thank you for letting us be here with you and do this oral history. it s a pleasure, sir. it s a pleasure. let s begin kind of not at the beginning but the beginning before this that was one of the happiest days of life. that was a day in which we all congregated officially as the u.s. first astronaut group. we d been through a selection process obviously previously to that, john, but that was the day we first showed up officially as the first astronauts of the united states. and the program was basically run by the people who worked from langly. originally of course we all reported then to washington. that was where the initiation, the introduction, the preselection, all that sort of routine went on and then as you know we had physicals elsewhere in the country. but once a selection was made of course we reported to those people at langly field, which was kind of neat for me because i was already stationed in norfolk in a job which i didn t like in the first place. i
models? no. i never thought about that question before, but i don t think so. i remember looking into the little autograph book that you have when you re really little and you ask your grandmother and mother and father to sign it and the kids in your class. it would say, what do you want to be when i grow up, and i remember looking back, and when i was in maybe second grade it was flight attendant, which we called stewardesses at the time, or ballerina. that was sort of my notion of what women could be. so no, it never occurred to me, certainly never, to enter into politics or be front and center. i cannot think of too many role models when i was really young that were females. that changed along the way, gratefully. so how did you first become interested in politics? i come from a long line of politicians. my grandfather was in the new york state assembly, my father was in the new york state assembly, then a member of congress, then borough president. i m an only child
interview. we are very pleased to hear from one of the representatives, susan molinari from new york. this project we re working on is to recognize and celebrate the 100th anniversary of jeanette rankin to congress, the first woman. we have a bunch of questions we want to ask you today. first off, when you were young, did you have any female role models? no. i never thought about that question before, but i don t think so. i remember looking into the little autograph book that you have when you re really little and you ask your grandmother and mother and father to sign it and the kids in your class. it would say, what do you want to be when i grow up, and i remember looking back, and when i was in maybe second grade it was flight attendant, which we called stewardesses at the time, or ballerina. that was sort of my notion of what women could be. so no, it never occurred to me, certainly never, to enter into politics or be front and center. i cannot think of too many role
the legislation is a culture war battle plan, including limits to abortion access and strange under care and eliminating old diversity, equity and inclusion offices at the pentagon. and when it comes to the culture wars, some folks just cannot help saying the quiet part out loud. and it has nothing to do with whether not colored people or black people or anybody can serve, okay? it has nothing to do with mister speaker. any of that stuff. what in the bowl, connor? arizona congressman eli crane s descriptor was stricken from the congressional record and he did ask for his remark to be amended to people of color, climbing in a later statement that he quote misspoke. but his comments came at the tail end of an impassioned speech detailing how diversity efforts weekend the military. the house and the eight will be dead on arrival and aligns in the senate, where democrats hold the majority. that means whatever comes out of the senate will have to be hashed out in a confe
and oftentimes argue on the floor. there is not much of they can do in changing the legislation. the house works by numbers more so than the senate. whereas if the majority party pretty much calls the shots of what gets on the floor. so there s only so much you can do on the floor if you do not like somebody. of course, you have the chamber and even if you do not like somebody you are supposed to call them nice things for you my distinguished colleague, for example instead of you rotten s.o.b. that is part of parliamentary procedure and style. brian: what do they do in the senate? don: thomas jefferson wrote the manual of parliamentary procedure to really cool down the tempers that would be there for any legislative issues pre- members are not to address each other by name. they are not to criticize another person s state or question their motives and not to read a newspaper while another person is speaking. the senate has a high sense of the koran. i remember senator robert