John Nichols, "Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse"

you know back in February 2016 when the Republican primary field still was was pretty crowded John Nichols wrote an article for the Nation magazine headlined President Trump it could happen at the time of course the scenario seemed quite a stretch well now we're living it and John has taken the time in in his new book Horsemen of the Trump coppa lips I was just talking to John about how tricky that where it is and I was determined not to trip over it so anyway in his new book Horsemen of the trumpet coppa lips - uh - he's taking the time to sketch out several a dozen of the top players in the Trump administration in doing so he draws on decades of political reporting experience he's been a national correspondent for newspapers in Toledo and Pittsburgh and currently writes not only for the nation but also for the progressive and in these times he lives in Madison Wisconsin where he's an editor as well at the Capitol times you may also have seen him on TV where he frequently appears as a commentator and he's authored ten or co-authored ten or twelve books so you don't really sit still too much do you John no now lots of things about the Trump administration have proven to be to say the least rather unsettled so far and indeed and the time since John finished his new book in June and and its publication now several of the senior advisors profiled in it have exited among them Steve Bannon Reince Priebus Sean Spicer and Sebastian Gorka but many more who will surely have considerable and considerable influence over the trump presidency remain in the cabinet or in other government offices and John examines their connections and special interests and the impact they're likely to have needless needless to say but I'll say it anyway John is highly critical of and strongly opposed to Trump he calls for an all-out resistance that identifies quote all the wrongdoers all the collaborators and conspirators within and around the Trump presidency and and calls for holding them to account and he intends his book as a step in that direction so we should be in for some rather spirited discussion this evening ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming John Nichols all right people say it with me Trump pocalypse see now look how well they did you know I had no idea when I set out to write this book and I you know like I'm not I'm not one of those serious people that puts a lot of effort into the writing I think of the title first right and and I had no idea when I set out to write this book that the title would be such a difficult thing but I've done about 20 radio and TV interviews so far and some of the smartest people in America have struggled with the term Trump pocalypse I'm going to make it very simple for you a trump pocalypse is what happens if the people that Donald Trump empowers get to take things to the place where they would like to take things and a trump pocalypse is averted if a we know who they are which would require us to have a media that covered politics I'm not sure rather than personalities number one we know who they are and number two we know how to resist what they seek to do and that's the point of this book and let me tell you I know we're all supposed to be depressed and scared writing this book caused me to understand a couple of things first off anyone can be a member of a cabinet I will guarantee you if I took the first five rows I'd have a better cabinet than Donald Trump house and if I took some of the people in the back it would really be great because it's the it's the late arrivals who are out there doing good works and I just want to start out quickly by saying thank you to politics and prose which is a wonderful independent bookstore that stands strong it's gone through the some of the downturns of the book industry and now as people have come back to the book back to the printed page this store is a model for the whole country and I just want to thank Brad and everybody for having me here I want to thank c-span which is with us tonight and never gave up on the book c-span book TV and all of the work they do really does open up this dialogue from the left and the right brings everybody in and I have to tell you in this book I learned you know when I like was analyzing some of these cabinet picks in it you know what I'd do I'd watch morning journal and I'd listen to the calls on both sides because it really gives you a perspective you know where the power base is for many of these members of the Trump cabinet and his advisors and allies are and many of them I will tell you are stronger than Trump this is an important thing to understand many of them come with historic power bases rooted in their wealth in their connections in their long term ideological journeys that make them people Donald Trump cannot fire let us all just say the name Jeff Sessions no I mean you people ever he's like oh what's Donald Trump gonna do I mean when's he gonna get rid of Jeff Sessions he isn't going to get rid of Jeff Sessions unless he's watching tonight and he's embarrassed by the fact that we reveal this but the truth of the matter is that Jeff Sessions has a power base rooted in the South but also rooted in people who are militantly anti-immigrant and people who have played the race card again and again in our politics this is a small portion of our society but it is a portion that was essential to Donald Trump's base so essential that after the tragedy and the horror of Charlottesville Donald Trump struggled to call out the people that any decent American president would have said have no place no place whatsoever in the deciding of our politics or what monuments we put up or how our communities are organized and so Jeff Sessions will remain but he won't remain for good reasons I want as I mentioned one other things we're introducing here someplace in the back is my my dear friend Ben wiggler there he is and Ben this is hey I'm always in the room with people who are more important than me and which is essentially every one of you but but in this case if you watched the fight over the health care bill the heroes of the fight over the health care bill and over trying to get rid of what is called Obamacare the heroes of that fight were people with disabilities who came from across this country and stayed for days even weeks sometimes slept in the streets say they suffered great pain it was incredibly difficult for them and yet they came because it was a matter of life and death for them and their resistance made it possible to prevent this administration and its allies in Congress from achieving one of their greatest goals and a person who was out there because he wanted