There's a place for the female in law enforcement. I think there's a need for the female in law enforcement. I knew I could be a ranger, because I knew in my heart I wanted to be a ranger. And I just needed the chance to be able to prove it. I'd always been interested in law enforcement. And that clicked. I knew that's exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to fly airplanes and helicopters, but I wanted to do something useful with it. There are 2,000 agents in the Secret Service and approximately 160 are women across the country. And when I started 12 years ago, there were only 36. Well, I did not grow up thinking I was going to be in law enforcement. I didn't grow up with a badge on my Barbie doll. When I was little, I used to watch Perry Mason. I know it sounds a little bit hokey, but hey, I watched Perry Mason. And I used to think, what a wonderful, wonderful way to earn a living. A typical day might include duty matters, such as issuing search warrants, signing off on grand jury subpoenas, conducting a grand jury investigation. OK, now I'm going to need that fax for my 2 PM hearing. It might also involve meeting with agents, law enforcement, federal law enforcement, with respect to investigations, ongoing investigations that are happening, assessing evidence, strategizing in terms of how the investigation is to be completed. So generally, you have to research pretrial motions and make your arguments on paper to the judge before trial begins. Our lives revolve more around the courtroom versus anything else. It may involve a trial, the beginning of a trial, a jury selection. From there, you might go to another court appointment to begin jury selection for a trial, or you may have another series of hearings. The courthouse is a hub of activity wherein the US Attorney's Office is ever present. I believe that what I am doing is important, and therefore, I pursue it. I saw an article in a magazine. It was only about two inches by two inches tall advertising for customs. And I called and sent in applications, and that started the process. I started as a GS2 park aide in the Smokies.  And I decided that that would be what I'd like to do. I had started out in interpretation and decided that I wanted to be out in the resource and doing something to protect it. And that's actually why I got started into law enforcement. I found myself watching a Marine Patrol officer going by one day when I literally was sweating into my varnish. And I knew him. I knew the work he did. I knew that he got paid every month, whether it rained or snowed or whatever. And I said, that looks great. Let's give it a try. I have evolved up to what is called an A-certified vessel commander. The A-level certifies you to drive every boat within a customs fleet. Our area here, which includes Port Everglades, is one of the major commercial shipping areas in South Florida. Our day can go in several different directions. I think this is probably the guy right here. He'd be pulling me out of bed saying that the Bahamian Initiative has a plane following a boat into my coastal area. Can you intercept? And we can be in the inlet within 30 minutes. And I have a speed with this particular boat of about 50 miles an hour. So I can be running offshore. And my day will be never ending after that, if we're fortunate enough to do the intercept. There's two types of smuggling. One is what we call an open load. Now, the other type is sophisticated concealment. And that usually involves concealed compartments. We have had them where they have been secured underneath ships to the ship's hulls. That's why being a dive team, we come into play. And we go and have to do an extraction of that. We have to search the bottom of a cruise ship or the bottom of a 600 foot freighter. Clear? I want to have my own personal identity because I'm not one of the guys. I'm Wendy, and I'm a female. I will be an equal. I will be a respected team member, but I'm not one of the guys. And I don't expect them to be one of the girls. I'm not an FBI agent because I want to be praised for what I do. I'm an FBI agent because I wanted to serve my country. I've always thought that the profession that I would choose in life would be one wherein I could make a difference. I want to become a law enforcement officer to protect the resources and make a difference. And I think every person, if they examine themselves and law enforcement and why they're in it, it's not necessarily to tell people what to do, but you get this savior complex and you feel like you can make a difference. And if I don't do it, if I don't dedicate myself to it, then who's going to do it? Somebody's got to get the guns off the street. Somebody's got to get these grenades off the street. One example of how a case is generated. An informant comes in and gives you some information. At that time, I'll go through the computers, then I'll punch the name in into our national computer and see if he has any record, any criminal history. And we'll set the first meet. And by that time, I've already told her what to tell him, what the story is that I want him to know. And they do a good job, you know, make your life easier on that first meet. Then I'll set up a second meet. And what I try and normally do is to see how much this guy could give me and to see what his prizes are and really to see if he has any supplier, because that's what we want to get off the street is the guy that's really got the big stuff. Okay, he is showing her the guns at this point. Okay, here we go, take down guys. All right, let's go. But there's only a few of us that really dare to go out into the streets and actually target these kind of individuals and actually purchase these kind of deadly weapons. The challenges is what's gonna make me a better person. It's gonna make me stronger because I'm gonna have to keep thinking. I'm gonna have to keep trying. Well, at a little one, I have a 12-year-old stepson. I have a little one, a five-year-old. He's like, mommy's going to jail today. They do worry. Sometimes they don't want to know everything I do. I kind of pick and choose what I tell them because who wants to scare their mom, you know? Yeah, they worry about me and, but they also let me know that they think that I'm very capable and they have confidence that I can take care of myself. I think they were more concerned that I was moving a greater distance away than they were that I was getting into law enforcement. My family has been extremely supportive of my decision to come into this field. My mother has always worried. The Secret Service protects not only the president and the vice president. First lady, the vice president's wife, the children, former presidents, but we also protect heads of state and heads of government while they're guests in this country. I am currently assigned to the liaison division for the Secret Service. And the liaison division is responsible for primarily gathering protective intelligence from other federal agencies for the purpose of gathering protective intelligence and feeding it to our intelligence division. Our primary function is to maintain this relationship with the U.S. Capitol Police and the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms for the purpose of gathering this protective intelligence information as it pertains to threats against any of our protectees every protectee that the Secret Service brings up to the Capitol Hill is essentially advanced by either me or my partner, Agent Enright, and we split that up. We do spend our time training and focusing so that we're in the right place at the right time. If that place is between a gun and the president, then I was in the right place at the right time. As a female, I know I don't have the physical strength as a man, so we do more listening and we do more talking. You don't, so to speak, have the macho image. You want to see what's going on and you're more apt to talk your way out of it. I think we're in an advantage because women are a little more sensitive. We tend to use our mouths more and our brawn less. But women do seem to bring more of a commonsensical approach to things sometimes. Hey, let's talk about it, we'll deal with it, calm down, calm down. You have to be quick and sharp when you're in law enforcement but there's also a time to be gentle and to sit back and let people talk to you, let them provide information to you. I think that works well with a woman. Compromise, not backing up, but being willing to provide options as opposed to drawing a line. This is it. I came here as the chief ranger. I am now the person who's responsible for visitor protection for the law enforcement rangers and for interpretation. What kind of problems have you had with these kids? Not just the minor ones, they're a little noisy last night. Fort Jefferson drive to this national park is actually about 68 nautical miles from Key West. Fort Jefferson on one six. How's that youngin'? Livin' and workin' out here, I have had to learn what fishing gear is supposed to look like, what boats are supposed to look like, how they're supposed to carry, what the people look like. Just the normal day-to-day operation.  They're interested, most of them are interested in the fort. They wanna see this fort. So you try your best to make them feel like this is theirs because it really is. You always wanna recognize that it's the national park service. Welcome, nice to see you. Hi, Anna. And that we need to get ourselves into the mode of thinking that these visitors who come here deserve some kind of service from us, whether it's educational or it's law enforcement. Let's go right through here.  It's 90 minutes for a back-up. I'm your only law enforcement officer stationed out here. There are things that actually happen out here. This is my beat. This is what I do, and what I do is I'm a federal law enforcement officer. I would hope that anybody who watches me work or watches me livin' out here sees where I live and how I live knows that I love it. If I didn't love it, I'm actually smarter than this. I'd go do something else.  You never think about the danger. I'm never afraid. I won't go headfirst into something that I know that I can't handle. If there's two boats out there and I'm by myself, if I feel uncomfortable, I won't make the stop. I'll hang back, I'll follow them to the ramp, but I'll make sure someone is at the ramp to help me. I think you need to know your own limitations. Yes, it does worry me sometimes, but anything can happen to me. It's not just here on the job, but going to the grocery store, walking across the street to take the kids to school or anything, so you can't really just let stuff like that just put a damp on you. Well, I would say that it is a unique part of my job, the fact that I'm a woman at a male institution because I may work at housing units and may have up to a hundred or more male inmates in that unit that are basically trying to keep the peace, to maintain a sort of calm sense in the units and keep down fights over pool equipment, on a TV, the channels, games, so you basically monitor units. You do shake down the units to keep down the influx, high influx of contraband where there's a new sense of horror contraband. You all right? Special housing unit, I work special housing unit where we maintain inmates that may be problems on the outside unit, so they're locked down basically 23 hours a day. You take them out for showers, for rec, or maybe to change sails. We also do cell shake downs and segregation units. I think that the male inmates, as well as my male colleagues have respect for me because of the way I carry myself, the way that I deal with inmates, I try to treat them like people and be firm and fair, so the times are changing. You have to wait until they call a next move. I think since I've been in the Bureau of Prison as a young woman in corrections that I have excelled fairly quickly because I am a good listener and I can learn very quickly, now look for me, look for me. I'll be here for the long haul. I don't think of that when I start my day. I don't think, oh, I'm a woman, I better work harder today. That's not how I start my day. I think women will always have to try harder. The microcosm of the FBI or other law enforcement agencies that are in existence is a part of the bigger scenario of life and in some ways that old saying it's a man's world is certainly true. I believe as an African-American female prosecutor, there is one set of expectations that I must meet. And as a female prosecutor, there is a set of expectations that I must meet. Yes, I do believe that you have to be twice as good. And in fact, I have a tacky little sign and I generally speak and hate him that says a woman who strives to be as good as a man is lacking in ambition. I don't