduated from High School Board 1908 and after he buries my mom he goes to the city college of new york at night, gets great grades becomes a cpa then after i am born, in the 50s he goes to law school at night and gets his degree so clearly it was my dad the way sit and think about the lessons those come from my mother. It was only such a burden on her and she was so sad she never graduated highschool i dont know exactly what happened but i do know she was smart in that kind of smart she had was from the heart and the sole. How can you do it . Even when everything is going against you in good Human Trafficking you know, what it is like if you know, its right you better do the right thing also never act out of anger these are the things. You tell a funny story how you were a agree on the playground and then haunting you the next day there is a dark cloud in front of the house did you thank you have killed him. With bad as a member you dont forget. But he was my nemesis and still little fivefoot period. Maybe with my high heels. [laughter] so why was the perfect target maybe they do still chase in school but one day i had it nobody was around hightech got my number two pencil and i stabbed him in the arm. He was stunned and so was i. If you and tell the story we thought you keep that our Little Secrets but then there is great big cloud over his home and lived in the innercity and i thought i killed him so i took it to my mother i said i think i killed albert. She said barbara sue. What did you do . She said you can do that but i dont take you killed him in the call. And his grandmother died i was so relieved i hugged him when he came back. She said never use violence and after that i never did. Sometimes i win sometimes i lose. But as a young girl you think about this and did you get a new carpet in city were just 10 years old your mother is in the hospital and you are not allowed to visit. Teeone to read that letter of the first organizing effort . That was after my mother died first i wrote to the doctor because kids can visit their parents. Dear dr. I am dead daughter of a but teeseven mother very much i didnt see her when she left but only five minutes before i went to school i have no sickness i will make a lot of noise at this my mother. So why can i see her . Thanks for reading this letter. Sincerely yours. Barbara. So that wrote a back to my mother if they dont let me in i could be so happy if i could see you. In school i of in the mexican group. A study group in fact, i am the chairman. Because they are memories that we have. But though whole idea that any kid could make it in america no matter where you come from is a big part of the book but one thing that is great about your stories is that you were a girl so here you are and you go to Brooklyn College following in your fathers footsteps in to get the degree you want to be a stockbroker city star interviewing and it was it easy back then to get that job. It was zero possible. There was a program up on wall street firms it was the people who work selling the securities they recall the customers men. So i was this man so when i got my first job it is a long story but it was the women who wrote about these letters but she never signed it elizabeth she signed it ee to disguise the fact that she was a woman and she never became a partner for a lot of years and was kind of in disguise. So i thought i will take a different path i will work for her and get a salary and that is that i had to make more sense least i could live in survive so i studied for the because if you got into the program you got trade it was like steadying for the eggs a. M. I was so excited i took it to elisabeth and she said i dont know. You have to go to washington but the shocking thing she said that not that it was like a fact of life but it is a days quotation so i wanted to have a little business on the side to have a little Side Business spirit that is why so many times in politics that it came in on your shoulders and Barbara Mikulski says when you came it is good for young people to read this and understand that the time when there is the secretary or nurse that was it. In fact, your brave has been they were married to in the say i often joke he married the Debbie Reynolds and woke up with barbara. [laughter] when we met girls or young women didnt have the opportunity is that they have today. So we have to settle for a lot less. Said you get together for a little party of the issues of the day scissors the talking about food or more appropriate things. And then i would go to the mens side and talk to them but i did it and the eric talk to them from highschool but the clear i was 18. I am might as well have been flying to the moon by myself to be in the senate but there was here was this decision that was monumental and then you decide to move to california how did that go . I went to visit my sister and i went with my parents out to california by eyes opened up i had never seen anything so beautiful. I grew up in brooklyn. But i talk about it did have some beautiful places where really it was the city so when i came to california the first thing ec is the duty in the north to the south the forest or the desert or the ocean it is so explicit i said i want to move here and that was wild and i said can remove . He said what . That we will have so much from the outside in the outdoors he said okay behalf to get a job in advance so we came now to california. Of course, then it was the excitement everything about it. Given a