the leading figures in moveon.org who was out there every night with them and also with other people who had come across the country to assemble and petition for the redress of grievances as our Constitution makes it clear that we can was Benwick ler if you saw videos of the moment when it was announced that the Senate had rejected the legislation had rejected what McConnell had put forward you see this very young handsome guy jumping up and down and punching the air and cheering and that was Ben wiggler who's right in the back of the room so let me tell you about this book for a few minutes and then we're gonna take a lot of questions tonight because c-span is here and we love c-span for a variety of reasons but number one it's your chance all to be on television and as we know if you're on television a little bit you could be President of the United States so let's let's begin though with why did I write this book because wouldn't it have been the the right thing to do indeed it was a almost two years ago I was covering Donald Trump as he campaigned for president it became clear to me that for a variety of reasons in our politics as it has has structured out that there was a possibility that Donald Trump could become president United States it was clear to me very early on that he would be the Republican nominee because he figured out the Republican Party which isn't that hard the Republican Party is a bunch of very rich people who exploit the fears of people who are not as rich as they are and what Donald Trump did was come in the middle of him and say to the people who were fearful who were in difficult situations who were scared sometimes who were really mean people whatever he said to him those guys up there the elites they've been lying to don't vote for their candidates and the Republican base said you bet let's were with you we don't like them either and so suddenly there was a rejection of the Republican Party's elites and then Donald Trump turned around and he used a very similar strategy in running in November which was to say to a broader grouping of Americans look don't trust the people that you have trusted up to this point they've been lying to you they've been letting you down and that that would get him a long way now remember just to point out here he did lose he got 46% of the vote which is better part more than a point less than Mitt Romney got losing in 2012 he lost the popular vote of the country by almost three million votes he 54% of Americans didn't vote for Donald Trump to be President you knighted States if we lived in most countries on the planet he would have he'd be back with a TV show right now and I think everyone would be happier including Donald Trump but because of the vulnerabilities in our system he became president one of the things that I realized as I was covering him during the 2016 campaign is that he's a great showman he's fabulous at getting in front of a crowd of people and riling them up because he does something that modern movies and modern television does but most of our modern candidates don't realize you can do and that is be a bad boy right say something that's just a little bit risque a little bit beyond what you're supposed to say and people who have grown horribly bored with politics who see politics is the most routinized predictable thing around saw well here's this guy who says things you're not supposed to say and that was very very appealing he figured that out and that got him through a long way but the other thing that I recognized very early on is that Donald Trump knows nothing about governing I mean I don't say that to me you know I mean this guy knows absolutely nothing about governing and unlike Ben whittler or a lot of other people he hasn't spent his entire life thinking about what if he became president of the United States you know the famous the rock star Patti Smith said that when she became a rock star when people wanted to interview her she was ready because she had spent 20 years in front of the mirror interviewing herself right she really thought I'm gonna be a rock star and I'm gonna be ready for it Donald Trump didn't do that he didn't know people he didn't have the connections he didn't understand the process he was manifestly unprepared to be President of the United States and so what I knew from the very beginning was that when he became president United Sates if that did happen and I'm not gonna tell you I predicted it I said it could happen and then I thought no they come on right I was let down but one thing I was absolutely certain of from the start was that Donald Trump would be defined not by what he did by but what the people he appointed to key positions did that his presidency would not be about him it would be about how he distributed the power of the presidency and this is a very big deal because everyone in this room says no no you're not right mr. nickles every single night all that television ever does is show me every single thing that Donald Trump did that day I have memorized every one of his tweets I have watched every one of his but you know we see him verbatim 24/7 that's not governing that's not running a country that's that's The Apprentice that's a TV show and he's good at that but he knows nothing about how to assemble a government and so I was sure even before the election that the real story of this administration would be who this guy who knew nothing about doing it put it into positions of power and a brief segue here the presidency wasn't always like this does anybody here know how many members of the cabinet George Washington had yes sir no hey we got a winner there you were very good in the game brother but we have a winner who said four or five he's exactly right it was four or five depending on how you count John Adams the vice president but we actually know the member we know the names of the members of George Washington's cabinet they may they do plays on Broadway about them Hamilton right yeah and Jefferson these are big deal people we remember Donald Trump he struggled when he was when they had Betsy DeVos at the White House when he was like announcing he struggled to remember which job he was appointing her to now I'm not kidding I mean this guy there's more government than he knows what to do with and and it has expanded to become so Imperial as Arthur Schlesinger jr. suggested that a president has the ability to put people in charge of huge aspects of our future education transportation war and peace these are definitional positions and Donald Trump didn't have any idea who he was gonna pick remember when he was like T's and Romney maybe I'll make you Secretary of State maybe I won't and you know and he's like he was bouncy he could he