Transcripts For CSPAN2 After Words 20150913 : comparemela.co

was a public school, and the server where it could be t-tango zero antiwar multicolor flower bell bottom pants. i was called into the office of the principal who had this enormous beehive haircut and i'm sitting there trembling and she said you can wear your trousers and coat walks but at the high school you wear dresses and i barely got a permission slip, walked home to my house through the woods down the hill and changed into a dress and came home and i shed a few tears and so i used the example of why i wrote the book to show how through it all, it is a changing culture that i ended up being able to wear pants and able to be the girl that could raise bond and start a petition drive or do something else but at that moment i did what she said and the one little tangent to the story is that when the book came out i actually got a call from someone and he said i'm the son of your principal and he said i didn't like what you said about your mom -- my mom. i checked on the internet, she had beehive. i can send you a picture. i have a lot of respect and all of a sudden you hear this laughter in his voice and he said it was al franken. >> host: one of the things i took from the book is that it's a process to learn how to stand up for yourself in a situation like that. and it takes time especially for girls. >> guest: is to get people from regular backgrounds growing up in a middle-class neighborhood in the suburbs to get people to think i can do this, i can run for something or i can get involved in the political process. for me and my teachers my teachers were incredible mentors back then. she wasn't that nice but a lot of other teachers got me off the doors when i got stuck or by while fourth-grade teacher with the bright hair that would stand in the back of the class and yelled speak louder. i can't hear you when i gave presentations. she would write on my report cards, that i would find when i was writing the book, speak louder and she would the space between each letter. those are people that influenced my life and made it easier for me as i went ahead but i found every step of the way from way back then i'm told the last few years when i went to asia with john mccain and all of those leaders john would start the meeting and look over and he would say no you will address her next and so those were not all women but they have helped others along the way. >> in the book you write a lot about your family. you write a lot about your dad who was a longtime much beloved columnist for the minneapolis tribune and worked for the associated press and in fact in the year that you were born he played a really important role in the presidential election. tell us about that. >> guest: my dad is the one that was in the election and they were the last three states out and it was down to the wire. california ended up going to nixon. so there's my dad a young reporter in the associated press office and for this is what happened. i got done interviewing my dad which was a lot of fun and then verified some of the memories. my dad told george moses, that was his boss, that he had little doubt the region would go for kennedy. if you grew up in the middle of the 20th century you knew that it had us many hours as churches and the prospect in minnesota in 1960 was as bright as the temperance movement chances. he emphatically told moses that in northeastern minnesota a working class stronghold kennedy would most likely pickup two thirds of the vote and thus when the state. and if kennedy won minnesota's vote that would put him over the top. after hearing his reporter's moses placed a call to the general desk chief in new york sam blackmon. we are going to elect kennedy. i have two words for you in minneapolis, he finally said, pausing before adding a great emphasis. so my dad to go to wordsmith of the hour then in his early 30s got the chance to write a national story that declared john f. kennedy the victor in minnesota and boston next president. his fingers flew across his old typewriter hammering the keys with no time to follow the particle of the copies underneath. to beat the chief competitor united press international to the punch my dad would hand him a page containing only a single paragraph at a time. moses moses would've checked the would check the copy for typos and run it over to the operator paragraph by paragraph without a card to review and with each page including only a small piece of the story my dad kept yelling to the operator how did that last paragraph and lacks after little sleep he would yell back with a period. my dad's story calling the election for kennedy sent out across the wires that 12:33 p.m. eastern time, so this is the next day, it appeared in newspapers across the country. and james reston of "the new york times" explained the next day the calling of the race in minnesota was monumental. at 12:33, he wrote to senator kennedy clinched minnesota in the election. 13 minutes later he made his formal concession. after nixon conceded my dad celebrated his groundbreaking story with moses and johnson. nice work doing the story coming to him. i almost died twice and barely missed a hernia but the party was brief to read my dad went to lunch at a nearby swedish café and returned to the office. there he was given his next assignment. three pigs were stuck in a mud pit in minnesota. he dug in and wrote his stories. so that is the year that i was born the year of endless possibilities in houses and cars and refrigerators and when a kid could write a story on the presidential election when they took a risk on a youthful leader and a catholic at that it was a good year to be born. >> host: of course they did end up getting it right. that is important. >> guest: they found some of the writings to help confirm that. >> host: so when you were born your dad was covering everything politics and sports. did he think that girl was going to be a u.s. senator? >> guest: the 60s was the time girls were not doing that kind of thing very much but my dad always had -- and for me. i think that he wanted