separate figure first board is board but then they will let him come in but the biggest is that this was said dangerous man that here you are on your own. But of course, you never forget. You never forget. But all of a sudden we had agreed to move so i said i will get as a place to live. You finish your exam your exams and the first day we get here he is born i was staying in resistors all a set of my water breaks i had not even that my doctor i have in the clinic at the hospital they were so wonderful to be. I had nothing. And they said did you know, its going to cost 1,000 . You can imagine today. We dont know how long he will have to stay if he survives. I am thinking this is the end of us. Everyway. There was the 50 50 chits they get out there as fast as they let him that was the most wonderful gift to us. She was premature but not so premature. That his shows. Leading into your support of the Womens Health care act and the affordable Health Care Act just as she grew up in the shadow of the holocaust but you are in california, Northern California in the shadows of the vietnam war. You learned the art of the talk but easter to be involved in organizing from the carpet lobby. [laughter] said taking the about is much bigger than the vietnam war to run as a supervisor. Yes. You are right. Because this is the core of be going into politics. As you know, you start to think differently you start to seek longterm and wonder what will she grew up in . What will my son say . All these issues cave with to the for the vietnam war in the Womens Movement and especially the vietnam war because it was the first one that came into your living room so i was part of the Antiwar Movement we used to take the kids and march in these parades and i became a real best and win the elections for the county supervisor opened in california which is a beautiful place north of San Francisco these issues were all of the issues theyre all local and also womens rights so they said will you run . And i said do it. They say it pays 11,000 the year widened you do it . So i ran. It was so crazy i came out on top the other two were republicans but you did run as a democrat or republican so before we had the though and i can vote on top, it was the incumbent and myself in the issue they tried to use the antichoice issue this candidates name was bill i was kind of excited because my campaign was going strong i said come over he says i am giving this a lot of thought he said my wife is the position it is hard for her and this is what i want to say. You should drop out. I said why would i do that . Because you were going to be bad for women. I said where did you get that . Because i remember of the we have to free you. Likewise have to free blacks that is the first thing that came to my mind because you fight against racism every hair on my body looks straight up in a said when somebody has gone over the line i said this meeting is over we got that he got up and i shut the door i slammed it but he was so mad at me he came out last and endorsed the other guy so i lost that by a small but. But just the sexes and back then we said how could he do this when you have four kids . He says i have to be said to you have for. What about the dishes . The book goes into what it was like to be a woman you have to have a sense of humor about it because if not he would go crazy so id knock down the door i would go doortodoor with a small election you needed 20,000 votes knock knock. Whos there . Barbara boxer first they would say i didnt kqed so small. What did they expect . A big person again expected to be so short. I say yes i am. And and say i could never vote for you excuse me i have two kids she said no you dont. She got in and argue with me and said if you have given birth you never forget it and i have done it twice then i walk away. Were you going to do . Another group was going great the everybody was nodding a very suburban part of my district i thought i am making it a hand goes up in the book back in the woman says how do you have time to do your dishes . Even then i was taken aback. For goodness sakes i said i used paper plates which was stupid because this was an Environmental Group it was a joke. Just the questions you were getting. There are a few like that these days but not many. It has come a long way. I lost that race they were not ready for me the only reason i stayed after that. Did you became a newspaper reporter. I did. I had a great life but i stuck with it because i read an article in the magazine and i write about in the book that said women take things too personally men will run 34 times but if clinton loses the first time they think they hate me because we are more sensitive so i thought this was a horrible experience im not going to take it personal. So there i was on these issues ahead of my time which i always have been. Even gay marriage. It continues say you have to say get people to vote for you because you are in it for the right reasons one of the most popular politicians in the state are in the country and they say are you in the for the right reasons . You really are trying to find the sweet spot you were working hard if you were not afraid and that is why people will vote for you who were from the other party would never voted for democrats in this is what i tried to show because believe better not between 50 and 70 percent of republicans and never would have gotten in and they said agree with her sometime this the she is a bid for the right reasons. Just to fastforward