was struggling because they literally had people coming in and presenting themselves to him to try and lobby for the position that's not how it's supposed to work you're supposed to come to a position of power with at least a few ideas about what you want to do and who you want to put into key positions he didn't have that and so he went in case after case with the loudest Yeller now that's an old Woody Guthrie term our Stetson Kennedy actually Stetson Kennedy was a singer and a writer down in Florida in the 1930s and 1940s friend of Woody Guthrie Guthrie popularized this term loudest Yeller Stetson Kennedy said I want to be the loudest Yeller right I want to be the one people notice well when the loudest yellers came in to meet with Donald Trump he's like yeah hey I like you you make a lot of noise and so who did he put in charge of education Betsy to boss Betsy DeVos has been the loudest Yeller against public education as we know it and as we would like it to be for the better part of 20 years no one would ever have paid any attention to her whatsoever except for the fact that she's rich and in America if you're rich you can be President of the United States or you can be Secretary of Education but you're not that because you know anything about it you're that because you buy your way into it it was summed up I have it I write about all these things in the book there's a when when Betsy DeVos came before the Senate committee that was constitutionally bound to analyze whether she was qualified to serve as Secretary of Education literally to guide the future of our children the best question that that was many good questions came through Maggie Hassan from up in Vermont and other people are up in New Hampshire I apologize asked terrific questions and really got to the heart of the fact that she didn't know about programs that were central to what the Department of Education does she literally was ignorant about what were federal programs or what were state programs it was a tragic painful performance Betsy DeVos made me feel sorry for her and I never thought that was possible but she she got through most of it just in this tragic stumbling way until Bernie Sanders came up and Bernie Sanders who actually understands issues of economics and class and wealth and poverty he just looked at her for a long time and he said I got a question for you if you hadn't given two hundred million dollars you and your family two hundred million dollars to Republican candidates including some of the people in this room here today and who are gonna decide your fate if you hadn't given two hundred million dollars do you think there's any chance that you'd be sitting here with this nomination and to her immense credit and I really I give her I give her a lot of do for this she didn't say of course I would be I know education top to bottom I'm I'm totally qualified for this she said well it's possible but even she knew this was ridiculous and and the fact of the matter is the fact of the matter is that nominee after nominee after nominee for key positions and also people who never had to go through the confirmation process but took those positions in a point of posts who were given immense power by Donald Trump literally the power to decide the future of communications in this country to decide whether we have net neutrality to decide how our television networks operate and how they organize to decide how Wall Street operates decide how its regulated to decide fundamental questions of how a military industrial complex what what Dwight Eisenhower warned us about would structure out in these times and then you get to the fundamental questions of how we deal with technology and all sorts of other issues the people he empowered we're capable of impressing Donald Trump a man who knew nothing about government and had thought very very little about the future but they were not ready to do the jobs they were given and the fact of the matter is that if the United States Senate had done its job and gotten beyond partisanship and silly ideology and literally just done the job that the Constitution requires them to do there is simply no question that they would have rejected Betsy DeVos they would've said you cannot have this job you you just can't you should not be in this position they would have rejected Scott Pruett at the Environmental Protection Agency because they would have said when he stood up there said oh yeah I'm kind of mixed on climate change I'm you know I'm I'm working my way through and this they would have known he was lying to them because the fact of the matter is Scott Pruett has been one of the central climate deniers of our age is a guy who regularly sues the Environmental Protection Agency they would have rejected him because it was absurd to put him in that position because he doesn't matter whether you're a conservative or a liberal it doesn't matter whether you're a democrat or republican there should be a base line of competence and a base line of respect for the agency that you are in charge of if you want to shut an agency down if you want to dismantle it then you should be elected to Congress and you should or elected president you should work on dismantling it but if you're given the responsibility for making sure that the water that our children drink is safe if you're given the responsibility to making sure that we are prepared to deal with hurricanes which hit major cities and leave the fourth largest city in the United States under water then you better understand the current science on climate change and you better be ready to establish climate resilient infrastructure so that you don't end up with more crises like the ones we're in and Scott Pruett wasn't prepared for this moment he should not have been put in that position I hope I make myself clear which brings me to Rex Tillerson now Rex Tillerson is one of the most dangerous group I write about in the book are those who are referred to as adults in the room you know if somebody if anyone of you is called an adult in the room run screaming from that room right because number one it's it is said that you've been picked for a position by someone who cannot be trusted given power by that person and then you're supposed to keep them under control with all due respect I pick my daughter do a lot of things and I give her power to do a lot of things and sometimes she's under control right but she doesn't control me as much as she would like and the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump gave these people positions of immense power but there's no adults in the room it's an absurd construct it is a fantasy that people have built up to try and make themselves feel good Rex Tillerson was a corporate