and in the coming months we're going to watch congress and how much will he give the pen again -- will they give the pentagon. if the president says to do it in the they will do it -- do it, they will do it. budgetedready if they don't get that, they have to find it somewhere else. ultimately, we are going to see a actual reform, a way of to get that change. at the same time, help balance the budget and get it in there. >> thank you very much for your time. afford today's "washington journal." we will be back tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. enjoy the rest of your day. [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> looking live at the u.s. twotol now, one of the legislative bodies are in town this week. the senate gavels and today at two :00 p.m. eastern. they will continue working on a bill that would provide incentives for energy-efficient manufacturing. a procedural vote is set for 5:30 p.m. eastern today. also on the agenda, several executive branch nominees.

as always, watch lighthouse coverage. at the white house today, president obama welcomed the president of uruguay. they are saying the visit will highlight the support for the administration's leadership on andn rights, global peace, security. this afternoon he will honor recipients of the 2014 top cops award. be live for awill discussion looking at how safe are handling a medicaid expansion under the health care law is. arkansas and michigan, hosted by the alliance for health reform. we will have that for you life sitting at 12:15 p.m. eastern right here on c-span. also coming up on the a panel of foreign and top government officials will talk about government that your chief threats facing the country and comments from john miller. he talks but the mindset of a terrorist planning an attack. said [indiscernible]

they will base it around this while we are talking and turning. people here hell have it on tv. i'm not worried about causing a blackout. terrorism is theater. it requires a storyline that needs a big dramatic scene. shot involves blood spear that is what they're thinking about. >> you can watch the entire discussion with remarks from michael chertoff and john at 8:00tonight starting p.m. eastern here on c-span.

up next, we'll hear from the attorney who successfully argued against the defense of marriage act last year with the supreme court's. he sued the federal government for failing to recognize the marriage to another woman. it also talks about ongoing court cases around the country involving same-sex marriage. this is under one hour. >> good afternoon. my name is jonathan leiken. i'm the president of the cleveland metropolitan bar association. i am pleased to introduce robbie kaplan. yesterday, may 1, was law day. we celebrate law day every year to reflect on the importance of law in our society and what better place to have this conversation than the citadel of free speech, the city club of cleveland?

and what better topic to illustrate the importance of law in our society than the fight for equal rights for the lgbt community? i just want to give a little bit of context to today's conversation. it has been almost a year since the u.s. supreme court for a landmark decision striking down the defense of marriage act and bringing robbie kaplan to national attention. still, there is a constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage. a lawsuit filed this week on behalf of six ohio couples claims that that amendment violates the equal rejection and due process clauses of the u.s. constitution and this law day, the law is far from settled. the issue of marriage aside, it is currently legal in ohio to be fired from your job, lose your apartment, be denied service at a movie theater, restaurant, or hotel because of your sexual or gender identity. ohio is just one of many states

facing these issues. robbie kaplan, who hails from cleveland, from shaker heights, has become a hero to many in the fight for lgbt a quality. her representation of edith windsor last year and recently robbie filed a motion in the u.s. sixth circuit court of appeals to -- it may seem like a minor point to many, but this had significant implications when it came to an harridan's insurance, and other rights that deeply affect domestic life. she is a native of cleveland. she graduated from harvard and columbia and let me turn it over to steve to introduce robbie.

thank you. [applause] >> thank you, john. thank you to the bar and the city club for again hosting a wonderful law they programming. roberta kaplan -- i will start by calling you roberta. >> please just start that way. >> a native of shaker rights, ohio, where she attended harvard college and columbia law school. after that she clerked in federal court and the highest court in the state of new york for the chief judge, a renowned jurist. then she went to practice, where she is now a partner. and a big-time new york litigator. she has a commercial practice, which would be the envy of any litigator in any city and the world, representing such clients

as fitch and jpmorgan chase. she also has another factor. she also has one of the most enviable an important civil rights practices in the world right now. in 2006, that was a lobby for 12 same-sex couples in the state of new york who were seeking to have the right to marry under state law, a case where she was unsuccessful. before a court she had actually clerked for. >> for the judge. [laughter] >> and then, as john said, the last two years come as she represented edith windsor. and in that case, represented ms. windsor in the case that cause the supreme court to strike down the defense of marriage act, an act that the supreme court, and i am proud to

say the justice department before that, found indefensible in our constitutional system. but long before that, robbie kaplan was quite literally the girl next door. i grew up a block or so away from robbie. we graduated high school together. hundreds of times at 7:00 in the morning, we rode in the cramped axes of a honda civic hatchback. and i was a big guy. her brother, peter, who is here, and my little brother were best friends. they had, i think we can agree, a more interesting high school experience than we did? >> a lot of fun probably, too. >> her parents lived down the street. her father played golf with my father for many. many years. as a personal point of pride for me and our community to welcome back not only a great litigator, but a great leader to our city -- robbie kaplan. [applause]

chief justice ginsburg just today was quoted in "the wall street journal" talking about the windsor case. something she said the struck me. she said ms. windsor was such a "well-chosen plaintiff." tell me about this. did you choose her or did she choose you? >> the lucky thing is she chose me. i did not choose edie. edie windsor is now 84. she grew up in philadelphia during the depression. her father lost his family business and their home during the depression. during college -- she realized she was a lesbian. but because of the time then, as she put it, she could not imagine being queer.

she married a guy by the name of saul windsor. that is how she gets the name. who was her brothers best friend. and fought with her brother in world war ii. he marriage, needless to say, did not last very long. after only a few months, edie said you deserve to be loved the way you deserve to be loved, and i need something else. she effectively came out to him then. she moved to new york like so many people, including myself, in order to be gay. i can go on and on about her life, and i'm sure i will today, but fast-forward and she met a woman, thea spyer. they were together for 44 years. they were married in canada. that is actually my fault. i lost the new york case. so they had to go to canada. i think i paid her back for it

though. [laughter] upon her death, even though she realize she was going to have this problem, she did not fully appreciate the extent of it. she had to pay an enormous estate tax because of the so-called defense of marriage act. i do not think it was defending any marriages. the reason she had to pay that state tax was a flaw for the marriages of gay people were not marriages. if you are a straight person, you do not have to pay a tax on your spouse dies. but if you were in a gay married couple, you did. it was not your spouse. it was like she was a stranger to her. the bill was huge. she was not happy about it. one of the things that makes her an ideal clients was that she was -- an ideal client was she was "indignant" to pay this bill. you do not get a lot of clients who use words like indignant. >> not your bill. >> [laughter]

and you had not even seen one of my bills. she went looking for a lawyer. fortunately for me, she called some of the -- but they turned her down. i did not know edie, but i knew thia. i walked over to her apartment. she was four blocks away. i took one look at her, and it took about three seconds for me to take on the case. >> i understand that not everybody in the community, the legal community, the advocacy community, agreed with justice ginsburg and yourself that this would be the right case.

>> lawyers never agree on anything. [laughter] there is nothing new about that. [laughter] there is nothing new about that. i was not a party to these conversations, so i did not hear what they said to edie, but they said it was not the appropriate case to be brought. my sense of it is that they were two factors. one, people were concerned about an estate tax case. edie's bill was high. she had to pay another $275,000 to new york. the there was a fear she would be perceived as too rich. i represent companies like citigroup so that did not sound so rich. number two, most of the bill was due to the fact that they had two apartments in new york city in the 1970's and they appreciated hugely over the years. that was the real reason for the big estate tax bill.

another problem was that people were concerned about the tax elements. my sense is that every american knows in their got what it means to have to pay a tax bill, especially one that is a tax on being gay. americans would understand that. even republicans that were not on the beginning -- on our site at the beginning, they don't like the a estate tax. you had this incredibly articulate and beautiful woman who had a marriage. thea was completely paralyzed by the time she died.

