Very much. Thank you. Guest good morning, ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. Were about to start. Good morning, again. Im Madeline Harrison and its my pleasure to welcome you to miami book fair, the 2017 edition. And what a wonderful week it has been and its not even over. I hope youre enjoying all of the presentations, the enga engagement of the hustle and bustle of the book fair and the street fair in particular. And i would like to give a special with em to those fair goers who are from out of town. Can i see a show of hands for out of town visitors . Welcome to miami. [applaus [applause] as many of you know, this fair would not be possible without the collaboration of of hundreds of volunteers, corporate and community sponsors, such as ohl and many, many, many others and i might add, without the convening of miamidade college, which is a founder and true presenter of miami book fair. Lets give a round of applause to miamidade college. Were going to get started, you know, this room is always full of engagement. Once the guest speaker has concluded, you have the student to ask questions. Well have a few minutes for questions so please do access the mics in the middle for that purpose. At this time id like you to silence your devices and follow me as i give brief introduction of our guest speaker today. Norman ornstein. Norman ornstein is a resident color and contributing editor and columnist for the National Journal and the atlantic. He is a coauthor of New York Times best seller its even worse than it looks. His book, one nation after trump, a guide for the perplex perplexed, disillusioned, and the not yet deported, its an essential book for this era as many of us would agree and a true unsparing assessment of the current states of the united states. And it also serves as an inspiring road map for how we can move Forward Together on a unified front to chance our nation. Please help me to welcome Norman Ornstein to the miami book fair. [applause]. Thank you so much. And i must say, ive been to many, many book fairs, theres nothing like this. [applause]. And its a real des testament to this city for the incredible diversity that it brings and this crowd that blows me away is certainly a d detestament to that. I want to add a food note. Back in 1992, i was the first pollster for Comedy Central and its first coverage of our politics, indecision 1992. I want to tell you the first poll that i did, inspired poll. Back then all the Television Networks would get these 900 phone numbers where they would have viewers call in and pay 75 cents to give their opinion on an issue. So we got our own 900 callin number and the question i asked our viewers was, would you pay 75 cents to call in and ask your opinion on an issue . And we were flooded with always and 97 said no. [laughter] as you look at polls, just keep that in the back of your mind. So we are at day 294 of the Trump Presidency or as President Trump says longer than any other president. And for me, as for many others, it has been 294 days of mostly unrelenting pain. My i have two coauthors on this book. One a longtime coauthor of mine over almost 50 years of partnership and we did a book in 2006 about Congress Called the broken branch. And then we did that book about our politics more generally in 20 its even worse than it looks and then we updated it in 2016 to its even worse than it was and i joke for some time the next book would have to be called run for your live lives, but we decided to go in a slightly different direction and we added in a third coauthor, a wonderful Washington Post columnist, brookings color and academic. Ej deon on i do want to say as i will probably repeat a few times, it makes a Great Holiday gift. [laughter] thanksgiving is right around the corner. Bar mitzvahs, christmases, anything, a great gift. We felt a need to address what happened to our politics, to our country, to our culture and yet, after three books that could have easily given me the title of the debby downer of american politics, this book, which is a tough critique, also, is hopeful at the end and i will come to that. And i will say, i was a little hopeful during the campaign, i talked to some of my nervous friends and dont worry, even if hes elected. He wont be there long, hell leave us for a younger country. [laughte [laughter] he may be leaving us for an older country before we know it, but thats a different matter. Let me talk just a little about whats in the book and address our the situation a little more generally and then im hopeful we can have some dialog as well. This book is really in three parts. The first part is how we got here. The second is, what the dangers are. And the third is, what we can do about it, where were going and i will say that a part of my motivation for doing this and i came up with the subtitle first which covers much of the country. That i would have people say to me every day, what do we do . What do we do now . And we really felt the need to try and talk about what can be done and how we need to rise. And the hopefulness is built on a belief that donald trump has jolted us and jolted the country into realizing what the threat is and i will come back to that. But first let me talk a bit about how we got here. And there, were not referring to just getting donald trump, but to the conditions that led to a trump that go back decades and that we could call the rise of trumpism, but its something even broader than that and i dont want to just play into his ego on that front either. And at least a part of it is broader changes in the society that go beyond our politics. And so, we have a chapter on the decline of community, the country, the sense of detachment that people have from their own communities, from their citizens, that has taken place over a lot of swaths of territory in the country and some of which written about very, very eloquently by Robert Putnam ap also by the Journalist Bill bishop in his book, more recent vintage, the big sort, where people have increasingly moved into areas where theyre surrounded by like minded