Youre watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend with. Booktv, television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations] all right. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to green light bookstore, were glad youre here tonight. Were hosting math tie yee by to present his new book, and you are in for an excellent evening. Just a couple of housekeeping things, if you have a cell phone or device that might make noise, now is the moment to silence it. We have books for sale at the register, the new book and older titles by both authors, so matts going to be here signing afterwards, and when you buy the book, you not only get this great literary experience, but youre supporting your local bookstore, so we appreciate that in advance. We also have flyers for Upcoming Events at the register, we have a lot more great stuff coming up in november, so we hope that you will join us again. Our spur viewer for interviewer for this evening is the former cohost of the cycle on msnbc and currently hosts binge worthy as well as the new podcast love city and the teree show. He writes for many publications and hes the author of five books including most recently i would die for you, why prince became an icon, and whos afraid of postblack em, what it means to be black now. Hes also our neighbor here and has been a great supporter of green light since literally the day we opened our doors, so were grateful to have him with us tonight. Ill be speak with matt taibbi who is the author the divide and the great derangement, hes also contributing editor for Rolling Stone and winner of the 2008 National Magazine award for columns and commentary. His new book is a compelling work of Literary Journalism that explores the roots and repercussions of the infamous killing of eric garner by the new york city police. In a starred review, its called a brilliant work of monofiction, he is unsparing in his excoriation of the police and courts that led to the fatal chokehold and worked to blur the abuse afterwards. This is a necessary and riveting work. Is were honored to have both of these authors with us, theyre going to be on stage and in conversation, please join me in welcoming matt taibbi and teree. [applause] make sure you turn your mic on. I think i did. I do love this bookstore. I have been here since day one. I remember when you could not buy a book in this neighborhood, and so im so proud for you guys for running eight years of greenlight. [applause] now theres a second location, so congratulationings. Matt, i want to talk to you. I have known you for a while, brothers in the whole Rolling Stone fraternity or what have you. This book is fantastic. If you have not already read it. If youve read it, you know that. I want to start with the elephant in the room so we can deal with that. Youve been dealing with a lot the last week. Yeah. You wrote a book years ago that has gotten you in some trouble when you were describing what happened when you were a young man and many years ago this russia right. What happened when you were in russia and dealing with the younger women there . What happened . Well, thats a complicated question. I cowrote a book and coedited a newspaper called the exile that was designed to be a sendup of the american expatriot community. We expatriate. We actually had a goal of being the most offensive publication in history. We, our idea was there was actually at one point a satirical idea in the book which was that the americans who are coming over who are pretending to help and by day were offering to bring the american way by night were actually taking their huge consulting fees and going into orgy clubs and partying and sleeping with russian women, and it was a total backenow. The idea was to expose all of this and to talk about the corruption of the can community. But of the community. But we quickly became the very people we were trying to satirize and got caught up in that community. And, you know, the book that we wrote, the exile, details some pretty ugly things, some things that, you know, i would be ashamed for my kids to read. I will be ashamed someday for them to read. I have three young sons. And theres a passage many there in one of marks chapters that talks about harassing women in the workplace. That part of it isnt true, but there are other things that we wrote that were awful, and i do genuinely regret and will continue to feel bad about. I mean, we are going to focus on the eric garner book, but just to drill down on this a little bit im a little confused because classified as nonfiction, but youre saying the things finish. Its actually not [inaudible] in the workplace are not true, so which is it . Grove press actually today issued a statement that said that the book jacket inside is incorrect, that its actually a mix of invented satire and nonfiction. We put it, we made that notation because there was no classification for both. If you look underneath that notation, you will see that the contributors list includes somebody named johnny chen who is a fake person. The book starts off with an interview with chen who was a fake person. Theres a scene where mark quotes a u. S. Embassy official saying that i believe that all american expats should be incinerated and shot into space. Thats clearly not a real quote. So the things that are described of you guys doing to young women youre saying did not happen . Im saying they did not happen. And im saying no, not only that, im saying that no woman has ever said that ive ever behaved like that in any workplace here or in russia. And i take absolutely full responsibility for the things that were in the exile, things that we wrote. Ive agonized over the years about the editorial decisions that we made during