the case should always be about the client and not about the lawyers. that is just the way i do think -- things. on top of that, i thought the story of edie's marriage and life would be so important not for only the american people to hear, but for the justices to hear. many of the justices are edie's contemporaries. justice kennedy in a case like this, it is no surprise, it is the vote that matters. he is around edie's age and would have shared or been aware of the things she had experienced. it was reported in time magazine that justice kennedy, who used

to teach at law school in sacramento, who had a friend who was the dean at the school who was a closeted a man. they were close. i don't think they ever discussed of the fact that he was gay but they -- the kennedy knew about. i thought the facts of edie's life would be powerfully moving to justice kennedy. she was in the closet basically until 2007. she worked for many decades in ibm. she rose to the highest technical level at ibm and she never told anyone that she was gay. i thought that justice kennedy would be able to understand that. i've never hope -- i've never spoken to him about it, but that based on the opinion i think he did. >> people in different professions work in different ways. sometimes collaborative, sometimes you have to log off. either stand that while you are writing the brief, you took that to the extreme. talk to us about the process. >> once the case got to the supreme court, things got intense. i am not known for my zen-like

personality. [laughter] it was super intense. the brief -- i and the whole team. -- team cared very much about that. the arguments are important, but what is really important is in the brief. we were focused on trying to persuade the justices to rule our way and that this was the case to do it. there are a couple of sections that the -- of the brief that i think i rewrote literally hundreds and hundreds of times. i walled myself up. i have a small room in my apartment in new york city and i worked from there so there would be no distractions. i am embarrassed to say this, but i don't think i took off my sweatpants for 16 days. [laughter] by the time it was over, i felt like a hermit. i went to a party and did not know how to talk to people anymore. that is how important it was to

me and the team and it was truly collaborative. one of the things i did is when we realize this case was going to court, i wanted a local counsel for the supreme court to help me because this was my first-ever argument before the supreme court. >> you picked a good one. [laughter] >> i did ok. so i called a professor at stanford who is one of the greatest constitutional scholars of our time to help and she was supposed to take a sabbatical in italy that spring and she meagerly called me. she did not know me from a hole in the wall and immediately agreed and canceled her sabbatical to do this case. we were all working very hard. >> i am sure that when the case became renowned that many people offered advice you -- to you. my guess is that some was on point and maybe some of that you chose to not take. share with us the process of having a case that goes from being your case with your client to being a case that the whole world is watching you litigate and know how to do better than you, probably.

>> they probably thought they did. [laughter] it is a little bit of pressure on me at this point. it is intense. when you prepare for the supreme court argument, you call this -- you do this thing called moots. you go in front of a bunch of lawyers. we mostly did it with supreme court advocates and law professors. we did seven of them formally so he 11 -- so we get one at stanford and nyu. i did one with ted olson. you do a bunch of these. the process is -- you have 15 minutes. it is a moot court. people question me for 45 minutes and after that, they spend an hour or taking everything you say.

i can't imagine -- maybe a root canal is worse, but i can't think of much worse than that. [laughter] we listened to what everyone had to say. we would take the advice that we like, as anyone does, and reject the advice that we did not like. there has been some advice written lately so i can talk about it. we were told tode-gay -- to de-gay the case. our response was we did not know how that was possible. [laughter] edie windsor certainly did not like that advice and i don't blame her. we felt that this case was about the fact that the court couldn't possibly explain any difference between a gay married couple -- edie was married -- between a gay married couple and a straight married couple on the other hand that could possibly justify the sweeping discrimination that was doma.

we had a joke on the team that i can answer any question the justices asked me that the people affected by doma were already married and already gay and there is nothing the court could do that would change either fact. [laughter] >> i guess that is not all you had to say for the argument. what was it like taking the case to the court and waiting for the decision? >> again, not the most relaxing. of my life. -- relaxingperiod of my life. i argued in march and we got the decision on june 26. unlike the supreme court in other countries, our supreme court has a tradition of not telling you when the case is coming down. all they say is that on a certain day they will be announcing cases but no one knows what it will be. every time -- they were probably six days like that where we all came to my apartment, we all had laptops logged on to scotus' blog waiting to see if there was our case. we had five false starts. edy was probably more stressed than -- eide was probably -- edie was probably more stressed

than i was. it was reported that she used a derogatory term about the supreme court when they did not hand him the decision, but it is the supreme court and we will keep waiting. when we did get the decision, we knew it would be that day because it was the last day of the term. we were waiting for three things. one, supreme court followers to an analysis of how many justices have written how many opinions each term and how many are less. based on that analysis, the opinions would be written by chief justice roberts and by kennedy. call me crazy -- we probably would have been better off if kennedy wrote our opinion. that meant they would announce our decision first because under supreme court protocol, justice kennedy is junior to be chief

justice. we are waiting to hear eight of our cases first. b, the opinion by kennedy, and we saw the dissent by justice scalia, we knew had with -- we knew we had one. there was screaming and crying incredible jubilation. >> you have a practice that we talked about. you have large commercial clients involved in important litigation. then you have individual clients like eating orton -- edie windsor. many lawyers are taught that as lawyers, we should be detached. we are not supposed to have personal skin in the game. our job is to bring to the situation and objectivity. obviously, that cannot be true for you.

you are there in your part with your wife, rachel, with your son who is here today, jacob, who was on his ipad. [laughter] that is what he was doing on the way. this is something that you just can't help but be personal for you, too. can you talk about the struggle between being an objective, big-stakes litigator and doing a case that much mean so much to as a person? >> i see both sides. i believe that we are part of a noble profession and i believe that as lawyers, it is our job to tell the clients the truth, even times when they do not want to hear it. that is our duty. any lawyer that disagrees with that, i respectfully disagree

with them. on the other hand, my wife jokes about this. she says i have this incredible ability to convince myself that no matter who my client is, that they are absolutely right, that they have done nothing wrong, and that we absolutely should win the case and if the judges do not see it that way there is something wrong with them. she says she does not know how i do it every time but i do. in this case, obviously, that was an easy thing to do. among other things, there is edie. we have become incredibly close. my mother is here, so i would not say it is a mother-daughter relationship, but has parts of that relationship in the sense that i am always telling her that she needs to take care of herself and she tells me to stop controlling her and doesn't listen. [laughter] >> i were talking about edie or your mother or both? >> both. on top of that, i was married. i am married and i am a lesbian. doma had terrible implications for me as well. i could not help thinking about that. as a lawyer, i felt it was important to put that aside. that is one of the reasons i said it was not all about edie. i did not want lawyers going on

press junkets and talking about this case until we had a decision. i wanted it to be focused on her and that was a strategy that was important to us. there were times that it would see through. for example, in the argument, the chief justice really started going after me on this question of why the world has changed so much for gay people. how was it that there are today 17 states that allow gay couples to marry? we argued the case there were nine, will be brought the case, there were five. his thesis is that they were following politicians. there were following president obama, following bill clinton. it was people following politicians and i disagreed with that, as you can imagine. i don't think americans really ever follow politicians, but i think on this, it was very much politicians, with all respect to the president, following americans. we debated this point. you can hear on the transcript, you can hear in my voice -- that

is where the personal came through and you can hear it in my tone. it came through there. it certainly came through when we won. after we won and all bets were off and we could feel freer about what we said, things were very different. i felt all that summer -- you know the paintings were the guy is floating above the world looking down at his wife? i felt like the guy in. >> -- those paintings. >> you made a comment at one point which summed up the feelings of a lot of people were you said you had a full marriage. >> during the argument, justice ginsburg not only gave a great interview today, but there is a website called notorious rbg that is about justice ginsburg. [laughter] we spent a lot of time in the case really agonizing about how best to explain to the course that doma created a caste system in the u.s.

he created a second-class citizenship for gay couples that were married were treated one way and straight couples married were treated another. that is kind of a caste system and offensive to the constitution. we debated a lot of ways and we ended up the way we ended up. during the argument, might adversary -- my adversary, paul clement, ginsburg was interviewing him and said, doesn't it create a skim milk marriage? straight couples get all the benefits underlying gay couples to not get any benefits under the law. isn't that a skim-milk marriage? when she said it, she speaks softly and is short and it was

hard to hear her. i turned to pam and said, what did she just say? pam told me and i literally had to hold my arm down. i felt like doing this -- it would really not be good for supreme court protocol. [laughter] if so captures -- it so captures the essence of what this is about. it is and was and in places like ohio where gays cannot marry, it is like a skim-milk marriage. >> how do you view the case now that it is over and you are on to new things as sort of fitting into the broader movement for fighting for lgbt and civil rights in general? >> let me start with civil rights. civil rights in general, i do believe and i think attorney general holder and the president would agree with me, that this is a very important case in the path our country is taking, the arc that history goes through towards justice. one of the surprising things is when the administration decided not to defend the statute. it is a funny story.