CEO of a fossil fuel company in an administration that doesn't take climate change seriously that's not an adult in the room that is an enabler for somebody who's wrong telling them that they can be wrong and that they can do the wrong thing that's not a healthy pic that's not a team of rivals that's not the best and the brightest this is an administration of people who are there because Donald Trump thought that they were smart thought you know this is what a smart person sounds like to Donald Trump and but also because he wanted people he knew would do what he wanted them to do Donald Trump's not the kind of guy who's saying yeah go out and run that thing I'll come back and check with you in six months and here's the tragedy of Rex Tillerson he'll probably be the first one to go the first big one to go with all due respect I mean I know how exciting Sebastien Gorka is but you know please right I'm talking about people with real power and ultimately people who are doing a lot of stuff that we aren't paying as much attention as we should to rex Tosun probably the first one to go because he was put in charge of the Department of State a historic department that has existed since the founding of the Republic in the book I talk about each of each of these agencies each of these positions how they developed why they exist the Department of State exists as a counterbalance to again what Eisenhower referred to as the military-industrial complex you wanted somebody there who's saying no maybe we can talk our way out of this thing maybe we don't have to have a war maybe we can have diplomacy maybe we can have aid maybe we can relate to the rest of the world well in this administration Rex Tillerson is clearly not listened to he is clearly not well regarded and he has chosen to allow the Department of State to be diminished dismantled and undermined in ways that no Secretary of State in the history of the country has ever done he is a horrible steward of an essential agency of our federal government and you knew that from the committee hearing because he was asked when he was before the key committee where they were deciding whether he should be Secretary of State they said have you talked to Donald Trump about you know like the Middle East yeah well we didn't get around to that and we're like have you talked to him about you know this problem or that problem we didn't get around to that he acknowledged to the committee he had no idea he had no idea how he would relate to Donald Trump as president United States they should not have put him in this position now if he had said I'm gonna oppose Trump I'm gonna put me in this position I'll slow him down I won't let him do some of this stuff well then I would have said yeah go for it but this guy this guy wanted the job but didn't have any idea of how he would do it and he hasn't shown it since then and so I have to be honest in this book I'm pretty unsparing with a lot of folks I acknowledge when people are smart Steve Boehner was very very is very very smart it's probably smartest man in the room in fact weirdly enough in the Trump administration Steve Bannon probably was the adult in the room he reads extensively he thinks about issues he's he takes the title chief strategist because he really is a strategist and I disagreed with him on fundamental issues on a ton of issues but he was a guy who actually thought about a lot of this stuff wasn't just bouncing from moment to moment he's out of the administration but I suspect he's more influential now than he's ever been because one of the things is people say well Steve went out so everything must be cool right cuz Bana he was on the cover and they had pictures of him saying he was the real president well I wasn't the real president he was there at Donald Trump's behest remember but the interesting thing is Steve banner really is smart he really is a strategist Donald Trump went off the rails in Charlottesville all right in the aftermath of Charlottesville he had a series of statements that showed him to be someone who should not be the president the United States is not an ideological statement this is not a partisan statement this is simply saying if you can't after a bunch of neo Nazis and fascists and supporters of the Confederacy get in a fight with people who don't like racism you can't have a president who says yeah there's troubles on both sides no no that's like that the comic argument about you know like see the eastern always criticized CNN that said they'd had you know people from both sides of an issue right and you say well what about the great moments in history like the Civil War would you have somebody on both sides of slavery well Donald Trump says yes I mean he literally says yeah you know I don't like fascists I don't like Nazis but you know there's some very fine people marching with him at that point something big had to change something big had to happen and so Steve Bannon stepped out so ultimately did Sebastien Gorka but don't think for a second that their ideas stepped out the reason I profiled them in the book and why I don't mind who comes and goes to some extent is because these are people that Donald Trump embraced these are people that he took lessons from and the truth of the matter is Steven Miller is still there and if you think that Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka are scary I invite you to go back and look at some videos of Stephen Miller this guy has moved on the hard right since he was a young teenager in the book I write about his journey and it's it's horrifying in many ways because it is it's such an example of someone who's gone way to the fringe way to the fringe on so many issues who somehow has ended up in a position of power helping to write Donald Trump's inaugural address helping to do the Muslim ban apparently giving advice as regards the Joe Arpaio pardon and things like that you know Donald Trump has empowered people to do profound things many of them are doing them in our name without our informed consent as we speak but he has also brought people around him who reinforced his worst instincts and I'll close off and go to your questions with just this one counsel if you like Donald Trump I'm delighted you're here and I'm delighted you know I'm delighted you joined us and and we'll have real dialogue and I think that's that's that's superb because in this country we ought to be able to do that if you don't like Donald Trump if you choose to resist Donald Trump you must understand this Donald Trump is a TV entertainer if all you do is resist Donald Trump then you are resisting a TV you're like flipping the channel on TV you must understand who he is put in positions of power you must understand