think I have to work harder. I think I want to work harder to make it easier for females who come behind me that are doing the same job. As a supervisor on a sub-district level, I supervise in the field 70% of the time and 30% of is behind the desk. What we do during the day is basically airboat patrol. We patrol approximately 125,000 acres plus a day use area at Shark Valley, which sees hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. We patrol our boundaries, do markings on the boundary, look for any kind of intrusion that may have happened the night before or the week before. Boaching in Everglades, especially in Tamiami sub-district are quite heavy. We border the Cyprus National Preserve, which is a hunting area. When we do a stop in the Everglades on airboats, what we're looking for, we're looking for current registration. We look for any kind of frogging apparatus or any kind of weapons. Depending on whether it's hunting season, we make sure the guns are unloaded. Check their licenses, make sure that they know the regulations. And then during the night patrol, we go out looking for intrusion. We look for actual persons on airboats or buggies intruding into the boundary of Everglades National Park. To navigate out in the Everglades, you learn the shape of the hammocks. You learn the turns of the trail. It's just doing it over and over again. You can't go out once and learn it. You have to go out all the time and just keep doing it. You need to be able to take care of yourself and you need to be fully trained and committed. If you love what you're doing, you'll be good at it. I also work with some officers who still feel that it's not a women's place or a women's place in law enforcement is for searching female prisoners. It's a necessary evil, if you will. In the beginning, I used to think I had to be macho until I realized later on I will just be myself and they can take it or leave it. I think there's always going to be some resistance or some perception that they have no business doing that type of work, but I think it's gonna be less and less. The fact that we are women in law enforcement, we do have a degree in machismo. We wouldn't be doing this job. It's, we're not showing up with lace on our socks. I tend to think that a woman shouldn't be macho to be in law enforcement. A woman should be a woman. My typical day, I come to work in the morning. I generally tend to some paperwork, return phone calls, messages that I've received either previous day or early that morning. I create any paperwork that I need to, regarding any investigation that I conducted the previous day. I'm in the process of attempting to indict a large number of individuals from an investigation that I've been working on the past two years. So I liaise on, I work with the assistant United States attorney who will be prosecuting the case. And we prepare testimony for the grand jury. Bedroom one has the closet over here. We conduct search warrants. We execute search warrants. So we execute arrest warrants. There's a lot of time spent in preparing for those activities and rehearsing those activities and making sure that everything's gonna run safely and smoothly. Something happened this morning, as a matter of fact, that kind of made me feel good when I came into work. One of the males on my squad left a voicemail message on my telephone and said congratulations on some of your recent accomplishments and wanted to let you know that I'd go through a door with you. And that to me is the highest compliment that you can pay another agent. They know that I can pull my load, pull my weight around here. And I think they respect me for that. Generally, the situation has been that the males have wanted to work with me. I can only speak from my own experience. And I think that's a matter of how you conduct yourself and the reputation that you earn for yourself during your time at work. I believe all the deputies I work with do feel comfortable working with me in any situation. You know, when it comes down to it, they know I'm the boss and they don't seem to have a problem with that. Oh, my typical day, it starts out extremely early. One of the things that's very important to me is remaining in good physical fitness. You can't do this job and not be in shape. I come into the office because I'm responsible for managing a program on the forest as well as doing field work. I have four male law enforcement officers that work for me and one legal technician who's another one. Hang on a second, would Mike have it on his part? I'll set priorities and we work together primarily as a team. Okay. And we do patrol on Snowmobile, two officers at a time. Well, there's a warrant for your arrest. Just face the officer, put your hands on, talk your head, there you go. And one of the unique things that we have to deal with that most police agencies don't, is how do you transport somebody you've arrested out on a Snowmobile? What do you know about your warrant? I don't know nothing about it, this is a mistake. You put the suspect handcuff facing rearwards and then you have the second officer riding behind the first officer and they transport that way. We're required to re-qualify with our firearms and our defensive tactics training every quarter and so what we do is try and make it as real as possible and we will set up a combat course that will require the officers to utilize cover and concealment and the terrain around them, the rocks and the trees and the targets that we utilize are what we call knockdown targets. He's hit, he's down. I've grown tremendously professionally and personally and it's a great job. It's a fun job. I think when you're young, you're out of college, you're in your 20s, how can you imagine that one day you will be in Kathmandu, Nepal, protecting the First Lady of the United States? How could you even imagine something like that? Some days this is the best job in the world, I'm outside, I'm doing a variety of different things, it's not boring to me and I'm out meeting people. Since I've been with the Bureau, I've had so many opportunities that are just inherent in the job to learn, to travel, to meet so many people that I would never ever have been exposed to to learn about different lifestyles and that's one of the benefits and one of the pleasures of the position and one that keeps me waking up happy every day and ready to go to work. I can go to work every day of my life and say I'm doing what I really wanted to do all my life. There are a lot of people who can't say that. I was actually the first female pilot hired in customs and a lot of respects that made me very proud. It showed me that my training in background counted for something. Launch the Black Hawk, launch the Black Hawk. The Black Hawk, I fly as a co-pilot. You have to be able to get that airplane airborne and working in a law enforcement mode in eight minutes. So it has to be completely preflighted, inspected, all your gear put on board. That helicopter is a big mission. He tries to round up everybody and let his ground crew out to arrest people. The flying is difficult in that the terrain is constantly changing and moving. We're also flying low level and without lights and you're concentrating on the law enforcement aspect as well as the flying aspect so you have to split your time between watching that smuggler and not being detected by him and flying safely and not running into the terrain. I fly the citation as captain and the mission of the citation is interdiction. That aircraft was specifically designed to with radar and flare track potential smugglers that are flying into the country illegally from Mexico or from Canada in some cases. Now what he's doing now, I'm gonna pull in for an ID. You wanna bug me down to about 4,500. The crew concept is critical. When you're in an aircraft and you're flying a law enforcement mission, you're concentrating on being safe. You're concentrating on following that suspect. You're concentrating on flying. It's fatiguing and it's difficult but that's part of the excitement of the job. That's fun. Spent my first Christmas with the FBI conducting a homicide investigation up on an Indian reservation. Spent my first Thanksgiving involved in a kidnapping up in the mountains of Western Arizona. And I've been called upon many times to react during holidays and in the middle of the night and do so willingly. I have no qualms about that. But most importantly being able to have a family myself being able to have a child or so. And I've given all that up for my career because I never find the right moment to say I gotta stop. I can say that if I had it to do over I would number one be a mother and number two be a park ranger rather than at some points I can say that my child was not first and he should have been. So there's a price. Just this past Saturday I gave up my son's first football game. I've missed his first play. I've missed my daughter's games. But when you're there you just make it I believe in quality time not the quantity of it. So when I'm there I ensure that it's important. In the beginning of the morning you will be assigned a deputy that you're gonna be working with. You and this deputy will go to the local jails in the area. Take out anywhere between 10 and 20 prisoners you produce them in court.  Within the martial service there's the NASF program which is the National Asset Seizure and Forfeiture Program. I've seized boats in the past. I've seized live animals. I've seized bars, discos, anything and everything that can be seized. We will seize. There's a lot of surveillance. Surveillance is the longest part of the situation when it comes to actually sitting around waiting to get your guy.  Whatever you need to continue on with your investigation. And I believe what I'm doing is the proper thing for me. So when I weigh the differences there's not much of a difference. I'm doing the right thing. Plus I'm damn good at what I do. Don't become a cop because you watch television and it looks exciting. There's a lot missing on television. You've got to have a lot of self confidence. Know that you're capable because everyone else out there is going to question you and question your capability. I think that you just had to be very determined you got to keep up the good spirit. You got to set your own goals and don't let anybody take you down. You need to be independent. You need to be able to work alone. You need to be competent so that you can do your job when you are working alone. I think that the career opportunity is there for the taking. And you can go as high as you'd like to go if you're willing to put in the time and the work. Be dedicated. Definitely have integrity. And this goes for any person that wants to be a police officer regardless of male or female. I think integrity is the most important. My jurisdiction covers areas that are in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia. Right now I'm in uniform patrol in the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the surrounding park areas. So I do a lot of vehicular patrol. I do three, eight, ground one. Running radar, traffic enforcement and that type of thing. I also ride a scooter. A scooter meaning a motorcycle that's about 200 cc's or so. It facilitates our getting around in some of the remote areas where the bikers and the joggers and the hikers go. Going back to working in a predominantly male-oriented field. And he's a good friend of mine and we've worked together for a long time. And one day we were just talking and talking about the job in general.  But it's that attitude that you have to separate the female from the police officer. And I don't feel that way. I'm a female and I'm doing law enforcement. I got into this job because it's what I wanted to do for a living. And I figured if it's what I want to do for a living, then I should do it. It never occurred to me not to try it because I was a woman. I thank two women in law enforcement. Train yourself. Get trained. Have confidence in your abilities. Love your job. Remember it's not really a job, it's a life. I'd like to tell other women that are thinking about it, don't go into it half-hearted. If you go into it half-hearted, people will see through that and you won't succeed. When we get to the point where we recognize that everybody does the job their way, not a gender way, we've come to a realization that it's an individual thing and not a gender thing. And I think we've done that. I think every person is in charge of their life and being in charge of your life. You can be whatever it is that you aspire to be. I tell myself this little model that I came up with to help me keep focus on life. And that's that I must accept the challenges of life, quickness in my heart, and never lose hope in humankind.


