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Senate leaders were all smiles Wednesday after they broke a 24-hour impasse and announced they had reached a deal on how to move forward on a fast-track trade negotiating bill. That legislation would give the president expedited authority to enter into a trade agreement with Pacific Rim countries, otherwise known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.

But how senators will vote on this bill depends largely on how they feel about TPP. And there's one problem.

"I bet that none of my colleagues have read the entire document. I would bet that most of them haven't even spent a couple hours looking at it," said Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who has acknowledged he has yet to read every single page of the trade agreement.

Because, as Brown explained, even if a member of Congress were to hunker down and pore over a draft trade agreement hundreds of pages long, filled with technical jargon and confusing cross-references –- what good would it do? Just sitting down and reading the agreement isn't going to make its content sink in.

And the White House isn't letting senators to do much else than sit down and read.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, seen here speaking about the trade bill Tuesday, told NPR "I bet that none of my colleagues have read the entire document. I would bet that most of them haven't even spent a couple hours looking at it." Brown acknowledged he has yet to read every single page of the trade agreement. Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Alex Wong/Getty Images

To study the draft TPP language, senators have to go to the basement of the Capitol and enter a secured, sound-proof room. There, they surrender their cell phones and other mobile devices, and sit under the watchful gaze of an official from the U.S. Trade Representative's office while they peruse the pages. Any notes taken inside the room must be left in the room.

Only aides with high-level security clearances can accompany lawmakers. Members of Congress can't ask outside industry experts or lawyers to analyze the language. They can't talk to the public about what they read. And Brown says there's no computer inside the secret room to look something up when there's confusion. You just consult the USTR official.

"There is more access in most cases to CIA and Defense Department and Iran sanctions documents — better access to congressional staff and others — than for this trade agreement," said Brown.

The White House defends the restrictions, pointing out that 12 countries are still negotiating a sensitive trade agreement and publicizing trade terms before they're finalized could make bargaining more awkward.

It's a reasonable point, says Robert Mnookin, who heads the negotiation program at Harvard Law School.

"The representatives of the parties have to be able to explore a variety of options just to see what might be feasible before they ultimately make a deal. That kind of exploration becomes next to impossible if you have to do it in public," said Mnookin. "In private, people can explore and tentatively make concessions, which if they publicly made, would get shot down before you really had a chance to explore what you might be given in return for some compromise."

The White House points out the final TPP language will be made public 60 days before the president signs the agreement. But by then, negotiations will be over and changes to the language can't be made. And the Senate is set to vote very soon on a bill that forces lawmakers to give up their rights to amend the agreement.

There's a long-running truth on Capitol Hill that lawmakers rarely read the bills they vote on. But Brown says this is different. The White House is making it considerably harder for lawmakers to discuss or analyze a trade agreement that is key to how they will vote on the fast-track bill.

"That's why people are so troubled about this agreement. It really begs the question — the secrecy begs the question — what's in this agreement that we don't really understand or know about?" Brown said.

The secret hallway

I asked Brown to show me where inside the Capitol the secret TPP room was and he led me down a spiral staircase to metal double doors in the basement, each emblazoned with a sign that read "No public or media beyond this point."

Then he dashed off to a meeting, and I stood there, fighting the temptation to yank one of the doors open.

Within seconds, the doors abruptly parted on their own. A baffled-looking man with gray hair and spectacles poked his head out. A camera was slung around his neck. I saw Capitol Hill press credentials on his chest.

A member of the media had made it into the Secret Hallway!

"How did you get in there?" I asked. "It says no public or media beyond this point!"

Turns out he had wandered into the hallway by way of a back hallway that is totally accessible to the public.

What? After all this secrecy fuss, it's that easy? I wondered how close I could get to this so-called secret TPP language.

We rounded the corner, and he led me through a carpeted hallway, past Senate meeting rooms and staffers, all the way to a non-descript door marked "Exit." I pushed open the door and found myself in a long, long hallway that looked nothing like the rest of the Capitol. No marble floors. No paintings. No plush carpets. Just fluorescent light, bright white walls and a low ceiling.

The Secret Hallway.

Here's a photo.

i

The Secret Hallway Ailsa Chang/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ailsa Chang/NPR

The Secret Hallway

Ailsa Chang/NPR

But sorry, that's as far as I got — before a Capitol Hill police officer who heard my heels clicking on the floor kindly asked me to leave.

Foreign policy is becoming a big issue in the 2016 election. For the first time in years, some polls show as many voters concerned about foreign affairs as domestic issues.

And for Republican voters it's the No. 1 issue.

GOP candidates have been talking a lot about foreign policy and national security on the campaign trail, bashing the president and his former secretary of state for what they say is a disastrous and incoherent approach to the rest of the world. To a person, they promise that if they are elected they'd be tougher, kill more bad guys, and give more support to the U.S.'s allies. But this new focus on foreign policy raises some questions for the leading Republican candidates. Here are a few:

1. For Jeb Bush: What exactly does "Being Your Own Man" mean?

This was a rough week for Bush. First, he said if he knew then what we know now about Iraq he would have done the same thing that his brother did and go to war. But then he said he misheard the question and, given another chance to answer it, he tried to clarify matters by saying, well, he didn't know what he would do. And besides, Bush said, that was a "hypothetical."