but one of the most surprising beings people may not know until they read your book or talk to you it is called the art of the tough. That part of the reason they may not know is you do stand your ground on many issues but i dont know if anybody knows about the times you did on the transportation bill recently with Mitch Mcconnell and before that you worked with other senators on the transportation bill the water bill or a number of things that you could do that by taking the budget democrats and republicans is out together for dinner am part of this is to start to learn the people you work with it you did that with your mentors and in fact, through the art of the tough when congressman burton called to add of the blue and when did you to run for his seat as he was going to rehabilitation. This was in the 80s aids was really beginning to show up and one of my mentors from congress had told me his whole career but then i was elected to the board of supervisors at the blue says he is addicted to drugs and alcohol checking into a Rehab Facility in arizona and what i seek reelection for his seat . Oh my god. My kids were in high school all little too young to be the perfect time but i took it up with them and they said these opportunities dont come along very often so i went for it and i got there. I got to the house for 10 years of very safe district and couldnt stay there but they were pushing me out. One of the interesting things focusing on the women mentors which you had with barbara in these women colleagues that were incredible and i love you tell stories about Dianne Feinstein and the is the policy but look at the male mentors look get this story is a horrible time of his life but he picks a woman he calls you. He did. Heed to my politics was progressive he knew he had taught me and he wanted me there but his brother than called which was even bigger and said i hope he will run and then fill will call you and i was shaking because he was so powerful that the time. I said hi. How were you . I am fine he said a thank you will run for john c. I am so honored but he said no [laughter] so to talk about coming down because he wasnt sure at all that i could do it. Said i am just a little worried about the ability. The money. I have to raise to order 50,000. 250,000. He said dont worry about that. It should have been like 75 cents. This issue came to me from a great staffewanting to work the. I had expectations and there were already people there. Issues were taken. In the house, you have to find a niche. They said no one is talking about this. They are talking about missiles. People cant think about what a missile should cost. How about a 600 which is what the pentagon wan spending for one reason, amy. They were not contracting out to small business. They were saying to lockede you to do thing. We wrote a bill, it is the law, and saved billions. I worked with chuck grassley. Can i tell you one great story . I was proud of the work i did on military procurement work. So i have a town hall meeting and tell the story of procurement reform and i say can you imagine a 600 toilet seat. What is it made of gold . And i asked about any questions and a woman raised my hand saying do you know where i can get one of those . Host there is a reason lily tomlin and orts endorsed your book because people forget about the humorous things that happen in politics. I think it is important because you want young women and men to run for office. I think that is the cool part about the book. Guest by the way, you may add that is why you are affected. People wonder do i need someone with a sense of humor or a person who wants to write leyris like i do and the fact is that is part of the act. Have a sense of humor. It enables you to survive. Exactly. One of the things in your book is you talk about how the women didnt have a gym or there was this big deal that was so unfair to try to get women to have access to a gym as well. You took this on, tip oneill made them the leader at the time. Guest he was the speaker. Host you take this on and you have a beautiful singing voice and documented many of your songs and verses in the book and you wrote a song about the women needing a gym and i asking you if you can sing it. Guest i will sing one verse and read the rest. To set the stage of what happened was here i came from california where the exercise ethic was really important. I get here and i find out there was a gym for women. It was about the size of this table. You could not do anything there. All it has was a bunch of hair driers. Dont ask me why. I called a meeting. I had a staffer who said i want to lead the women in exercises. Mccal ski was my colleague in the house. And gerald dean who and Barbara Thomas and olympia snow was there. We have this wonderful meeting in this tiny gym where trust me it was seven of us in the room and you could not special education out your arms because the hair dryers got in the way. Claudette who was leading us raise your hands up in the air, to the side and now put your hands on your hip and barbara yells out if i could find my hips i wouldnt be here. So things got desperate. A fewf of a few of us went to the men saying can we use this gym . Absolutely not. It is not fair. No, you cannot. Can we expand the womens gym . You cannot. It was just a horrible experience. So i used the art of the cuff and i said okay, i am going to use my sense of humor. I went to two colleagues, martha captor and mary rose from ohio and i said can you guys care a tune