Hello, my name is Paul Loughlin and I'm the trainer for the CIM's new Data Visualization Training Course. What should marketeers develop data visualization skills? In short, because marketing is becoming increasingly data-led and effective data visualization is the best way of communicating data to your audience and key decision makers. This training course will empower you to both understand how data visualization can help and make the key design decisions needed to create effective graphs or charts. I'll be sharing with you a workflow to help you be more consistent in your development of data visualizations and a number of design principles to help you assess the effectiveness of your chart design. Through that workflow, we will look at how to ensure you understand your audience and their needs, as well as developing your own editorial thinking skills. Along the way, you will also explore a wide range of basic chart options, some of which will probably be familiar to you, but others of which I suspect will be new to you. And I'll help you think through which to use for different purposes. You'll have the opportunity to critique and improve on some existing charts through the power of sketching and low-tech approaches. I'll also help you navigate the wide range of options available in the data visualization market, the software market. Plus, we'll have plenty of fun with interactive exercises, including hashtag bad data quiz. At its heart, this course is about equipping you, equipping you with a way of approaching data visualization that you can put into practice in your organization. Does not assume any specific software and you will need access to data or database software to participate in this course. Rather, the design principles and the thinking processes you'll learn can be applied back in the office, whatever software you use, even if that's just Microsoft Excel. Finally, when you complete this course, you'll leave with a full set of slides and frameworks to help you put your learning into practice. I would also share my personal recommendations for books, blogs and podcasts and other online resources to help you continue to develop your skills and hone your craft. So I recommend this data visualization course as a very practical and relevant learning experience for today's marketeers. See you there.


Welcome, I'm pleased to welcome you to the inter this IEA event for both our audience here today, which is the big audience and our audience online via zoom. I will be chairing today's event. My name is Alex Dukalski. I'm an associate professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin, and I direct the UCD Center for Asia Pacific Research. And you can tell from my accent I'm a native of the country that we will be trying to better understand today. We're very dumb plan on it. Maybe we'll be more confused by the end. We're delighted to be joined today by Frank Luntz, who, as you know, is a leading American pollster advisor commentator, who has been generous enough to take time out of his schedule to speak with us today. Frank is going to speak with us for just a few minutes I think are relatively short remarks, and he has indicated that he wants engagement so be ready with your questions, I think is the message. You'll be able to indicate that you wish to ask questions of course by raising your hand if you're here in the room, or if you're on zoom using the q amp a function and I'll be able to see those questions here. A reminder that today's presentation and q amp a are both on the record. Please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter, using the handle at IE a I'll now formally introduce Frank and then hand it over to him for his remarks. Frank Luntz is amongst the highest profile political pollsters and commentators in the United States, his instant response focus group technique has been profiled on 60 minutes Good Morning America and PBS is award winning frontline. Frank has been a guest in most of the United States is leading media outlets, and he has written for among others the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, at the Times of London and the Washington Post. Yes. Frank has also worked for more than 50 Fortune 500 companies and CEOs, and is the past winner of the Washington Post's crystal ball award for being the most accurate pundit. With that, we'll hand it over to Frank, and welcome to welcome to double. I apologize for being American at this point from so many reasons. But one of them is that I prefer a conversation, rather than lecturing. I did go to school at ocher I went to university Oxford, and my tutor would speak for 15 or 20 minutes before I could utter a single word. That's what I'm told education was to be about it was not a fun experience for me. It's so strange that I go back to Oxford now as a guest lecture and I love it. And as a student, I absolutely hated it. I was so looking forward to it, but I had the mistaken belief that Margaret Thatcher was the greatest Prime Minister since Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan was the greatest president since Lincoln. And the fact that on the very first day I was there I wore a t-shirt of Thatcher and Reagan hugging each other made me the most unpopular person at Central College. And I never overcame that in the three years that I was there. But thank God I've got the D fill from it and, and it changed my life. I'm sorry for America for three reasons, and then we'll do conversation. Number one, I'm sorry that we are so loud.  That's a line from the movie network and every single year I asked the same question, and the numbers get worse and worse briefly under Barack Obama. It was a little bit less agitation. We're angry at a broken economy that has made a lot of promises that it hasn't delivered. We're angry at a political system that seems to reward the loudest, rather than those who deserve the most. We're angry at a media that doesn't seem to, in our perspective, tell us what we need to know. We're angry at culture. We're making us so disrespectful to each other, and that level of anger boils over so often now, and it makes it hard to govern makes it hard to plan for the future. It's frightening to me. And it's one of the reasons why I spend two months or three months or four months a year in Europe. That will be the source of ridicule just that comment will be the source of ridicule. But you know what, it's quieter here. It's a little bit easier here.  And yet I like it here. And I really, and I really do. Second, is that we have two candidates right now, the public doesn't want and yet they're probably give it a favorites to be the nominees, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. On the Democratic side, Democrats, not voters, Democrats, believe that Joe Biden's too old. He's already 80 years old. And I want to put this in perspective. He's not running for election just a year and a half from now. You're asking, or he's asking for Americans to vote for him for five and a half years from now. He was in this country, you saw him, you listen to him. He's an incredibly decent guy. I've known him now for about 25 years I taught his son at Penn, as a human being. He's one of the best as a president. He is 80 and he shows every element of that age. And that's the easier one. Trump is out of control. There are no limits to what he will say. There are no facts that he will deny. That he won't deny. It's really difficult. And I wrote something from the New York Times and took a little bit of heat for it from Republicans. And some from Democrats. The administration wasn't a bad administration. Our unemployment which they said could not get as low as it got the lowest African American employment rate ever. The lowest Latino unemployment rate for decades. An economy that was absolutely humming a deficit and debt that was way too big way too big, but nothing compared to what it is right now. A border that was under control, compared to right now where it's chaos down on the between Texas and Mexico crime that was under control is not now in New York I have to say to you. But many of you have I have relatives who live in New York. It's not safe. Philadelphia is not safe. Washington DC is if he Chicago's a mess Atlanta, Los Angeles. There was a lot to the Trump administration that was successful. And it's not to his demeanor to how he speaks to people and treats people and the impact that that had on how we relate to each other is horrific. And it's something that we're dealing with every single day and we will for three years to come, even if you should decide not to run which he obviously is running. To put this in perspective. Our economy's gotten a little bit better over the last six months inflation is somewhat subsided otherwise out of control for a while. Whatever you think of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Donald Trump is beating Joe Biden right now in virtually every single respectable survey. So before you dismiss Trump as an extremist which Europeans do so much before you dismiss him for even beyond what I've said about him, he is winning. Because the public does not want another four years of this, or it looking into the future. They don't think it'll be any better. Is about our institutions and about the public's loss of faith and trust and confidence. Everything that I do in my life is the relentless pursuit of the truth, everything. So I've been reexamining where I stand on immigration climate. COVID affirmative action you guys I believe call positive discrimination over here, which is a very interesting term. No side has a monopoly on the truth. Nobody does. And I've been at this now for over 35 years. I was looking at my list of countries I've been to over 40 countries. I've met with more than a dozen world leaders. I've read close to 1000 books. I think I'm a bit shy of that. And I'm changing my point of view all the time now, trying to get at what is the right answer for the problem that we face at that moment. And in academia. I am confronted with students who haven't been to any country. Haven't met a single world leader, barely read because they're on social media, and they tell me was such assertiveness that they're right and I'm wrong. I don't want to have a woke battle in my country in your country in Europe, because if you do, you may win an election, but you will destroy the country in the process. The moment that we see each other by what race we are by what gender we are by, by things that we cannot change. And we're judging them that I'm guilty for some crime that was committed 170 years ago. And that's the case. There is no common ground. There is no solution. When my students don't want to hear an alternative point of view, because they're so sure they're right. Then we got a problem. Then we got a crisis. And that's what's happening right now in the country. And yet, we do have to find a way to live together. We do have to do a better job of reaching out. The right is so dismissive of the left. But the left is equally as dismissive of the right. Take responsibility for your own side. Speak up against your own side. We don't do it. We'll sit there and say, well, as soon as those guys will stop wrecking the country, we'll start live. No. We have to look inward. And we have to say, okay, we got it wrong. And that is Donald Trump is incapable of doing that. He's incapable of saying, I made a mistake. He will not do it. But guess what? So is Joe Biden. He does it more nicely. He does it in a way that's less argumentative or less offensive. He's no less determined that he's right and everyone else is wrong. And the reason why I raise this is we have a debt ceiling crisis that's coming days from now. And Joe Biden will not compromise Joe Biden would not even negotiate. So I've heard all the Trump stuff. I'm anti Trump. I shouldn't say that I am a. I have no problem holding Donald Trump accountable. I'm not going to do the same thing with Joe Biden. Because if we default, you're all going to feel it here in Ireland, you're going to feel they're all across Europe. If we mess up in America, the whole world gets messed up. That's my opening. Okay, my guess is there are some questions. So I would remind you that the Q and A is on the record. And I would ask you to identify yourself briefly and keep your comment, keep your question up relatively succinct and not, not alone. And we want your bank account information. We want your social security number. We want to know where to find you and where to send the government car to pick you up and remove you from society. With that, in the back. I was listening to you talking to that good commentator across to see Andrew Maher the other evening. And you, I was, I certainly scared me and it scared him.  