we saw our case. we filed it in the second circuit, which meant that we knew the doj was going to have to take a position on whether doma and whether gay people in general should get heightened scrutiny under law. should courts look more carefully at a law that treats them a people differently the same way they had to look more carefully at laws that treat african-americans or women differently? many circuits had cases on that. the second circuit was wide open. about 30 days in, the doj had a brief they were going to do and i got a call from a doj attorney. they said they would like an extension. i normally don't get to represent the attorney so i was psyched about this. i said no.

i am representing edie windsor. she's eight years old and she has heart problems. i want her to be alive. i said no. i got a call from a more senior person. they said robbie, would like an extension. i said no way. then i got a call from tony west. he is the second in command of the department of justice. he said, robbie, what is going on? i hear you will give us an extension. i am calling you to tell you that we are asking for this extension because the president and the attorney general and i seriously want to consider and discuss what to do in this case. even then, i said, ok, i will get back you. [laughter] i asked some of my partners, and they said, are you crazy?

of course you will give the attorney general an extension. i was cynical even them. i think we can all be too cynical about things and i was cynical even then. i said to tony, i understand you and the president will be deliberating about this. i just want you to know that i will be praying for you as you deliberate third -- deliberate. 30 days later i get an e-mail saying the attorney general and the assistant attorney general would like to have a phone call. we knew immediately what that meant because that is not an e-mail you get very much. we immediately knew what it was. we got on the call. tony explained how the president had decided that they could not defend doma. i had tears running down my face.

i did not think that would happen. at the end of the call, tony says, remember that thing you said at the end of my call about frank? he says, sometimes, prayer works. it was not prayer entirely either. the standard for heightened scrutiny is four factors. is the plaintiff a member of a group that has suffered discrimination? as my son would say, i think that is a "doy." if there anything about that group that will affect your ability to contribute to society? again,"doy." can you change this group and is the group so politically powerful that they can get something to the legislature that we don't need to interview? i believe it is in the bottom of my heart that it is not a coincidence that it was three african-american men who made that decision. it wasn't politics, it was not msnbc versus fox, not any of that. they sat down and it was three black guys and they were like, we will not let that brief. that is what led to the

decision. >> last decision and we will go to the audience. we were talking about what love means. this is a case where one side, the courts, vindicated the best aspirations of what the rule of law means. as you pointed out, in another way it was about a law that was democratically enacted, which we now know unconstitutionally burdened millions of americans for many years. when you reflect on what the law means and, as a lawyer, what are the law sometimes, bad laws or immoral laws have to be dealt with, how does this play into your worldview both as a person and a lawyer? >> i always give young boyars -- boyars -- lawyers advice. if you're doing a case in it doesn't make sense, go back in

do the research. the law should make sense. certainly, the constitution should make sense. back when doma was passed in 1996, there were opinions from very prominent constitutional law prefers -- officers saying that doma was completely kosher. you can't as a lawyer and as a person lose sense of who you are and what your gut tells you what is right. if you're gut tells you, you have to keep fighting. i lost the first marriage case. we got hosed by the court of appeals. but we kept fighting and i think this will be two victories throughout the country. >> today at the city club, we are learning a ton at the friday forum with robbie kaplan, counsel in the windsor case that overturned the defense of marriage act. we will return to robbie in a moment for our question and answer. and we encourage you in the audience to formulate questions

for our speaker and remind you that they should be brief and to the point. we welcome you here and all of you joining us through 90.3 and w z i -- wviz pbs. television broadcast for the city club are made possible by cleveland state university and pmc. our live webcast is supported by the university of akron. next friday, may 9, the city club welcomes dr. to me spell per, offers -- author of "thomas jefferson's quaran." to order a dvd or cd of the program, go towww.city --

we welcome friends of richard and beth kaplan, friends of joe silverman, hawkins school alumni, hawkins school, and the legal society. we thank you for your support. today is the annual form on the american justice system a possible from a generous gift from paul the view walter and jesse glassman. thank you for your support. we also welcome students to today's student. participation is made possible by a gift from the development hype one company. joining us today are students from westlake high school. students, please stand and be

recognized. [applause] thank you all for being here. program is also in partnership with the cleveland metropolitan bar association and we could not be more delighted. let us return to our speaker for our traditional city club question and answer. -- answer period. holding the microphone are program director terry miller -- kerry miller. >> i am a graduating senior this year. i would like to say thank you for inviting us. my question today is -- earlier today, i had the pleasure of talking to judge dawson and he said that you should really plan out your goals to set a steady path for your future. i was wondering if you plan out your goals or was it was -- or if it was spontaneous? [laughter] >> let me begin by saying it is

a pleasure doing this with steve. he mentioned the rights we took to -- rides we took the high school but back in the day, steve was not a morning person. he would fall asleep on my shoulder on this teeny honda. this is a lot more fun than waking him up and saying steve, set up. when i was riding in that car, i obviously had no idea that i would move to new york, become a partner of paul weiss, that i would ever argue a court in the supreme court's or that it would be a case like windsor. it is impossible to plan your life like that and if someone tells you otherwise, don't listen. on the other hand, the one thing i learned from my parents and it is true, and that is you have to take opportunities when they come your way. you cannot plan when opportunities come your way.

when someone like edie windsor comes into your life, the right answer is to do what i did and say yes, i will take your case and do it pro bono. you have to trust your instincts. that is the best advice i can give anyone. >> what was the importance in your career of mentors? >> incredibly important. thank you for bringing that up. i got very lucky in my career. steve mentioned that i cleric for judith kay. when the windsor decision was decided by the second circuit, the first person to call me was colleen. when the supreme court came down, i think the first two

people i talked to were judge kay and colleen mcmahon. i still call them for advice all the time and it is important to find people like that. they are out there. >> ms. kaplan, on the cases that have become -- come before the supreme court now, it is almost possible to predict a 5-4 vote. five conservative go one way, and four so-called liberal go the other way. as a prominent attorney who as head a successful career in supreme court arguments, and this being law day, how you feel about that division? do you feel that there is a certain amount of distrust or lack of confidence that the public will have when the results of the case will be sort of so predictable? >> in a lot of the less-high-profile cases, the

supreme court does not really have that division. often it is 8-1 or 7-2. that is the majority of the cases the court decides. unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the supreme court's job is to decide cases about the meaning of because addition and you are absolutely like that they are often 5-4 and it is off the -- often kennedy on one side or another. in my case, i know we were smoking something. we thought we had a chance to get a sixth vote. that was totally not in the cards for us. i would obviously like to have a greater majority on my side on these issues like any litigator. the president can't even get

judicial nominees -- forget the supreme court. he can't get judicial nominees in the district and circuit courts with the system. the senate has become so polarized and congress has become the so polarized that nothing affected can get done in d.c.. i think the 5-4 voting that you see is an example of that. it is a bad effect of that kind of polarization. >> hello. thank you for accepting our invitation to be here tonight. my question is regarding the issue of same-sex marriage in light of loving and full faith and credit.

the sixth circuit decision involved a couples that had gone to baltimore, married on a tarmac, and come back. eventually the federal courts told the cincinnati recorder to include the south -- same-sex spouse on the death certificate. our loving and is full faith and credit valid defenses?