people, but theres a detached group of citizens from another. This goes back a long ways and we have social in the 1960s bemoaning this and its tied to the great economic dislocations that occurred over many decades. And theres a powerful book about a community in west virginia, a small town and citizens were linked to one another and the Community Institutions worked well and then they had a flood to destroy the livelihood and the community fell apart. And those institutions stopped working and we saw enormous dysfunction built into it. We had, as well, the book by the great africanamerican socialologist William Julius wilson, about what happened in the Thriving Communities and inner cities with an africanamerican working Class Population when the jobs moved out and as that happened, the community went under enormous stress and decline. Its the same thing that we see with rural areas and exurban areas and things arent working the way they used to. And the problems in society transcend all of the categories that we normally think about, including the racial once and were seeing it play out in a lot of places now. And those stresses are there and a part of our great challenge is to reknit and rebuild communities in the country, and rebuild it around something broader than a local area as well, to recreate this great sense of patriotism that is not the negative nationalism pitting one group against another, blood and soil that were seeing played out now. Theres a distinction between the two. But theres also the political side of it. And here, too, the seeds of donald trump and trumpism go back quite a ways. Some of it is because of the change in our geography and our politics going to the 1960s, starting with Barry Goldwater the seminal moment when lbj signed the act and said to harry mcpherson, this is going to cost the Democratic Party the south for generations to come. Some of it actually precedes that. And the rise of air conditioning, as a common phenomenon. Im old enough to remember when i was a kid and air conditioning was not commonplace in homes. On a hot day we would go to the Movie Theater to cool off. But then, it became a commonplace thing and all of a sudden, the south became a place where people could move and live year round and that meant a lot of seniors moving from the northeast and the midwest, down south, and those were often republicans who had populated regions in the northeast and the midwest that were thriving places for moderate republicans and move them south ap it helped to make, along with the voters rights act, the civil rights revolution. The south moving from a solidly democratic region to the most significant republican region and of course, music i often ask to be accompanied by music, but right now id rather not. That also, with the way districting took place, created some great divisions, asraciall in the south and transformed it as well. The northeast and the midwest that had been bastions of moderate republicans became strong holds for democrats. The west coast went through a similar transformation and we saw our parties that had been, when i first came to washington, kind much conglomerates, cutting across a lot of ideological boundaries, but with most of the members somewhere near the middle begin to change. And those changes affected both parties and they affected one more than the other. Back in the 1970s, when i was teaching Political Science fulltime, i would describe congress in the essential, i would say imagine if we took all the members and put them op buses and drive them a mile and a half due east of the capital to what was then our football stadium. Rfk stadium. And we told them to go down on the field and place themselves where their world view would make them most comfortable and we went up into the press box. We would look down on what would be a normal distribution, the vast majority of people somewhere near the midfield stripe, generally between the 40 yard line and a mixture of two parties, trailing off to a small number as you moved down, i way. The midfield area. Well, if we fast forward to today, and repainted the football lines on the now defunct stadiums and went up into the press box and looked down on the members of the 115th congress, we would see a pretty barren midfield area. On one side of the field congregated around the 20, 25 yard line trailing off to a smaller number. On the other side youd have one or two people before you got to the goal line and then a whole lot behind the goal posts and even more floating in the Anacostia River nearby. And thats a real change in our mreks. The fact is you can have a polarization of the sort that weve talked about so much and still have problem solving and i look back on, for example, the odd couple, last week my coauthor, ej and i were up at the edward m. Kennedy institute at the senate in boston where theyre recreated the Senate Chamber and i was reflecting on the odd couple relationship between teddy kennedy, proud liberal. And orrin hatch, a proud conservative. Life styles that could not have been more different, but a close relationship and the Children Health insurance, provides Health Insurance for 9 million children wouldnt exist if it wasnt for that relationship. It tells you about the tribal nature of the politics now and radical change that that childrens Health Insurance program is almost two months without being funded and we have 9 million children left vulnerable as a consequence. And the chairman of the committee responsible for it is orrin hatch, who has instead decided to push through a tax bill that provides great benefits for owners of private jets, while taking away the scholarship taxfree status for graduate students. So, even those people who were problem solvers are not anymore, but we had it back then and that began to change and frankly, it began to change with newt gingrich. And when newt came into congress, and i met him right after he arrived, after the 1978 election and met him in january of 1979 and tom and i, sponsored a series of small dinners every couple of months with members of the class of 