I don't want to end up because I don't think that was explored that much and that particularly short interval with a question with your permission chairman. Suppose a DeSantis wins the Republican nomination, and then then Trump will run as an independent, and then you could have a three way horse race in the in the presidential election. Would you like to be putting on your punters that you know sorting that out or commenting on what might happen. So once again, I've said this before, the Irish speak English, the best of any English speaking country of all. You just asked a couple of really tough questions but you did in such a beautiful way. It sounds so lyrical. That I could just like close my eyes and listen to it for no wonder you guys are such good writers and poets and and communicators.  They will not give you a line. So Trump could seek to run, but he would be denied the ballot in dozens of states. So that that won't happen. Secondly, DeSantis I believe absolutely beats Joe Biden. In fact, I think every Republican beats Joe Biden, other than Donald Trump, but I should not be so declarative because Trump is winning right now. He's beating every other Republican by, by miles. When he was when they went into Mar-a-Lago, and they searched his place, his numbers went up. When he was indicted for improper payments. He was his numbers went up when he was found guilty of sexual assault, his numbers went up. At this time, he has attacked his numbers go up. And it's not just about being a victim. He's convinced his supporters and many others that he's being prosecuted and persecuted. And he just gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And that's part of my answer to your first question. And by the way, I'm old, just give me, I'm not as old as everyone here, but I'm old. That's my question. So I can, so I'm sure that I actually answer it. The reason why I'm so afraid is because I don't see a solution to this. I see two candidates running and I know that 73% of Americans do not want a rematch of 2020. They don't want these two people, a majority of both Republic majority Republicans don't want Trump to run again. But among those who do he has such solid support majority of Democrats don't want Joe Biden to run, but among those that do such solid support. The reason why I'm and I didn't use the word Armageddon that's either your word or Andrew Mars word but but well I but I'm a man of words, actually, even though I've got a really lousy vocabulary and even though I can't spell at all. Thank God for spell check fact whoever invented spell check deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. I believe that with each election cycle we come closer to losing that element of democracy that we all celebrate free freedom of speech freedom of the press. Freedom to make mistakes, freedom to try again. Freedom of opportunity I'm doing a project right now for the Center for Policy Studies in London. One of the most significant think tanks on the language of freedom, because in the UK, we're not sure that freedom matters. I mean it matters, but fairness seems to matter more than freedom. I can actually ask you that question one second in the states freedoms number one value equality would be number two but the distance would be very wide in the UK fairness is the number one value and it's over freedom. I'm curious just about this crowd here, which is a higher value to you which matters more to you. Freedom to Ireland itself, freedom or fairness, if you had to choose, would you which would you prioritize, who would say freedom. I didn't ask for a comment I asked for a hands, you must be a journalist, who would say freedom. And who would say fairness. So the cameras can't record it but it's overwhelming for fairness here overwhelming. It's a non about cousin of the other two. It might be surprisingly successful as a candidate. If we're to run. That's a good word that's a great question here. Yep. How Sarah carry Irish independent, other than dying. And is there any circumstance under which Biden is not the candidate. Is there any chance for contest. No, because the only Democrat is challenging him. There's a spiritual healer who is involved in the race and she'll get her three or 4% and these are people who basically chat channel channel Oscar Wilde on nights weekends and that like Christmas day. And then there's Robert Kennedy Jr, who is nothing like his namesake, and he'll get 15% of the vote. But it's nothing significant. So Joe Biden is going to be the Democrat unless unless he decides not to run. And he's way behind on fundraising compared to Barack Obama, way behind an organization compared to Barack Obama when Obama sought reelection. So there's something in my head that things that he's doing this simply because he doesn't want to become a lame duck, and that in October or November he'll say okay, I've thought about it, and I really should not be a candidate. No one agrees with me on this, but I do think it's a possibility. And then chaos. You have the vice presidents. Some of you have heard me before that problem with vice president Harris is that she's got the lowest approval rating since Dan quail, and then quail has got the lowest approval rating since Aaron Burr. Now, if you've seen Hamilton you'll get the joke. I should not tell it in a foreign country, because Americans don't know it. But she's a very flawed candidate. A much less flawed candidates the governor of California Gavin Newsom, who already has a nationwide fundraising base has been running obviously the biggest state with the most money of any in the country. You have Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan for Democrats who desperately want a female to be leading their party. And Corey Booker for those who are interested in the African American population incredible speaker, visionary, and a real unifier senator from New Jersey, and Mitch Landrieu, who is the former mayor of New Orleans Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana and now in charge of the president's infrastructure package best retail politician I've ever met on either side. And the one person we haven't talked about. So I'm giving you all these names. So you should write them down and look and go and YouTube them and see what you think is Joe Manchin, as a possible independent candidate. Joe Manchin has real potential. He's not made a public decision whether or not to run I don't know whether he will. He's from West Virginia, governor. He was a governor, he's now a senator held up much of Joe Biden's legislation because he felt it was spending way too much money. And as it turns out, he was the first senator to say, wait a minute, this is going to trigger inflation. Let me see honestly what happened. I he would start with 15% of the vote, which is a high water mark for an independent. And I believe he's got the potential to double that. If he runs with Trump and Biden as the two party nominees, does his decision to run as an independent guarantee a second Trump presidency. No, and everyone asked me the same question. If you actually look at the polling. Because Joe Manchin, even though he's a Democrat, he opposed the Biden administration and some of their signature legislation. So Democrats don't like him. He actually draws more votes from Republicans than does Democrats. Joe Manchin is a safe vote for Republicans who don't like Donald Trump, much more than he's a safe vote for Democrats who don't like Joe Biden. He takes 2.2 votes from the Democrats for everyone. Sorry, I must say it right. He takes 2.2 votes from every Republican for every one vote he takes from the Democrats. So right now, the Republican should be doing everything they can to keep them off the ballot. The threat to Trump much more than the threat to Joe Biden. Okay, we have a question on zoom from Ellen Hazel corn. She asks you have focused on which from doesn't say zoom. She lives in a country called zoom. You have focused on Trump she says what are your views on the Santas who appears to be running on a culture war platform. And of course you were, I believe on BBC yesterday. I'm going to go on the Santas is so we say it's a shambolic, at least from the public perception campaign launch. I know that it's significant when I've got members of the European problem and coming up to me and say and asking me, how can someone who can't launch for president. There are two days that you control everything, and only two days to speeches, your campaign launch and your convention speech when you get the nomination. Everything else is up to the press up to your opponent. And on the very first day that you control everything. You can't get it right. And they're asking me, how can he possibly be president, and their people on the right of the spectrum and politics in Europe, who are horrified by what happened I said to them it really doesn't matter. Ron DeSantis is not going to lose a single vote, because he had a bad announcement.  People should be fired for that. On the right side. He raised $8 million in 24 hours, 8 million. So the announcement may have gone really badly, but $8 million in one that's your entire campaign for Prime Minister, all the parties is what he did in one day. I'm really nervous about the culture war stuff, because it will get him elected. If he's the nominee culture war. At this moment, talking about how people are being ignored or forgotten. I don't know what's happening here in Ireland. I know what's happening in UK in the US, but the sense that you can no longer say what you think or what you feel. I felt that way. I had to be careful. And eventually I got, I got sick. And when I didn't die, I realized I can say anything I want. It doesn't actually matter. But they're academics who don't want to voice a right of center point of view in a left of center university, because they won't get tenure. They'll go through the American universities from all the way from Boston down south and go all the way west to California. Not many conservatives in academia with tenure. And that's not by accident. There's a reason for that. There's not that many students that feel comfortable joining college Republicans. So is there a market for this. Absolutely. Is it good for the country? No way. And I say this to those who want to wage this kind of campaign.  This country is fraught with that. It's what makes people so nervous about Brexit. And the Irish agreement and it's so fascinating to me because I'm an outsider. And everyone I talked to the moment I've been with them for 10 minutes they tell me, we haven't really, really. In fact, I'm going to ask you. Have you really solved the Irish issue. I did not know this I thought this piece I thought everyone now gets along. They spend time in the north. They're not killing each other anymore, but they don't love each other. They don't like each other. They don't respect each other. I'm a cab ride to from the airport to Belfast. I had a Protestant cab driver tell me in explicit detail what had happened to his family and it's horrific. In fact, I had a Catholic cab driver tell me what had happened to his family by the process. There was so much death and so much violence and so much ugliness. And it wasn't always this way. But once it gets into your system, you never get it out. Don't go woke. I would rather lose a campaign than lose a country.  When people ask questions sitting down, it's easy. When they ask a question standing up. I know, but I'm thankful because in this country, you don't have guns like we do, because if they stand up in America, I'm waiting for something worse to happen. I'm not going to throw the mic at you. So this is so that people at the back can see my name is barry called from the director of research here at the Institute. So thanks a lot for being with us. The Biden administration has provided enormous support to Ukraine following Russians invasion of that country. And can you say anything about what any candidate or party might say with respect to relations with Ukraine and Russia given the president's president jobs proximity to the Kremlin in the past. Yes, in advance of any election. Thanks. Great question. And here's where the reporting isn't really accurate. And I'll give you an example. Republicans want an accounting. I mean, whenever I say Republican, I'm using it from the American perspective. Republicans want an accounting where the money's going, because it's a lot. First thing you need to know is of the 75 billion that's been spent 65 has gone to American companies, American efforts, they're not dumping money into Ukraine. So it is used to purchase the weapons that Ukraine uses to defend itself. Then you've done so second thing is that Donald Trump says it's been 170 billion dollars his numbers aren't right. Mr President, wherever your camera is I think is right there, your numbers aren't right. If you can't even know that number.  Number three, he did. Trump did refuse to say that he wants Ukrainian victory. There are about 221 House Republicans. At least 200 of them would look you straight in the eye and say, we want a Ukrainian victory. Why there's some who don't a few, and they're going to be highlighted they're going to be celebrated by those who are trying to cause dissent. There are a few. And I remind people that Donald Trump is telling the world that Putin was the most amazing global leader the most, the most admirable individual how smart he is to invade Ukraine. I say this whenever I can. I know that some people are watching. Just go back to the video, because you can't change a video, you can get your numbers wrong.  It's in right writing, it's on the record, it's in video, Donald Trump said that Putin is brilliant. No, he's not. He's a mass murderer. What he's doing Ukraine is a disgrace is a crime against humanity. I know there's specific definitions of genocide. So I don't use that word. But he's trying to inflict as much pain and suffering on an independent sovereign nation as he possibly can, and that would be a message to every European. He would do it to Ukraine. And he did it to Georgia. He's done it to other countries. He'll do it to yours. If you're not careful. I do not blame Russia. I blame Vladimir Putin. And 72% of Americans support Biden's efforts. 17% of Americans oppose it. And the rest don't pay attention or undecided. That number will drop into the mid 60s by the end of this year, because Americans don't like protracted conflict and in the end they get tired. And they're going to start to say the money should be spent here and not there again, not knowing that it's actually being spent in the US. And Zelensky said I don't need a plane. I need, I need weapons.  And if there's one human being if you ask me who's the human being I want to meet most. It's him.  Although he does need to change his outfit from time to time. We get the point that he wears the green I just hope that he's got 28 of them. And it's not the same one every single day. Okay. Hannah DC communication director and I'm interested in your perspective on how AI is going to impact polling. How about the impact of AI on life. We're not going to know whether it's they've done it to me. There's a presentation by the person I think is the most brilliant at trying to warn us of the potential threat. He was in the social dilemma. Tristan Harris he was originally an ethicist for Google. And now he leads an organization that's dedicated to studying these issues.  And you actually can't tell the difference. Now maybe it is me maybe I am saying the most ridiculous stuff. But by this time next year we're not going to know whether Donald Trump actually said something. His stuff often sounds like it was 10 years ago. He sounded like he was being AI and that's a real problem. Because we already don't know what to trust. And I know from the research that we did that the people who are most likely to believe in conspiracy theories are most likely to be on the web are most likely to be sharing posts on the web on average, more than three a week. I'm most likely to believe that COVID wasn't real least likely to wear a mask least likely to be vaccinated. All the things that we don't want in life that we don't want for society. It's all wrapped together and a AI is going to turbo charge that. So I am very much afraid of what it does to the electoral process. You can't distinguish fact from fiction. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. When your kids don't talk to you anymore. When you I don't know who's got who's got kids between the ages of say 10 and 18. It's warping social media right now is warping their brains. It's making them uncommunicative. It's changing their sleep patterns it's changing their health. It's having so much of an impact on their condition as human beings and yet the politicians do nothing about it, because they're afraid to do something wrong. Well, we're losing in America. We're, I don't know if the numbers are appropriate, but we're losing thousands of kids a day who go over the edge, who start to get on their cell phones at 11pm at night will the covers over their heads, and are on social media for the next two hours. Get up at 530 in the morning, just to see how many likes they got the night before where they actually cannot talk to their teachers they cannot talk to each other, they have to do it through their phones. On a little day, we lose another set of them, and no one's doing anything about it. It angers me more than just about anything. Okay, I'm really depressing. Yeah, I mean, well this one's not going to get any better. We have a question. I'm depressing myself. Somebody think of an optimistic question for the last one and we'll hopefully any afternoon on a high note. This is a question from ethnomic Dermot who is an IEA member. She asks, could you please share your thoughts on the position of the rights of women in the United States in the wake of the repeal of Roe versus Wade. Are women more likely to turn out in large numbers, numbers to vote for Democratic candidates. Yes they are. We saw this in 2022. The turnout was significant among younger women. 18 and 29 year olds don't vote in off your elections midterm elections, but they came out this time Republicans were supposed to win a whole lot of seats and a lot of suburbs. There was the people guessing they would gain 15 and 20 seats and have 15 to 20 seat majority in Congress, the majority turned out to be fine. And it was a dismal success. There's no more people voted Republican the Democrat Republicans got 51% in the house races. Democrats 48. But it should have been much wider and the difference was both abortion and Trump and younger voters in particular female voters in particular said this is not what I want. Issues do matter. And arguably, it will be very hard for Republican. Sanison Florida. But our legislation you have six weeks to have that decision about abortion. And there are a whole lot of Republican women who are furious. Does it help you get the nomination. Absolutely. Does it hurt you if not kill you in the general election. Absolutely. And what is happening in the Republican by the way, Democrats don't handle this issue that well either, because you got legislation that supported by the House that allows abortion and virtually any circumstance up to any point of the pregnancy. Americans don't want that either. There's a common ground rape incest, the life of the mother, and at a certain point which is around 20 weeks. The public believes that that's the common ground anything later than that. And it becomes a serious moral issue. Anything that limits it even more becomes a serious health issue, and a woman's rights issue. So there is that common ground. Democrats in the house went way beyond that in their legislation Republicans and response went right beyond that common sense position. And if Republicans don't find a more common ground, it's going to hurt them. Next, next November. Okay, I have a question in the back here. And then. Yeah. Yes, in the back here. Yeah. There's a lot of money to do. You should unionize my care. There should be a union for my carriers and public. I think so I was going to ask that but I have to restrict to one question don't I. Paul Turpin. I'm a member of the Institute, I can hang around boardrooms now but way back I suppose I did degrees in economics. I'm not long after that. And I don't know if it was Carter I know a Clinton talked about it's the economy stupid. So I'm saying, I'm wondering, have things changed dramatically because in your opening remarks, you refer to the fact that the economy is homing. Not homing. No, it's better now than it was. It's not homing, but the Democrats were not punished for inflation. They Republicans failed to pick up the house and failed to pick up the Senate, only picked up a few C's maybe 10 C's in the house. Okay, no, I think it's but it's I'm just wondering is the economy so strong and one thing that I would that occurs obviously is it appears that there's a greater level of inequality. You know, for example, if Jeff Bezos was to relocate to Ireland, our average incomes would rise dramatically, but I wouldn't feel any better about it. And I'm wondering is that's what you know is the inequality one of the big differences when you have an economy that's going reasonably well, and yet you have 73% of people mad as hell. And that issue is arguably the number one issue among Democrats in community quality. And that's why the business community is suffering right now, an image deterioration, even though so many people are employed. The public does not evaluate the economy by employment as it once did. The public evaluates the economy by affordability, and things are just not affordable for the middle class anymore. And so in the US, it's petrol, and it's food. Over here, it's housing. And young people in their 30s, can I even afford to own their own home. The feeling is that the rich get richer, the poor stay poor, and the middle class is slipping. And that's creating much of the anger up until 2016 those people voted Democrat. In 2016 a whole lot of working class voters white working class switched to the Republican Party switched and Donald Trump, not the Republican Party is specifically voted for Trump, they felt ignored, they felt forgotten, and even felt betrayed. And that and they were really angry because Barack Obama had a program for New York City, he had a program for Philadelphia, for Atlanta, for Chicago. They had no program for Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, the angriest people in America right now are in the Rust Belt, or in rural areas where they see all the programs and all the benefits and everything. Going to the biggest cities in America, and they see nothing coming to them. No hope no opportunity. And a lot of those people who had voted Democrat up to that point switch union membership was overwhelmingly Democratic until 2016. And in fact, some of the unions would not endorse because they did not want to cause an uprising among their own membership. When you go to a Trump rally now which I do attend. It's filled with union members, working class voters that will tell you the voted Democrat until 2016, and then stay with Trump. So yes, income inequality is significant. It's a reason why people do not feel better off, even though the numbers have improved. And frankly, every Thanksgiving and every Christmas, when it becomes impossible to put the food on the table that you want, or you can't afford to drive to your sister's house two hours away because the gas is too expensive. And that made voters furious. And they did blame the Biden administration. But then you have to ask yourself, why didn't more Republicans win in 2022. And the answer abortion and Donald Trump. Thank you. I'm a member of the Institute, and I'm going to take you back down the pessimistic road again. And talk about, well, I suppose, NATO and Ukraine more. One of the one of the fears of many member states is that the US would withdraw from NATO with the Trump reelection coming back. Bearing in mind the capacity of America to support Ukraine is that much greater than any of the European member states to support it, and the industrial base that's based in America as against what's based in Europe. How real do you think this threat is for Donald Trump's withdrawal from NATO. I can't imagine it but I couldn't imagine January 6. I couldn't imagine election night 2020. I've learned not to say never, because things that were impossible have now happened, and not in the positive way in the negative way. There would be so much opposition in Congress by Republicans and Democrats alike that what he could end up doing is slashing the budget the contribution as he did with the United Nations.  