why they are there and what they will do with those positions you have to expand your focus if you don't do that then it is very possible that people will say at some point you know Donald Trump was a total failure as president and then someone will write a revisionist book a couple years later and say I don't know how much of a failure he was he dialed down the struggle against climate change at a critical point he prevented us from looking at the future of technology and the role that that our changing economy will have in our lives because of changes in technology because he just has no vision in this regard he moved money out of social welfare programs and over to the military industrial complex that Eisenhower and others warned us about Donald Trump changed our country fundamentally it's just that he didn't do it the people he put in charge of cabinet agencies and regulatory agencies and all of these incredibly influential incredibly powerful positions did it and if we don't pay attention to what word what they are doing then shame on us shame on us because ultimately Donald Trump cannot bring the Trump pocalypse but the people he has empowered can bring a trump pocalypse and the Trump pocalypse a word I can pronounce the Trump eclipse isn't all the scary bomb stuff that people think about that's legitimate I don't dismiss people thinking about who's got their finger on what button but the Trump pocalypse is a fundamental restructuring of the United States in ways that will make this country unfamiliar not merely to us but to our parent would have made it unfamiliar to our parents our grandparents and everyone who ever fought for a country with liberty and justice for all that's something that we need to avert that's why we need to avert the Trump pocalypse thank you now if I'm right look at that I'm supposed to go 30 minutes and you have 30 minutes for your brilliant questions I like and we do ask you to come to the mic if you can because it's your best chance to be seen on television so in your book yes do you talk about the Republican Senate yes enabled all of this oh my eye and we are not related I did not put you up to this question but I adore you for for asking it in fact I profile about 40 people in this book many of them are cabinet secretaries many of them are White House hangers-on many of them are members of the Trump family who are sort of unidentifiable in their role and completely ineffectual with all due respect Ivanka Trump but also I look at the Congress a lot because I believe that Paul Ryan did more to make Donald Trump president than anyone else including Donald Trump because everybody says oh Paul Ryan he doesn't really like Donald Trump he objects now and again every time that Paul Ryan objects to Donald Trump he says well I wouldn't have said it that way which by the way is a horrible thought right he's objection is that Trump doesn't spin things well enough but then he would always say but if he's the nominee of our party I will back him and so it is Paul Ryan who expanded the definition of Republican to include Donald Trump and so understand he's the core of a making Trump president but the core of making Trump's presidency successful without a doubt unquestionably is Mitch McConnell and I will tell you that Donald Trump is a very ungracious man admittedly he did appoint McConnell's you know wife secretary transportation that's sort of nice but but I mean he's kind of picking on Mitch now and I will tell you nobody moved heaven and earth in the way that Mitch McConnell did for this guy and I am ashamed of our United States Senate I'm genuinely ashamed of it because I'll give you one quick thing I recount in the book just days before Scott Pruett was named Secretary or own named administrator of the department or of the Environmental Protection Agency put in charge of a very important you know aspect of our government just days before he got that job a judge in Oklahoma ordered the release of documents from his tenure as Attorney General which had been sought by public interest groups for months in some cases years that revealed his interactions with his ties to the fossil fuel companies that as head of the EPA he was supposed to rein in and oversee and control this is incredibly important information to the process Jeff Merkley from Oregon Sheldon Whitehouse other US senators went to the floor of the US Senate and said can we just wait until these documents are actually released the order had come down they were literally going to be released within days and Mitch McConnell went to the floor of the Senate and enforced discipline and forced that nomination through knowing knowing that if they had waited just a few more days even Republicans could not have had voted for this guy it was atrocious governance and in a shameful shameful disregard for his oath of office his responsibilities you know what suppose to be shared governance and I don't even have to tell you what he said to Elizabeth Warren when she raised essential fundamental issues about the nomination of Jeff Sessions and I will tell you this though before he let the next person ask a question in my chapter on Jeff Sessions I do find it unimaginable that he's the Attorney General the United States I open the chapter with with just a line that kind of sums up the whole chapter what can be said about Attorney General Jeff Sessions that hasn't already been said by doctor David Duke first thanks for very kind words this is Ben wiggler I've known him since he was 12 and he has it as as he has exceeded expectations well thanks for for all your friendship and mentorship since I was a young teenager hopefully not like Stephen Miller I bought the same age in the healthcare fight we could pressure Congress and members of Congress are accountable to their constituents it's more difficult with cabinet agencies because they're not directly elected and I'm thinking right now about like net neutrality today's the end of a critical comment period who knows what's gonna happen with those comments what can we do as as citizens and as Americans to try to fight against and resist what these cabinet appointees and other Trump appointees are doing that's a terrific question and one of the things I do in the book is I actually I was on a radio show with a wonderful woman she had read the book which makes her different than a lot of radio interviewers and and she she said you know I read your book over the weekend and it made me dramatically more depressed and and I said well you didn't get the point you know the point is to empower you to to deal with these things and so the first step of empowerment is to know who these people are George Washington could name all the members of his cabinet