1978 to take them through, off the record. Their experiences and their first term in congress and we picked eight people representing different viewpoints and different regions, but also, we wanted to pick people who would make a mark and it was quite a class and we chose wellment besides newt, we had dick cheney and newt knew when he got there to create a republican majority in congress and arrived 24 consecutive years for democrats became 40 and he knew the only way to do it, he believed, was to create this national sense of disgust with politics in washington and everybody there, so that people would say, throw them all out and that meant the ins would go and the outs would come in and exploited it after 24 years, power does corrupt. They had become arrogant and complacent and were condescending towards the majority minority and often a little corrupt and they overreacted, but newt deliberately tribalized the process and radicalize his own party and then do the same thing in the country. And a populous outrage in late 1980s, over a pay raise for public officials, and bill clintons election gave them the vehicle to do it, but it permanently transformed the way we do with our politics and he brought in a group of people who viewed the world in tribal ways and alsos viewed washington as an utter cesspool. Just to give you one story that i first wanted to be careful was sort of tells you what happened in our politics. One. People who came in in that gingrich area was rick santorum, several years before he left the senate one of my friends and great heroes alan simpson, conservative republican from wyoming came back to visit the senate and walked in the capital and santorum saw him and alan simpson saw across the chamber, a former democratic senator from arkansas, and almeda beeline over to bumpers and had a warm embrace and chatting warmly and then he saw santorum back where they come in looking agitated, and motioned him over and simpson ambled back and, yeah, santorum said whats that all about . Thats bumpers, were like brothers, and work on many things and santorum said we dont do things like that anymore. Thats tribalism. When i saw simpson to validate the story and said it happened. I said was he agitated because you were embracing a democrat or because you were embracing a guy . [laughter] i wont tell you his response, but maybe a little bit of both. But that tribalism mattersment and at the same time the pay raise that i mentioned matters as well. That was in 1988 and what we had was the elites in the society, at the time we had what were called quadrenials. The leaders of the institutions would evaluate what we should do with the pay of the members of congress and to be executives and decided because they hadnt had a raise for ten years and it was hard to find judges that would come in for a lifetime and make up for ten years of inflation with a 25 pay raise and supported by Ronald Reagan as he left office and George Herbert walker bush his successors, and leaders of congress and the public went ballistic. The previous year. The federal communications, if you have one point of view you have to balance with with another. With that, Rush Limbaugh who had been a noon time talk show host in sacramento on radio moved to new york to try and make his way and then the pay raise gave him the rocket to start up. And that created talk radio as a political phenomenon, and it began the tradition of media that we have now. All of those things mattered and all of it became amplyfied as we moved through into the obama era and then what we saw was the economic strains and the populism that emerged fullblown with the financial collapse in 2008 and the response of the elites as president george w. Bush and his treasury secretary hank paulison and the chair of the fed ben bernanke and previous members of fed met with leaders of the congress, the entire economy could collapse and we have to act now. The tarp program, the troubled assets relief program. What many people remembered, it failed. Despite the urgency and importance in the house of representatives, because a group of radical House Republicans said why should we believe any of this. Then the dow dropped over 700 points which back then was a bill deal and they came back and passed it, but the recentments remained and most americans said, wait a minute, let me get this straight just like the 25 pay raise when most of us were getting, if we were lucky, a 1 cola, and they make 87,500 and complaining it wasnt enough. And bailed out the miscreants that got us into this mess and big bonuses on top of that. What happened to us . We lost our houses or if we didnt lose them they declined in value 30, 40 and most americans dont have cash savings. The nest egg is in the home and as you get older, you can down size and a have a Retirement Fund or give money to your kids for tuition or down payment for their homes. And our nation, a survey done recently, shocking numbers. People asked, used to be 500 and now 400. If you had an emergency that required 400 in cash, could you come up with it . 68 of americans say no. Right . So, your car, the tree hits the house and youve got to pay the deductible on the insurance. You have a medical emergency, you cant come up with the cash and the bailout, what did that say . To those americans and even those with some resources, but who were hurt, you lost your job, or if you didnt lose your job, with a stagnant economy, your employer knew they had you where they wanted you and they can make you work longer hours for less pay and we saw the occupy walmart movement emerge on the left and then the Tea Party Movement on the right and all of that began to feed on itself to create some of the seeds that could result in the emergence of a donald trump and, of course, trump himself exploit the that anxiety and some of the larger anxiety over the changes in our country, the growing diversity, the fact that by 2050 white americans will no longer be a majority in the country when he cynically exploited the Birther Movement to become the leader of a movement thats openly racist