me to be a judge. that was his big dream. but he encouraged and inspired me and we would go on these bike trips together for 1200 miles in 11 days. he taught me how to persevere. when you go 100 miles in a day and he says i think we can do 20 more that is a lesson in perseverance. >> host: the stories about these marathon by craters you were writing about wearing no helmet into going 145 miles. at one point you wrote i pretended i had fallen but he didn't write that. >> guest: he was writing about the newspapers and so we were showing the map progress but the second part was it was after my parents got divorced and this was a way a gift for us to get to know each other again for a teenager that maybe didn't want us there and have dinners with their dad and talk through how he was doing and what was happening. this was a much better way. >> host: your parents got divorced because of your father's struggle with alcoholism which you write about in the book and i wonder are you fully aware of what he was dealing with when you were brought up? >> guest: i was young i wasn't in for the first half of my parents marriage and around the time i was born it wasn't that bad at all. but it got worse and worse as time went on and part of it was the life of the reporter back then. they would go to drink with both witches and they would cover the very highflying life and then the other part of it is to know the background my grandfather was in iron ore coalminer, never graduated from high school and my grandpa would go to drink all the time he and my dad grew up seeing that so whatever it was he was an alcoholic and started to drink more and more and often times secretly when i was growing up i remember being in the car with him and no one was hurt but it was because he was drinking and we got home and she cried and told me that he wouldn't be able to do that again and he had a drinking related arrest in the back then in the 70s they didn't do much about it. they got in the news but they didn't do much about it. so then finally right before my wedding in 1993, he got a third driving related incident with alcohol and this time the law have changed and was treated very seriously. he went through treatment and when he wrote about the religion and faith helped him get through the time he goes around and speaks about it all the time in the different groups he's happily married for the third time into so i was able to see not only the difficulties and the sadness and the effect it had. >> was it hard to write about it in your book? >> guest: he had written it in a different way but for me personally to tell my story coming yes. i always say i showed it to him ahead of time because i wanted to make sure that he was okay with it. but it was a hard thing because you had to sit back have to step back and think about the effect on you not just how he portrayed it to the world. another family crisis propelled into politics and political career and this is when your daughter was born. tell us what happened. just they said they thought she was very sick and she couldn't swallow. they thought that she had a tumor and had cerebral palsy. she was in intensive care and back then they had a rule you get kicked out of the hospital in 24 hours. mom said even if the baby was in intensive care. i got out and it was a difficult thing. once she started to get better i took about a year and a half but somewhere in the middle i went to the legislature and realized you could go to the legislature and talk about things like episiotomy is and then there is only legislators and so we got one of the first walls guaranteed of the new babies 48 hour hospital and they ended up taking it up on the national level. i also learned how to get things done so people couldn't say that they were against it for some of the lobbyists were trying to delay it so i got six pregnant women with me and they outlawed the lobbyists and said what would this take effect and they all raised their hands and said it now and it didn't even wait until august 1 went into effect the day the governor signed it. >> host: tell us how your daughter is doing now. >> guest: she is much better. she's a great kid sick a lot she was only is in the bottom 1% and then she came out of it with hope of doctors and it was just a unique condition that didn't lead to any other disabilities. she also didn't like having the story told. i don't know if it would have been her choice. >> host: if there is a thread that goes through your new book is summed up by a writer that you quoted in the book and that its obstacles in the past are not obstacles. they are the past. what does that mean to you? >> guest: everyone will have things that they confront. but the key is what do you do with them and how did you move on and do you try to at least gain some strength from what happens to you and try to help other people and i think that is the key a lot of people that become public servants and i try to make the case in the book that not everyone has a cartoon picture every day on tv but there's a lot of people that go into a it for the right reasons and a lot of that has to do with things that have happened to them in their lives but they think they can fix either in elected office or at the time so that is a lot of what i view in my job and i view these things that have happened to me as gifts and i don't mean that in a pollyanna way that they made me understand how other people felt , how those kids with disabilities feeling how difficult it is, so i got involved in that issue were what it's like to have an alcoholic in the family and how that led me to work on drug courts and the prosecutor and treatment bills that we have right now that are approached in the senate. >> host: minnesota has legendary politicians from hubert humphrey and of course walter mondale who has played a role in your political career. how did you meet him? >> guest: walter mondale of course if someone everyone still loves and i first got involved in working with him when i was in college and i provide for an internship at his office when he was the vice president and i