>> loving v virginia was a case about an interracial couple who were not being permitted to marry. it was illegal for them to marry in virginia and the supreme court held that that was unconstitutional. that was not a precedent we relied on in windsor, but for obvious reasons -- in windsor, these couples were married. there were not seeking the fundamental right to marry. they were already married. the point was, can you treat couples already married differently because they are gay? in the case is being brought today we throughout the country, the loving light of analysis is being relied on heavily. ted olson, who argued prop eight, relied on it very heavily.

it remains to be seen which way the court will go. they can do the fundamental rights theory or the equal protection there. i have to tell you, i have always thought in my gut that these cases are about equal protection. doesn't it seem that not allowing gay people to have the same rights as straight people it is a matter of equal protection? as a litigator, i'll will take it any way i can get it. in terms of full faith and credit, most states like ohio will recognize marriages out-of-state, even if they could not be performed in ohio, on muslim marriage contravenes the public policy of the state. it is that issue, whether it contravenes the policy, that essentially blends in to the same question whether there is a right to marry in ohio.

the reason you are not seeing it litigated separately is because the two issues are combined. the recognition cases are being litigated a essentially is constitutional cases, which i think is right. it is whether that public policy of ohio that says there is something horrible about it people -- about gay people getting married and whether that policy is constitutional or not. >> this is for robbie. if steve wants to chime in, that is fine. what is your opinion on whether judges should be elected or appointed? [laughter] >> i live in a state, new york, where they are elected and appointed. we have a family debate about this. i wife, who is a very active person in the democratic heart he, very much believes that the judges should be elected. i, being a litigator, sometimes i am in the judges -- on the side of judges being appointed. i think both things are healthy and good. in the federal system, i very much agree that federal judges

should only be appointed. i think they should have lifetime tenure. i think there is value in both and i think there is value in the people feeling they have a hand in who becomes a judge and they have a say in every i don't like is what you saw like in iowa where it is supreme court said -- where the supreme court said gays have a right to marriage and those who had a hand in the decision were voted out of office. that is not how it should work. >> thank you for inviting us. do you feel that ohio should stop using the slogan "we are a free country" because of the example of gay marriage? >> no. i think ohio should keep the slogan but allow gay couples to marry. [laughter] [applause] >> thank you for being here.

i would like to ask a question -- you must have had a tremendous pressure on you since you were involved in trying to do this decision for so many people throughout the world. it was mentioned in the very beginning that everyone in the world was looking. i happen to live more than half a year overseas. i know that a lot of american overseas were actually unable to return to the united states because if you are married to your spouse and is of same-sex, the federal government did not allow you to bring your spouse back with you to the united states. one of the members of the dnc has in and -- has been in exile as an american abroad and is now able to return because he can finally apply for citizenship for his spouse. did you ever hear from any of these people and how does this

affect you, having the pressure on you? >> edie and i heard from hundreds of people like that. the most rheumatic impact an immediate impact the windsor decision had was these couples that were married who were binational couples who were gay all of a sudden could get green cards. the obama administration, to his great credit, acted on this and issued cards immediately. i need someone to count the amount of e-mails and phone calls, but it is in the hundreds. i just spoke yesterday in new york at a wall street event and one guy told me his story about his husband and him had been separated for this reason. it is incredibly moving and an important impact. in terms of pressure, it was extreme. a funny story -- the day before the windsor case was argued, the prop eight case was argued. after our team watch the argument, we went back to the

office and talk about whether we needed to change anything. we decided that we thought it looked pretty good for us based on the prop 8 arguments are nothing needed to change. that was about 5:00 in the afternoon and i had to decide what to do. should i go back and read cases? what should i do? i decided to go back to the hotel where my family was staying and i went up to the room with my son and we ordered milk and cookies and we watched cartoons for the rest of the afternoon. in a lot of ways, i think that was the best thing i could have done to prepare for the oral argument. that is how i dealt with the pressure. when you get to the supreme court, it is crazy. have a very formal process so they give you this pep talk before you argue and they say things like, if you need cost drops, we have them.

if you need a pencil -- here's the thing i love. if you need a sewing kit, we have him. every time they say, what would i do with a sewing kit? [laughter] that just before the argument was incredibly stressful. >> you have also talked from time to time about the role that faith, your faith plays in your life and helps. i wonder if that also has been an aid in dealing with the kind of pressure you are on group -- you are under. >> i like to think so. i was very concerned in this case that our side of the movement had ceded the argument from the other side, religious arguments to one side. religious arguments should not only be on one side of this issue. there are many religions and many serious believers of many religions that believe that god requires us to recognize the dignity and everyone. that is what this case was

about. it was about whether edie's dignity should be recognized under the law, regardless of what your church thinks about performing gay marriages for couples. we spent a lot of time thinking about that. we had a brief for the first time ever in one of these gay rights cases from a very mainstream religious group. i got the entire conservative jewish movement on board for the first time in history. with some friends. there was lobbying that went on. we had an orthodox rabbi, we had episcopal ships, we at presbyterian. it was important for me to be in front of the corporate if you look at justice kennedy's opinion, i think he mentions the word dignity 10 times in 26 pages. what he keeps saying over and over in the opinion is that gay

people have the same dignity as everyone else. i think that is obviously true. i think it is what led to all the decision sent when sort -- windsor. it is a secular view of the religious view, which i share. >> i am a recent graduate of hawken school and i am curious -- i know we are well represented here today and i'm curious about how hawken and your youth and upbringing and education influenced where you are today. i don't hawken really helped me come out of my shell in a lot of ways and i'm wondering if it did the same for you.

>> definitely. i was in the closet until law school. it was a very different world that people lived in. it is amazing the that there is a gay student organization at hockenberry i spoke there this -- ad hoc and-- at hawken. it is like no big guilt of them. every time i say i was in the closet, they look at me like, who cares? that is an example of how the way -- how the world has changed that were inconceivable to me at hawken school and inconceivable to me five years ago in the world. i learned so much about myself at hawken. i had a latin teacher who has passed away that taught me how to think and those are skills i have with me for the rest of my life. >> i am an attorney the at the legal aid society of cleveland, pro bono services. because it is law day, in addition to windsor, can you name another robot ok's that is one of your favorites -- another pro bono case that is one of your favorites? >> i have a lot. the truth is, there has been talk about this in the press. paul weiss did not charge a penny. we even paid for the fees from experts out of our pocket.

that was not an issue. when i met edie at her apartment that day and she asked me -- first she was not sure i was qualified. she had a computer in the corner and i play the argument i did in new york. she watched it for a while and said, i think you're good enough. then she said, how much is this going to cost me? i did this with my hand. she said, i want to pay. and i said, you can't afford it. [laughter] the truth of the matter is, it never occurred to me that i would to go back to the firm and asked her permission to do this case. i went to paulweiss -- i went to paul weiss in part because cases like this are in our dna. we believe that lawyers that are as fortunate as we are have an obligation to give back and really -- i think i called ahead of the firm and said i was doing this case, but it was a no-brainer for all of us.

i think more -- i hope more lawyers do that. we do it at all -- paul weiss. >> hi. i am from westlake high school. i am a graduating senior. what is going on? i wanted to ask, since your morals help you win that case since you believe so strongly and were so passionate about it, have you had your morals conflict with the case because you did not believe it? >> i have been very fortunate. my wife things that is impossible for me because i convinced myself i am right. i had never had that happen. i frankly don't know what i would do if it happened. i also believe that everyone has

a right to a lawyer. there are criminal defense lawyers all the time who represent people who are the east accused of doing horrible things and it is a noble thing to defend a person incorporated that is part of being a lawyer. -- in court. that is part of being a lawyer. [applause] >> we are out of time, but i would like to say that on behalf of not only do legal community in cleveland but all clevelanders, robbie, we are very proud of you and delighted you are here today. [applause] today at the city club, we have been listening to a friday forum with robbie kaplan. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. our forum is now adjourned. [bell tolls] [applause]

and coming up this afternoon, we will >> and pension on how states are handling the health law expansion. and coming up tonight, we bring you a panel of former and current top government officials talking about current security threats facing the country. it includes remarks from john miller, who talked about the mindset of the terrorist who is planning an attack. >> we obsessed with the water supply, the food supply. they will poison milk in the house. it will do a biological -- up at night, while we are thinking thinking, theyre

are thinking, i need to kill people. i need it on tv. i am not worried about causing a blackout. i need people to die. terrorism is theater. it requires a storyline. it needs a big, dramatic scene. it needs the story arc. the money shot involves blood and violence. is what they are thinking about. they are not thinking about the grid. >> you can hear more of that conversation tonight at 8:00 eastern. >> i have a general philosophy i am approaching. it starts with the basic premise, which is economic freedom. is there the authority to act?

and are harm to consumers solution we can remedy whatever harm has been brought forth? three, is a solution tailored to the particular problem we are addressing, so we do not regulate by analogy? elements,hose three do the benefits of regulation outweigh the costs? that is how i am approaching each issue individually. you tend to take each issue as they come before you, is my overall philosophy. >> new fcc commissioner michael o'rielly.- >> a look at some of the innovations in technology that could impact the ways consumers watch tv and other content. a discussion of comverse technology, content delivery, and the discussion of wi-fi. this is about 20 minutes.