in nature and that gave him a platform to run for president. Now, at the same time as obama came in, Republican Leaders in congress on inauguration eve, 2009. Desperate, demoralized. Depress depressed, not only had they lost the white house, they lost the house, they lost the senate and they met together on inaugural eve, a bunch of leade leaders, including some who call themselves the young guns, paul ryan, cantor, john cornyn, the number two in the senate. Gingrich themselves, they had dinner at the caucus room, a restaurant a few blocks from the white house and emerged with a spring in their step because they figured out the way to move ahead was to unite completely in opposition to everything that obama and democrats wanted and delegitimized everything, and blocking everything they could and that worked as a charm headed into the mid term elections and the young guns fanned around the country taking a page from the gingrich play book and recruited candidates and exploited that tea party anger. If you bring us into power and get us into congress and well bring obama to his knees, and revoke obamacare and doddfrank, and they won a sweeping victory and none of it happened. Came back in 2012, said dont worry if you vote for us, after all, the scales have been pulled away from the eyes of americans and they know the kenyan socialist for what he is, it will be a oneterm presidency and then we can do what we want and it didnt work. Again in 2014, it was were outnumbered 21, theyve got the senate if we can win the senate we outnumber them 21 and bring obama to his knees and get rid of obamacare and doddfrank and none of it happened. And that set the seeds for the 2016 nomination contest. Conventional wisdom said republicans will do what we always do, flirt with an outsider, the herman cains of the world and nominate the obvious candidate was jeb bush, we had bush 41 and bush 43 and the motto in the family, no child left behind. [laughte [laughter] but jeb was the lost child who was, in fact, left behind. Because the reaction. Tea party populous republicans and conservatives out there was, you guys are no better than the other ones. You told Us Government was evil and youd blow it up and you didnt, youre establishment just like the rest of them and an outsider was going to be the choice. It didnt have to be donald trump. It could have been ted cruz, you know, the insiders outsider whose calling card was going in the senate and calling his own leader Mitch Mcconnell a liar. Or carly fiorina, a woman who had been a ceo. Or ben carson a neuro surgeon, and africanamerican surgeon. But trump had his finger on the zygeist of the party. And often the things that accompanied it, he got at ththa about the mexican rapists coming in and the wall and making mexico pay for it and muslim and you saw ted cruz befuddled that anybody could get to the right of him on anything. And as trump took on the candidates, belittling jeb and little marco, he likes to belittle floridians and the candidates and taking on fox news and megyn kelly and with fox news, im not like these weak establishment figures who bow down to obama, im not taking crap from anybody. And he played on another great meme in american life, politics is so awful, they dont anything so corrupt. Why can nt we run government like a business and he gave them the promise of running government like a business and i will tell you right now, we are fulfilling that promise. We are running government like a business. The business is trump university. Oh, so all of that enabled trump to win a nomination, and the unease in society and the frank reality that we had two candidates who were underwater in terms of public support gave him the conditions in which he could compete and then a lot of things that happened in the final two weeks, combined with what we now know was a big fat, putinesque thumb on the scales of the political system combined with Voter Suppression, gave the difference in wisconsin, at least, gave him the ability to win even though he did not win the popular vote. Now, he won under the rules, thats a reality. Those rules may need some rethinking. And ill just talk for one minute about the Electoral College and note that from the moment when the popular vote actually meant anything at all, in 1824, all the way up through 172 years and 44 elections, we had three arguably in which there was some question whether the winner of the popular mandate actually was elected president. One where it was very clear, one out of 44. From 2000 on weve had five elections, two out of five and that tells you were heading down a path, a very dangerous path where increasingly we will see the winner of the popular vote lose the Electoral College, and it can happen once, and we can say, those are the rules, which is what happened in 2000. When it happens twice and then three times and then four times, the question of the legitimacy of the presidency is going to be a very real one and its something were going to have to deal with. Let me talk in a few minutes about the second part of the book and we can talk about the elements and what brought it about, if you want. Thats the dangers that we have and i want to mention three words to stop with. Autocracy. Kleptocracy, and techocacy. Autocracy, weve seen books, on tyranny about the steps that move you away from a vibrant democracy towards aut auto autocracy. I dont like to use this analogy, but its a little like the frog put in a pot of cold water and changes degree by degree and only when it starts to boil that you realize, he realizes or she realizes its a point of no return. And what we no about autocracy, it starts with attacks on the free press. The press is the enemy of the people. A phrase originated by stalin, rejected by khrunichev as too dangerous and picked up by trump. With the judiciary, whi which weve seen in the campaign on the mexican judge and the travel bans. We see it with attacks on the system of justice, now on the fbi, on the intelligence services, which are a threat, on mueller himself, including from abroad. We see it with this sense