that time. But, you know, in terms of that, no, it never happened. So you regret writing that . Well, i didnt write that. Mark wrote that. The coauthor its a coauthored book. And you could have said i could have, i could have. There were a lot of things i could have said, but i didnt i. Theres a lot of stuff in the exile that is pretty hard to read, you know . Whether you were there or not, whether you knew the context of it or not. And is, yeah, i feel bad about it, i do. But i categorically, again, insist that ive never mistreated any woman in any office. I wouldnt do that. And i think a lot of my coworkers who have spoken out this week have said that, you know, thats not who i am. Who i am is somebody who once wrote a pretty vile publication that came close to achieving that goal of being the most it may actually be the most offensive publication. Theres one that i can think of thats worse, but we were close, for sure. All right. Still friends with him, that guy . No. I havent talked to mark in 15 years at least. For a variety of reasons, including those. If, you know, one of the questions people have about all this is why, why you never protested more about marks columns, and the reason for that is that i it never entered my mind that he was actually writing nonfiction. I thought he was a poser, not a criminal and a sociopath. And what we argued about was, you know, i said this kind of writing is ineffective and offensive in the wrong kind of way, but i, you know, i have to cop to that too, that i didnt just say flat out this is hurtful. So this book that youve written about eric garner and all the issues around it is pretty extraordinary. It reminds me of the corner and some of the work david simon did with the wire. Because you are taking these big societal things that happen and showing how they sort of move in to squeeze this guy on the block, eric garner right. And youre not just doing the big picture analysis and youre not just doing the small character study. Its sort of both. Right. And theres this way you describe, you know, after 2008 the Bloomberg Administration sees we need more revenue, were not going to tax the regular person, so were going to increase the tax on cigarettes, what is it, like, 300 , 400 . Yeah, it was like 14 a pack or manager like that at the time. It goes to 1. 50, and its a hugely regressive tax, right in. Right. Which opens the door for folks like eric garner finish. Right. And hes not the only one. Hes way more entrepreneurial with it. Right. To go to the american native reservations, virginia, other places which have a different taxation system, get and sell cigarettes to poor people who can in the afford. At the same time, right, we have William Bratton and other folks moving in with this broken windows policing philosophy, right . Which, i mean, air read so much ive read so much about it already and i learned a lot in this book because theres this notion that you describe where if people are afraid of crime, that in and of itself is a problem. Is a crime, yeah. Yes. So we must keep them from being afraid of crime. Right. By dealing with actual crime becomes secondary from keeping people from being afraid of crime, so were going to police the smallest things right. And make them feel better, and this is sort of what eric garner gets squished in between. Sure. Yeah, this whole broken windows theory grew out of something that had nothing to do with cities. It was invented by this guy named George Kelling who was sort of a halfacademic, halfprobation officer who was put in charge of a home in rural minnesota for troubled young people, and it grew out of an observation that he made he says anyway its juvenile detention. A juvenile Detention Center where he was watching the people who were treating the patients or inmates or i couldnt remember the term the that he used. Basically, if they did something destructive in the facility, if they tore out ceiling tiles, if they broke a glass, if they smashed a painting, the people who were treating it for a long time just let them sort of play out their knew row cease. They watched, they took notes because that was the method at the time. And kelling, you know, he had more of a Law Enforcement background. And his idea was lets not do that. Lets pick up the glass, right . If theres a broken glass, lets pick up the glass. And he made an observation bakken then that when you pick up the glass, the volume seems to go down on peoples behavior, and theres less trouble. And so this grew into a theory that turned into broken windows where the idea was if you crack down on what he called the visible symbols of disorder, it may not actually affect the crime rate, but it will make people feel less afraid. There you go. Right . [inaudibleour already victims o. Many new yorkers are afraid of black people. For a lot of black people, they lived in defective segregated neighborhoods. Dealing with actual crime makes them feel less afraid. Why people may not be dealing with those doing with graffiti and broken windows. Exactly. And to his discredit, hes a complicated character to interview because he could be convincing one minute and in the next he would Say Something that make scratch my head. Like when i introduced in boston one thing i heard was people say i would feel safer if theres no black people in the neighborhood. That was pleasing disorder. He recognizes these techniques could be used for Something Like that. In the initial article about broken windows they talk about the potential for the misuse of policies. He knows from the beginning this can be used in a racist way, i hope that its not. He coauthored it with other sociologist. The text of the broken windows article says that we have no answer to that question. Everything