>> let us talk about cable. merger mania. a lot about what the time warner comcast merger could mean for cox. maybe you should have come out more strongly and gotten half a million subscribers out of it. >> i am a believer that the more the industry works on a cooperative platform, creating standardized platforms, looking -- allversal solutions boats rise and we are in a better place. the charter agreement i think actually helps us move along that continuum. an industry working together. it simplifies some things. the more we create standardized industry platforms, the better

off our customers will be. >> if the others get bigger, do they drive down the cost of ?ontent for everybody >> it is a platform discussion. i wanted robert to come here today. we are going to talk about trends going on in our space. you are going to see the need to create standardized industry platforms. innovation shows up right on top of it. we have example after example. if we can do that in parts of our business that are fast-growing, this business can continue to grow for a long time. >> cisco has talked about the internet of things. i am not sure we have the right name for it, but lots of different objects we are not used to connecting to the internet, connected. light bulbs, even outside the home. when are we going to see that vision start to accelerate even more? we are seeing home automation stuff. businesses are getting involved.

what is it going to take? >> we are starting to see it now. we have done a lot of work in understanding where we are going to see the market move most quickly. of the things we have not connected, like televisions and mobile phones, get connected. there is a huge opportunity here. one that is going to move quite quickly is cities. we have seen barcelona. we have seen cities like homburg. we are seen cities in the united states start to consider that what they provide as a platform infrastructure is going to differentiate them, which attracts companies to locate there. most importantly, creating an opportunity for small companies to start up. >> here is the point. if you look at the experience in barcelona, most of what has happened so far is someone has

gone after one service and said, let us create a wireless mesh. the financials do not work. if you can take a platform for the smart city, it is wireless and a new methodology. you deliver innovation and applications which we would call the cloud. you can actually build those apps and get them out to citizens, and get them to people attending arenas. here is what we are seeing. we are seeing the connectedness of things that have not been connected on a broadband platform, with a lot of outdoor wi-fi, is creating real benefits. job creation -- in barcelona, they have created hundreds of thousands of new opportunities, a thousand and-a-half new jobs. they have saved money. you know we all -- in a european city, if you are looking for a parking spot, you will drive forever. smart meters. just imagine what fedex would look like if they drove to every business every day and knocked on the door and said, the you -- do you have a package?

imagine what could happen in trash collection in large cities, if you only went when the bin was full and transform that process. it is happening. in the united states, we are seeing a huge opportunity for cable operators to focus on their platform as a way to enable that and create an ecosystem of private and business interests that make that happen. >> i wonder how you look at this. yesterday, the ceo's of comcast and charter both talked about wi-fi, neighborhood wi-fi, using in-home hotspots to create a sort of mesh that then gets filled in, mostly driven by wi-fi, a wireless strategy they could become big layers in this. -- they could use to become big

layers in this. -- players in this. do you see that same strategy, or would cox take a different tack? >> we are participating with comcast, time warner, and cablevision. we have more nationwide hotspots today than anybody else, 250,000 of them. our customers can roam from cox to time warner to comcast and have metro wi-fi services available. those types of platforms are the ones that i can look out and see how exciting this is. not only as you roam, but in your neighborhood, in your home, your business, giving you the ability to immediately be authenticated and connected. >> but it is going to take a lot more than the place we are right now for that experience to compete with the wide area of the cellular networks, moving to lte and beyond. are we pushing that far? >> i would challenge you, the next time you are with at&t wireless folks -- ask them what percent of the data streamed on their devices is going over their network versus their wi-fi connection. i will let them answer that question.

it is eye-opening. >> i know that, but when i am traveling and i'm on my phone, looking for reliability -- i know i will be able to get to my e-mail. i know i will be able to trust the network i am on. i tend to go to cellular, not whatever wi-fi hot system i can connect to. if i am making calls, i am making them over cellular. i am not making them over wi-fi. at what point are the cable players going to be able to really compete full spectrum with what cellular offers? >> never full-spectrum, because there is parts of that business model that would not be attractive to us. the wireless carriers have a very advantageous position. for the majority of the usage you do on your daily basis, you would be surprised at the availability of wi-fi that is probably very close to you, or you are standing in it and do not even know it.

the 250,000 is only going to continue to grow. >> i think the point is, we are thinking of wi-fi today as availability in a shop, store, restaurant, or our home. as we start to see the platform get deployed to pole tops and every other part of the network, it becomes pervasive. in cities, when you get into a high-density venue like staples center in los angeles, it is wi-fi. if you will be there with 18,000 people attending a lakers game, or an la game now that my sharks have lost, you will see wi-fi as a platform that enables that capability. the video consumption that is happening there is going to require that. >> there are big technology challenges to making that a great experience. i want to be able to connect my phone to that network and feel it is secure.

not necessarily have to type in a password every time. i am on the safe network. i know what i am doing is not being monitored by the guy in the t-shirt. >> i want you to be able to access it once and exploited -- exploit it several times in your life. i do not want you to have to think about that. the kind of things that rob and cisco are working on is the kind of things that keep things seamless in your customers lives very simple, but in a way, elegant. the thing with companies like cisco is, how do we take a world that is very single threaded, wi-fi devices in your home, engineered to work by themselves independently, and think about it -- how can we put platforms in the house, so people can start plugging into those platforms? i was laughing was night. base thinking about the

panel. i gave my brother-in-law, five years ago as a joke, a wi-fi connected alarm clock. it was called a chumby. anybody have a chumby? .> i have a chumby >> they went out of business. the reason why is, all it was was a single threaded device. if when my alarm went off, it started my water heater or set the temperature in certain rooms, or turned on the heating coils in the floor, or got my coffee maker going -- it is scary what that could have become. the problem is, we were very single-minded. we have to think about a much more complicated world. >> let us talk about over-the-top. how do you look at amazon fire tv, apple tv, roku, others that are moving under the tv set. they are another option for people to access content.

is that more opportunity, more threat? how do you decide how friendly to be to the streams that these content providers want to censor these boxes? -- send it through these boxes? >> it is both competition and a friend. it is the most interesting discussion to have. i have not looked in the last 90 days, but at the end of the year, 40% of our broadband customers streamed at least one netflix movie a month. we think about that. we want that to be a good experience. clearly, my broadband connection has a lot of services. you named amazon and apple. i want that to be positive. >> what percent of your broadband customers use on demand? >> broadband video, 70% or 80% use on demand. i have not done that based on broadband households. i have done that based on video households. >> makes sense. >> the point i am making here -- >> in any case, netflix stacks up well against other

happening onat is demand. >> netflix stacks up well against other over-the-top providers. netflix keeps it on my toes. it makes me think about a world where my customers want on demand content anywhere they go. how do i get those rights for them? so, their life is very simple. we launched a product called contour that responded to five things our customers told us. they wanted more vod content. they wanted more tuners at home. they wanted more storage. they wanted access to this content on second screens. last but not least, they wanted a powerful recommendation engine that knew them and recommended other shows to them. in the month of february, 600,000 households in cox have contour now. 140 million learning activities were gathered by the recommendation engine. almost a million times, our customers consumed that recommendation. the average household was

watching 22 channels a month, which sounds odd, but it's what the average household consumes, and went to 29 channels a month. customers will respond if you innovate. >> take a step back from that conversation about over-the-top. here is what we are saying. we are seeing a whole industry moving to the construct of embracing the crowd as a new way to achieve scale, speed, and application innovation. the whole show floor was about a lot of cloud apps. what does that actually mean? we have to move to a new model, a new kind of thinking. that movement is underway right now, amongst the people that are here. model.ement is a dev-ops you develop. you operate in one mode. you do not have an operations team. you bring us together. you drop code every week or every day. you do a market trial by putting the operation out there.