of, i am the only one, during the campaign and egotism. What trump said with almost all vacancies in the state department and saying this. And on the opposition, delegitimizing the opposition. The kleptocracy, we have seen this in government itself, including billionaire plu plutocrats like the treasury secretary and the president and his family. Threat of autocracy, a system designed, ill go back to the first sentence in the book, american democracy was never designed to give us a president like donald trump. Were designed to create some boundaries around the process. It starts with an independent process. How many hearings in the house and senate in ten months on violations of the two emolument clauses and other efforts, including by the family to enrich themselves. Lances. Now the 17th century term that comes from a greek word, and im not doing what i can to bring it back, and the greek word basically means government by the worst and most unscrupulous among us, extended to the worst kind of government. So, you have a president who has the least experience of any in our history. No experience in any level. O abraham link con, one term in congress. Lincoln knew he needed people around him that knew what they wereou doing. Doris kearns goodwins book the team of rivals, watt not about bringing a bunch of people together to pit them against each other. It wast oh, my god i need experience people, people who hate me and rans against me. Trump brings in Reince Priebus, his chief of staff. A guy who was a party functionary, before that a term or so in the wisconsin legislature. I want to remind you, whenever you see reince although he is out of politics right now, always keep y in mind Reince Priebus is without the vowels, rncprbs. [laughter]. Do not like at him without thinking about that. [laughter]. Then you bring in steve bannon andin steve miller as your top actors. Then you bring into your cabinet Goldman Sachs executives and business types who never served in governmentwh before. Then with the 600 or so top policy positions, senate confirmable, that matter, deputy secretaries undersecretary is assistant secretaries heads of bureaus and heads of agencies, a year into the presidency more half unfilled, not even nominated for positions, including key ambassadorships. When you have a president who goes to asia with the threat of a Nuclear Conflict with north korea, and we do not have an i am ambassador in south korea, and you dont trust anybody else, that is cacocracy defined. Secretary of state hollowing out the diplomatic corp. , it will take decades to bring back people leading in droves, none of that is effective way to run government. When you have ay budget directr proudly calls himself a rightwing nutcase, i kid you ct, comes up with a budget, lets cut spending for national oceonographic atmospheric information because we dont like the weather satellites because they tell us something about climate. But the weather satellites are the Early Warning system for hurricanes. So take away the Early Warning so people dont have the ability to prepare and then cut funding for fema so that you can build the wall, cut funding for the centers for Disease Control which deals with pandemics that human history, every one hundred years like clockwork we have pandemic. The lastt one was 1917, 1918. It killed more people than world war i and world war ii combined in the united states, the flu back then. That is cacotoca doctor. Y. All of those things need our focus. A few minutes, on, i know the time. Okay, thank you o very much. A few minutes on why im a little hopeful and where we go from here. [laughter]. So i believe, you know, i thought of this a few weeks ago watching the, quite remarkable movie dunkirk by christopher nolan. In dunkirk the west was facing a deep threat. The british army and french allies beaten into submission, caught with 400,000 troops on the beach, sitting ducks. The response of the british military, what was left, inadequate. British Civil Society saw the existential threat and rose to the occasion. Donald trump, i hope is our dunkirk, and our dunkirk in twoways. One is, we have to recognize a society divided is a society that can not survive. And we are divided politically now, tribally, blue states, red states. Seeing others as the enemy and not just an an adversary. Driven more by our antipathy towards fellow citizens on the other side of the aisle. More americans saying they would be upset if a child of theirs married somebody from the other party than somebody from another religion or even another race now, i kid you not. We are divided into geographical boundaries where metropolitan areas highlyeducated thriving in the global economy, find that theyre facing a very different atmosphere as you move to smaller towns, into rural areas where they are less educated and less able to cope with these changes and society is coming apart at the seams. Within blue states and red states. And if we dont find a way to heal those wound, and that includes the racial divide we have now than we have had in some time, then, we are not going to be able to survive in the way we have before and that could have gone on if hear hadnt had a trump until a point of no return. Now i think were starting to realize we have to find ways to communicate with one another and build a different level of empathy and around new patriotism, celebrates, what we are, what we can be, what we should bee and new optimism. At same time existential threat to our democracy posed by a president who is not like any weve had before. And by a political system that is not responding to a popular will in any fashion. We see that with proposals on health care and on taxes, and in many other areas we will find our way forward and there are ways off altering the structures of the political system to help to move us back in a different direction, and what were seeing is this wonderful response from so many elements of the Civil Society. And that includes lawyers. Probably more lawyer jokes than any other in the society but look how lawyers responded to the travel