ended up getting the job. it is so glamorous. was so glamorous. i showed up my first day in the executive office building and i showed him the assignment ready to write a big policy piece to do the furniture in the tory in the vice presidents office to call the rate down. that was my first government job in washington and this was my second. so take them seriously. >> host: walter mondale is somebody that you knew to follow. what did you take from his career from what he taught you either told you were just by example. >> guest: it is something that is missing in today's politics and i tried my best to practice that and how he would treat people. when i was working with him later at the law firm, there were republicans that would talk about issues because he just viewed his job in that way so people made fun of him for being too norwegian. but there was a lot of fun when he wasn't on tv. there was value to that that helped him to get things done. >> host: when you are becoming politically active yourself, you were addressing the democratic national convention in 2004. >> guest: the background here is john kerry elected county attorney now and john kerry is running for president as the first major involvement being a speaker. the first time he came to minnesota and i introduced him and i made that mistake i had memorized a two-minute speech and i said i gave to you, if she's up there with me, the president of the united states john kerry. the crowd goes wild and they think i'm done. he put his hand on my shoulder and says i know you're not done yet so i don't finish up. >> host: you said you had such a strong grip on the microphone -- >> guest: he said i was being nice but i knew i couldn't get away from you. so later they had me speak at the boston convention and this is the example of what a great mentor he was. it was three minutes long but you can't say certain things. i said i'm going to end with the words of someone famous from texas. it wasn't george bush, it's barbara jordan. something as good as the promise. okay. so that's the background. they told me i couldn't use that. the morning of the speech walter mondale came up to me. you've memorized your speech, right? like there's a teleprompter so i should be fine. no, that isn't fine. remember the time that the ec's convention when parker -- i remember. it was a teleprompter screwup he said so don't trust it. memorize the speech. later in the day i turned up at the appointed hour and found myself backstage with patrick leahy to chuck schumer and the county attorney at the time. don't ask me why the convention organizers put me together with a high-powered congressional crowd but they did. the convention hall was full. the senator was up before me and had started in the speech but after about half a minute he looked around and the teleprompter had gone dark. he made a joke by suggesting the malfunction was tied to the well-publicized fight they've recently had with vice president dick cheney. eventually someone bought a copy of the senator's remarks. from where i stood waiting at the corner of the stage, i could see walter mondale. he was sitting right there in the front row. i made eye contact with him, and i have never seen a more pointed i told you so not in my life. i nodded back. after he finished his remarks i stepped up to the podium. someone gave me a printed copy of the speech and after i launched into it, the teleprompter came back to life but i rarely looked at it and i never looked at a printed copy. thanks to walter mondale and memorized my speech and i looked only at the crowd. i added some stuff and the speech went great. two years later you were elected the first woman in your own right into the senate. was your gender and asset or liability? >> guest: we have strong women. the majority had run and in the 80s before that in the 70s the secretary of state had run and both lost so when i started running, people would literally ask me do you think a woman can win and is a reference to 2006 to kay bailey hutchison. i said a woman one in texas, so i think a woman can win in the 80s and 90s. and so then i didn't really emphasize gender that much because of that issue and the others that were so accomplished had run on that issue. i would say look the last time i checked half of the voters were men. and everyone's idea. so i'm running as a prosecutor of what i want to do for the state of minnesota and so at the end of the election when i won by the overwhelming margin one of the newspaper editors were the reporters that work for the minneapolis tribune noted that i had been emphasized gender and it didn't mean i had a lot of women support. i had a group called amy's angels that meant a lot to me so we did a lot in terms of gathering the support but it wasn't the theme of my campaign. >> host: we have a record number of women serving in the senate now but it's only 20. and in fact fewer than 50 elected in the history of the country. do you think the women tend to behave more differently than the male senators? >> guest: there is a study that showed the women tended to sponsor the bills more than they get things done and they are more bipartisan solutions and just anecdotal. time and time again susan collins of the shutdown of major speech i was the first democrat and we put together a group of 14 and the idea of how to end the shutdown that was eventually adopted by the leaders supposed to be stabenow in the farm bill or barbara mikulski on the budget. you've seen barbara boxer working with mitch mcconnell just to get a transportation bill done so we passed a six-year highway bill out of the senate. a lot of times you see the women showing this kind of leadership and i think there is a lot more trust because there is only 20 of us and we have of course every other month dinners and what we say never goes out of the room so we never talk about that but that's been an important part. >> host: they've never elected a woman to the national office under the republican ticket in 2008. hillary clinton is now favored to win the democratic nomination for president in 2016 and running in the