training, will train the police to do better and they will. When it did happen that plus the fact it relied upon techniques that were inherently provocative, historically. Broken windows depended on given police tools to arrest people for meaningless offenses. Today, in new york you can be arrested for obstructing government administration, refusal to obey a Police Officer. It could mean anything. For stop and frisk is the movement what is that . They came from a 1960s Supreme Court case and that says this may stop you if they have a suspicion that a crime might be occurring. Theyre allowed to pat you down if they have reasonable suspicion that you are armed. The idea reasonableness became a Legal Standard that existed in the minds of Police Officers. Over the years people like the bread decided to make a factor style policy they didnt have time to a for the suspicion. They wanted to stop too many people. They created a form called the 250. That have boxes you could check out the reasons why you are stopping people. Those included for movement, bolts, suspicious behavior. Of the 250 is so that whether or not you are detained. So record being created of what some Police Officers that might be in the underground so in some peoples murder they go back to all the people who have 250 which is criminalizing the. Just a small example of why i understand this doesnt work. However people at risk in this neighborhood for five years. Who walked down Washington Park . They had a broken window for 20 years. And then the window in the front, you know what im talking about. This does not affect crime in this neighborhood. Crime has gone down of the last 20 or 30 years. It is very problematic. Lets talk about who is eric gardner. There is a read the book is because on the day that the grand jury decided not to indict the Police Officer responsible for his kelly argues a different word, but i went over to Staten Island and started to talk to people in the streets. I asked what he was like. I found everybody had a story about the guy is interesting, funny, complicated, flawed, and i thought he was a person who story will be powerful to tell. Everyone had this emotional reaction. But he had a narrative that led up to the moment. The people that they would be more invested in his life. Third reexperience the video in a way that would be more meaningful. He was interesting. I could give a million examples. I did not know that he had a new baby at the time of his death, maybe about a week old. Six weeks. Born three months early, poured 2 pounds 3ounce. And when you have Something Like that at home your stress. So hes trying to make some money and he has a preemie baby at home. Even if you not thinking about it it stresses you out. I can see why that could push him over the edge. He had been arrested several times. Talk about what is going on within and around him that made him say stop today and tired of you messing with me. Eric was not that person for his entire life. He had a different attitude towards how to deal with the police. He thought of himself as a businessman and the police were cost of doing business. When he got out of prison he started dealing crack in the late 80s. He found out about this new business on cigarettes. He said the possibilities of something in him kicked in. He started the crew was organized and wasnt competent to a dealer and he had an expression of how great it this business was. If you are doing it correctly they can your ticket he had a lot of customers, making three or 400 a day and profit. It is a great business. He saw the police as a cost of doing business. Five to do a few years in jail, whatever. The law says this is all they can do to me. Unless the customer driving across a straight state lines. The Police Became frustrated with the limitations of the law. Once there is a huge sentencings disparity and can drop the samurai people they could do anything to the that there is say you can legally come down to the station and pick it up and there are doing that term over and over again. Suddenly the balance of 50 it was a thousand. The costs are going up, he got robbed in the street a couple of times. He had to borrow money to re up twice. They were playing the game today was supposed to. A lot of the work youve been a lot of fours Goldman Sachs talking to people who want to talk to you. Did the people in Staten Island know who you were hydrogen good to talk to all these people may have been on the. I spent a lot of time there, i went back and forth to the neighborhood for two years. I went there a lot and got to a lot of people. Its a tough neighborhood, you have to know where the important people are to talk to. I got an idea early on theres people i needed to get permission from to do the work. That was worked out early on in the question of how you build trust with a journalist is a complicated one. But its also complicated by me being an outsider. It was hard in a way i never had to experience before think abo about. Talk about that. Here in this black neighborhood and do people want to talk with the white boy . The people who are really not force coming where the white citizens of Staten Island. The Police Officers, the relatives of Police Officers. I wanted to hear their side of the story. I wanted to hear their thinking was. The only way you could get at it was for Message Boards or off the record conversations and bars. There is a desire among people for erica garner not to be remembered for only this one moment. And for the whole story to be told. For him to be remembered for something else. And for the neighborhood to be remembered for something else. The first half of the book is about park and how it works. I try to be sympathetic about it and listen, people