and they said yes. So i wrote this song and it was suggested i sing it to my colleagues to the leadership of the Democratic Caucus. We walk in and we had a guitarist. It went like this exercise, glamourize, where to go when you advice, cant everybody use your gym and then it went on equal rights, we will wear tights. Lets avoid those matcho fights in the end it went we are not trim, we are not slim, cant we make it him and hers. Cant everybody use your gym we are only asking. And we end the finish and get in the gym. It is the only time i have to admit that i ever changed policy with my lyrics but we did it. Host i think it is an example and this wasnt just a senate gym or the house gym but you are taking on the issue of using locker rooms or High School Girls having access to sport. Lets take the art of the tough to a more serious level and that is my favorite photo in the book. It is the picture of you leading, you are the first one leading the women up the stairs, this is while you were running for senate years ago. Seat is opened in california, Clarence Thomas hearing is going on, anita hill stuff is coming out and you, the house women decide the hearing needs to be open again. There is this photo of you leading the women up the stairs of the senate. Guest i will tell you something, amy. When i look at that photo i look at all of us and see a tightness, i see a focus, determination, the photo captured the moment as some photos do. You think back to iconic photographs but for me this was a symbol of equality. We were going over there to say, look, you have a professor, please, she is intelligent, flawless, and she is saying that in fact she was sexually harassed by the nominee to the Supreme Court. And the guys in the senate, and let me be clear, there wasnt one woman on the Judiciary Committee. You serve on it now. Host there are only two of us now. Guest they would not open up the hearing. They would not. The reasons i explain in the book and i dont want to go into it. But i want to talk about what it felt like for us. This is what happened. We said there is only one way to get the meeting. We have to walk over there. So pat scroder whose idea this w was. The rest of the women are staying in the house and doing minutes on the floor to talk about it and we are talking over there. We get up to the top of the steps and knock on the door because all of it is lunch time. You know, when we have those lunches, those conference lunches, we are in there. It is all of the democratic senators, all men except barb. She wasnt there then, i dont think. I dont think she was. Yeah, she was there. The only one. In the Democratic Caucus we knock on the door and a woman peeks out. Hi, we say. We are seven Democratic Women from the house and want to come in and speak with the senators. Oh, no, they said. We said why . He said we dont let strangers in the senate. I wrote another book called strangers in the senate because of that sentiment. We said we are not strangers. We are women in the house. Between us we have well over a hundred years of experience. We just want to talk to the senators. Well, dont take offense, she said that is a term of art. Anyone who is not a senator is called a stranger. Be it as it may, that is what she said. I employed the art of tough. I said, you know, that is all well and good but if we have to turn back and walk down the stairs now there is a bank of cameras down there and we are going to tell them we were not able to see anybody. She said just a minute. She comes back and says go in the side room and George Mitchell will meet with you and we told them you have to open up the hearings and they did but they were a disaster as explain in the book. There has been a movie on hbo made about it. But i want to say to you and anyone within the sound of our voices here without anita hills courage, i would never have gotten to the senate. Because in california there were two seats open. Dianne was way ahead because she was much more known and host she had run for governor before. Guest wonderful mayor, ran for governor. I was considered more progressive so it was a tougher run. Then really the state was more purple. Now it is blue, thank you. But it was quite purple reddish. Host the anita hill hearings put attention on the fact there were no women. I love that dianne who was in a stronger position to run both seats, and thank you, this is impossible, we cannot have two jewish women running at the same time. While you were in your primary dianne campaigned with you and said famous line, 2 . Guest may be good for the content of milk but it is not enough to have 2 of the senate women. We need more. And then when i would get the question. Are you serious, you think two jewish women . No state ever had two women and tr therewas never a jewish senator from my state. I dont think so. Maybe i have to go back. They said how do you ever expect two jewish women to win and we say you never raise the issue of two prodstant men running so why is this an issue . We tried to use our sense of humor. We stuck together on the campaign trail and the message was so powerful within the juxtaposition of hill not getting justice in many womens eyes and no woman on the Judiciary Committee and looked at the senate and it was 98 men. We got elected. Patty murray got elected and we tripled our numbers. They called it the year of the woman. I dont know what they were so excited about it. But then it started to grow and now we are up to 20 in the senate and hopefully after