On Wednesday, a man in Reno, Nev., where Bush was campaigning, helpfully pointed out to him that running for president IS hypothetical, as in, "If I was President I'd...."

Bush's difficulty separating himself from the least popular aspects of his brother's legacy prompted a chorus of responses from his Republican rivals. Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Ben Carson and Rand Paul have all said if they knew then what we all know now about the non-existent "weapons of mass destruction," they would NOT have gone to war. And Bush's wobbly answer to a question he had to know would come up caused much head scratching among his supporters. Was it family loyalty? Or stubbornness? Or, since its been the 13 years since he last ran for office, was Bush just plain rusty?

2. For Marco Rubio: When will he go beyond the boilerplate?

The Florida senator claims to have the deepest foreign-policy experience of anyone in the GOP. In the four years he's been in the Senate, he's served on the Foreign Relations and the Intelligence committees. But his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York Wednesday, laying out what he called "a doctrine for the exercise of American influence in the world," Rubio didn't go much beyond mainstream GOP hawkish rhetoric. He is comfortable answering questions on the subjects, but, so far, he's been largely non committal on some of the specifics.

It's hard to imagine any of the Republicans, or even Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, arguing with Rubio's "three pillars" — adequately fund the U.S. military, use American power to protect U.S. economic interests, and reinforce our alliances while advancing the rights of religious minorities and women. Rubio didn't explain, however, what he'd do if it was America's allies who were persecuting women, or what kind of power he'd use to protect U.S. economic interests in "airspace , cyberspace, or outer space." So far, despite his own proclamations of foreign-policy depth, it hasn't yet helped him achieve the stature he seeks — even within the GOP foreign-policy establishment.

3. For Scott Walker: When will you graduate from foreign policy 101?

Like the other governors in the race, Walker has a disadvantage, because he hasn't been directly involved in foreign policy, other than promoting Wisconsin cheese overseas. Walker has other formidable strengths as a candidate, but even he admits foreign policy isn't at the top of that list.

Walker got pummeled for saying that fighting union protesters in Wisconsin was good preparation for fighting the Islamic State militant group. And he's now made two trips abroad — one to London, where he got tangled up in comments about evolution and punted on questions of foreign policy, and, on a recent trip to Israel, he avoided the press altogether.

After some missteps, he's been getting tutored by Republican foreign-policy experts. But in a nomination battle where foreign policy will play a larger-than-usual role Walker needs to keep hitting the briefing books and show he's mastered them.

4. For the eventual nominee: What if Rand Paul is right?

Paul is the exception to the new Republican hawkishness. He says it's time for a president who shows some reluctance to intervene overseas. And he's posing this question to his rivals for the nomination: "Is it a good idea to go into the middle east, topple a government and hope that something better rises out of the chaos, because recent history seems to show that you know what, we're not getting something better, we're getting something worse?"

The other candidates think Republican primary voters are ready for a muscular, more interventionist foreign policy, and recent polls suggest they're right. But that may not be true in a general election, where voters may be more open to Paul's "reluctant interventionist" approach. It might be hard for the eventual GOP nominee to transition to a light touch after months of saber rattling.

2016 Presidential Race

Scott Walker

Jeb Bush

Marco Rubio

Republicans

On his big break

I was in [Omaha, Neb.,] and I was working for very little money and it was hard. I was working six days a week and I wanted to get out of Omaha. ... Then one night I get a call from Atlanta, Ga., from WSB, which was [one of] the most distinguished stations certainly in the South, and one of the most respected in the country. They were in the middle of the civil rights movement and the news director said, "We hear wonderful things about you. We've looked at your tape. We'd like you to fly down here. There's an opening in our 11 o'clock news."

Now, I was a 25-year-old white Yankee being invited to come down to be a prospect to anchor the 11 o'clock news in the largest and most important city in the South. I flew down and at the end of the weekend they said, "We've got a job for you." ...

By August of that year, NBC came and said, "We'd like you to go work for us full time." And my boss in Atlanta was not happy but then he said to me later, "We're just not going to be able to keep you, Tom. You go with our blessing." ... My first assignment was to cover this actor who was running for the Republican nomination for governor and the Democratic Party thought that he couldn't possibly win — and I was on the buses with Ronald Reagan and covering his campaign. That was a big break.

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On his difficulty pronouncing one letter

I have an "L" issue and I think ... over the years [it has] diminished a lot. I was unaware of it until I left South Dakota, and then I go back and listen to other people in South Dakota and it's not uncommon. In our family we had chronic hearing loss and I really think that it came out of that, that I didn't hear it the right way at the right time. I had a brother who had a really severe hearing loss and as a result his speech pattern is even more pronounced, although it has been a lot better now. I also grew up in working class neighborhoods where we didn't have speech therapists even though I was known as a kid who was talking all the time. ... It didn't really come up until I left South Dakota and I had a wonderful speech coach in Omaha who kind of got me started in the right direction. And I've worked on it over the years but when I get tired is when it shows up most of all.