were cool about it. When he sam working on the book they make great, or i dont read books, dont care. Some people didnt care. Some people thought i wasnt. Because they didnt know what it was that i was doing coming back over and over again. I will thats a part of the story ended up leaving out. I developed a lot of relationships with people that garner knew that was rewarding. We went back to the spot, could there be another eric or somebody else where theyre selling cigarettes there for the in and out hes dealing with . Theres actually an eric right now. One of the things are a theory that what happened that day was a case of mistaken identity. Eric was popular on the block. There is a very personable dispute against younger guy who sold cigarettes and a guy who met him. They constantly complain. If you look through the record you find records of complaints, assaying where somebody calls about an eric and i think it was this other eric that works for ghana. Kind of a subcontracting situation. But i think thats what happened. Somebody said go get eric and it was the other eric. I want to go back to another section about the local gang leaders. Can you describe that moment, what is that like . The first couple of days when i went out there to the spot. You didnt know you had to do that operate until someone told you. Didnt tell me, but i kinda guess. Ive done crime report before all over the world. Many different places and you get a sense that certain people dont watch on the block you shouldnt be there. It wasnt hard to figure out who the important people were to talk to. I found some people sitting where he used to work they started a conversation with them. Their characters in the book, theyre great guys and help smooth the way for me. They mapped out what the architecture and geography of the neighborhood was in how things worked and what i had to do. Cottage you are their trust . By talking to them. If i dont know you 20 years i dont trust you, why are you not an undercover cop looking for god knows what . How to get them to trust you . I dont know. Maybe no caps was because goofy as i was. I dont know. The chart talk to drug dealers pretty early they started tell me about their business. I was nonjudgmental about it. Thats part of what was going on. They recognized early that i was interested in eric, i was not asking the, questions that wouldve got me in trouble. Their questions i want asked like who runs this block and eric stealing cigarettes does es have to ask it the guy whos rococo there to do that . It took well before could ask those questions. He did have to get the okay. There is more like an agreement. People just like tim. He was allowed to run his store, maybe he kicked a little money to somebody but i think there is anything beyond that. Was at 5. 5 million from the city . What is their life like now . Anothers bitterness that followed eric garner and twitter and you can see the anger and bitterness out of the dad and husband is not here, what is the life like now . I left out the story of what happens to the Garner Family and the book for reason. I felt like it wasnt important. There are things happened after the settlement of before. Something like that election for instance. Garner came out for bernie and theres some disputes about that. I didnt want to get into the question of discord within the family. What i will say about the money the thing i learned about these cases is the system is designed to only do one of two things after Police Brutality inciden incidents. It either spits money out for it doesnt. No other thing that happens. There is no gold metal panel to investigate our structural change, and a million tricks, the only thing that ever happens is either they give money to the family or they dont. The sizable award was linked to the fact they had the video. I started the book with a different fertility victim on purpose, to show that garners family was not typical. You dont usually get 5. 9 million. Instead you have to go for a long time to maybe get 20000. Of the tricks use to take off officers word disciplined and that is expunged. Said the perfect record because you guys wash it every two years. Its not just that, you just cant find out. Theres no mechanism for finding out if an officer has a problem. If you been arrested by an officer may see him or her planting evidence or thats your contention, theres no database to search. You can ask a judge to see if this person has a record for doing that. The losses basically that any information that might be used to evaluate the performance of a Police Officer must be kept confidential. Which means everything. The only reason we know this officer had a history is because somebody leaked it out. This is basically the set up around the country. The last strong union in america is the police union. Lets talk about the officer who i say murder . Yes, he murdered them. Its something cant say per the book company . No, just think ive used the word murder in the past. The medical examiner did call it a homicide. I do think it was murder. Who is the officer . We dont know. Thats essentially the protagonist or the villain is almost always some faceless person about whom we know almost nothing. Only later we find out he has a record. We dont even know about this case for year and then will we find out about it through information request that is granted we find out the officer has abuse complaints in his past. Even though they are public employees, everything they do is for the public, employed and paid by us, they are effectively private, what they do is private. Even the body cams exist in some places the law looks at it differently. Ramsey was standing there and videotapes us with this phone. Without him we would have