if it does not work, pull it back. those are different thoughts, but they speed up the innovation process. >> i am confused about what cloud means in this content. -- context. >> it means applications that can be managed and delivered in a central environment, that tie to the network, that leverage the network and its capabilities, that still connect to the value of the set top box. >> from the consumer perspective, the set top box and the experience i have on my tv is going to get upgraded and improved more seamlessly? like i am used to getting updates on my phone? >> exactly. >> the customer service experience that i am able to access through the tv, instead of having to call -- is that what you are talking about? >> it means the channel guide does not change with a hardware upgrade. it changes with a new drop in code. before that drop happens, somebody tested it and the feedback came back positive or

negative. that is happening all day long on your phone today. somebody is dropping a piece of code or an image that has a new feature. people use it. it is embraced. it completely changes the innovation speed that cable is going to bring to the consumer. >> but some platforms in the phone world are better at it than others. take a look at android. some phones you cannot update , them to the latest version. ios, it is a little easier, but you have trade-offs. what is good to happen in cable? is it going to be comcast, time warner, that consortium that end up making sure the platform gets -- that end up becoming the android or ios that makes sure the platform gets driven forward? is cisco going to make more of a play in that game? how do you see that playing out? >> yes, we are. >> how is that playing out? >> it is a manufacturing plant, a delivery vehicle. we announced we are going to build a collaboration with providers at the world's largest connected cloud. you may not have a data center in texas, and you may need one. you may not have a data center in germany, and the customer may insist on one.

we actually announced a strategy called inter-cloud. which would be a connection of those clouds, because the network matters more than anything in high intensity and important value-based workloads. video is a great example of an application that the network really matters. ask everyone here. the network really matters when you deliver that experience. we are in here. >> everyone here says the -- >> what about the platform, living in the set-top boxes? do you have an idea how standardize those need to be for the vision? >> they will change. the platform will change. sometimes, the customer is going to want to bring their own. other times, we would deliver an experience that would be differentiated when the application is being delivered, innovating in real time, as every other app from the cloud does. the set-top box would have capabilities, rendering that application on the television, my ipad, or my phone. i will be experiencing that

desire, which would see my content in linear fashion, where i want to see it. that is actually where this whole room is going. we will be part of that, along with many of the players. >> i want to give you a transformative example of part of the business we do not talk about, business services. the cloud has arrived in the business space. just to use the set-top box for -- there wasiness something in the small media business called pbx's, boxes that had to sit inside the shops. if you wanted your phone to work, you had to use this system. webex replaces a lot of those. we go to small businesses now. you do not have to have technology in your shop. it is in the cloud, your phone system. you go to a location on the web and put your account and, you can control your whole phone system. now, every time we go through improvements, it happens virtually.

you do not have to reconnect wires and download software. it is going to arrive in the residential space just as quickly. >> we talked about this the other day. the company we bought for $1.2 billion -- it is cloud networking. you can put a switch in your location. it is a box. but the control and the management is in the crowd. -- cloud. that business is exploding for us. combine that with broadband, telephony -- i think the smb and commercial market is ripe with opportunity to deliver cloud services from the cable industry that bundle cloud applications together with broadband and voice, and create the six play instead of the triple play for small business. it is happening right now. it is exploding in that market. >> five years from now, who has gotten the margin out of all these changes? i mean, you know what i am saying? there are so many areas that may

be the operators, maybe a big used tot provider, it have pretty much a lock on, that are now more up for grabs. who gets the money? >> what does it look like? >> five years from now -- i see the benefit. but somebody always gets the money. >> let us walk through it. the linear video business -- video consumption is growing at a record rate. americans are consuming more video today than any time in the history of the country. >> and the content makers are getting paid. >> our margins in the video business are getting tighter. that is a fact. keep moving down the food chain. our broadband business -- we are still adding broadband customers, investing heavily in our network to have the best broadband in the marketplace. i think we continue to grow in that. broadband enabled all the things we just talked about. wireline phone, things will go on there, be more ip -- that business will remain. the pie is shrinking, but we will probably get a bigger slice

of the shrinking pie. business services -- our footprint is a $6.6 billion opportunity. if i run the math for the industry the number falls , somewhere between $75 billion and $90 billion. we have been at it for a long time. we are getting a big chunk of that. in our market, over $1.7 billion to it this year. i think the industry captures over 30% over the next five years. business services in the cloud, the things you are hearing us talk about, will be very important to us, going forward. i did not even get into new business development. >> we have to wrap up. last question -- net neutrality, fast lane. how do you convince people you can have it both ways, that you can have a fast lane and the main lane improves at the same time? >> we just all need to focus on innovation. consumers just want to see service innovation. i want to see things solving their problem, new experiences. you know i would leave it alone

, and say, let's just focus on those that own the network actually have a chance right now, as these trends emerge, to make the network matter. deliver new services. service innovation is what i think our consumers are looking for. we have that platform in front of us to deliver on. >> but consumers want to pay less for faster speeds. >> the mistake people are making is -- we do commercial arrangements in all of our industries every day. somehow, i am taking something from you if i have a special arrangement. this is not taking anything away from the customers i have today. i have to take care of them. i am increasing broadband speeds this year. i have for seven years in a row. >> could you have made it faster and done it for less if you were not so focused on giving that deal -- >> it is not about giving a good deal. it is a business arrangement. >> if netflix is praying for a for a faster lane, and

start up x wishes they had that faster lane as well, the consumer wonders, does netflix is getting all this -- >> do not think it works that way. i do not think netflix is getting a faster lane and i am hurting anybody. our customers will have access to all the content on the internet. that is our promise. that is what we are doing. we are not blocking anything. it is the worst thing i possibly could ever do. >> all right. lots of people worried. >> should not be. >> it is a fast-moving area. you guys are operating in it. exciting times. >> thank you for coming today. >> thank you for the conversation. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> we have more now with a look at the creative side of the industry. thereiener discusses how

is more attention to credit programming. this is about 20 minutes. >> shake it out? >> sure. >> good morning. matthew, i know in a couple weeks you are getting ready to write and direct the final episode of "mad men." but really the burning question i have for you this morning is, what was your favorite long-term job with broadcasting and cable? >> i had a one day job at the calling subscribers to broadcasting and cable, trying to get them to come to the luncheon. paid $800. closed a lot. closed a lot, leader for the day. you never have any idea who is sitting in your office. >> thank you for that contribution. but seriously, this is a big moment.

this is a landmark show. you have been working on it for years. it is your baby. how are you feeling right now, as you wrap this up? >> there is a lot of -- there is a lot of feelings, you know? there are waves of feelings. i am not really at the real feeling yet of what it is going to be like, which i know will be loss. the thing i am focusing on is savoring what is left, and the idea of completing something. it is not really part of my job, normally. series television, in itself, is not something that works itself to completion all the time. your job is to keep the story going every week. we have completion to the season, but the idea that we are getting to the end of this -- i feel good about that. emotionally, it is confusing. i am looking forward to seeing my family again. other than that -- it is trying to integrate these two families, and take on the idea that i

wrote the pilot 14 years ago. >> that is crazy. >> yeah. before i -- and it was five years before i even met amc, and seven years after i wrote it, i was on the air. it is -- i am not good at math. but it is close to a third of my life. >> what has it meant to your life and your career? >> i have tried to put most of it in the show. i really have. it has been absolutely life altering in every way. completely satisfying artistically. emotionally deep for me. i have met some of the most amazing people i will ever meet. i have gotten to meet most of my heroes. because of the work.