ban. Look at how they have responded with probono efforts, with people, boning up on Immigration Law so they can help those caught up in this cruel approach that were seeing, another part of the cacostocracy, which i was add shaped by john kelly, now the chief of staff. I do not want to let him off the hook at all of some horrible things happened within the department of Homeland Security and within i. C. E. Religious groups are stepping up, catholic bishops moving back to help protect the safety net, least among us, one of the callings of all of our great religions. Efforts to build sanctuary congregations and create a different dialogue and climate in this society. Were seeing with some groups like the Campaign Legal center which i am a chair. The crew, the citizens for responsibility in ethics in washington taking on the kleptocracy and other challenges to the law in the system. Were seeing it with the Mueller Investigation and were seeing it with groups like indivisible, rising from the grass roots up to get out there mobilize. What were seeing is, is that there is a different response than weve had before. Theat occupy movement in contrat to the Tea Party Movement occupied. Then they went away. Now, what were seeing is more sustained evident, and that played out in those elections in virginia and other places last tuesday. It is not just in elections. It is in moving in to make sure that members of congress and others know that their actions are being watched and to hold them accountable for it. With that, and if we can create a different way, this is a tough thing, separating out a group of people who are truly evil. There are evil people in this society who are exploiting racism and antisemitism and ugly values, to separate us, some of them in the tribal media because they can make a lot of money, but others with social media now you can build a network that reinforces some of those views. Separating them out from others who may support political figures, exploiting those views but are doing it out of the great upheaval that they faced in their lives and sense of despair that they feel towards their futures and those of their children and we have to find a way to develop a different kind of dialogue with them. If we can do all of those things wegu will not just survive all f this but we can thrive out of it in creating a better america and with that, i will say two things, one, have a nice day. And two, remember the holidays are coming. [laughter] im happy to task some questions or comments. [applause] yes, sir . A couple of things. First, on the state department, it seems the intentional denuding of the state department and choice of tillerson, putins buddy, doesnt seem accidental. So, two questions. First, do you think its accidental that tillerson is secretary of state presiding over this, what is going on . Also, because not much said, do you think Mueller Investigation is going to get to this . Where do you see that going . Lastly and importantly, the Structural Solutions, i dont hear you talking about the Structural Solutions in terms of the Electoral College. I mean obviously if that could be fixed democrats would seemingly win most elections. That would seem crucial the Electoral College. Can you Say Something more. Very quickly on those. One of the things we have to keep in mind that Rex Tillerson as secretary of state because condoleeza rice and bob gates recommended him. They hadin served on exxon committee with him and thought he was really smart, might be good. I hope every night they kick themselves for what they have done. We know that one of the reasons that tillerson was picked is because he looks like a secretary of state and that bob corker was not picked because he is too short. Cacostacray. I dont think anybody would suspect that tillerson is systematically destroying the state department as he is. Im not sure what the reasons are. We know ai guy from exxon who s awarded top medal from russia, is somebody who needs to be watched very carefully. On the Electoral College, we are strong supporters of the the electoral vote compact in states. 165 represented in states passed laws, as soon as you get over the 270 mark, p they will in thr law direct that the electors be granted to the winner of the National Popular vote. That would help. There is still some structural issues and dilemmas though. Is that going anywhere . It will take a while. Of course one of the problems small states have no great interest in changing things. I would also say this is not a mater of guarrantying democrats can win elections. What is important that we have two vibrant parties that can compete for national elections. Republican party will be a conservative party. The choice is do they try to have policies that can reach out more broadly to compete in a Fair National election . Or do they instead narrow the choice to rely on billionaires funding them and on Voter Suppression . And i think that the country and Republican Party would be so much better served if they moved in the former direction. Yes, sir . Yes. Talk a little bit about the republican philosophy about starving the beast. That is maybe one of the reasons why were doing with the state department. Sure. Starving the beast. You know oneop of the things thats happened is, we have a Republican Party that has gone from conservative party, which believes that government should be smaller and leaner and meaner but we need government, many parts of it, and those parts should work effectively efficiently. One partit is always been diplomacy and our positioning abroad. Now it is a radical version, and radical version is, if any part of Government Works well, that is bad people will like it, want more of it. The tax bill is, you know, very much aimed at cutting out revenue from the government and then forcing government to downsize as a consequence. It is a cynical approach, to some degree it goes back to David Stockman at the beginning of the Reagan Administration who then denounced it because he said it cant work. Of course the places that are the most vulnerable, the ones theyre aiming at more than anything else are medicare, social security, and medicaid. Those are the big ones. And the tax bill hits medicare and medicaid directly. 