probably never heard of eric garner. Hes had a difficult time of it. And that is Police Taking retaliation injured his reputation so his film matters less. Absolutely. Ramses a smalltown drug dealer from the neighborhood, has a long record but it couldve been anybody that day. The police definitely saw him as the source of their problems and they believe going after him was priority. When he was arrested at one point after a lengthy sting operation for someone who is not a big time kingpin, what they said as they were taking pictures was you made the video, now we are making the video. The question was personal. One thing that happens in the book as he calls me at the end of the journey when he has been pursued by the police for a long time. He is hiding from the police. His deciding if he should turn himself in. He breathlessly tells me this story and he goes through everything that is happened and he believes he has psychically switched places with the car. Like he did the killing but im together chasing. Hes telling this amazing story and right after he finishes he gets busted. Then you questions about me for sure but we work that out. Hes a very complicated character. What happened in the story i thought the Law Enforcement response, there is none in this case except to go after bunch of people. As a writer, when youre on the phone with a central character who is telling you this amazing story, like this is amazing. Definitely. Sure. I had kinda become part of the story at that point. Many characters started to call me and ask for advice, like what we do, about to get busted. To have any legal advice or no good lawyer. Would you advise him . I definitely help if i could. I tell him that the per se should talk to but hope you find that person. And i did what i could, which is not much. Theres not much a journalist can do for people to pretend theres an ultracet motive is dishonest know you want to say im doing this because i do like you but but i am writing a book. I can see folks in the world saying is talking about a bunch of drug dealers. There may be a lack of full understanding of what everything means. How, theres very few options for young black men to be gainfully employed. This is what everybody is doing. Very few are getting rich off of this. His sort of in the box either way. Should we be fixated on how can we take these people seriously or youre not really seen it properly. I think theres a way to look at things. You need to listen to people theres a couple things that i may have thought previously. They dont make a lot of money, except for the people at the very top its a brutal, difficult job that is extremely high risk. Youre not making hardly anything,. Maybe 40000 a year any have to worry about getting robbed all the time, i talked to one guy early on in the afternoon to see a nobody wants to do this stuff. Nobody is out here because they want to be. Here is out here every day, his a guy with Serious Health problems, he had asthma and diabetes, all kinds of issues but as people would say he was out here every day have be freezing Staten Island civic theres a little hill and i was out there in the winner a lot. I could stand out there from within 20 minutes without going crazy. Hed be out there all day long as a brutal horrible job and he would do it unless he didnt have any other options. You also meeting with the societal thing and some of the fans this is one of the most festive policing innovation. With it it really say well any side of this block so lets concentrate this is greater, this apartment is of crime generations are fixed on that. It is used in an f various way. He talk about whatever several talk about that we want you to stop. Collectively bargained. But we want male blacks, we dont want you to just bring in white women, we want male blacks. If you bring in others like what you doing. First, youre right theres a whistleblower cop i talked to who ended up being a witness to the court case that ended up bending stop and frisk. Hes secretly taped his commander who told him and he said i want you to stop the right people. Its mill blacks 14 21. That quote became a huge part of the case against stop and frisk. And more focused sense with their garner was critical because heres the way it works, you are a midlevel Police Officer, lieutenant junior commander in the precinct or captain, you have to go to these meetings once a day. He go this meeting is deliberately designed to assimilate a court corporate atmosphere. Their gigantic movie screens where they show pictures of neighborhoods. The bring the captain up to the podium and one by one go through the scenes in his sector. This block is good, this block is problems, look at this picture. The pictures will be fresh from an hour ago. The captain gets tired of hearing this. He goes to the precinct and yells at someone to clean up the streets. Because he just got yelled at about it. Im almost certain thats what happened with their garner. I heard this through some sources, but also told in the police statements. They say a Security Officer turbine the morning and sent to officers to address specific conditions in the neighborhood. Those officers then questioned eric garner concerning the sale of illegal cigarettes. Its that we saw in selling cigarette, that we are sent here to pick them up. We have time for a few questions. I can i have been obsessed with this case ever since it first happened. One thing i appreciated you can get enough about the case made so clears they have been harassing him for such a long time before it happened. They didnt have a real cause to arrest him. That explains why he resisted that day. He just couldnt stand it it was a bogus arrest. My other question was i didnt see a chokehold, i thought