gop race this time. to what degree do you think that gender is a factor in the race's? >> guest: i would go to the governor level first it's been difficult for the women to win. we've gotten better but we are still 20%. but first there is the money issue. a lot of them gave money to men and a lot of men are in business and so the more that we get the women in business i think that will be to our advantage and the second piece is that sometimes voters just it's a leap to think of that that kind of management role and that's why i think that you've seen the percentage than of course they haven't been achieved yet even though it's been achieved in any other country. the time is right and the time has come and i think that people are starting to see more and more women into leadership roles they want their own daughters to be in a leadership role and that changes the thinking. >> host: hillary clinton coming your supporter for the campaign she has had some challenges. do you think that sexism is behind some of the criticism or is it the same criticism she would be getting if she were a male running? >> guest: she has gotten criticism out there that has had to everyone and i think the key is again what do you do with it and how do you move on? i talk in the book about how sometimes the low expectations or can she really do this job and then you have a debate or speech where you you show that you know your stuff and it can be to your advantage if you do it right. the second thing about this in the book i talk about the progress and issues that we know still go on all over the country and must be taken seriously. and sexist names in so many ways patty murray has called a mom in tennis shoes or claire mccaskill gets the opponent talking about how great is somehow the fault of the woman and you go on to produce all that kind of stuff. you go with legitimate rape, that's what they call it. you realize they started to boomerang and it hurts the opponents say these things. i had someone call me at prom queen -- i wish, and the daddies little girl and no one noticed because i didn't make a big deal out of it. so either no one notices because it is so minor and unnecessary but if you do it meringues and so i think that some of that is behind us but the challenge to me is still that thing that is hard to define when you are a minority whether you are a racial minority or minority because you are a women only 20 of us in the senate -- you always do wonder sometimes was i not included in that game to work on the group because they have no women and they wanted to hang out with each other or is it just because they pick people that they wanted to have in the group? it's hard to define those. cheryl talked about that with lean in and some of the columns she has subsequently been about being kept out of power or being kept in the room and having to assert yourself to get in the room. i think that is the level of the leadership and i do not discount the rewards are the harassment that's going on but i think when you get to that leadership level that's where the fight is now and it gets into the presidential level to make sure we are calling people to would be excluded from the decision-making world. >> host: they are handling handling handling the charges in charges into the sense of names in a different way is to ignore more of the inclination. do you think that's true? >> guest: i think it's true because they were able to use it to their advantage. i wasn't talking much about the opponent at all this was in the second senate race. but i think that when you pull seeded for what it is actually hopes the candidates. it is viewed as a mistake when someone says the word like that. >> guest: >> host: thinking about the campaign she's involved in the controversy over her use of the private server for e-mails exclusively when she was the secretary of state. do you think this is a serious issue or is this a passing partisan -- >> guest: it has been a focus during the last summer, and immediate focus and i think she has responded seriously. she understands that others requests for the server she has complied. she has voluntarily given over 55,000 e-mails. she has acknowledged that she takes responsibility for what happened. she has agreed to a hearing in front of the house of representatives which are not exactly her friend said that she can ask questions about it. i think that when you combine the review of the e-mail and the release with the public hearing in her words of responsibility my hope is that when all of that is completely can move to some of the major differences between her and some of the people on the republican side talking about deporting kids overboard in the country were building a wall to canada or saying things like one of the problems for american workers is they are not working hard enough. those kind of issues and the serious policy prescriptions that she's put forward whether it is about prescription drugs that later leads to heroin abuse or the work she's doing which are so detrimental write-down to the process and to getting the compromised to the economic proposal that's where i hope that we will get within the next few months. >> guest: first we were in the same class who has exceeded just about everybody's expectations including his own presidential bid. where do you think that he managed to strike the accord? >> guest: we worked together on a number of things and i am not really that surprised because he's always had a strong grassroots following and i just look at this as not a negative but a positive with a robust interesting primary going on. she meant what she said that it wasn't going to be a coronation that there would be debate that there would be a contested primary. and i would say there is a major difference between the democratic side and the republican side i see more similarities in their views on the democratic side but i also do not see those attacks that have been so classic. i do not see the candidates as donald trump putting their cell phone numbers out on tv for example. as to get from one candidate to the site of the private party. >> host: if you want to have an interesting side it's boosted by having the vice president rod. what is your political sense? >> guest: i have a lot of respect for the vice president. he is loved by all of us in the heat has come to my state many times and i think that he's good to have to make his own decision based on what he wants to do and if he said publicly what the family wants him to do. >> host: you mentioned jesse earlier in the conversation who is kind of in his way predecessor of donald trump and an outsider who manages to get the attention and support of a lot of the voters and we will see what happens in the campaign that what is behind the appeal on the republican side. when jesse first got elected and a science to support in the back of the line of the parade we were a lot less funded running for governor and opponents and we somehow got to the back of the parade and people would have these signs of retaliation and 98 and i think that sentiment is understanding the feeling of other institutions and there are people that are mad at the government and mad as a business and people feel left behind if we can see that with the income inequality what is happening in the country so i think in that way that has fueled a lot of this phenomenon but it's real in terms of how people are feeling. and as i said earlier i want to get to the debate stage because i want to have the candidates talk about okay what are the real solutions between the two parties and what will help these people. he came on at the end. he's running a good campaign throughout the year but he didn't really catch people's attention until after the state fair and in minnesota that was at the end in case you didn't catch it. the other thing is that while he was certainly provocative he didn't say the same thing in his opponents way there are some comparisons but a lot of differences. >> host: you've had a lot of experience in politics. is it possible that he will be the presidential nominee? >> guest: . i don't rule anything out. the fact that he now has said that he wouldn't go run as an independent which is of course what ventura did on either side and now he will be running in the republican primary and i think i will be quite a path for him. >> host: your book is called the senator next door. what is that being? >> guest: i named it that because i wanted to bring back the idea of representing the presenting the neighbors and the idea of democracy when you get elected as the city council or the u.s. senate and you go and represent your neighbors and you will read to always to them to act like neighbors, so if you have someone next to you that you don't always agree you have to find a way to get along and that is not what has been happening in washington so i make the case here that first of all there are a lot of good people that went for good reasons and i've told stories of getting the bills done were getting across the aisle whether it was with me where the senator in north dakota or senator mccain. then i make the case that we go into our neighbors, to the citizens that we represent to not act like boxers in the corner of the the rain to find a ring but to find a common ground and the point of compromise. >> host: you talk about redefining what coverage is. we think about political courage in standing up for principle and being on the yielding of the principle that we make the argument that there is more courage to be willing to make a compromise. >> guest: we got a lot of grief on the right for that. or when i came out for a certain kind of public option debate and i thought that this should be a competitive public option when it came to that affordable care act which i supported i go to grief on the left for that. so there are example after example of people who show courage in my mind when they are willing to stand up to somebody that they don't agree with and come up with a compromise instead of just going to the chamber and giving the speech alone that that has turned out to be pretty easy to do. what is hard to do on their code base is to try to find a way that you can reach the common ground. >> host: a lot of americans look at washington and throw up their hands and say it is a dysfunctional capital. how did the ability -- or the willingness to make compromises to get things done how did that get lost and is there a way to bring it back. >> i think first of all the way the money works. they get things done and that happens all the time. the problem is the way that it works now in social media. and also the media not every discussion is like this. and you get a lot of attention. ask donald trump you get a lot of attention when you act like that and when you tend to be more conciliatory doesn't mean you don't stand your ground. one of the things i love in the new book he talks about what moderation means coming and it's not necessarily the middle of two points, it's not necessarily your character. he's talking about dwight eisenhower, but john mccain didn't exactly have that moderate character but it's whether in politics you can see inside the other person's views and whether you can see the point of common ground at this idea that you can stand your ground still look for common ground. every single thing we do is covered by the second word is out leaked. there are some great stories of people that have the immigration bill in the senate. that's what people came together for. we have a roadmap for the next president. i mean it got done in the senate and people took grief on both sides. in the infrastructure bill that i brought up which is a great example, you have those examples of courage and i go through my own experiences but that it's important for citizens to know that and reward. >> host: there is an unprecedented amount of money being spent in political campaigns. when you are a u.s. senator, someone's time and attention at the prospect of raising money. it is daunting and they into their dealing with independent expenditures. so i told the story that for me in the local race having to raise 2 million by end up having to call them back no