On what it means to be an anchor

Internally, you're the captain of the team — you're the one the others look to and you help set the pace for what kind of a news division you have, what's important that you should have on the air and how you do it. I always had the reputation, however, of being not just the anchor but someone who listened as well to my colleagues and was not afraid during the 2:30 editorial rundown meeting to have a vigorous exchange about what was important and what we should be covering that day. And then on the air, Monday through Friday doing the news, it's always kind of undefinable for me. You convey something that the public either trusts or it does not trust and it has to do with the content and how you handle the news, but it also just has something to do with your persona.

"The real test of an anchor is when there's a very big event. Sept. 11 is the quintessential example of that, and that day it took everything that I knew as an anchor, as a citizen, as a father, as a husband, to get through it."

- Tom Brokaw

The real test of an anchor is when there's a very big event. Sept. 11 is the quintessential example of that, and that day it took everything that I knew as an anchor, as a citizen, as a father, as a husband, to get through it.

On covering the Sept. 11 attacks

I went right to the Today Show and sat down with Katie [Couric] and with Matt [Lauer], who were doing a very good job but this was kind of more in my area, if you will, than it was in theirs, though we worked as a team seamlessly. The first thing that we all agreed on was don't speculate — just report what we know because we didn't know a lot. We didn't know where it was coming from, who was responsible, how many people were still left in those towers. And then gradually, the responsibility for leading the coverage evolved to me and after the second tower went down I thought: I really have to prepare this country in a way for what we're in for. So I looked into the camera and said, "This will change us. We're at war here."

On knowing when to retire

I don't think there was one big nirvana moment. What I did know was that I have so many interests in life and the seasons of news ratings and being an anchorman got in the way of some of that. I had been at it more than 20 years at that point. I had gone to all the big stories of the '80s, which was one of the most fertile times in American journalism, around the world and here as well. And I've always thought that life and my professional life should have seasons and I was now in a season in which I thought it was time to go on and do something else besides be there every night at 6:30 in the chair whether there was something important happening or not.

Tom Brokaw

The Women on 20s campaign, which seeks to put a female face on the $20 bill, has announced a winner: Harriet Tubman, the escaped slave whose ingenuity and courage led other captives to freedom.

Tubman narrowly edged Eleanor Roosevelt, finishing with 118,328 votes to Roosevelt's 111,227, according to Women on 20s. More than 600,000 votes were cast over 10 weeks, including more than 350,000 in the final round that began on April 5.

Early on, Roosevelt had led Tubman by nearly 15,000 votes, but the final round brought a reversal.

We'll note that Tubman's appearance on the $20 bill would have a special historical resonance: That's the same amount she eventually received from the U.S. government as her monthly pension for her service as a nurse, scout, cook and spy during the Civil War, as well as for her status as the widow of a veteran.

A petition has now been sent to President Obama asking him "to order the Secretary of the Treasury to change the current portrait portrayed on our American $20 bank note to reflect the remarkable accomplishments of an exemplary American woman who has helped shape our Nation's great history."

In the Women on 20s vote, Rosa Parks came in third, with 64,173 votes and Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to become the Cherokee Nation's chief, was fourth, with 58,703. Others on the ballot included Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Clara Barton and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

While the images of George Washington, Andrew Jackson and other historical figures on U.S. currency are bound by tradition, they appear at the discretion of the secretary of the Treasury Department. The department's own records "do not reveal the reason that portraits of these particular statesmen were chosen in preference to those of other persons of equal importance and prominence," according to one of its official websites.

The Treasury adds, "By law, only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on U.S. currency and securities."

Of course, it takes years for the Treasury to roll out new or redesigned bank notes. The Women on 20s group explains what they'd like to see happen next:

"President Obama already has publicly expressed an interest in featuring more women on our money. With at least 100,000 votes, we can get the President's ear. That's how many names it takes to petition the White House for executive action. We went way beyond that with well over a half a million votes backed by names and email addresses."

The group says that because Tubman, Roosevelt and Parks all attracted more than 100,000 votes at different stages of the voting, they all qualify for their own petitions.

Tubman's victory comes two years after the centennial of her death in 1913. At the time, NPR's Michel Martin spoke to the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture's chief curator, Jacqueline Serwer, about Tubman's varied life and legacy.

After explaining that Tubman had been born on Maryland's Eastern Shore (and named Araminta at birth), Serwer explained what made Tubman special — and earned a $40,000 bounty on her head:

"Well, she was very smart and had a wonderful memory and knew these byways and these secret routes like the back of her hand and so, when she rounded up a group of people whom she was going to lead to freedom, she knew exactly where to go, where to hide, when to wait, how to escape the slave hunters who were looking for her and looking for the folks that she was bringing to freedom. And she was just very clever. She was also very disciplined, so people, you know, who were tired or who wanted to do something different — she was very strong and could be very harsh at the same time that she was a very kind woman."

Serwer also noted the famous threat Tubman made to any fugitive who might lose their nerve on the path to freedom: "She would kill them. She couldn't risk all the others for the sake of — you know, of somebody who was going to fall by the wayside."

Tubman isn't known to have ever carried out that threat, Serwer said.

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