25 billion taken immediately out of medicare, and that is going to have a big impact on dual eligibles and it will have a real impact on the system itself, and its not a functioning governments approach to actually helping citizens. Yes . While there is more than enough reason to blame republicans where were at now, part of the problem is also on the shoulders of the democrats. Im reminded of a story about how lbj, when he was i think in west virginia, was actually, went to the trouble to talk to this one particular person, you know this story i see where he gets down, talks to this one particular person who had voted steadily republican all his life but because lbj went in there and talked to him personally he got them to not only, get this man to switch his vote but the county to switch how it voted. I think that the big problem is that democrats have ceded too much of the country to the republicans. It is a big problem because most of the problems that you mentioned are systemic, to fix many of those problems the Electoral College, too much money in the system, and gerrymandering we need let me answer in a couple of ways. The first is, there are no angels here. This is not one Wonderful Group of people and one horrible group of people. It n is nature of politics. Having saidle that, the democras have also made some great mistakes here. We have a chapter in the book on economics, with, what i think is kind of at least blueprint how to perform and behave. A good part of it is, you can not pit one groups pain against anothers. We cant talk about the white working class. We should be talking about the working class. This has been a problem that has stretched all communities. There are policies that can help deal with them, alleviate the pain. You also c can not approach this simply as, from elitist perspective. Now, you know, when you talk about analogies, looking at the past, you know, many people have said our politics, gee the analogy is probably period leading up to the civil war which you really dont want to have as your analogy. But i would also arguably very powerfully this could be a little bit like reconstruction. You can remember in the aftermath of therf civil war the south had basically white sharecroppers with freed blacks, all of whom struggling to make it with a small group of economic elites in the system, opening almost there for the working people to unite and take on those elites. What the elites did realize they could use race as the wedge to exploit and divide. Were paying a price for that even now and were seeing it again. We have to fight against that, but the way to fight against it, is to have empathy for all groups facing these stresses. Try to find ways to see why others have pain, look at it through a different prettyism. So thanks prism. You spent a lot of time talkingki about how trump used racism, appeals to racism, in his campaign supposedly although there is really not any proof of that. But what i wanted to ask you, kind of like the opposite argument that i hear a lot is that maybe it is the democrats that are the racists because theyre constantly using the race card every year and trying to drum up hatred for white people with the black lives matter all that stuff. But,nd and, in addition to that, ofit course the open borders whh i constantly hear democrats and liberals like you say, by 2050 whites would be minority. You get big applause. Youre the racists. You want to displace the white population by 2050 if we continue i immigration policies . How is that not racism . You are the racist. T. So, first, just one little piece of evidence, when you see marchers in charlottesville, some of them wearing white hoods andhi chanting racist and antisemitic slogans and president says theyre are a lot of fine people there, and says, nothing after ain bunch of peope are murdered in a church in charleston, i view that as evidence, and i think we have a lot more. [applause] when you run a Long Campaign saying that barack obama was bornam in kenya, is not legitime president , i think the writing is on the wall with that one. Now o having said that, and, i dont celebrate the fact that the country will not be majority white after 2050. I view it as reality. I will tell you can go back to the 1920s, and 1930s, all kinds of people about the scourge of horrible irish and in and polluting the country. The same with other ethnic groups, that faced a different reality. As my late colleague ben said, peopleo want to come to this country because they want to make better lives for themselves and others. They celebrate the freedom an prosperity of america. Theyop are the right kinds of people to come here. They built this country whatever it is. Whatever their race or creed or nationalin origin or religion. That doesnt mean you dont have ways off protecting your border, and yet, when you have a party now trying to cut Legal Immigration as well as ilLegal Immigration, i doti not find tht as being something that fits either our traditions our ability to thrive in the future. If we end up like many European Countries h with aging populatis and young people who cant even pay for what will happen to those older people, if we dont have a vibrant, young workforce that really wants to make it and make their families better were not going to survive as a country. And i just do not view that in the same way. Now having said that i dont think there is a contradiction between understanding what the black lives Matter Movement is all about. I can not imagine, i get emotional with this stuff because i lost a son, i cant imagine what it was like, what it is like for a family to send a teenager out for an evening, and worry that that kid might be shot by a cop, just for driving while black. Is a difference. Those things happen in this society. But you can feel that pain and alsoso feel the pain of a family in a small town caught up with an opioid addiction because the jobs are