it wasn't hard Donald Trump struggles with it we've seen video of him struggling to to remember who's where and Moe citizens because our media is so presidential focused so personality focus they don't begin to see what happens in cabinet agencies and and also in regulatory agencies like the FCC this is a big deal too because it's also about the change in our media historically in the United States we had daily newspapers around the country that had Washington bureaus tremendous number of those bureaus have closed as the newspaper industry has contracted it used to be that the reporters from the Des Moines Register kept watch on the Department of Agriculture the reporters from the Detroit Free Press in the Detroit News kept watch on the Department of Labor you had people from around the country who brought specialized interests to Washington and and kind of kept reporting and then that was an early warning system we've lost a lot of that and so one of the things I do in the book is highlight those who are doing good reporting encourage people to follow those who do look at all these different agencies and all these different positions and also the activist groups that are watchdogging and they're serious about it as well as the members of Congress who are doing so and I want to pay tribute here actually something Sebastien Gorka who was the president's advisor on counterterrorism although anybody was an expert in counterterrorism had doubts about you know what where where he really got his training or at least what he knew but Sebastian Garko had a had a incredibly nefarious past it with ties to groups that in Eastern Europe that had it by the accounts of some people fascist or neo-fascist history and it was really a lot of dark stuff and one of the reasons that Sebastian Gorka is out of the White House today it isn't because members of Congress by and large did their job it isn't because Donald Trump you know God got upset by it he is out of there because of the date because of the newspaper the forward the forward is a Jewish American newspaper over a hundred years old in New York City and when they saw Sebastian Gorka wearing medals at an event that were historic medals from what they and they believed to be neo-fascist groupings in Eastern Europe they put reporters on the ground in Eastern Europe to dig out the story to talk to members of these groups to really get to the bottom of it that led congressman Jerry Nadler and others to call for his removal and really created the sitch that led to him exiting after Charlotte's ville people need to understand this if you don't know who these people are if you don't know their history if you don't know your bat their background you cannot possibly begin to hold them to account so the first duty of this book is to help people to know who they are and to understand that you can make your decisions about them once once you're there but then also I as I said I spent a lot of time pointing people toward groups that are working on these issues and and I do say one other thing as well this morning I spent some time with Ralph Nader who had read the book it was very generous about it and Ralph Nader who's always monitored these cabinet agencies points out correctly that it's not impeachment isn't just for presidents anymore the impeachment power exists for presidents vice presidents and those they empower and so you can hold these people to account and I'm not saying you know wholesale go for impeachment what I am saying is if there are people who have lied to the Congress if there are people who have fundamentally failed in their duties use that tool to hold them account center impeachment all the possible tools and don't just focus all that energy on Donald Trump spread it around because there are people there are people who I say this quite often in any room in this administration that Donald Trump walks into he is not the most scary person thank you hey as troublesome is as troublesome as Trump is on so many levels shouldn't we also be looking deeply at the deep flaws within the Democratic Party which enabled Trump in the first place and which will enable more Trump's to arise in the future you are a very wise questioner again not related to me but I'm glad you're here look I mean with all due respect any any statement on this begins with the line they lost to Donald Trump you know that's a that's not good that's not a healthy thing because it's a guy who did not present particularly well by the most measures here's what I would say the Democratic Party has people in it who have mounted really bold and impressive objections I think Elizabeth Warren has done incredible job I think Al Franken has risen to the level of being a member of the Senate and I would say mention the name of someone else who I write about a lot in the book Kristin Gillibrand from New York State she voted against more Trump cabinet picks and nominees than any other member of the Senate and she did so because she was not afraid to stand in defense of civilian control of the military and so many of these people voted for these generals who've been nominated for these positions and Senator Gillibrand said hold it they you know the whole point of this thing is that we're supposed to have civilians in key positions as regards the military because Meisner was right a military industrial complex is a scary thing many Democrats failed in that regard there's no question the Democratic Party is in desperate desperate need of a reformation and I say that in the religious sense I really you know a genuine Reformation and but I will extend for any question if I can to one other thing I believe Donald Trump's presidency is about the most hopeful thing about Donald Trump's presidency and all these people he's empowered in all this stuff I think he is a warning sign of the vulnerabilities in our democracy and one of the vulnerabilities is existence of an electoral college that allows the loser of the popular vote to become president that is absurd but another of the vulnerabilities is what we've allowed the cabinet system and the federal government to become it is so big and these cabinet agencies are so powerful when I was writing the book looking at their budgets looking at what they control it's astounding and we've created a situation where it is very easy for people who should never be in charge of so much of our governance to take those positions so it's it's political vulnerability I agree with you but it is also a structural vulnerability that we really have to revisit because with all due respect our Secretary of Energy the guy who is in charge of taking care of nuclear waste is a guy who wanted to eliminate the department but couldn't remember that Rick Perry I'm sorry you could not if we were doing a Broadway play we could not make this up it would it would be too absurd so Vaughn in the system our Democratic Party has got to change it is vulnerable it it and if they don't change they run the risk of more Trump's you are right maybe a trump who's a little better presented but also we have fundamental structural flaws that Trump is helping us to see and that his appointees are helping us to see again though we will not address those structural flaws unless we see this as about more than one man more than just a president in a personality and I have a lot of objections how media covers this administration because it's largely about this one man unless we the people can get beyond that we run the risk of replacing Trump with someone who's a little better and we are a little better isn't going to get us this is gonna fix the damage that it's done over the how do you get beyond that in terms of the traditional party framework it's very very hard and I and I will answer your question by saying there's a lot of people behind you so I want to you know no no do you don't no I'm not pushing your way but I'm telling you that as we speak and my friend Colin Robinson will be thrilled by this I am working on a book on the future of the Democratic Party it'll be my next book and and I'm pretty scathing in this book about the Trump administration I will not spare the Democratic Party uh I think the Democratic Party has some wonderful history and some wonderful people in it but it has to become a smart party you counter you counter lies and stupidity and fantasy with facts and intelligence and courage and conviction and the Democratic Party has to it has to show a lot more of that if they're going to begin to challenge not just Trump but a process that gave us Donald Trump whoever's next yes hi there okay move it get to that mic I know it's it's do your best thank you that's exactly what I believe mr. Trump is doing right now in a state where there Senate legislature wanted him to be assassinated this is an uncouth public I have been upset I think that the courage if you ever have greatness thrust on you you're certainly verbal and can manage the end of representing your ideas well he has with courage and stamina and family presence put himself at risk the reason I think this happened is because we allowed a debt structure in 2015 before he announced his intention to run for office to buy the very excellent basis of index of the OS and OCD Oh EDD our international debt to be twenty two point five trillion mr. Trump did go ahead he ran and in the course mid-race had himself to borrow fifty million dollars our failure once before we in finance from finance allowed a world to have credit available we would not have had radical and poverty nor a trillion then a zillion times computing ability possible in a short period of time were it not for this form of money being made possible for the common man and when is also security I will tell you something it is not easy to stand up in a room where maybe perhaps a lot of the people disagree with you and I will also say that you know what she is what she is trying to say what I think I won't speak for her per se what you what I think she's trying to do is say there are things that that many Americans find in Donald Trump's tenure they agree with that's okay that's alright what I am saying is to those who do disagree with this presidency who do those who do object to how its operating that you have as a duty to be as courageous as she was when she just stood up in this setting and offered two reviews because the fact of the matter is as long as we're talking to each other as long as we're debating and stuff we're gonna get through this thing Donald Trump is a blip in the history of this country I promise you he's a transition point what I'm concerned about is whether he is a transition point to something dramatically better a ricochet out of it or is he a transition point to a politics where we will have variations on Donald Trump from here on out that's what we will decide and with all due respect to my friend I believe that that we don't want more Donald Trump's and I also am not satisfied with our Senate but I respect her for asking that question my friend let me just say on behalf of all the people who are not in line to ask questions I think there is one thing that we can all agree with her on and that is the fact that the tweeting that we've seen since this presidency started has in fact been horribly Democratic with the emphasis on horribly well can i address it for one sec many people say to me you know look we should not follow Donald Trump's tweets anymore we shouldn't have them on TV all the time or things like that I strongly disagree this is an incredibly powerful person we should watch what he does we should listen to what he does if we agree if you agree that's fine if you disagree you should let make it known all I'm saying is that's not enough it's not enough to simply pay attention to the man's tweets or his press conferences or as rallies it is vital to see what Scott Pruett is doing it is vital to see what Elaine Chao is doing it's vital to understand that barely a week ago at that horrible press conference where Donald Trump went off the rails on Charlotte's ville he was announcing changes to our federal regulations our approach to these things in which he was gutting Barack Obama's executive order from 2015 to make sure that US spending on infrastructure took in the concerns about climate change and storm surges and flooding and that that Obama order was titled the federal flood risk management standard and Elaine Chao and Donald Trump overturned that barely two weeks ago and most Americans didn't even know it I didn't affect it didn't affect Houston this is so for the future but let me warn you that what they did what they did was to say we refuse to learn from what is happening to this country that is shameful and you can't let that occur in the dark without people knowing about it so I want to pay every tension to Trump but I also want to pay every tension to everybody else makes us work a little harder stamp later what's your question sir so the this regulatory capture piece that you're talking about is huge I mean clearly these are the people who will enable all that invisible change but they in turn are kind of being enabled to and you mentioned Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan by a very compliant Congress and part of why they get such a compliant Congress is the gerrymandering and the suppression that's going on so I you know knowing your Wisconsin background I'm wondering if you can can talk about for example the Wisconsin Supreme Court case on redistricting and maybe some of the other institution great question you've made a lot on the table relay that I will do it very quickly yeah only because there's a wonderful group of people behind you in line there and so all I would say is I'm not going to go into the Wisconsin thing I'll just say look it up we follow what's happening in Wisconsin the issue of gerrymandering we could see the United States Supreme Court finally address one of the core democracy issues in this country which is the fact that most of our congressional races are non-competitive I will only focus on one thing a person that are right about a lot in the book and that is Kris Kobach he is he is the guy that the president has empowered to essentially be giving advice and counsel on voting rights election issues and a host of matters all these things that you're raising and the fact of the matter is that I've cut I've covered this Kobach character for years going back to when he was working with the American Legislative Exchange Council and other groups on a host of what can only be in my view called voter suppression initiatives and he is the worst possible person to have in charge of this stuff and we ought to I genuinely say that that we ought to be on top of what he's doing every day and we ought to be ready to resist it because the answer to the question of could Donald Trump get reelected is not merely about his policies and it is not merely about economic issues that are always play it is also about the quality of our democracy how healthy is our democracy and I fear I fear that the people he has put in charge of overseeing and giving advice about how we should organize our elections are some of the worst players and some of the most disrespectful players as regards democracy in this country and so that's why I write about Kovac but it's also why I think we have to pay a lot of attention to thank you for your good question my friend could we take quick if people can be quick I'll take a question from each and then try and comments I like your thoughts about first of all clarification there was just as many millionaire Democrats as there without a doubt so I think if you're in a great place being a journalist and author and all is I think until we get out of this simplistic mindset that you know fix the Democrats and fix the Republicans the root of the issue will not be addressed what do you think the route that I think it goes back to the Declaration of Independence where we really never did overthrow the king boy you are so right I think the analogy is can I changed it to have the subservient role towards the corporate entity I'd rather not cameras but yeah okay I apologize and let me quickly say this woman got to the heart of the matter and if you go back and I write a lot about this in the book when they establish the system of checks and balances when they establish separation of powers Congress was really powerful in fact the president doesn't have the ability to impeach the Congress the Congress has the ability to impeach the president this is big deal stuff we have thrown things so out of whack we have created such an imperial presidency in this country that it has created tremendous dysfunction and one of the reasons I wrote this book is to get people thinking about whether they want a presidency that is as powerful as this one is Sir I think you got we're down to those seconds I'll keep it simple and if you do as good as her I mean we're out of the park I can't reach it all right where did Kelly Conway come from ah my friend my friend Liz Winstead who's a comedian was at the mini Minnesota State Fair and she tweeted apparently they had a Kelly and Conway scarecrow and the Scarecrow contra where they had her inaugural thing and it was I don't know if that was respectful or disrespectful I'm not sure where I was coming from but Kelly Ayotte Conway is a good place to circle this around I'm glad to answer other people's questions as we go along as well we'll stick around and sign some books and do that and I'm so appreciative of all you'd be in here but the answer to that question is really interesting when I start the book with Robert and Rebecca Mercer who are major campaign donors and interestingly enough yeah there you go interestingly enough Robert knew Rebecca Mercer had two people that they really get put a lot of resources into and gave a lot of support to before the 2016 campaign one of them was Kelly Ann Conway who was pollster and a person who ran a super PAC and did all sorts things very close to the Mercer's who are incredibly right-wing tech billionaires and the other was Steve Bannon and amazingly enough after Donald Trump got the Republican nomination and these very wealthy people moved into position who ended up running the Trump campaign and I will just simply tell you that Kelly Conway is still Kelly economy was still in the white house she is still very very influential and she and Ivanka Trump in my view played an incredibly significant role in the campaign one that we should not forget and that is when things came out about Donald Trump that made I think virtually everyone gasped the revelations about what he said on the bus and and some of this stuff it was Kellyanne Conway who more than anyone else stepped up and really stood by him and and defended him after that's that key debate and I think she played a very very critical role in making him President the United States more than more than is noted she's now doesn't seem to have a lot of influence in the White House but one thing I will tell you about Donald Trump and it's why if somebody quits or comes or goes don't take it all that seriously Donald Trump constantly recirculates people he brings people back into power people you thought were gone returned I'm I don't even rule out that scarra Moochie could come back and and I will tell you that in some ways I missed the mooch but brothers and sisters you have been an absolutely tremendous audience I think you've acquitted yourselves well don't forget the Labor Day is coming up and I really believe in renewing the tradition of the Labor Day gift and I just happen to think that that horsemen of the Trump ellipse makes a fine Labor Day gift thank you for being here [Applause] you

Channel: Politics and Prose

Views: 126,141

Rating: 4.1863246 out of 5

Keywords: P&P TV, Washington DC, Politics and Prose, Authors, Books, Events, Literature, John Nichols, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Rex Tillerson, Betsy DeVos, Sebastian Gorka, Scott Pruitt, Rick Perry, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse

Id: LFVg0AUWxGA

Length: 58min 28sec (3508 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 27 2017