It's not conceivable, but breaking into the capital. I think I was interviewed by Canadian broadcasting and the reporter kept pushing me pushing me prodding me poking me. She got what she wanted. It was not my America. January 6 was so embarrassing. And so inexcusable. And I'm glad that those people are not being held accountable. Thank God, I live in a country where you break the law. You try to upset. It's okay to upset the political systems okay to protest. It's even welcomed. Did you try to bring down the government. I'm glad that those people held accountable for it. We have a question from zoom and then we'll, then we'll come here. We have a question from Nora Owen, IEA board member will border control slash migration from Mexico be a major electoral issue. Yes. And it will be because it's going to get violent.  The expected huge wave that we thought would come when the laws changed did not happen. But there are many in the Democratic Party that don't believe that that border should be adhered to. And that's a culture war component. There really is a difference between Republicans and Democrats immigration. Build, I'll give you, and I'll give you the numbers and the components to it. Build some sort of barrier where it makes sense. Number one. Number two, immediately accept the dream act for kids who are brought to this country. They're no fault of their own. And third, make legal immigration easier to achieve the combination of those three, which seems to make sense is 80% support. I mean, it's remarkable. However, right across the channel or whatever, what is the sea I receive. Britain just yesterday they announced they've got the highest level of immigration. Even labor voters are angry at this. Actually, let me rephrase that all voters are angry at this, because it's not the way that we want the world to move. We want it to be orderly. We want it to be legal. We want integration. Clearly what happened in France was not a success. You can't tell me that the immigration to France strengthened the French society, the French culture, the French economy, because those people never integrated. And now you have way too much violence, way too much division, and their whole communities where it's just immigrants. That's not the way it's supposed to be. It may not be a melting pot. It may not be a mixing pot. But there has to be acceptance. And there has to be understanding and empathy. And it has not happened in that country. And you don't want that here either. Good afternoon and a rider member of the Institute and just listening to the talk and trying to bring us back to the positive. I'm reminded of Barack Obama's campaign on the team of hope. What gives you hope for the future. I have certain, but I used to say I don't have any. And then I realized in my audience really don't want to hear that so I just made stuff up. I just want to say that and my friends all think it's funny, like they make fun of me. I have a comedian friend John Cleese from Monty Python.  I said I haven't found rope that's cheap enough so give me time. I have some students in some universities that are absolutely mind blowing we good. I teach more than anything else that I do I do lectures like this because I want to see Dublin. I love Ireland I worked here 10 years ago, eight years ago for RTE on on the election. I have some students across the globe. That will hopefully be allowed to save their country their continent. The African leadership university brings together over 40 countries in one place. About 1500 students there. And they all work together they all lift each other up their poor. They have limited resources. The university is an oasis of knowledge in a continent that is still at war with each other. The economies are growing. There's an entrepreneurial spirit that is uplifting and the sense of communities truly inspiring better than us better than here, better than the West. It allows me to realize that it actually does take a village to raise a child. I ridiculed this I made fun of this I be say no it doesn't take a village it takes two good parents. And now I realize I was wrong. So this is an example of acknowledging it. You take that university which is in Mauritius and Rwanda you take that university and apply it globally. And we can get over this, because they're not woke, and they aren't partisan, and they aren't political, because they're trying to survive. And we help them survive and we will deserve a place on this planet.  They give me hope. I hope that not much else does. We have time for one last question hopefully it's a hopeful one. No I just did all my hope. I know right so you're going to have to you're going to have to circle back. I can do two minutes or hope that's all I got. We've got to know this is not a hopeful question so Dara Loller senior researcher here at the IAA. I'm wondering and I'm interested in who you think might possibly be in the running to be the vice presidential nominee for president or for presidential run for Donald Trump. And could you possibly see say somebody like Marjorie Taylor green on the ballot in that case. By the way, that microphone won't pick it up, but they were grown some people sitting. I could see Kerry Lake who ran for governor in Arizona. I could see Christie know who is the current governor of South Dakota I believe Donald Trump will choose a woman. And, and it's going to be very interesting to see who runs with him. I don't have a good answer because he doesn't have a good answer. I'm a pollster, in addition to all the stuff that I do so it's based on information is based on research is based on knowledge. There's nothing to indicate because it could be any person. It was not going to be Mike Pence it was going to be Chris Christie at one point, but then Trump changed his mind. I wonder does he have one. It was a joke by the way that did not go over well. I think that you all are so afraid of what could happen that that nothing's funny about it. I don't know because whatever he's thinking now will not be what it is a year from now. And I think we'll have to leave it there. Thank you very much, Frank for for joining us and thank you to the audience. I would pull them to see who's more depressed now. I thought you might turn it into a focus group, but I'm not going to do that. So thank you to people who joined in person and the people who joined on zoom and and for you for joining us.


Alright, thanks for staying with us now on the 21st of July 2019, Oregon State Ministerial nominee Dr. Bassoon Tijani posted a tweet that was dug up during the ministerial screening on Saturday. Senator Buhari, while questioning the nominee, read the exact tweet that had gone viral saying Nigeria is a bloody, expensive tag to have against your name. Leave patrocism for a minute.  A second foreign passport isn't sufficient to clean that scene. Tijani in response told the lawmaker that he made that tweet out of frustration over what he had experienced rather while trying to get a Chinese visa. He added that the second part read explicitly mentioned that for us to lift this country, we must find a way to correct our image to project a positive image because I don't want my two daughters to grow up to experience the same thing. So accepting the nominee's apology, Senate President Goss will apologize, who said we are all fathers and we cannot throw the baby away with the bat water. On behalf of the Senate, I want to accept your apology. Apart from what you said, what are your thoughts on Dr. Bosone Tijani's ministerial screening process? Please, let's hear what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp to 08-1-803-4663. So Jella, I'm just going to give you one minute each please because I want to bring in our guest. Let me hear your thoughts about the screening. What did you think when you watched it? Like literally? Like seriously? Really? Honestly? I think, I'm not very, I have no issues with the fact that the Senate decided to forgive his statement, but I think it was how they said it. It was the words they used, like, okay, y'all are childs, I don't know, it just didn't sound right. If you're going to, you know, let go of something like that for a sitting senator to have brought it up, it meant that it was a serious issue, and you must assume that that is also the thought of the people you're representing at the Senate, you understand? We sent you there to help us do the review process, you know, for the people who are supposed to take on their affairs of the nation. So if you're not looking at it, I just felt they just brushed it over, like, okay, you know what, whatever you say just suffices. I wasn't really, it didn't erupt off wrong. Uti and I think you were on that show when you guys discussed the relevance of this minister. Yeah, the screening. Yeah. So what are your thoughts? I don't know if you saw how far, how much you saw from the 40, 40 something minutes because I watched the complete video. But let me hear your thoughts quickly, Uti. Well, can you hear me? Yeah, go ahead. You can hear you. So this is the sins, the internet never forgets, and the sins of the internet, particularly social media, will come back to bite you. The process for me really was, I think they were lenient with him. They tried to take a stance. There isn't a law per se against what he did. So there isn't really a commensurate consequence for the action. I like the fact that it was brought up because I think more people need to see that. I often say that if you're going to criticize that, please choose your words wisely. So him trying to defend himself to say he spoke in anger, he spoke in frustration, remember that what you have written, right, once it's out there, it's out there and it's attributed to you for time and ages to come. So four years down the line, I mean, we've seen several other situations where people have been affected by this same, what I post on social media. The approach taken by the Senate, I like the fact that they didn't make a big deal out of it. Again, I come back to the comments that we made on the day. It depends on the portfolio that is being attributed to the person. If this person, for instance, tomorrow becomes the minister of communication, then this is a bigger problem for them, right? But if it's a different portfolio, perhaps not so much.  