it has changed every aspect of my life. i am a different person. i did not know i could write this much, you know? i am a fundamentally very lazy person. having a gun pointed at your head for seven years, you actually get used to it. having a train come at you. you would be surprised. you are much braver than you think you are. >> is that the biggest thing, you would say, is the take away, knowing what you are capable of? creatively, professionally. >> yes, and i would include in that as the most important thing knowing that i could work with so many people. and knowing how to be a manager on some level, and how to harness some other people's genius. i know it all gets reflected on me, but i had no idea that i could figure that out, that we could bring in, start all these careers. i am not talking about the actors even. i am talking about the people i deal with every day.

network, studio -- things i do not seem to have a temperament for at some level. i am very proud i learned how to do that. that i grew up in that way. people who have my job do not always rise to that part of it. i kind of get rid of it. i am surrounded by incredible people. absolutely everything you see on the show is generated and executed by a group of people. it is confusing. i do not know if it is commercially acceptable to do that, but that is how it works. it has been amazing. it has been amazing. i have gotten to grow up as don has grown up, and all the characters. i get to express all those things. >> part of growing up is making mistakes and learning from them. do you have a favorite one from the course of the experience? >> mistakes? you want something from today? or do you want something from -- >> sure. >> make mistakes constantly. that is -- things go on the air

-- this is a whole point of view. when you work with perfectionists, 99% means, what did we mess up? the goal is to not focus on that. there are mistakes made constantly. we try to make the best of them. often, they are really lucky. i mean, it is always -- it is usually something, honestly -- the mistakes i personally make are usually -- i will chalk up to fatigue, sleep deprivation. they are always emotional and always interpersonal. those are the mistakes i make in life. like roger sterling, i am apologizing a lot. i come in -- i would like to start one day without coming in and apologizing for my behavior last night. [laughter] >> you identify with him the most? >> i do not identify. there is a little bit of that in me.

i cannot drink. i probably would not be so cantankerous. >> josh, this has been obviously a huge show for amc and for the industry, the landscape. what has been the impact? >> a big impact, i think. i think matt obviously worked on "the sopranos" and "mad men." there is a lot of talk about the golden age of television. if dickens were alive today, he would be a show runner. matt probably embodies that, which is probably the most interesting subject of the moment, because it has had such a profound effect on what is on television. i think, just to connect it to a broader framework -- i think it really has had a significant hand in that, in inviting much

better tv, and tv that is treated as a different form of communication. it is not what tv meant before, which is a slightly derogatory term. tv was bad. my parents said, do not watch it. you will get dumb. i think this show and matt have had a very significant impact on all that. >> you mention the golden age of tv. i think i hear that phrase every day now, the last year or so. there are more original programming hours and episodes on than ever in history, and arguably more great tv on today. and yet the drivers for that that we look at, the branding, distribution, advertising, and overall branding for viewers -- that has been around.

those have been around for years and years. why do you think we are having this moment now? more, better television than ever. >> i have -- >> i have a theory. >> you go first. >> mine is completely from the sidelines. as a -- the golden age of tv is a little bit, to me, like the creative revolution in advertising. it is a term that is being coined by the tv business. >> yes. >> that is ok. but i feel like what really happened is that it was lower-cost for talent in special deals made by the wga and dga and sag to encourage this part of the business.

and i think it exploded into a cost structure that allowed people to fight their way into -- hbo does not have advertising, but i always felt like it was a -- an economic opportunity to brand your network, to make a splash, to attract advertisers. sometimes at network rates. all in this sort of netherworld of basic cable. i think it has been a big part of it. hbo has a different model, but hbo showed everyone you could make billions of dollars off of a seven rating. like independent film, once people were like, we do not have to appeal to this mass audience, the pressures of network, can we attract it? creative people saw this incredible opportunity. i do not know how -- >> cable, you are saying?

>> cable in particular. the competition becomes, how do you get the eyeballs? is it that people are responding to quality, noise, difference? all these things that do not really work in a network model traditionally, because it has to be so broad. amc told me they were interested in what i wanted to do with the show. and i was like, i will work for less. i will work harder if you let me -- if you trust my creative vision on this. it is not like i had no supervision. but i and a lot of people like me were like, this is what we always wanted. this is what we always wanted. you cannot -- the ironic thing is, it is mass communication, but it became very specific. and i think that that was an opportunity for the first year. "damages," there is a lot of -- everybody is in this business.

i think it was the critical mass of it. also, the movie business change, which drove a lot of people toward it, at that has happened since. in terms of prestige, it is "the sopranos." that is the bottom of the entire thing. that is an anti-network tv show. there is no lying about human behavior. it is subtle. it has action. it has unfortunate characters, unlikable characters. there is not one thing that would test in focus group in that show. it was a multibillion-dollar industry, forgetting about critical success. it was a 40 year business. that is my amateur -- >> you, of course, worked on that show. did that inspire your view? >> i think it is why amc was interested in working with me. definitely, they weren't -- the word "sopranos" was bigger on our first poster than anything else, bigger than "mad men." >> i do want to get, josh, to your real answer.

>> i went first because he knows the real answer. >> speaking to this real point of going to amc and what you could do with this show, tell me a little bit about your relationship and how it has evolved with amc. of course there have been tough negotiations. >> there is ups and downs. we got to a point where, i am an individual, and it is a corporation. it is kind of unmatched. it is like being a baseball player. it is hard to win that in the press. the reality of our relationship is, it has kind of been amazing. a show that weird, that specific -- no genre, no stars -- this is a risk-taking environment. that was the most spectacular thing i felt when i got there. these people are nuts. and they are -- these shows,

"breaking bad" and "mad men" -- you can say whatever you want. they have nothing to do with each other. they are not a brand. they do not mean anything. why are they doing this? because they are both good. that is an interesting strategy. i mean, there was this attitude of, we have expanded as far as we can go in selling cable. what product can we offer? how do we excite people? what is our unique vision? can we be hbo with commercials in it, without nudity, be tv for 14? there is a lot of restrictions. this is not fx. i cannot draw people in with boobs. i can't. >> you think fx draws people in with boobs? >> look -- i like entertainment also. i watch a lot of tv. i know the value of titillation and violence and things like that. i could not do it. the language -- all those other things are very exciting,

especially on your television screen, comparing it to network tv. shock value may be wearing off, but there is a time when it is like, where do i go for the most visceral entertainment experience of watching a bonfire or whatever? i am not being critical. i watch it too. this was hard to imagine. but "breaking bad" is genteel in its restrictions. someone like vince, who can turn tension out of someone opening a drawer that can last for 20 minutes -- that was a unique puzzle to solve. but they were so unconnected to the rules -- josh, i know you have worked at showtime and so forth. josh, rob --ad, that is who i dealt with early in the show. charlie came in very early.

no conversation about "this is how it is done." once that happens, everyone is in it together. >> what is next? are you going to do your next thing with -- >> let him answer. i have no answer for that. >> you do not have a first look or anything like that, right? >> they know i do one thing at a time. >> do you have a next thing on your mind? >> i have a movie coming out august 22 that i made during the show, with with owen wilson, zach galifianakis, and amy poehler. called "you are here." that will be in between the seasons. i have written a play. i am probably going to take a nice sigh and see what is on my mind. we were just talking about this. i need a sabbatical or something. it has been very time-consuming. sorry. >> it is just a pleasure to talk to a person who is writing tv shows, who is writing delmar schwartz and alan ginsburg into his tv shows.

not everyone is aware of them. i am just watching matt with a little rhapsody. >> josh, what do you think of matthew's answer about why we are at this point? >> i guess i have a little bit of a different one. probably just a different perspective i come from. i think that -- i think we actually -- i actually do believe that when you write stuff, and matt redeemed us -- when you write something because you are interested in it and you do not write it for the market, you probably write differently. and you write something that is different. and it is not from the intention of, i am going to bring it to market. in the business environment, that sounds like a bad thing, but it is a good thing. and it is unique and has not been done much on television. i think "mad men" was that. to say it, it sounds trite to call it a singular vision. there is resonance in that.