one pronounces my name definitely one day in august nobody was calling back. my husband pointed out it's not an expanding base and so i -- you are given an environment and you have to find a way to provide that's how i look at it. i do not let it dominate my days. i've been fortunate enough to have campaigns for the grassroots orientation to them. >> host: frank called you after he read the book. when he was elected some of the leaders took to give you advice knowing where the senior senator from minnesota. i got used to being the senator and suddenly the other senator is a celebrity but they talked about their experiences. chuck schumer has hillary clinton as his other senator and then dick durbin has barack obama so they told me the stories of what it was like instant it's not as easy as you think you have to constituents asking you to take pictures of them with the other senator and i said okay i can handle with it and all culminated. no she's the only senator. then the flight attendant said how can this and so it's never easy. first iran nuclear deal. they are putting video into effect because of the state or maybe it will be a filibuster that prevents the vote in the senate. are you a supporter of the iran nuclear deal and are you comfortable with the idea that this important agreement will go into effect because the minority of the senate is willing to back it even though the majority opposes it? >> guest: there was a bipartisan agreement made between the senator's rules of the game and how i was going to work out and like any other vote in the senate, a major issue. have i proposed changing that, yes i would like to. but those are the rules that were set and i proposed changing its overall. so, i think that is the answer and if you have what looks like i don't know what the exact number will be but it's going to be over 40 senators to approve of this agreement, if you even put it forward as a motion to approve, it wouldn't get up to 60. if you put it as a motion to disapprove disapprove, it wouldn't get over the 60 vote threshold with enough senators opposing it. if you dated to the motion to improve it wouldn't get to those numbers, so it is like any other bill that we have at it was negotiated with the repubcans about the process would be. and we have followed the process. the second is this is an agreement that the president made. we ran to the table with the sanctions and i think that's why you see the congressional involvement. technically that would have to take place. i was one that thought it was very important. we made an agreement of how it should happen. last thing i think there will be a bipartisan agreement on another package of the proposals and more security, tracing the money that goes into the things that will happen not right away but it has to happen. >> host: at distress of some americans to look at this debate and see that just about every republican is going to oppose the pose the deal almost every democrat is going to support it although there are some prominent democrats that are not, and it's not an issue that you think would naturally be inevitably split along those lines. what does it say about the politics? >> guest: traditionally the foreign policy hasn't been partisan that it has become a little more that way in recent years we see with issues about 88 although you always have some republicans kind of going the way that it used to be in realizing the foreign media is important to the country security and a lot less expensive than the military involvement. you have the sides come together and agree on a process in and part of that is nothing but this might break down on the party lines. so i would go back to the fundamental idea that we did come up with a process that was bipartisan and i'm hoping after this vote there will be a package of things and that policy has been more bipartisan. it's more a tradition of the fiscal policy and the government would break along partisan lines. we got a groundhog day in september and of course the government isn't funded for the fiscal year that starts october october 1. what are the odds do you think that there will be another government shutdown? >> guest: i'm hopeful i heard from the republican leader and i know there are senators that have talked about shutting things down and played an instrumental role. that didn't go that well in terms of the reaction of the american people. there were vows made that this shouldn't happen and i thought that such mcconnell said the issue of city funding of planned parenthood you'd need a new president to do that is an acknowledgment and that was given as a reason to shut the government down but that probably wouldn't work and so i'm hoping that means that there will be some pragmatism here. we certainly saw in the negotiations on the highway bill that we recently had we saw some pragmatism on the way that the speaker negotiated to fix the medicare payment at the beginning of the year so i hope that we can come up with an agreement and that being said it's important that we try to change the sequestration into something fiscally responsible to involve both the domestic and military side so that we have done so much of the budgeting on the cuts that they've now but they've now been something like three to one or four to one. and we have exceeded that of the cuts to revenue. so we are looking at the tax reform how we are going to move the country forward we need to get in that range of reducing the deficit. there are five senators running for president and one democrat. how much effect does it have that we will see this for? >> guest: you see mitch mcconnell dealing with people running for president and pit crews did back in december. they had a vote on immigration reform that have been on the party. to me whenever you think about the issue, it wasn't going to be victorious, and we had so many important things to do confirming the positions of the government. and we had and have your bills that have to be passed and we were off doing that and that was to make a point not to get something done and i think you've seen it time and time