I wish that the focus on it maybe had been a bit more serious so that people, because if you go anywhere on social media, you see Nigerians constantly lamenting about Nigerians destroying and affecting the image of Nigeria. And one thing we must all understand is we are all part of the image of Nigeria. What you say as a Nigerian, whether you are, it is you or you think that it's only the leaders that matter, you are still painting a picture to outsiders, to other people, to the world, that this is what Nigeria is. And when you think about the situation that he talked about, when you think about the frustration because it was an experience and an embassy, embassies, the profiling of nations, of people, is not down to just the leaders as alone, it's down to the actions of the people when they go to those countries. We were just banned from satiations, were we not? It was the actions of everyday Nigerians like you and I. Same in other places across the world. These profiles are created not by our leaders alone, but by every single Nigerian that steps out of these shows and does the wrong thing. So when we when we talk about these things, we must understand and acknowledge that they are far reaching consequences. Right? And we must be careful what we post. And we must remember whether you don't agree or not. Just remember that the world is watching. OK. So be patriotic. If you're going to be frustrated, then position your frustration in the right way where we can all still be proudly Nigerian. But we talk about our challenges and more importantly, we talk about solutions in lots of complaining out there, not enough solutions. OK, so let me bring in our guest. Victor Okai is the former presidential candidate and the current president of the director's Guild of Nigeria, a seasoned producer, scriptwriter, cinematographer, director and film consultant. He is the founder and director of the In Shot Film Festival, the biggest short film festival in South Saharan Africa and a member of the Nigerian Oscar selection committee. And he's joined us via Zoom tonight to put his two cents inside this conversation because he is a lover of the youth and a friend of the youth. And I'm sure that he has a lot of things to say. Thank you so much, Dr. Victor Okai, for joining us this evening. Thank you for having me. All right, so this conversation is quite interesting because I watched a few things outside of this tree that I have read out. There was one part where he called the Senate people morons that we have to find a way to get them out of the house. And I didn't particularly enjoy the fact that at the end of the conversation, the Senate, the people, the members of the Senate Senate House, they were focused more on trying so hard to learn the image of the president to see that. Oh, he's a forgiving father. He's a loving father. In case you did not know, this guy was an answers protester and they picked him out. And yet they still nominated him because he looked beyond the answers to see his competencies and all of those things. So for me, I think a lot of times when opportunities like this come, there are deeper issues that I thought, you know, they should have found a way to drive home their points because like Uti rightly said, I mean, I think you also mentioned that the image is for all of us. It's not really for a particular person. So everybody has a stake. Everybody has a part to play. But let me hear your thoughts, Dr. Victor Okai. Did you watch this particular screening because I took my time to go and watch it. I watched it like three or four times. And let me hear your thoughts on this. And this is speaking to two sets of people, the young generation. That's us and speaking to the leaders, right? I mean, what would you say you would say to both parties watching this particular screening? Like Ella, right now, right before I get out. That's from the one hand. Secondly, it's important that when you criticize, that these issues are not that much, they always help because if I come back to home, she'll buy you some more. But thirdly, I think I'm very important.  For me, I think Dr. Sidani just lost his voice. And by it as well. And I see him going into that, into government now as someone covered, beaten, and who may not be able to speak. I don't know if you'll be, I don't know how. Yes, it's very common in innovation, but I've seen a weakness that even the civil servants might take advantage of. I remember there was a time when we were going to a ministry to currently do as much as the civil servants allow you to. Yes, the great leadership, I mean, studied leadership and all that, and I hope and I wish him well. I hope that when he gets to whatever ministry to stand to, that he's able to balance his ideas with the ideas of the people there. And with what has happened and the way he allowed the Senate to intimidate him, I also fear that for those who have oversight functions, you will feel forever indebted. And not the, I remember all the cost of my life was the late Aishwarya, let's say so, who was the fierce critic of the Mabangira government and when he was given to go back to home. And at the end of the day, you have to apologize to the president because the rules that were taken, people did not give back and he expected the president to deal with him. I don't know, but you can see that this is how it is in government. We are the little criticize. Now, Dr. Tijani occupied a very important space and among the youth and the new generation, because of what is your innovation, technology and what you represent. And I think it was a very important voice, whether directly or indirectly.  How do I mean, he is in a sector where people work with laptops with phones and they're able to do business. Their offices are basically on the phone, on the laptop, and they were being victimized unnecessarily by Sass, the special development spot, the Nigerian police spot. And so that protest was justified because in the end, government had to do reform. It may have gone, it may have ended badly because of the way things went, but the objective of that protest was, it had its merits, it wasn't without its merits. And so that fight was justified, and all the young people were fighting to liberate themselves and some of the authority had said, not is enough. We represented new generation, a generation that does honestly have to operate with bricks some more time, but right in the virtual space with our phones and with technology, you know, and he knows it better than most of us. And so the things he was talking about were right, but that day, although I tried to, you know, I heard when it was somewhat transparent. I think what we should have, that appalling mistake, to be able to put across the grievances of the youth, he may apologize on some points to say, okay, maybe my choice of language was wrong, but my argument, what I was arguing about. I choose, I would not apologize for, you know, some of the things that, you know, that I was called the issues, because I think he tried to put context to some of those texts, and he could see that his anger was very justified. You know what, let's quickly go on a very short break, right? When we come back from that break, I would continue the conversation, because I have a follow-up question for you, boss. Stay with us, we'll be right back. All right, thanks for staying with us. Thank you, just tuned in. We're having a review on the screening, ministerial screening that took place on Saturday for Dr. Bosung, Tijani, and we have with us Victor Volkai. Now, please remember you can join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp to us with 1-803-4663. You can also see that that's on the way show, I've come on the hashtag, way show. All right, so I just wanted to quickly point out something, you said, and I've come to you, Diola and Uti. You know, you mentioned something around Thaisholary, and again, I've heard this argument several times.  And it seems like with this already, it's almost like this person has been clamped, you know, crippled, because this is supposed to be one of the strongest voices for the youth, and I believe maybe that's where the agitation of the youth is coming from. We've seen people like, like, okay, let me not mention them, but there were some people that were very vocal, you know, talking and everything, as soon as they got ministerial appointments or they got government appointments, they became, you know, it was like, so I'm just trying to ask, is there something inside this government that, you know, like, literally, they are not welcoming to constructive criticism or people actually just, you know, telling them that, guy, this thing is wrong, you know, let's do it this way, let's do it that way. Is this something that, because I don't understand for the life of me why we have a government that is almost like a rubber stamp. We can all not agree on the same thing. Literally, I would want you to tell me that you are wrong on this matter and stand your ground. Give me points and tell me, okay, this is, these are my X, Y, Z points, why I believe that your summation is not correct. But I don't think the government, generally, and this is not even sticking to this particular government, any government in Nigeria, I don't think they are actually open to criticism, because if not, if you've chosen this person, except you just want to use it as a show, because the captain, like I got enunciated with those, oh, the president is a loving father, is a forgiving father, so what was the point? You read the guy's resume, you saw that this guy had done exceptionally well especially in the tech world, right? So what was the point of all of those things bringing him back to it and now talking about baby and the bath water? Do you people really want a change?  That's what you want. Okay, would that be for me or for... Yes, for you, I'm talking to... Okay, so, you know, they're just saying that our people say that it is bad manners to talk while talking. I don't know if you know what I mean. I know what you mean. When people get into government and such a thing, they cannot talk anymore. I think that Borsou is, if you'll excuse my saying so, ordinarily, he's even bigger than that point. But that job, his accomplishment, his pedigree and what he has been able to singularly accomplish by himself, it could be a consultant to all African nations. His coming into government should be like a favor to the government. And that's why I was embarrassed personally by the way he was doing it. I think he was making him a favor. He would not have lost anything if he had worked out exactly what he had held high. Like I said, I'm just afraid for him because going forward, those who may have oversight functions of his ministry, when they begin to insert and remove things from his budget and begin to make demands, he may not have the moral justification to talk. Unfortunately. So I think that Nigerians have lost another star. Maybe it's too early to say. But from what I saw there, I feel sad. He is too much. Even for that position, if you ask me, we should be begging him. But it is what it is. Maybe he felt, yes, it's an honor to serve. If I were offered a position like that, I may not turn it down because I'm going there to serve Nigeria, not to serve anybody. And if they don't want me to do it, they can't join or keep their job. Your goal there is to serve the country and to serve the people. But if you are going there to serve an individual or a couple of people that you're feeling you know grateful. So to say, I think it's a privilege and honor for them to give you that, then you will lose your voice. And people sometimes ask me the politician, once they detect that witness, again, at the rest of the time, like in the book of records, he would have lost it. I hope that he will be able to find his module and be able to assert himself now that he's been confirmed and focus on the job. And I hope that the president will provide the environment for him and the next week backing for him to do the job. I wouldn't be, I do not see him lacking in ideas. No, I do not see him, I think he will come with a lot of innovation in any case. That's what he had in his PhD. So I see a lot of that but would the environment allow him has he asserted himself to a point where he can have his way and bring the necessary reform? You feel recall someone like what I mean now, Poco Juewela. She was very, very upset when she was in government because of the technocrat, but she would not, I mean, she was very upset. And that's why she was respected. There were a few more like that, but what's her name now? When she was a minister, Dora Juewela, she was the only one when the president was sick and you know, there was a need to get the, what do you call it now? After the president died, I think I can't recall now. She, you know, it was at the President's Council meeting, it was for the ministers to be able to say, okay, let President Jonathan step in. The others were Lily Lever, they were afraid of the president's wife, but none of them, they let the president's wife, none of them could talk. But she was, excuse my choice of language, she was man enough to be able to take the move by the horse and move the necessary, if it like motion or take the move to ensure that the right thing was done. That's why it's important that when you get into government, let people know who you are and remain consistent. If you do that, you'll be respected. I think that the president chose him because of his boldness, not because of his loyalty. He chose him because he felt he could bring something to the table. And I think the sooner I realized that, the better. And I hope he can still maintain the respect he had in the community where he was coming from. Let me just allow the rest of the community. Okay, so for me, I think this presents an excellent opportunity for young people who want to serve, who want to bring politics and all that. And I like what the good doctor has said that you need to be known for something. So as young people, as emerging leaders, let me put it like that. We need to define who we are. We need to ask ourselves, do we want to be liked or do we want to be respected? There are two different things. Now, I know that again, the Nigerian political space is such that not very many people can boldly say that, oh, I was called to serve or I got into this position by virtue of my competences. Not many, not very many.  