this election we will be far more. And i remember barbara talking about giving up a state house seat for a very uncertain election. She said go for it. She told you a lot of women are looking out their window for prince charming and i am looking for more women senators. Guest dont you love her . She said it is not about gender it is about an agenda. She would say it is not about macro economics but macaroni and cheese economics. Host having mentors were good but it wasnt always ease aecheasey. There was a house banking sca scandal and investigation of every member who had money there. They were trying to use it against you. You decided i dont know if i want to keep running. Stew came in. This is a great family story. Guest i will tell it quickly. The House Bank Scandal to make it brief this is what it was. The house bank wasnt really a bank. It didnt operate like a bank. When you put your check in it, mine was automatic, it took them days before they credited. I didnt know that. They never told us. I would write a rent check, pay for my mothers medicine or whatever and then two weeks later everything was fine. But they never told you about it. So then when this scandal hit they said all of these people bounced checks. Well it was so embarrassing and they put the fbi on the case. You have to meet with the fbi. And the fbi, i thought to myself why are they sitting here with me when they could be going after criminals, but the bottom line is i was cleared completely but even though i was cleared they were running horrible, and bouncing all over. And the press is going show me your checkbook and i said i am not showing you my checkbook. What is it of your business what i spend at the dry cleaners. They would meet me at the airport with cameras. Barbara boxer wont show us her checkbook. That is right. Anyway, it was a total nightmare. I gave up, i thought i am sick of this. I dont need this. I said go back to being a reporter. Go have a tv show. I and called home to stew and said this is it. I am not doing the senate race and i thought he would be happy. He is always of two minds. We support you as a constituent but we miss you. So instead of sago, i am happy he said lets talk about it when you get home. I said there is nothing to talk about. On the way home i stop at party, they were watching 60 minutes, it showed me in my happier moments. I walk home and stew is upstairs watching a baseball game and has the two kids who are adults and they are waiting for me. Waiting for me. I thought what are you doing here . They didnt live home and they were working. And they said mom, you cant drop out. I hate telling this. It sound made up. I said why not . I am so sick of this. I have to have dignity. And they said we will read you a book you read us. Oh the places we will go. Sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down. And tears are coming out of my eyes and my daughter, they both say you cannot do that. Who cares if you lose . She looks at me and says, nicole, you know nicole, she looks at me and says mom, what is that message going to be to all of the women who are counting on you . They are counting on you. You are going to just walk away . The art of tough left me in a moment. My kids, i guess they have it, they gave it back to me, i stay in the race and win the race. By a lot in the primary. Then have a tough race in the general and pull it off. It was one of those moments i am so glad i wrote about. In a lot of ways this book is an empowerment book to say dont give up and dont sucomb to that. You talked about the battles you had in the senate. And you had the Ethics Committee where you are policing your fellow senators and had to deal with the pack wood case. You have taken on Climate Change. You have been at the forefront of many battles. Guest the senate was amazing. I told my constituents. There is good news and bad news about the senate. The bad news is jesse holmes can shut the senate down. Good the news is so can i. When i got there i realized i had the power to utilize this ability to shut the senate down, make a compromise, i could do that even as a freshman. But when i came in as a freshman senator i was going to be quite and burn the ropes like hillary did when she came in and was hit with 9 11 after eight months. It was me. I am there. I am quite. You cannot imagine it. I am looking. I am watching. Just after i win my race, and believe me, what happened . Right before being sworn in there is a story in the Washington Post that the senator had apparently and according to 25 women engaged in what is the word i can say, some say sexual misconduct. Lets go there. And i thought, oh, i cant believe it. After anita hill im coming in and one of my colleagues is engaging this kind of behavior . Making a long story short i said it is not by business. There is an Ethic Committee and i wasnt on it. Mitch mcconnell was on it. Without going into detail, which your listeners will have to learn from my book, but this thing was unreal. Believe me when i tell you this, i was one of the only people in the senate pushing to air this dirty laundry, if it was true, get him out of the senate. I came to grips with Mitch Mcconnell who was very senior, powerful, member of the Ethics Committee, soon to be chair of the Ethics Committee, and bob dole, who attacked me as the biggest partisan and did everything to stop me. They got rid of pack wood because we pushed for these hearings. The point behind the story is i never expected that would happen. Then we had a