again on some of these issues including some of the issues in the revisions and important changes that have to be made to the patriot act. but the way that it's done with tv ads into the capital blowing up of a sunday showdown that is designed for the presidential campaign. >> host: you are marching in a labor day parade in minnesota. where was that? >> guest: on the cusp of the paper mills town. >> host: if there were people on the sidelines that were screaming klobuchar for president. >> guest: i called my book the senator next door and there were people running for president and i'm happy doing my job. >> host: i'd say love my job right now is not short. i would call the book born to lead or something like that. >> host: they are making the list of those that might be considered running for national office you got to the new jersey senator, the california attorney general or the castro brothers from texas out of secretary member of the house. one thing that struck me is how diverse the group is. i didn't intend to make it a dangerous it's just about every one of those people i mentioned is either hispanic, african-american or african american or female. do you think the time has come when democrats will no longer nominate a ticket that is to the non-hispanic white males. >> guest: i never like to see that it has to be the way that we are heading into that time period and that has to be the choice of whoever the nominee is in the party that when you look at the democratic party and there's no doubt about this we are a diverse party that brings in diversity and immigration reform and the support for that so i think that you see the party that brings in the party for women and a lot of the issues in the pocketbook issues, the childcare issues, the family medical leave issues and so that's why i think you are going to see more and more diversity on the democratic ticket and i would be surprised indeed if it was again what we have seen i think you are going to see a difference on the ticket. >> guest: there's been diversity on the democratic ticket. except for the two elections with barack obama. >> host: thinking about your career as a prosecutor or senator, can you name one or two that make you think i'm so proud of this combined the most proud of as a political achievement i think that it was the work that we did on the white-collar crime and the fact that we basically decided the cases are complex and and i ran an office at 400 people that had a major have a major murder case we have property crimes, we had drug cases, but i made the decision at number one of of of this time was after 9/11 and the u.s. attorney's office understandably minnesota was involved in one of the cases that was caught by some pilots in minnesota who was in jail and so they were focused on it so we took on more of the cases and i came to believe it doesn't matter how someone commits a crime if it is what they bar or computer it's still a crime so while they are complicated on going after a judge like we did when i was the chief prosecutor that had stolen $400,000 whose truck he was supposed to be caring for use on the second highest court in the state and i said then we do our job without fear or favor. we go after someone whether they are running a business or whether they are standing on a street corner dealing drugs so we made a major emphasis and it helped not only to the people understand that you can't have two systems of justice one for the rich and powerful and one for everyone else when we would get convictions and when those cases but also has racial implications because if you close your eyes to the white-collar cases involving all but mostly involving people that are not of color and then you spend all your time going after people of color that contributes to the racial inequity in the system and that's also part of the work that we did in the photo identification working with the innocence project that turns out that it leads to less misidentification which is a major problem in the work that we did on dna and other things we worked really hard to be fair in the system and to kind of i would always say to myself would get to plea out should he we drop it, go to trial i would think okay what is the difference and it is the victim for the person of color instead. we would do that all the time and we want to try to be as colorblind as we can in these cases. >> host: to was the biggest disappointment that he will try again but you think this is my regret. >> guest: the biggest regret i have right now from a policy standpoint is that we haven't been able to move some of these prescription drug bills that i have out there. they have been escalating. we have a situation where the drug companies are now paying the generic companies not to put their products on the market. the estimates are 3 billion in ten years for taxpayers, three to 4 billion we could say. a bill with john mccain to allow for the imports of drugs from canada to create some competition that's been stopped. the number of democrats that i'm leaving to have negotiations for the medicare part d.. that's been stopped and i'm not going to give up that somebody had to change the policies. >> host: thanks for joining to talk about your new book called the senator next door. that was afterwards booktv signature program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists, public policymakers and others familiar with their material. after words airs every weekend at 10 p.m. on saturday, 12 and 9 p.m. on sunday and 12 a.m. on monday. you can also watch online. go to booktv.org and click on the book tv series and topics list on the other right side side of the page. the winner of the national book award utilizes a classified tapes and documents released over the past three years to be part of the inner workings of the administration and the watergate scandal. [inaudible conversations] good evening. i'm bradley graham along with my wife and on behalf of the entire staff thank you so much for coming. now it be a good time to silence any cell phones were

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