And with that, that makes one think that this is like you're being called, this is like a gift to you. So you don't look at the gift giver in the face. You have to be subservient, more like, you know, to the gift giver. But if we get to a point where we define who we are, where we stand for something, where we understand that nation building is beyond being loyal to a personal person or, you know, trying to look good or trying to be politically correct. I think that we will begin to see change. We will begin to see people who can honestly say that, you know, what these are my beliefs, you know, this is my belief system and this is my...  Uti, quickly. Uti, are you there? I'm here, can you hear me? Yes, you can hear me.  Yeah, I think I like the position that Dr. Victor has taken he's made some very salient points. And my position and what I would like to ask his view on is, so there is the technocrat. So first of all, we call today and we say, oh, in leadership, in politics, we don't have enough young people, right? Now here's a young person who has then been called up and we can see already the way I interpret this as this is not an inexperienced person from the place of having done great things. He's at the forefront of his industry, the tech space and all of that. But for me, what it clearly shows is a lack of experience, right? In the political space, in the type of person that you are, right? And the conversation between whether you're a technocrat, a bureaucrat, a politician and all of these things come into play because Dr. Victor said something that is very, very keen. You're going in as an appointed official into the public service where you are going to deal with career public servants and your success or your failure largely also depends on how you work with these people. Now, when you have shown that this is who you are in that kind of situation, how do you assert yourself? So I come back to what is the necessary experience? What is the weights of having political experience versus you being a technocrat in being able to actually be effective in an elected position? Okay, Dr. Victor, that's the question for you. Yeah, okay. So the thing is this, you need to be able to have a mix of both and what do I mean? Whereas you have your technical service, competition and all that, every person in a leadership position has to have a mix of facts, diplomacy and assertiveness or authority as well when you deal with colleagues, forces and subordinates. So all of that is very important. What I see in Borsum's case in this situation where I don't know, I don't know, I mean, you don't necessarily have to work with anybody and you can come out there and all that, but some public service appointment, like if you have served in your community like your town's union, where there's a lot of politicking as well. If you have served in your post-wrestling association, if you have served in your whether professional group or not, in leadership position, you begin to pick up some of these trees, they're very, very important. What it doesn't mean, I mean, if you as well as come in successfully, it also means that I'm in red leadership as well. Sorry Dr. Richter for cutting you short. I just wanted to say that even though if he has served, the community where he's coming from is purely, have you dealt with these tech guys, these Gen Z people? Somebody that I employ today say, I know they work again. They say, literally those guys, they don't have chill. The guys in the tech space, you understand? So would you think he'll be able to cope? Because I mean, when I'm here with his speak, right? The world, they are worlds apart. Right, in this our structure and the tech guys, like they are completely worlds apart. So how would he manage all that politics? He's respected in the tech space. He's well respected. He has been a benefactor to very many and has had a career of many. So quite a number feeling that it's with him. My problem is not those in Gen Z, those in the tech space. My problem is the civil servant. Some of that barriers we do to the culture point here. He has come in there with all the ideas and all that. This project, some of that, I just think we have to share money. In the road you come to, and remember, let me give you an example. What's her name now? She came from the World Bank. One professor. Adios. Adios. Adios you. Give me adios you. The Health Ministry. Health? Oh, Health Ministry. Ah, I can't remember that name. I can't remember. It doesn't look like I would be in South State or so. I have to remember that name. Very prominent name. I think we have developed a good school in the family. I can't remember the name now. We'll find the name out here. Go ahead with the story. How much? He came this month. Very innocent, you know. You don't deserve that time. You can only go money back to government. What do you say? So, in her naivety, they said, Madam, you know, they just, you know, they started to go into some sharing, popular and all that. I don't think she moved back to Parliament or whatever, but, you know, if you don't, if you're not properly guided and advised, and give certain approval about it, or you don't give the right approval and all that, you roll yourself into what was that. That was how the human career was. I mean, public service career was done. I mean, she was removed, you know. By civil servant. This one was innocent, but the very act itself was not innocent.  If you are not very firm, you compromise. Let me share, let me share an experience with you. Several years ago. Quickly, sir. I was, there was a personality project. I was doing with, I don't know much on the ministry on the part, and now I went, but where I went to, as soon as I got to that, I had to explain, there were two places where I called my baptism. The very first one, for me to just share the story, my little children, for example. The very first one, and this was good, but not my own. So it was the big deal, there's not this big force and, you know. So I got into, I got into this, ministry had already told them that I was coming. When I got there, the head of that particular speaker said we had a meeting somewhere here so I would like to please come in. Can you just quickly, sorry. No, I'll make it very, okay, let me leave that to talk about the second place. This is one that really, that was the biggest shocker. Let me not talk about that first experience and what it tried to do. But this second place, the second place I went to, the guy that I was in charge of, the PR department, when I was asking some questions, he said, do you want the real answer or the civil service answer? We'll leave it there. Same reaction. We will leave it there. When he said that, I said, what are you talking about? He said, which one do you want? That was the first time I realized that. There's a real answer. And? That can be too fast. Absolutely.  It depends on whether you complete or not. They can present the right part or the wrong part. Oh my God. On that note. It's always a pleasure having you around. But sadly, we've run out of time. But thank you so much, Dr. Victor. Okay. Thank you, Uti. Thank you. I'm Adiola. This was a fantastic conversation. And we are hoping that Dr. Boston Tijani would truly make a wave. I mean, let him make a lot of impact whatever it is that he's been assigned to do based on his antecedents. Now, before we go, I show you follows across all social media handles and ways show Africa you can interact with us. Drop your comment and follow all our engagements on social media. We started our podcast on Spotify. So remember to follow, listen, like, share, and please share, share, share. That's all we're begging. I beg, just share. All right. So if you missed our quotes for today, here it is again. In anger, I tweeted what you read, which was paraphrased wrongly. And now I have a taste of what the youth do to you as well. If I would even touch this part. The tweet you read is just the first part of what you said or what you read rather. So this was from the ministerial nominee, Dr. Bosun Tijani. Now we'll see you guys tomorrow at 8 p.m. The ladies night out. We'll have a conversation. Great one to bring to your screen. Stay with us.


The first global summit on the effect of yoghurt was held at the 2013 experimental biology meeting in Boston. A key issue was of course bone health in children and the elderly. Dairy products obviously brings a lot of key nutrients to children but also teenagers and adults. It brings obviously calcium, it brings a lot of vitamins and it's a very good source of protein. And in that respect, the yoghurt in the dairy category is even better from the point of view that it brings additional protein. But adolescents need more nutrients for bone growth than just calcium. During the adolescence, the bone capital is doubling. So this means that it's an accelerated bone growth during which we need to mineralize the bone which has been newly formed. And the mineralization is obtained through calcium and phosphate. And then we need also some well-balanced diet including proteins. Since the proteins are also the regulator of the hormone IGF-1 which promotes the growth of both in the longitudinal and radial way of the bone. Vitamin D is another important issue in this context. There are some discussions about vitamin D. Should we put more vitamin D in yoghurt for example? Some countries add vitamin D to milk. We realize recently that vitamin D is essential in lacking in many countries. So the daily allowance for vitamin D has been increasing. So it's probably a good idea to increase vitamin D in those products. In both adolescence and the elderly, these requirements translate into official guidelines. There are several recommendations which are relatively different from one scientific society to the other. But altogether we can say that we need at least one gram of calcium element per day. And the best would be to take it within the meals. And in terms of proteins, the recommended daily allowance are officially 0.8 gram per kilogram of body weight. But protein intakes could become a higher priority in older adults. But now the geriatricians based on new data particularly in older people it seems that the amount of 1 to 1.2 gram per kilogram of body weight are more important in terms of muscle and bone health. In this respect dairy products are the main source of calcium in most countries. It's often argued that you could eat calcium from green leafy vegetables but in fact you'd have to eat so many servings of green leafy vegetables that it's really not feasible. So in terms of getting calcium, dairy foods are really the predominant source. So we have to think in terms of equivalences between foods. We should remember that 1 litre of milk is more than 1,000 mg of calcium and 32 grams of protein. Obviously we cannot drink 1 litre of milk every day but with the system of the equivalent saying well we could have one or two glass of milk, one or two yogurts, a piece of cheese. The final conclusion of the summit at EB2013 is pretty clear. It's easy to reach the level of the recommendation which is three different servings a day of dairy products and this will provide enough calcium, approximately 2 thirds of the need of calcium and also 40 to 50% of the need of proteins.