there is a lot of stuff behind that, to get very pragmatic, including, i think, technology has something to do with the uplift. meaning it is a show you have to pay more attention to. if you cannot ever watch on a dvr or any matter of on-demand and it is only on a linear basis on sunday at 9:00 or 10:00, and you are busy, it may pass you by. i think all these changes in technology, which are part of the cable business, actually facilitated people paying more attention and having a little bit more focus, the way they do in a darkened movie theater. when they are more focused, that have more appreciation for subtle stuff happening that takes longer to reveal, characters who are more surprising and ambiguous, as opposed to predictable. i think all this technology actually is behind in some way giving a little facilitation to a different creative expression. i think they marry, and it is

what is behind that stuff, and why tv is so much better. >> he gave the content answer and i gave the money answer. >> isn't that funny? >> this is what our relationship is really about. it is fascinating to me. you know? that's fascinating. >> on that note, since you covered each other's bases -- i just want to thank you so much. >> i will take some of his talent, if you do not mind. it is a little better than business activities. you would be surprised. >> i think you have got some of your own. thank you both so very much for sharing. >> thank you, everybody. [applause] more from thee 2014 cable show in just a moment, but i need to remind you of live coverage looking at how states are handling medicaid expansion and the health care

law, hosted by the alliance for health reform. continuing now with more from the 2014 cable show discussion about how innovation is impacting the cable industry. speakers include comcast ceo and chair brian roberts, who also speaks on a proposed merger between his company and time warner. as is about 20 minutes. -- this is about 20 minutes. onthank you for joining me this panel, a very timely one. it looks like we have a good size audience. let us address the elephant in the room right off the bat. brian, matt was telling me his broadband speeds at home last week dropped by about half, so i do not know. but seriously -- comcast is in the midst of attempting a his toric merger with time warner cable.

, tom,arter communications a month ago, did not mince words describing how bad you thought the deal was for consumers. said, from the regulatory perspective, it is difficult to imagine a transaction that could concentrate the industry more than the proposed comcast merger. this is not you specifically, but a filing from charter, 20 out the concentration of 33 islion tv subscribers, which going to be less because of the spinoff. this aat entirely make good deal in your eyes? >> i think it is a good deal for the industry. i think it is a good deal for comcast. i think it is great for charter. and i think it changes the landscape. and it is a different deal than i was a -- was describing

previously. >> what took it from bad to good, exactly? >> say that again? >> what took it from bad to good. >> it is a smaller deal, from comcast's perspective. i think that from an one industryof perspective, it is a much better outcome, i think, because we will be able to compete better as a result of the way the assets are deployed around the country. i think it is good for the employees of the companies. i think both companies are committed to serving the communities, serving their employees, and serving their customers in a dynamically positive way. years at -- i spent 23 time warner cable. i have enormous respect for the people that work there, the quality of the people there. and i think that all of the people in time warner will be

ending up in great companies. i think the people that are moving from charter and comcast in two different organizations will all end up in a better, more efficient industry that is committed to being successful. prettyranken has been outspoken in the senate about how he feels about this deal. he points out reasons why including -- he says the impact on consumers, most people, on an individual level, just know their experience calling the cable company, tried to get something, whether it is a lower price or problem with their service. do to win thest customer better? we have seen the numbers. what do we do? >> in the first question you asked, when you net all of this out, for comcast, we are buying 7 million net customers. , we saworld we live in

facebook earnings last week. they have 200 million people around the world using facebook will stop netflix just hit 35 plus million. we are getting 7 million more customers. i agree with what tom said about trying to get the industry a better opportunity to have a footprint regionally, and hopefully nationally, that can compete and innovate better. i think if you go out to the show, you will see our platform, which i think is a game changer. and being able to take the brains of that experience that for 50 years has been in a box and move it to the cloud, to state-of-the-art technology, and be able to quick a remote control, and as fast as you can normally communicate with a box -- go to denver and back in the same amount of time, which is mind boggling. wherever in the cloud you might to give is going

consumers better services, better features. there is no question, in my opinion, there are public benefits for consumers in making the scale and the innovation and the service better with these larger clusters. >> from showtime's perspective, you provide content. you have got showtime anytime, which is a play in the streaming game. go,e apps, along with hbo very important and popular with consumers these days. how do you see a transaction like the ones the operators are working on now, how that affects you? for instance, roque to -- roku will not work with streaming over comcast. it will over time warner cable. we will see, if the merger goes through. does that matter to you? >> first of all, it is great to

be up here with the entire cable industry now. the biggest benefit we see is t&e is when the go down. we have great relationships with charter, with comcast. the business is evolving very quickly. the use of technology to better serve our customers is very important to us. it is a dialogue we have constantly with all of our customers, not just charter or comcast. situationsre will be like that that will take some time to work themselves out. from our standpoint, we try to focus on the brand, what we are delivering to consumers, and using the technology, whatever technology is available to us among diverse platforms. it will be more distribution platforms in the future to make our that our customers get product when and where they want it.

about the cloud. sometimes i get frustrated, because the cloud is not a brand. it is something that exists over there and may help somebody sitting with an iphone or an ipad use showtime the way they want to use it. about athe way we feel lot of this technology. we want to see these guys have all the technology available to us as a content provider so we can better serve our customers. i could, that, if if you book three years ago, four years ago, how many ways there were to get showtime, versus 2014. to see the content, the platforms, the competitiveness, the rapid way it is all changing -- you step out. we just saw this with the olympics. was years ago, there tremendous content available on all platforms. the trend of what technology is

doing and how much i think

into of that r&d is going 3.1 technology. we are calling it biggest or technology, an announcement yesterday. in norman's investment is being made. if you went to our booth -- i know a number of our folks did yesterday. you can see our 3.1 demo

downloading one gigabit. what the industry has to do is simply allocate the bandwidth to do that. whatis what you have done, tom is doing and many others are doing, by deploying all-digital and sweeping away enough space to allow for one gigabit service. investingendors are to transmit one gigabit service. those equipments will be available, and we will begin to offer that service, or you will be able to offer those services. >> i am concerned about the consumer experience in office. this came up on a panel yesterday, talking about tv everywhere and how difficult some consumers find it to actually get it to work.

this technology not just exists, but comes together in a way that delights the consumer. what does the industry need to do? is it more apple store type locations where they get hands-on help? >> there is always going to be new technology. hisrman wheeler, and remarks, said something i took exception to. we were, for many years, a have not company. we are certainly a have network now, but we are not incumbent. we view ourselves as insurgents. one thing about this industry is, most successful companies either on the distributor side or the content side have viewed themselves as insurgents. i am talking about how we view ourselves. if you view yourself as an incumbent, you are finished. of that insurgency is accepting the fact that all

these technology changes are going to happen. we get frustrated. i thought john's remarks yesterday about his difficulties accessing tv -- i had that experience, where i was told to look at the back of the modem and read the number on the sticker. we live in a world where you inld have a fortune invested a hedge fund, and call them up and they would send you a new password. in two minutes, they would ask you a security question and you are back online. those are real problems. we just want to stay ahead of it. apps was not our core competence. it is becoming our core competence. developing things that allow us to take advantage of the -- either our current distribution world or a future distribution world -- is could go to us. --want all of this to be consumers should not know any of our issues or problems.

they should just know how to get showtime on any device that they and, whenever they want it, then there is going to be a lot more showtime subscribers. >> tom, specifically, it used to be there was your connection at home, your connection at work. wireless has changed that. we are expecting a revolution is going to change that even more. we have androidware coming out. what is the operator play? bigger moveso make into wireless networks, into selling those, something like that, in order to have more established presence, before wearables take off without you? hedgeannot let the k1 fund slip by. >> they are talking about you. like that is your biggest customer service problem. we are taking our innovation and

trying to apply it to service. i think it is a very fair question. how do you make it easier for consumers? i think wireless is a big heart of that answer. it is not silos anymore. it is one experience. it has work on every device. we need to be right for all types of consumers going from my folks who don't want to do all of these new things to my kids who absolutely do and everybody in between. you put an advertisement out for our booth, come see the excellent platform -- we view it as a form and we view the platform as an asset that can go with a consumer wants to go. fromt to see my shows showtime and different people will view had to get that differently. i think we've made great progress on tv everywhere. getting the rights, we have