horrible earthquake in california. So the point i make in this book is when you get some place, when you are in politics you never know what issues will be on your plate. And you, i think through it all, went through the work of many president s and helped them. Bill clinton, barack obama, al gore. You are helping hillary clinton. Guest i sure am. Host i love the story are you going down and the horrible time taking on florida and the issue. Probably the best one was when you were running against Carly Fiorina. I am on the committee with you, seeing what you are up against taking on Climate Change, you are running and i thought since we have seen Carly Fiorina in another light you put her away. But the moment when she got caught on air talking about your hair and the reaction we are back to the beginning of your run and because we are dealing with issues men dont have to deal with. I am glad you brought it up. It is an amazing lesson to people watching this that no matter what field they are in things happen you dont expect that change the course of human events. I was running in 2010 and fiorina was considered a top tier candidate and had had millions of her own to throw in the race which she did throw in. And the race was neckandneck because mainly we were in the deepest recession since the great depression. We were trying to help the president with the stimulus bills. I remember standing on the porches looking at us loosing tens of thousands of jobs a month. We wound loosing a million jobs. California was a mess. The real estate situation hit us. We were struggling, families were just distraught. I am running for reelection and fiorina is gleaming everything from me even when the rains. She is blaming everything on me and it is tight. I am saying we dont want to she is saying Barbara Boxer is responsible for the recession and getting you scared about Climate Change and there is no Climate Change. Flash forward, she is on, i think, it was cnn matter of fact, and she is miced up like we are everything she is saying is being recorded. She doesnt realize it. There has been a change in this matter and she said have you seen Barbara Boxers hair and i said no, what about it . And it is so yesterday. She starts laughing. The truth is about my hair it does have a life of its own. I have many bad hair days. However i thought at that moment everybody does. What is she doing saying this . If you are wealthy enough have to have a hair dresser to follow you around which most of us do not. Host she got in trouble with that and i think in the end people understood we were in a hard time and i think they understand you were there. What i love about the art of the tough is it talks about that through the lens of history but also that people even when they didnt agree with you and the republicans who voted for you understood you were going to be tough and stand up for them. Guest it has been amazing. It has been a remarkable think. I did beat her by a million votes. But again some of these things that happened that shine a light on who the person is. When donald trump, for example, said he was excited when the Housing Market crashed because he thought i could make a lot of money. How do you make America Great when in your business rife that is how your mind works . I know a lot of business people. They may say i will buy something but they dont think that way. That they are profiting off somebodys misery. There are things that happen in a campaign that show who the person really is inside. One thing may not be enough but there are a few things. When people saw her making fun of me and not caring about the issues when the cameras were off and put that together with the fact when she was ceo she shipped tens of thousands of jobs overseas. Host with a minute and a half left, looking at the incredible career you have had, and wrote this book to pass it on to others. What do you want to pass on to people like me who are young and thinking about running for the supervisor seat in marine county . Guest what i want to pass on and i think i have is to be stuff and think you can win. When i open the book, i have quotes from the right wing media that have said the worst things about me you can imagine. That is what i want to say to everybody. Be empowered, stand up for what you believe in, and it will be a satisfying life. Thank you, barbara. I recommend your book the art of the tough because i think it will be fun to read and two people understand where you come from and will give them the faith in politics to run themselves. Guest oh, i hope so. Thank you, amy. Host thank you. Cspan2, creating by americas Cable Television companies and brought to you as a local service by your cable or satellite provider. Booktv visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. Lets see, this summer i have kind of poured through a couple good books. Currently i am nit middle, i am a university of michigan graduate, so i am reading end zone, if you are a michigan fan it has been a great read. I also have a favorite that i go to frequently and that is the master of the senate guy robert kiro. It is the autobiography of lenden johnson. I love reading history. Booktv wants to know what you reading this summer. Tweet us your answer, booktv or post it on our facebook page, facebook. Com booktv. Kathy is our guest on the the communicators this week. What do you at verizon . Guest i am in charge of the federal and state regulatory, legislative, and then i have legal responsibilities, too. Privacy and trust. I cover every gamut. Host when you look at a day, how much time do you focus on the fcc . How much time do you focus on congress . Other agencies . Guest it is a good question. Can really depends on what is going on. Sometimes we spend a lot of time at the state. There is a lot going on at the fcc, congress when it is in session, so it depends on the issue and what is hot at the moment. Host what are some of the major issues facing verizon today . Guest spectrum is always an issue. We are focused on 5g. We have committed to be the first u. S. Company to roll out 5g and that is essentially a new iteration of wireless technology. 3g, 4g and lte and now we are committed to having a commercial product in 2017. In order to do that we need to have the spectrum to roll it out. So that is something we have been spending a lot of time on at the fcc. Chairman wheeler announced the fcc is voting on an order in july that will open a swath of spectrum. Host the auctions began last march. Can you give us a status report . Guest the incentive auctions . That i cant. There are rules that govern discussions about the auctions. That is something i cannot comment on right now. Host lets bring john mckinnen into the conversation. Kathy, talk more about 5g and the kind of spectrum and how it will be different than the last 4g. Guest 5g is going to be very different than 4g. Today with 4g, we will have 50 times more in capacity, through put and speed and that is exciting. And latency which is a technical term but it means you can have instant Response Times between connected devices. So what that means is 5g will have an incredible explosion in terms of the internet of things, how we connect devices, what we do with transportation and energy. That is exciting. There is a lot of opportunity there for 5g. In terms of home broadband, we are looking at seeing if you can use it for a fixed broadband in the home. We are running field tests right now. You know there is a lot of questions about sort of what kind of environment it will work on and the spectrum is High Frequency spectrum actually. There is different bands the commissioner is looking at to open up. Because it is High Frequency it has different propagation characteristics so we have to do trials in certain environments. We are determined and it is big priority and we are determined to have a product in the market sometime next year which is two or three years sooner than conventional wisdom planned. What are some specific applications you think could change the way people live . Guest there is a lot of possibilities. In the Health Care Space it is interesting. One thing i talked about is a Remote Monitoring service. What kind of application can monitor Senior Citizens who are living at home and you want to monitor and know when he or she takes their medication or how they are walking and doing that particular day. That is a possibility. There is a fixed wireless broadband type of use that might be possible. We are still in the early stages. That is one of the exciting things about working on the issue. We are in the early stages and we will see where Technology Takes us. But particularly on the internet of things because there is a low latency and ability have have zero Response Time between devices. So when you look at the world in 510 years, cisco said by 2020 there will be 50 billion connected devices in the marketplace. So think about it. The uses are endless. That is why advertise why this is so exciting. We led the the way with lte. We were the First Company to use and set the standard and that is what thread u. S. To become the leader in this space. That is one of the reasons we thought it was really important for the commission to move quickly in this proceeding because we want to maintain that Global Leadership position. I think it is fair to say because the fcc is moving quickly we can do that. Host have you seen chairman wheelers proposal . Guest yes and we support it. He said he will circulate the vote at the july 14th meeting. We have not seen all of the details. But he has outlined the order and proposal. And a lot of that, there is a lot of really good stuff. One of the things we have been focused on is timing. We want to maintain this Global Leadership position. In order to do that, we have to have access to the spectrum. Because the spectrum we use for 5 g is not available for commercial use but after july 14th the gates will be open. Host will 5g use a lot more spectrum than 4g . Guest it will. You would talk about 1020 mega hertz but for 5g chunks of 100 or 200 mega hertz or more. And that is why you need the bands of continuous spectrum to operate the technology and get the highspeed you are talking about. This order is dealing with four different bands but it will be more spectrum we have seen really for commercial used to. Talk more about the fixed broadband in the homes and how it would be different than what people have. We are having the field trials and are trying to work out the specifics. It would be a device in your home like a cable modem. Not exactly the same but similar. And either you would have a Wireless Connection to the network and that is what the fixed broadband went over. When we are doing our field trials that is what we have looking at. There is some characteristics of this spectrum that make it complicated in that environment. There is a narrow line of site. It doesnt get through walls well . Guest xexactly. But there are complex Engineering Developments of new