not there, because the society isnt providing for them. There is nothing that says one is animical to the other. We have to make people understand all of that pain. [applause] i appreciate that. Tom perez, the new dnc chair, strikes me as an awfully good guy. I love his energy and i listen to everything he said leading up to the elections and after. It is my sense that he talks about you know the tenets quite often as he should to keep things pithy. Yet every time i watch and listen to him he has never said anything specific about economic growth, and it strikes me that he, by default, to a degree if that continues runs of the risk of seeding that issue to the republicans in a period where independents will be crucial. Any thoughts . Yeah. I do think, there are two camps, i think in a party in the minority. One is you just highlight your opposition to what the majority is doing and almost the sense that if somebody is committing suicide you dont, you know, kill them along the way but the other is that you offer your own positive agenda and, if you dont do that, you may succeed in the Midterm Election but youre not going to be prepared to govern. If you cant offer people some sense of hope, which is why one chapter in this book makes a Great Holiday gift, is an economic agenda. It is about creating growth and jobs. By the way, there are many ways in a tax bill to provide incentives for companies to actually do jobs instead of just saying, give them more money and it will trickle down, when it trickles down to shareholders and ceos but what weve seen is enormous reservoir of money in corporations they could use t to create more jobs that they dont. You need to have incentives to do it. I would like to see those alternatives but i also want to see a Democratic Party starts to put resources into state legislative races and into secretary of state races which are the ones that control elections. So there are a lot of things that have to be done. Tom perez has a lot of energy. I hopes he channel it in different way. I hope the democrats in congress and in thehe states start to wok on their own plans. I have about five more minutes. If i could just take remaining questions. I will try answer them, take them all, i will answer. Okay. In january were going to do a book study of your book at coral gables congregational book, if anybody interested, focusing on the positivero proposals. I wonder if there is any of those proposals you would like to t particularly highlight this morning . Sure. Hello, i, i want to thank you for your shoutout to the Legal Community for part of the pushback. I work for the American Civil Liberties union for last 40 years and we were [applause] thanknd you. Heavily involved in that but i want to change the subject, ask you todays New York Times editorial talks about the significance of in virginia of the refranchisement of the right to vote for former felons in virginia. I want to make a little commercial here. We have the opportunity to change florida and in changing florida, change the country by the effort here in florida. People here will see petitions outside and if we can refranchise over a Million People here in florida, that is one of the major ways we might be able to accomplish many of the things that you have been talking about. Thank you. Thank you. An [applause] yes . You mentioned, you mentioned orrin hatch. He also sponsored the orphan drug act back in 1983. The current tax bill now takes away the incentive for rare disease drug research. What can we do now to say come back to being your compassionate self, mr. Hatch . No thanks. What can we do . Okay. So just quickly, on all of those, in terms of proposals if were looking at the structures of government, we need to not just focus n on the Electoral College but we need to look at both redistricting reform and what i hope will be one very goodod change we could make is state by state in our president ial elections, which is toow allow rank Choice Voting or previous rans voting. Not only vote for the first choice. You do second or third and those votes get allocated as you move further down. That is because i want to remove the possibility that a jill stein or A Ralph Nader or a pat buchanan can switch the outcome of an election. Let a people, let them have opportunities. Let people vote for those if they want but not alter the results of an election because those votes would then be allocated. There are a lot of proposalses in there worth discussing. Felon refranchise, look at videos of youtube of former felons in virginia, able to vote for first time, people paid their debt for society, productive citizens, wanted back a very precious right. Many of them, you know, it hits, certainly africanamericans more than others but plenty of others as well, many of them caught up in the drug wave with these mandatory minimum sentences, put away for many years, didnt do anything horrible or violent. The idea that they are forever forbidden from voting i think is anathema. F on orrin hatch who i worked with in the past, who i would call a friend in the past who has been an enormous disappointment, and you look at the tax bill with many provisions like the orphan drug one, taking Scholarship Opportunities away, if youre put pew and you wanted to destroy americas primacy in science and technology, boy, you would love this particular provision. One of the things that all of us have to do is to go out and get someom members of congress and, because this bill is coming around again in the house. Well see a vote very soon in the senate. Marco rubio has to be informed about the horrible things in this bill and what they would do to floridians as well as to others in the country. Hold people to account for the votes that they cast. And then, orrin hatch will be leaving before long. Somehow,e bringing him back to being the problemsolving conservative that he was, really has to be a tasks for people in utah im afraid. For those of us outside who are able to hit him on twitter as i do on fairly regular basis. Thank you all very much. Ii really appreciate it. [applause]