it was a hold to bring him down. That they last their balance and thats when the arm went around his snack. I thought the mts for how he lay there for so. The way they deal with the body after the chokehold are not similar to michael brown. Like we dont care about this but in that resonates to create it was pretty much ignored by the mts. First about the business of him not selling cigarettes a d day, its frustrating because every news report said he was arrested for selling cigarettes. Thats not true. If you watch the video you know what happened. I talked to probably 25 people there that day. I know he spent most the day in the bathroom, he got out and broke up a fight, hes winded and sets up against the wall and thats when they approach them. Because of this idea he wasnt selling cigarettes you can see in his face doesnt compete with him. Like really now . On top of Everything Else now i cant even just stand here i can even do the right thing. When people say he should of resisted arrest, not resisting arrest, for resisting to happen there has to be a valid arrest. There wasnt one. Thats all very frustrating for sure. And the chokehold, bill bratton said it was a chokehold, there is a moment where he actually grabs his hand and thats the definition of a chokehold is when you hold your wrist with your other hands around a person snack. They later claimed it was called the submission hold. I dont know what the differences. But the medical examiner says he died of a six nation compression of the chest. What was with the amt . They were just standing around and then finally took his vitals. These are consistent characters from the stories. Theres always an antique who doesnt to enough. Always an emt who looks the other way when something bad happens. I interviewed a woman whose husband was shot to death in 1971 for a book in arkansas. She said emts took too long to go inside. Its a feature of the stories. In my book you talk about the complaints the bureau that garner had five and he suggested people in the neighborhood say thats when the retaliation started. Could you speak more about that . Does that suggest that one 20th of is a precinct district eric garner believed he was being fairly targeted, the game is the game but theyre playing the game wrong and arresting him when he wasnt doing anything wrong, stopping him on the way to the supermarket and laundromat this with the police, according to the family she complained to the internal Affairs Bureau they were unfairly targeting him and seizing money. And he had to admit it was not legally earn. The family definitely believes that was a huge factor in what happened. My theory has more to do with constant. A midlevel officer got complaints and set these guys out. In that scenario it could be that they got a complaint from iab or internal affairs. That would make him just as angry. It could have been any one of those things. We can keep talking about eric but will talk about american political writers of the day. The conversation i have about trump yesterday isnt the same as tomorrow. So what are you thinking about trump . Whats going on . I have no idea. I dont know. What do the indictments mean . I have no idea. Are you going to make it is seeking to make of the full four years . If you look at the Las Vegas Casino they would say that are less than 5050. Theyre pretty good at this. Because theres real money involved. But i dont know. This is not insignificant. When you have this level of crisis going on it becomes nearly impossible to do actual business. They been struggling to do that the entire 12 months. But you cant to cut something complicated like tax reform when washington thinks he might be about to be arrested. I dont know how much washington thinks he might be arrested. On exaggerating that. But they say hes a 33 at gallup. The question of donald trump achieving anything that he set out to achieve is probably already a past question. Theres no way hes going to get the level of cooperation he probably expected because relations are broken between him and congress. My way of looking at things the situation donald trump has effectively isolated, hes crazy. He is essentially limited to making tweets and executive orders that later get overturned and a few other things. The be much more dangerous if he had a congress i was with them all the way. As the margins and most of those on his side of the aisle in the house with supportive, but you have the Freedom Caucus to the right that say we want to go further. In the Senate Mitch Mcconnell will do whatever he wants, you have the people on the edges who we would call moderates, more to the middle of the caucus saying that doesnt do enough. Maybe therell be some that will join, he sorta cannot go far enough for the people he needs in the house were far enough in the house for those he needs in the senate. And he doesnt understand any of the core math at all. I give her more credit than that in terms of understanding the math. Trump doesnt think things through like a chess player but he does have a vague sense of when to go on the attack, whom to attack, how to attack. But these are not profiting him. I would disagree. I think the corker and flake things, thats one of the only options open. How does that help him . Because he has life or death power over the electoral features. Im not seeing the folks were saying we have to roll with this guy who is at 33 and drop it because hes had tweets against corker who is already not going to win reelection. He has not change their political future. I disagree. Of donald trump were to back flake or corker. What i dont work out alabama. That was a huge mistake on his part. They think others cynically made sense, corker and flake because of their