antennas and there is a way to kind of adjust for that kind of issue with the spectrum and make it more usable in that kind of environment. So that is the kind of thing we are testing in our field trials. Would someone get a new device in their home and then extra antennas in the house . Can you talk about what the technology looks like . Guest a lot of this we are trying to work through. There are not these kind of devices that are not developed. That is a possibility, yes, exactly. A lot of the antennas they are talking about are the antennas in the network as opposed to being in the house. They use these sort of new techniques that, you know, basically make it clear that the spectrum can travel in a way that would make it usable in a home environment. Host what was your use of the reaction to the democrats using periscope and putting that on tv and it went around the world from a phone. Guest yeah. It is exciting. That is another thing, i think back on my career at verizon. I started at verizon in 2002 and that is when we were applying to offer Long Distance voice. Now look at how the world has changed since. It is amazing. At that point, people would have been calling each other it talk about the sitin. Here wherever you are, whether the subway or grocery store, you would turn on your phone and watching and communicating through facebook or twitter. It is exciting. The use of mobile video and phone with millennial particularly, i think they use their mobile phones 37 hours a week, and a lot of it is that watching videos. It is short content. Not long programs. But i thought it was really exciting. I expect that will continue on all world events. Going back to 5g for just a second. Where do you perceive that being rolled out . A particular city . Part of the country . Just a few houses . How would it work . Guest that is something we are thinking ability. Probably pick cities across the country and do trials. Right now it is maybe an apartment or house. Probably on larger scale in a particular area. Probably the urban areas. More densely Populated Areas to start and move on from there. You are not the only people with this idea. Talk about some of the competition out there and other countries that are interested in taking the lead on this. Guest we are not the only ones but want to be the first ones in the u. S. And i think we will be. We are driving toward that result. And we are moving very quickly and working closely with vend vendors. Some vendors across the world because they want to drive the ecosystem and they are thinking about devices and technology is rolled out from there. Secure point has other countries, korea and japan are looking and trying to move quickly and in some ways we are partnering with those countries, too. We are determined, we are proud we were the leader on 4g and want to do that with 5g. Host in your view, does the u. S. Have the right Regulatory Framework for creating such things as 5g . Guest this order on july 14th will be a big step because you need spectrum and then to build the infrastructure. We are working on that, too. That is more of a local than a state issue in a lot of places. There are complicated processes for when you want to put a small fill or distributed antenna somewhere. You have to go through localities and states and rules. Streamlining that process and making it easier for companies to do that will speed up 5g as well. We are focused on that at the state level and making sure the right policies are in place so companies can do that. Between those two, there are other ones but those are the two big ones, if we can make progress on those the u. S. Will keep that leadership position in the wireless space which is important. Host what did you thing of the Appeals Court decision on Net Neutrality . Guest it was a win for the fcc. The court found in favor of the fcc on most of the issues. I think from our perspective the important issue now is what happens next. A lot of that is going to depend on how the fcc applies its rules and how it interprets the statutes and another important question is will Congress Take another look at the act . An act that is woefully out dated and written for a different era. So will Congress Take another run at that. Host you opened up a lot of issues there. The first one is will verizon pursue this to the Supreme Court . Guest verizon is a party to the appeal in the d. C. Circuit. We will not be a party to any Supreme Court court proceedings. Host would you like to see a comprehensive rewrite of the telecom act . Guest i think we need one. I recognition to decision complicated the politics and the timing around doing that. It is always hard. That is a big effort that is difficult to do. But what we will see is facing the same problems. The statutes as i said was written for a completely different world. The internet as we know today, to your point about people using periscope to broadcast from the house floor, was unthinkable on the house floor in 1996. So we have an act that just isnt applicable today. When the fcc has to turn it it with a policy or regulatory issue we will keep having the problem year after year. So i think eventually it is going to be inevitable we will have a rewrite. Though, like i said, we recognize the timing is uncertain. As you mentioned, a lot of things could flow from the Net Neutrality decision. The fcc has things on the table like privacy and set top boxes that are consequences of the Net Neutrality decision. Talk about those and how you would like