disagreements given worrying as he only had a few options. Try to act like a real human being and remake everything to build bridges back with people like mitch mcconnell. The other thing is to do it donald trump is an there is a way that works. You can only lose to write you are publicly mccain, if i cannot lose a Single Person i would try thats true except if you cant talk to people in these different states theres nobody more popular. His approval rate might be 33 donald trump still has a plurality, he has a solid following the people. Not enough to accomplish anything but it is enough to sabotage anyone who wants to run for office. Now you say is he going to lose in 2020 . It depends on who he runs against. I think any of us could beat him at the. We knew we had a flawed candidate. I sat down with the democratic operative and then walk me through 19point plan and they said it cannot happen and that was the conventional wisdom at the time. I think it was possible to for him to win. We knew that she was a deeply fly canada. Yes, but we started think he could possibly get elected. So, 2022 think 30 chance he loses, where are you right now . By now the Republican Congress and the. Theres something coming up because the District Attorney has a lot of control over who gets arrested, theres going to be an event on november 20 have to get like a thousand people. The first time that he wont arrest people were gonna come back on november 20. It the one issue to talk about is donald trump. In the future how do you suggest some doesnt suffer this . Is there a better way for people i suspect when this happens it might be a target. I would want to make sure he got paid for it. Ramsey just gave us the daily news. He could have made a fortune off that video. And people do, i think he later regretted it, its difficult. You can upload it anonymously probably do it will people. The cop standing there wouldve known, they came from over your shoulder and they knew them. And ramsey had films and abuse incident just like that a week before. At least now here protection to know what that really means. Yes, i think youre right. I think you have to be courageous like many people have been. Theres a lot of stories that are unsympathetic in trying to understand them. Also stories that powerful people dont want to have told. So you felt like you were not able to get out what happened on the police side and im curious if you can talk about why it was so difficult to do that. There is a legal issue. Even though shes out of the woods the local courts he still has a possible civil case. I dont think you really can speak to a reporter. Even people who are friends of his dont want to talk. Even offer a reason or explanation. The press is the enemy. Very similar situation to when i try to cover Donald Trumps campaign. I tried to ask was the reason, im interested. Im not being judgmental. I just want to know. And the answer with the presses nasty. So in this case with Police Brutality cases there is an assumption from the start that unless you are no commodity, someone they know will take the plea side, they will not talk to you. Cnn is fake but foxs real, we are upside down. Thank you for being here, im interested now that its on the world is what you expect the book to do and what your white readership to do that theres more to it than just a drug dealer or just broken windows, systemic racism thats feeling this. Thats a great question. The lesson i hope that white people take from this book is that these things are not stories about things that have between a couple of bad cops who area bad decisionmaking on the street do something bad. And what a shame, this is what happens institutionally, because of decisions may not a second spit for the course of months and years and decades. Its not just about bureaucrats or politicians, about voters. A lot of upscale white urban voters need to ask themselves if they voted for that. You have a liberal politician who says vague things about how he will get tough on crime or Something Like community policing. But really at the heart of the problem when you examine it is about keeping neighborhood segregated. Upscale white voters who dont want people in their neighborhoods. People need to ask if thats what they continue to vote for. That is a place where we have to get before the problem gets solved. Have read a ten on the garner stuff and i still learned a lot. Reading the book is wellwritt wellwritten, congratulations and thank you. [applause] [applause] [inaudible] [inaudible] heres a look at some of the best books of the year according to library journal. , ghost of the innocent man, benjamin reports on a North Carolina man falsely convicted of rape in 1980. In his path to exoneration. New yorker staff writer because the Indian Nation the 1920s and killers of the flower moon. Wrapping up is hunger. Can you talk to us about those hard about writing this . Everything. You want me to elaborate . Sure. It was difficult. I sold this book and i was thinking about what i want to my next nonfiction project to be. And the book i want to write least is a book about fatness. On i realized its the book i should write the most. My dad always said do something no one else is doing it if you want to achieve success. A lot of people read about fatness is perspective of figuring out their body and someone who has lost their way. Like someone has lost weight and said i did it. And i thought i cant write that book yet and i want to so why dont i tell the story of my body today. Without apology, just this is my fat body and this is what its like to be in this body. Some of the others have appeared on book tv. Wash them website. Here watching book tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations]