Transcripts For CSPAN2 Texas Book Festival 20240713

Trumps war on the fbi. To start by giving brief introduction, josh is a supervisor or was supervisor special agent with the fbi, involved in highprofile terrorism and kidnapping investigations, he managed the bureaus Interagency Communications in response to crisis incidents as he describes them, overseas he was on multiple diplomatic and operational assignments, he has been awarded the fbi combat award four times for work embedded with military special operations and cia teams abroad, he is presently a cnn Law Enforcement analyst, many of you have probably seen him on cnn. Hes a team member term member, excuse me of the council in foreign relations, teaches National Security law at usc, he received masters from John Hopkins University and much more important from our perspective here in austin, graduate of the university of texas. [cheers and applause] [laughter] most relevant to his book is that he was james comeys special assistant. The book, again, cross fire hurricane gets its name that was the code name for the fbis russia investigation and as jim comeys assistant, he was he is able to offer a fly on the wall perspective and account on the early days of the investigation as well as really insightful analysis into the investigation up to the present, he was also there when director comey made some faithful decisions about another Investigation Called midyear exam which was the investigation to Hillary Clintons email server. Just as important the book offers joshs perspective on again what is the subtitle of the book, Donald Trumps war on the fbi. The trump administrations reaction to the investigations and their ramifications, the book i can tell you is a pageturner, i highly recommend it. I want to start my question just with, again, your ut experience, josh writes that he first decide today decided to become an fbi agent sitting at ut watching twin towers collapsed in 9 11, i would like for you to tell us about your ut experience and how it changed your world . I appreciate it, first, thank you all for coming. This is my first book and as part of that i thought that your work in once the book is finished and then i realized no, the publisher actually sends you on the road to talk about the book and that has been such an incredible aspect of writing this work because in my role now in journalism, in television, i never get to see the audience, im stairing into a camera, i know that youre out there but i cant see you and so this has been rewarded to go be able to a, spend time with you to interact with you, have q a which is always the best part and so i look forward to that, thank you so much for coming, the fact that im here at home makes it that much more special. As you mentioned, you know, i went to the university of texas at austin, i get asked what made you join the fbi, what was that road like and it didnt start my College Career didnt start, you know, thinking i was going to join the fbi, in fact, when i started uti thought that i was some day going to go Global Market action overnight into the Foreign Service and be a diplomat overseas, i was interested in International Relations but just over one week into my College Career here at ut as you mentioned, i found myself standing in the government building in a hallway next to other students as we watched an endless loop of commercial airliners slamming into a manhattan skyscraper and that was critical moment for the nation, for the country, number the aftermath of that watching the response of Law Enforcement and the fbi, the agencies that were responsible for somehow bringing justice to the victims but also finding any of those people that were out there that may have been responsible and bringing them to justice and so i wanted to be a part of that and i set out to orient my career around joining the fbi, i was fortunate to the an internship at the fbi my junior year and just go to the place, the mission, the people it was unlike anything that i had ever seen, unlike any people that i had ever met. Now, what is interesting is that i thought, okay, you know, there are issues here that are important to me, policy issues as it relates to the war on terrorism and the like and so i wondered, well, since im still in college i havent dedicated myself to any particular career, i wonder what the political side is like, the policy making side of government is like and so i actually worked a session in this building here, the texas capitol, and it was an experience that that was very insightful to see these politicians at work, to see how they interact with each other, how bills become law, how they try to influence each other, how the sausage is made, so to speak and after the session i walked out of the building thinking theres no way in hell im going to politics after that experience and so, again, my road was to the fbi and i was fortunate enough after graduation to be hired fulltime and got had the pleasure of serving in a number of different assignments in americas premier Law Enforcement agency. Great, i will ask a few more questions and 10 to 15 minutes left in the session we will open up to questions in to the audience, theres a couple of microphones in the front and the back and at the appropriate time we will direct you to the microphones. Let me start to ask you about two consequential decisions director comey made during the 2016 president ial campaign, the first was the decision in july to not only announce publicly that the fbi had decided to recommend that Hillary Clinton not be prosecuted but in the interest of transparency to announce publicly the details of the investigation and to criticize Hillary Clintons conduct. The second consequential decision was the decision on october 28th to announce that the fbi had reopened the investigation of Hillary Clintons email server 11 days before the election. In your book, you say that with regard to the first decision, the july press conference, you were in favor of transparency, you were a little more and i would like for you to talk about your decisionmaking process, what you know of director comeys Decision Making process and also ask you if theres any regrets . Great questions, so what i try to do with this book is to bring you inside this agency during a very chaotic period and that began with the investigation into secretary clinton and her email server because if you think about it the fbi and seems obvious now but had under investigation one of the leading candidates for the presidency which is not a place that the fbi had found itself in before, now, that would obviously become more unprecedented later on when the bureau found itself investigating People Associated with the other candidate for office and so just chaotic time inside the bureau but backing up to the investigation of secretary clinton, what i try to do in the book is, again, bring you in the room during the decisionmaking processes but also bring you up close to james comey the person and i will preface this by saying that as i sit here today and someone that is in journalism, you know, as i look at our leaders in government and former leaders for that matter, its up to me to ensure that the view that im portraying is, you know, just the facts, right, these are the decisions, these are the actions and i think its up to you the public, the readers, the listeners, the viewers, to make the decision whether you think that people in power are doing what they should be and so thats what i try to do not only in my daily life now but also in the book, now, what comey has said about these very faithful decisions and, you know, i knew on that day of the comey press conference in july of 2016 when he stepped to the microphone, closing the investigation of Hillary Clinton, i knew, we all knew, everyone on the team that this was now thrust agency in state of turmoil because if you think about it half of the country was going to be angry with the fbi regardless of what happened with the investigation. If the recommendation was she not be prosecuted, you would have people that would be angry, if the recommendation that she would be prosecuted another set of people that would be very angry. What comey tried to do and you dont have to agree with the decision, what i try to do is explain what his rationale based on interviewing him and talking to him and having worked for him, what he tried to do was air in the side of ensuring that the the public had the full story about what had transpired. Youll recall prior to his decision there was another decision by another leader that impacted what he did next and that was at the time the attorney general Loretta Lynch was in phoenix and met privately on an airplane with president bill clinton. Then candidate trump and others said, this is the biggest scandal weve ever seen, you know, coordinating, this looks bad. I personally sit here, i cant imagine that Loretta Lynch who was an accomplished lawyer would have been sitting there plotting, you know, about how to make an investigation go away, that doesnt square with my reality. But that said, perception matters especially when youre in a highprofile position so what happened after that took place she did not recuse herself from the Hillary Clinton investigation and so, in fact, she remained in the chain of command and for james comey as he describes in answering questions, what he thought was, look, if we recommend that she not be prosecuted which is the way the decision was leaning and we just sent a letter to doj and the public doesnt know what we did, theyll be lingering doubt about whether the fbi was in the tank for Hillary Clinton especially when you had issues of perception and he did something that had never been done, stood before the American People and made this long announcement, described the fbis axles, criticized some of her behavior and ultimately recommend that she not be prosecuted. Now, im critical of comey in the book in certain aspects as well and i worked very closely with him, had the honor of lifetime to some of the greatest leaders that the fbi has seen and people in washington, you dont have to agree with actions or decisions but i can tell you as a person, i mean, especially now this day and age where leaders lie to us every single day about things big and small, you know, one of the the big criticism comey, in an era that we are lied thousands of times according to Washington Post maybe a little is not a bad thing, thats my view, people can criticize his decisions and one that i criticized the language that comey used to describe Hillary Clintons behavior. And the problem there is that, you know, its not up to Law Enforcement if youre not going to prosecute someone to then talk about described someones behavior as bad and really try to disparage them and so i think that was unfortunate and by the way, he has since said that he wouldnt have used the same language in hindsight, i dont want to keep going on, its in the book, by the way, now hes staring at another set of fact where is the fbi has come in to new set of evidence, potential emails related to server that the fbi had to investigate, his decision was do i announce to the public that weve reopened this case or do i conceal that and at least in his mind he thought that either decision was an action, either speaking or concealing, this campaign of attack that i described by a sitting president to go after an agency, at the time what he was worried about was that the fbis reputation might suffer or be somehow negatively impacted if it came to light after the election that we had secretly had her under investigation again all along and he had not, you know, told to the American People, critical decision, you know, one thing i will say about him as well, if you look at comey actions which people can agree or disagree with, i hope that youll understand nearly every major decision that he made as a leader that was highprofile consequence, almost was universally for himself personally, he could have punted all the hard calls to other people and run away from them, but he decided, look, im the leader, i have to make the tough decisions and as one person described that i interviewed for the book, legal expert who has known him quite well, he described james comey as someone who has tendency to jump on the grenade even though they arent made for him and so tough call, tough decisions and tough time period for the agency. So let me pick up on your theme of the book about the dam to the fbi, you write that law and order breaks down when the public begins to question whether the system is rigged and that the Mutual Respect between citizens and those who are enforcing the law is a very fragile one. How much damage do you think has been done to the fbi and how long lasting do you think it would be . Now, its a very important question and, you know, the answer to that i think will be consequential to public safety. What i write in the book and the reason why i describe this in detail, my sincere believe that this campaign of attack against the agency is bad for the country, its because at the end of the day, i know this having been fbi agent, when fbi agent knocks on someones door during course of investigation and they need help conducting a case, the willingness of that person to help the agent is directly correlated to their view of the agency, is this an agency thats trust worthy and follow the law and they believe the nonsense that the agency is corrupt and out to get donald trump which is, you know, its laughable to people like me who were inside thinking are you kidding me, that this agency was not only, the allegation that this agency was not only sitting there conspiring but somehow we were doing so at the behest of president obama which is thats the line of attack that you continue to see which is laughable on its face but also a house of cards because if you go back and all you need to do is a little logic to destroy the deep state arguments and the like, take yourself back to 2016, when all of us went to the polls to vote, if you werent inside of the fbi you didnt know that Donald Trumps campaign was under investigation, counterintelligence investigation, when you went to vote that was something the fbi did secretly as most counterintelligence investigations are conducted. The fbi wanted to bring down donald trump as he says, deep state, someone would have leaked that campaign was under investigation, that would have been lights, out game over for his campaign but obviously they didnt do that because they did their job in my judgment professionally. Thats not saying that people made mistakes, i criticized heavily some of the decisions especially some of the people who were texts each other, disparaging things which im i have zero time, zero patience for, but this notion that the fbi was corrupt and out to get donald trump is just, again, simply house of cards. Theres data that show that people are starting to believe this and what i did for the book, i did a lot of research, i talked to a lot of people and gallup did a poll which surveyed public sentiment, something they do regularly on confidence in the fbi and in 2014 the number among republicans which is especially interesting for me as i conducted the research, over 75 of republicans in 2014 had high confidence in the fbi, today that number is less than 50 which tells me that, you know, good people are believing this that theres this, you know, deep state cabal. Doesnt matter your Party Preference is, but there are consequences if the public actually doubts the trust worthiness to have agencies, again, i can give you many, many examples, take one, for instance, you know this very well in legal career, when an fbi agent rises in courtroom to testify and the course of prosecution of a case, of a criminal, that jury has to believe that the fbi agent is telling the truth, entire cases hinge upon whether they believe that person is honest and, again, what fear is that if theres continued narrative that the agencies are criminals and corrupt, how many of these cases will be negatively impacted by people who stopped for a minute to say you know what i heard our leaders talking about the deep state and people who were out to get the president , how many of them are going to doubt what comes out of the mouth of these people who are responsible for keeping us safe every day . You tell a story in your book about when you were overseas that illustrates the point, i believe in the philippines. Thats right. I will let you tell the story because its a wonderful story. No. Thank you. It really i think about this story a lot, so what i describe in the book i was overseas. When i was in the fbi i was on a team for many years that worked a lot of cases overseas and so i would be with folks from cia and military operations overseas conducting terrorism cases, kidnapping investigations, trying to rescue americans that had been kidnapped overseas and during the course of conducting one investigation we were trying to find a highvalue terrorist target in Southeast Asia who had been responsible for a swath of death and destruction and we get a tip from a human source that this person claimed would lead us where the terrorist was and so i went overseas, i had my partner that thats was with me as well conducting the investigation and we go through and i kind of describe the automobiles that it takes to get to this person because we we wanted to meet with them secretly, concern and we had to find where the terrorist was and so we meet and i describe how all that works and then as we sat in the car in this remote village and hes describing for me what he think it is terrorist did, hes drawing a map, as he gets ready to leave and exits the car, i asked him,i can cant let you go without asking you an important question, why didnt you just walk into the local Police Station in your village and tell them what you know, why did we all go through this whole, the motions of traveling and switching cars and planes and helicopters and all this just to hear you out and he looked at me and he said, trust, youre the fbi, Everybody Knows you can trust the fbi and so that was moving for me then, moving for me now and what i worry about not only talking about the public helping fbi investigations, as we saw in russia investigation where i describe in the book, human source was outed by politicians that were trying to get to his identity which sound familiar to the whistleblower story of today, the reason i tell the story, how many people out there who maybe willing to help the government, you know, conduct investigations, help them as informants to go place that is fbi agents cant go, how many will pause and say im not part of that because the fbi is not trust worthy. Lets followup on that because unfortunately your book has to have ended before our latest series of scandals has come about. The ukraine scandal wasnt even in anyones minds when you published the book. We just learned that the fbi the Justice Departments investigation into the investigation of what happened with the russians is now a criminal investigation. Do you have any thoughts about that . Lots of thoughts. [laughter] i thought you might. So lets look at ukraine. What is so fascinating and, again, you can make up your own minds about, you can make your own value judgment, thats not my job, just staring at action that is transpired, this bookends with mueller and the russia investigation and tend the end of the investigation but what is timely and relevant that the playbook that was used by the white house to go after the investigators and try to undermine them in order to undermine the credibility of what they came up with, same playbook now being employed during the ukraine scandal, calling it a witch hunt and going after the socalled deep state, it is what i describe, essentially the road to impeachment, the playbook that is being used to defend and whats so fascinating is that if you go back and look at the timeline, the day after Robert Mueller testified before the world which we probably all saw on our television screens, the very next day, after he closed the books on that investigation, the president picks up the phone and he speaks with the leader of ukraine, the very next day and asks for foreign interference in the u. S. Election which tells me that i think what he thought based on the end of the russia investigation was that hes essentially emboldened and he felt bullet proof, theyre not going to come after me and especially with the policy at the Justice Department that states that you cannot indict a sitting president which to be fair its something that span administrations, this is not partisan policy, i think the president knew that this was tested during the russia investigation, you know, mueller theory was that he couldnt go after the president. So i think that the president felt emboldened by this. The attorney general and current efforts to investigate the investigators, to look back of the origins of the russia investigation, im troubled by that for a couple of reasons and let me stay with the outset, transparency is very important and i also know that these agencies have too much power to operate without oversight, wow someone looking over their shoulders and ensuring that theyre doing what they should be doing. Weve had a very dark past in this country with Law Enforcement and intelligence agencies violating civil lights, for example, i write about them at length in the book, my point is that the agencies of the past are not the agencies of today despite the fact that the administration is trying to have you believe that the agencies are corrupt and abusing their power, but i want to foot stomp that point because i believe especially an investigation into a top candidate, it has to be looked at, has to be has to be be reviewed, the problem is that i dont know sitting here that the attorney general is the person to be leading that review, at least in a fairway because the reason i say that hes already shown through his actions with the Mueller Investigation that he, you know, prepare today run interference for the president. If you look at his actions after the Mueller Investigation was finished, i mean, the attorney general mischaracterized what was in the report to the American People and for about 6 weeks the American People believed, you know, until it was finally released and we could read it for ourselves that mueller found that there was nothing wrong which as we know in looking at the Mueller Report it does not say that at all. Again, what i think what was really saving the president was his policy that investigators wouldnt go after him. Anyway, looking at his actions in russia, the fact that he, the attorney general was now circling the globe right now trying to investigate what the fbi did with russia, it really gives me pause, you know, wondering whether this is going to be done in a fairway or because the attorney general has already described the fbis investigation as spying, adopting the same language that the president has used, is this going to be fair and so thats the big question that, you know, looms over the fbi. I talked with somebody inside the fbi, just this morning, killing of albaghdadi overnight but one thing the person asked me, the investigation of the attorney general, what do you think is going on there, youre in the fbi, you tell me what you think, he said it very much concerns them, now they are moving into a criminal investigation again which has the potential to possibly politicize you know the 2016 election again, let me circle back where i began with transparency and oversight, theres a review into the fbis work that is on the cusp of being finalized by the independent Inspector General inside the Justice Department, separate investigation from the attorney general, thats the one that i have the most confidence in because although this Inspector General has criticized the fbi in in the past a lot, i think hes a fair person, not a political person, i will be looking for the result os that investigation. Along those lines is there more that the fbi could do to fight back, i take it you dont think the Justice Department led by the attorney general is going the fight back but would a director comey be sitting there silently while this was going on now . Not a chance and, you know, as ive described and said to comey personally that i think he would have been fired no matter what, i mean, there would have been something during the term of this presidency that comey would have felt the need to speak up and defend his people against and he would have probably gotten the axe, thats the state of the world that you had two people that were so different and in fact, in the beginning of the book, i was there with him at trump tower when comeys briefing of the Incoming Administration on the russian interference and comey has the job of meeting oneonone with trump and describing the socalled steele dossier, salacious material that had been circling and the two men walked out of the meeting, that was the beginning and end of comeys career, they saw the meeting in entirely different ways, comey thought he was giving the heads up, President Trump thought that that was attempt to blackmail him that comey was pulling Jay Edward Hoover on him. We got material that comey said that wasnt the case and so i think he would have been fired no matter what just knowing, look at the chaos that we have seen, that said, i do think that there are things that people in power can do to protect their people to defend the agencies against these political attacks an its not to defend at large, the agencies, they make mistake all of the time and as journalist my job to hold them accountable and to report on what they do but these blatantly political attacks on the agencies have been met with silence by people in power and thats part of the reason why i wrote this book, you know, there was the current fbi director, i heard him say one time to a group and audience that we didnt im paraphrasing, ignored the pundits, ignored the politicians and the news, just focus on judges an juries and i think he was half right, you to focus on judges and juries where your work, cases are made but the judges and those members of the jury walk into that courtroom with a predetermined view of the fbi based largely on what they have seen from the prez and politicians and the like and so what i say is that in this time of turmoil that we have never seen where agencies are in the cross hair of politician, sometimes you have to be willing to lose your job in order to do your job and sometimes that includes standing up for your own people an telling the commander in chief cut it out. Im going to ask one last [applause] im doing to throw out one last question to you, those of you who have questions for out authors if you will approach the mic, as soon as he finishes his answer yall be ready to go with your questions. You mentioned that it wasnt until the helsin helsinki summit where trump stood next to put i and believed putin than the Intelligence Agency and you really thought putin had leverage over trump, what do you think the leverage was or is . Hard questions, i do describe that, i will say at the outset im not a conspiracy theorist by any means. I mean, i tend to believe that the most likely answer to any, you know, puzzle is probably the most obvious answer, incompetence or the like, rarely sinister, you know, underlying views in a lot of the conspiracy theories but what i write about the president as it relates to russia and this isnt just something that i can look at, we all see for for ourselves is that his actions to Vladimir Putin and, you know, the u. S. Intelligence community caused a lot of questions, the very nature and whats so fascinating you look at time after time seemingly siding with russia over the u. S. Intelligence community, theres a reason for that, we dont know what it is but theres some reason why so many of the foreign policies decisions that a lot of experts say seem to be counter to u. S. Interests, theres a reason for that and you mentioned helsinki and i will state, i dont know if you remember the press conference where the president is standing there on the world stage next to Vladimir Putin, President Trump is has, you know, one one of the i would say largest, you know, he would say healthiest egos of any president in modern era, thats not a criticism, he will tell you that himself, im great, im genius, thats not a criticism but important from this point that i try to make that his ego is very large, again, he would admit that, so theres a reason why someone with that giant ego would stand on the world stage next to another strong man and seemingly coward, again, theres a reason for that, its not done by people with giant egos and so thats my only point that we are running out of innocent explanations for his relationship with trump, some have said we think the president is foreign asset, i dont buy that, that seems way out there. That said, there are others who more or less to that extreme have said, well, perhaps business dealings with the russians over over the years that would be embarrassing for the president , perhaps they bailed him out when he was bankrupt and offered him loans, i dont know what the answer is, and so people that are concerned about the country and National Security, we have to keep asking those questions and i know those of us in journalism will certainly keep asking those questions. Thank you. Okay, lets take some questions from the audience, we have a number of people who are lined up so i will ask you to make your questions as short and succinct as possible so everyone can get a chance to ask them. Hello, i want to know your opinion of chris wray and the second one local organ, ukraine zelenski and of Los Tres Amigos and former governor rick perry. A lot there, i will take the easy one first, what do i think about the current fbi director chris wray, i think hes honorable person, career Public Servant and i met him i think highly of him, i will say that if you take yourself back to the day that comey was fired and i write about that day, i was with him in los angeles and the aftermath where the president of the United States had fired the person leading the investigation into his campaign, that was, i know it was chaotic on the outside for the country, inside the fbi it was troubling to say the least and made more so troubling by the fact that we wondered what would come next, who would President Trump put in as the next fbi director, would it be a crony, would bit a politician, we have been in instances and i write about in the book the Nixon Administration where the acting director was destroying evidence, right, he was very much in line with the president at the time back during the nixon era, thats what we fear. Fortunately, thats not what weve got, we have someone who surprised a lot of people regarding his caliber once he came on the scene and people thought, okay, this is going to be okay, at least having someone in there that obviously could have been a lot worse and i think highly of him as a leader. The last question to the Current Events with ukraine and the sere of actors that you mentioned, whats so different about this is it relates to the russia investigation is that, you know, i poured 400 plus pages to have Mueller Investigation and its just so detailed an nuance and confusing in some aspects, even me as former fbi agent, i had to read and reread parts and the ukraine scandal is a lot easier to digest because the white house released this rough transcript for us to read for ourselves and regardless how many times the president says no, i didnt do it, the call was perfect and beautiful, value of you of his qualitatively but we can agree to ourselves the question of asking a Foreign Government to intertier in an election, so i think thats why you have seen such a fast track to impeachment that you didnt see with the Mueller Investigation and by the way, you know, i will add because i get asked my view about impeach rent and i dont know if its thats a question in the line here but not my job to have a view on impeachment as a journalist, thats yours as it relates to your elected leaders. This is moving at lighting speed it appears and thats because the issue itself is so easy for all of us to understand. Thank you for the question. What was about the emails of anthony weiner, yes, we must reopen this investigation and number 2, how do you answer critics that say, this was against fbi policy to do what james comey did . What was it about that, if youll go back and remember at the start of the fbis investigation, fbi didnt just open investigation out of thin air, it was a referral that came from the Intelligence Community saying we think a crime has been committed, we want you to investigate, so the fbi investigates, was there mismishandling of classified. They called out some 30,000 emails that they didnt turn over and determined that these were personal in nature, they made that decision. For investigators, you know, if youre trying to figure out if theres a conspiracy or people are trying to commit a crime, if the question was did the secretary set up server to circumvent laws, they would want to get the Communications Early on in the conspiracy when we were talking about what we were going to do. The reason it became relevant because later on in the course of the investigation into anthony weiner,i will save my view of him, found himself under investigation for, you know, you can google it. [laughter] but the fbi found this laptop that belonged to him that had a lot of Hillary Clintons emails on them because his wife was one of her assistants and the fbi made the determination that this might be the set of emails that we didnt have and we had to open the investigation that was hi thinking, people can agree or disagree, the second part of whether this violated fbi policies, i dont theres not a policy out there that says that you cant open investigations, theres long been the norm and adhered to that the fbi and the department of justice that do not take investigative actions close to an election because theres a fear that it might impact an election either way. And so in this instance what comey determined was, okay, he violated the norm because we were, you know, now a week plus from the election but again his decision and you can agree or disagree is thinking was that, again, either course of action here is an action whether to let the American People know that we reopened the case which by the way he told congress that if this changes, if we reopen the case we will let you know, he felt the duty to correct that or whether his best decision should have been to keep quiet, again, what he was thinking if it came to light after the election we had secretly been investigating her that would have caused so much damage for the fbis reputation. Thank you, great question. Thank you very much, very enlightening, so i was very discouraged in the beginning of the investigation to find out how there were political texts ongoing with fbi agents which i would not have suspect that they would have been doing and more recently i found those were against trump and more recently there were some very antagonistic against clinton. These are people and have political thoughts but i would have expected that people in the fbi would be more cognizant of the fact that they have to bury those, i like your opinion as to whether there was more political activity within the fbi than you would like to see in an agency of that sort then, and now that its exposed do you think political activity would be exacerbated by whats going on and deep early entrenched because of whats going on . Now, excellent questions, the first is that when i saw the Text Messages between the two and we all saw them once they came to light, i was sickened and a lot of people inside the fbi they were disgusted as well because thats completely inconsistent with my experience inside the fbi and so many of my former current friends and former colleagues, it just isnt done that you would dispassenger someone that you had under investigation in that way. Now, the problem with the bureau is that i think that this was a great big gift wrap political scandal for the white house because they would use this, these conversations between the two employees to the agency about everything, going after not only the hillary investigation, the russia investigation, the president is trying to tie that to ukraine and didnt exist at the time, the investigation and so that was a big scandal that was hand delivered to the white house. I will say that, you know, theres this notion that we talk about well, you check politics at the door, right, when youre in Law Enforcement, thats true and not true, true in a sense that you dont let that impact your work, thats never acceptable, but fbi agents arent robots, right, they formulate opinions, these are people who, you know, think about who we hire, people who are curious about the world, you dont gather information about the World Without forming an opinion about it, that said, it is known throughout the culture that that your own views of anything doesnt impact your work in a political way, its just not done and so what i also say on that point too, obviously i think that hopefully you can tell by now what i think about their actions i still think theres no way they could have impacted investigation politically even though they would have wanted and i hope you take a look and read this part especially is that the fbi is built on system of checks and balances, these people did not run the investigations, there was a giant team running the investigation and if anyone else on the team had thought for a second that their investigation may have been politically impacted or evidencemanufactured or evidence, you know, gotten rid of, because of anyones political actions they would be screaming from the rooftops, they would be the whistleblower that you see now. These people although they had they thought terrible things about the president , the president elect at the time it wasnt negatively impacting their work, that caused great harm to the institution by the nature of their actions, so thats my view. I would like to know in the book you the book first of all is very easy and compelling book to read. Thank you. But in the book you describe the time when comey come out of the trump tower meeting and you hand him the laptop so he can begin writing his contemporary immediately, from that i took the fbi agents in general write, do that frequently and often, so i would like you to briefly talk about your evolution of your writing skills, where you learned to write it and how it evolved . Thank you, i didnt see the question going that direction but i appreciate that. [laughter] let me just say real quick because i mentioned and i where in the book, i hope very vividly sitting in the car with comey and memorialized his meetings with the president by taking notes and what he said at the time and, you know, said to me privately, he said publicly, he thought that the president might one day lie about the exchange and he thought it was important to memorialize and one of the many meetings that he would memorialize and note that he would then see for ourselves later on and learn that the president of the United States had demanded loyalty from the fbi director according to comey that the president of the United States had sat with james comey in the oval office and asked him to drop an investigation into one of his associates, michael flynn, all that stem from the contemporaneous memos and i could tell you having been in the fbi that an fbi, you know, contemporaneous memorization of an event is highly respected in the courts, testimonial nature, this is what i saw, this is what someone told me and so i think that was built into comey as a prosecutor, knowing that you are to take the notes, as it relates to writing and how i learned, you know, the skill of writing, my writing skills were damaged by the fbi. [laughter] because i remember the first form that you use to document your interview with someone, mine began, so there was i was, no, no, just the facts man, just the facts, where did i learn to write, right here, here at the university of texas at austin, amazing instructors, professors, that was the theme that i can remember from, some of my favorite, some of the best us to ensure that you honed the skills because they will help you out, one in particular sean from the Government Department if you know him, i was one of his researchers that helped him write a book, one of many people that helped him write a book and instilled in early stage that thats a skill that you have to master on early on and im pleased to first thank for kind words and bring that to the publish to tell this very important story. Im [applause] one question. Im afraid one more question. We will have to cut this off now. Excuse me, sir. Our time is up. Let me thank josh for 45 minutes. Thank you so much. [applause] i will around, i will meet with him afterwards. Come on, i will talk to you afterwards. Signing books two tents down. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] our final program at this years texas book festival will begin in a few minute, you will hear from gun safety advocate. While we wait a bit of another Author Program on gun control with john from the recent libertarian conference freedom fest. But first of all, i want to show how the United States compares to all countries and then i will show you with regard to all developed countries. The blue line over here is the average for homicide rates, the green is for the median and the red is for the United States, the United States is well below the average, below the median also, so more than half of the countries around the world have a higher homicide rate than the United States. Homicides are murders and justifiable homicides, not really clear to me why you want to lump together just justifiable homicides along with murders, justifiable homicides are cases where Police Officer is being threatened by criminal and has to kill the criminal or a civilian uses a gun in selfdefense. The United States has a lot more justifiable homicides than other countries. You know that would lower our ranking, cut our rate by about 20 or so from what we have here and would make a significant difference. Most countries, the vast majority of countries dont report murders, they just report homicides and that makes one difference there. If you look at firearm homicide the average is up here, the United States is over here, much higher than the median, so why is the United States so much higher in terms of firearm homicides than we are in terms of total homicides . Well, if, if you look at the graph carefully, lines are fewer countries with high homicide rates arent reporting the high homicide data, its not that we are higher than other countries, they are removing, they are just not providing the data for those other countries and ma makes us look relatively worse, theres no reason to believe that we are particularly high in terms of firearm homicide if you actually had the data for all of the countries. Some of the really worse countries dont report the data and dont report them very accurately, you know, you have places like chicago or philadelphia which have had corruption issues in terms of accurate i will providing crime data, well, thats something that we actually see quite common in other countries. And if you just look at developed countries, you could see there are some developed countries that have much, much higher homicide rate data than we have here in the United States. Brazil about 6 times higher and russia much higher and gastonia is actually higher than what we have here in the United States. One thing thats a little bit misleading and that i point out i think its misleading to talk about a u. S. Homicide rate because it varies so dramatically across the United States. 2 of the counties in the United States account for over half of the murders in the United States and if you ever look at make up a little over 20 to have population, but if you if you look at whats called a murder map which will graph out where the murders occur in different counties, what youll find is that basically within a 10block area within the highmurder counties you will find over half of the murders occurring there, so theyre very heavily concentrated in very tinny areas within the United States and basically its druggang related. So we have a relatively high homicide rate simply because we have a druggang problem. For example, mexico, has worst gang problem than we have here in the United States, they have extremely strict gun control laws in mexico since 1972, theyve only had one gun store in the country, its in mexico city, run by the military, guns are extremely expensive, the most powerful rifles that you can go in buy in mexico are 22 caliber rifles, not with the drug gangs are using. [laughter] and basically just as the drug gangs bring in drugs from the rest of the world they bring in weapons that they use in order to do that. Okay, so i want to talk a little bit another number and then im going put these together, one of the other comparison that is people make is in terms of gun ownership rates and this is from basically in 2007 they had about 89 guns per hundred people and you could see switzerland, 46 and so on. I would do this differently, the real problems with this, the source for this data is something called the small arm survey cited in the Washington Times and new york post, if youre interested, go look up the data and if you go through footnotes youll find that they dont provide a source for about 85 of the countries that they list and ive been asking them for 5 years now, can you give me your source because i have real problems with some of the data that youre having here and they basically refused to go and actually say where they got their data from, so im i dont believe these numbers, but its something that youre going to see all of the time in the media and and, you know, other problems with this, so, for example, even the couple country countries that they give data for is private ownership of guns, switzerland would require age 18 to 36 to have a militaryissued machine gun and in many cases a handgun in their home. Now, is it the ownership of guns that matter or the possession of guns that matter . I would think if youre word about people behave responsibly or irresponsible irresponsibly the possession would matter, you know, israel, the vast majority of guns are owned by the government and, you know, you may be in possession of a gun for 40 years but the government technically owns it, they ignore this. If you were to fix in switzerland and israel, possession rates are higher than the United States. For example, one of the claims youll see that the United States makes up over 4 of the World Population but 42 of all civilian owned guns in the world are in the United States. There are lots of problem with this beyond the fact that its based on this nonexistent data for a lot of countries, but even the countries that they do have data for, they will rely on a survey and let me give you an example of the problems with the surveys, canada, for example, if you look at surveys of longgun ownership in the early 1990s or the mid1990s youll find about 8 and a half million canadians on surveys would say that they own long guns, well, when they started the long gun registry in late 90s, all of a sudden the surveys could only find 3 and a half million canadians that would say that they owned long guns, now it could be that you had about 5 million canadians that sold their guns instantly or you had them destroy their guns but you would imagine if you had 5 million canadians that were all sudden selling off their guns it would have been noticed by the media a little bit, the gun stores might have noticed people in mass trying to turn in their guns, nothing like that is talked about, in fact, some increase in sales it looks like at the time. But you can imagine that once you have a registry and you have somebody calling you up on the phone asking whether or not you own a long gun, you know, you may not you may think its from the government or something and you tell them, yeah, i have a gun and i havent registered it, im behaving illegally here. So the real reasons to believe that the number is pretty worthless for multiple reasons, its tremendously exaggerate it is u. S. Share there. This entire program will air at 6 00 p. M. Eastern following our live coverage of todays texas book festival. Andrew polack, father of student killed in florida, here is a portion of the program. The people that got the attention in parkland were the gun people that wanted to say that it was about the scary gun, it was the nra, and if it was that, i would be up here telling you thats what it was, like i said, i was going to find out why and how my daughter got killed an it was all these programs of these kids, like they had the first kid before school he was so dangerous that i found out, they frisked him and wasnt allowed in with aback pac, thats how dangerous he was. He threatened to shoot the school and wasnt arrested. He threatened students lives, never arrested. At one point his Mental Health workers wrote a letter to his psychiatrist that they were worried, they couldnt find a hatchet, there was a hatchet missing in his garage and they didnt know what they should do with him, but those same mental case, accounts counselors that were overseeing him to mainstream to school with my daughter, from middle school he was infactuated with guns and the records that he got, he said he we wanted to kill. At the end of the day when they mainstreamed him back into high school, the first class they put him is jrotc where they taught him how to shoot and gave him an air rifle, thats whats going on in the schools. To watch the rest of the Program Visit our website booktv. Org and search for Andrew Pollack and why meadow died using the top of the page. Youre watching book tv on cspan2, for a complete television visit booktv. Org and follow along the scenes on social media at book tv on twitter, instagram and facebook. [background sounds] well hello and welcome to the 24th annual texas book festival. His muslim plot. [laughter] [applause] i should add whose is the best session of the 24th annual book festival. A couple of housekeeping roles. Please. [silence] your cell phones. If you need to take those call, please step outside of your mind. Feel free to share your experiences through social media for those of you do these things, the tag, manager what that means. Oh the hashtag, the festival is ts book tx po okay and cst. And at texas. The second one made more sense. There will be book signings outdoors. The others will find books and siding. Two tents over. And just you know books are for sale, they are amazing bookstore here in austin. The largest in texas. And a portion of every book cell supports the texas book festival admission and helps Fund Programs that brings books and authors and students and grants for libraries in texas. Thank you all so much for being here. So we have a really wonderful panel here which is the conversation about guns and on politics, in america. Two palace first, is igor, the author of provocative book, guns down, how did i feet and build a safer future. Igor is previously, managing editor and lgbt editor of progress. Hes appeared on essentially every news media fox news csn, originally from russia and now lives in washington dc. We are also joined by nicole golden. Nicole is the cofounder of the austin chapter. Of moms and actions for gun sense. [applause] thank you. That is very kind. Nicole of the group for five years. She has brought actively leading the group anymore she is still also involved. And with moms demand action. I would like to start asking both of you, how you first got into igor in your case, writing about politics and nicole in your case, involved in organizing at that loophole. I for a long time work on progressive politics and a long time but avoided the gun issue. It was a challenging issue to working, incredibly bad and painful in whose theres were dynamic where you become most relevant in the midst of horrible tragedy or your issue becomes most relevant. And so i stayed away for monday years until december 2nd 2015. And that was the day in the San Bernardino shooting. I was working on something entirely different and towards the end of the day, i came back to my computer and looked over on my screen and i saw all of these lawmakers sending their thoughts and prayers on twitter. Time and time and time again. Knowing your hands because you know they do whose every single time if not particularly novel, but what really caught my eye was the love makers who are most precipitous about offering their thoughts and prayers for the First Responders and the victims they were the same lawmakers voted against expanding background checks in the aftermath of the newtown shooting. In fact that they were pulling the wool over the eyes of their constituents. You really broke my heart and i spent literally the next eight hours tweeting every single politician and pointing out that the reason they were only thinking and praying and not actually doing anything was at least in part because is of the her name they took from the nra. Those tweets went viral. They made International Headlines develop a platform that allowed me to really think about whose issue in a serious way for the first time. It allowed me to establish an organization guns down america. And really tackle whose issue. I follow whose week, they were very impressive. Is i mentioned on nicole. I started my echo in some ways of what just told you. I was going about my live and i had two Young Children and at the time of the sandy hook shooting, i had just been dealing with is everybody does taking care of my family and trying to get through the trials and tribulations of daily live. When i learned of the news, the children and educators, the firstgraders and educators that were shot and killed that school, broke me away i can explain but i probably dont have to because im sure it broke you two. It was a pivotal and lifechanging moment. I kinda define my live in terms of the san before sandy hook after sandy hook. And i did it know anybody personally. My experience paled in comparison to theirs. But i just feel like and realized in the deepest way, i had to do something because other people marked, who was going to be. It took myself i had to be meek. I pictured my own kids, i couldnt bear it. So i started looking online for what is there. Whos organizing are there other mothers who are feeling like i am and is it turns out, the work. There was a truly organized movement at the time for people like me. And the founder of the organization, was one of those moms who was crying the floor like i was. And, i mean, that literally. She started a Facebook Page and we just gravitated to it. People across the country, and each other there. And were asking one another, what are we going to do. I have cried for two weeks straight. I have to do something about whose. When we start. So i connected with people in austin, and we held our first rally here in early 2013, right here. We began a chapter of moms and action. In guns in america. Since then we have organize, and have millions of supporters across the country. Thousands and thousands of active volunteers who people are really considered ourselves accidental activist. It was never a plan. We decided we have to do whose. Weve been tremendously successful. It is truly came alive. My perspective on nonviolence has grown far beyond the Mass Shootings that grab our attention and grabs national attention. Really understanding the database on gun violence. Impacts families of color, women, so i i think i really deepened my understanding and i just have no intention of giving up and nor do the thousands and thousands of volunteers to join me. [applause]. Host both of you, igor in the book and a colon through your activism, talk about the need to reduce and violence and active despite in different ways to tackle whose at least in part through freds legislation. We talked was a little bit about how you see the connection between incidences of gun violence and legislation. Igor certainly, in the United States around the world, gun control measures are legislations, has come about in the aftermath of really tragic incidents. That was certainly the case in australia who in 1996 is a series of very comprehensive reforms that responded to a very tragic mass shooting and there. Here in the United States, that has or havent in the past but it has been hasnt happened recently. Is you all know, we are in whose horrible cycle we have a mass shooting and we talk about it for about 43 hours and then we very quickly move on. And nothing is done. In the book, i really spent some time thinking about why that is. Really interrogating why we are unable to in an era when 94 or 97 percent of americans support policies like background checks, why are we not able to get that done. The argument that i make is that for is it too long, for the last 20 to 30 years, we simply havent asked for what we deserve. And we have and ask for need is the country. We dont have a clearly defined goal for our movement. I argue that goal should be building the future with fewer guns. Making whose is harder to get. Being honest about that. In arguing that in order to truly solve whose problem, we need to do with the rest of the world has done. And that is not by the way, dividing the population between good guys and responsible gun owners, that went out requires is raising the standard for gun ownership for everybody. Talk about licensing, registration, because we know those solutions have actually worked elsewhere in the world. It really starts with changing how we frame his conversation. And being honest with people that the reality is in all the Research Supports whose. Where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths and thats the cycle i argue we have to break. [applause]. Nicole i absolutely agree. Whose american experiment is trying, more guns makes a saver, has absolutely not work so i really agree with you there. I will tell you that one race in our organization focuses heavily on policy change and it is the only thing we do, is the big piece of what we do, is because truly, a good good law can be the difference between live and death. Just recently in texas, was the odessa shooting was rock hard state after others had come before it not long ago. That perpetrator was able, he attempted to buy a gun and failed the back unchecked but he found the way to buy a gun. Federally, license requirement is they have to run a background check so a store animal store or someone can sell it in another capacity. People can sell a gun that went out a background check that is legal in texas and other states. That is what we focus on tilting those loopholes. We can make a difference between live and death. Another item that we focus on is the support strong red flag laws. Often the shooters to warning signs well before they hurt somebody but Law Enforcement really doesnt have a real tool to remove a gun in the case in which a person is really showing some concerned behaviors. Read like law, they go through Legal Process to that gun removes in the person and doesnt commit an atrocity. That is why we support those policy measures and why we fight for those things. We also do work far beyond positive change. Working on a cultural shift that has been tremendously successful. Its a great example that the work we have done, on our corporate campaigns, we have encouraged more than 40 businesses to prohibit open carry in their stores. And by putting pressure and robust social media campaigns, thank you. [applause]. Kroger cbs 2 and walgreens and walmart. Countless others. By the way i was born really out of texas is some things that are texas chapter saw here either sometimes in prison while at the store, with our children or in other ways and we brought it to the attention of the National Organization and we knew it need to do something about whose. You guys are carrying guns and people are with their children and they cant determine the intention of the individual. Nor should they ever have to. Thats unjust. And so National Organization really taken on is a campaign we been tremendously successful. Is a perfect example of a cultural shift. Another great example is the Smart Campaign through which we educate the public about responsible gun storage to prevent children and teens from accessing guns and unintentionally shooting themselves or others or committing suicide. That is another successful cultural shift. I think with the policy changes that we are working on, in conjunction with a cultural shift has been an extremely successful model were attacking the issue from monday different sites. His be one of those corporate campaigns are so absolutely essential. Corporations in particular the aftermath of the walmart shooting, are really recognizing men in an era of federal inaction, they have a responsibility to act on whose issue. And that there is more important business interests, for a company and keep its customers and employees alike. What could possibly be more important. [applause] we also spend a lot of time pushing corporations to do the right thing. For us, if you can enlist a corporation in your goal, you not only create the cultural change that is so incredibly important. You also begin to talk to more conservative audiences and you reach more conservative audiences and you begin to create political cover. For more moderate and more conservative politicians to begin to lean into whose issue. It is the largest employer in the district and it is the largest employer in their state. Its important for them from a business perspective for legislation that begins to move us in the right way towards gun reform that has a tremendous impact. And by the way, a lot of corporations are political actors. They donate dollars to politicians. And there is no reason why american corporations particularly the large american corporations should be giving to the top recipients of an ra dollars in congress. A lot of them are now staying that they support gun reform. A lot of members sign onto powerful letters urging the senate to act in the past important legislation, is wonderful. But i think they also need to put their her name in the mouth is and begin reforming their political giving policies so they at least consider the position of the gun possession of a politician they want to donate to and that i think, is how you begin to shape up the political conversation in dc by going after those dollars. Host a few times we do guys have spoken, youve gotten lots of applause, and seems that a lot of people in whose audience are agreeing with what you are staying. I imagine actually hope there is some people in the audience who disagree with you. Certainly because in texas, therell be a lot of people, within america a lot of people. You mention now kind of enrolling conservative people and talking to them. Im curious how you might respond to those people in the audience and not only didnt applause a lady inside actually frustrated by what you know staying. Igor i will see two things, one is i open the book with the story about going to a firing range at west and taking a really intense today and some course. During which, i encountered monday people who didnt agree with me on monday things. I conclude that chapter on a positive note that i was actually able to find a lot of Common Ground. I think that is true about whose conversation at four is divisive is the debate in dc is around whose issue, i actually think there is a lot of Common Ground both with gun owners and non gun owners because at the end of day, we can all agree that gun ownership is right. So says the Supreme Court. But with every right comes a responsibility. It is in the text of the Second Amendment. A well regulated militia. And it is the body of our entire constitution where there is a right, there is a responsibility. You know right to freedom of speech you have a responsibility not to yell fire in a crowded tent. If a right to freedom of religion, you have the responsibility to respect the freedom and religion of others. And surfing on a jury, where there is a right there is a responsibility. For is it too monday years, the nra has perverted the right into an entitlement that is devoid of any responsibility at all and they think, that a lot of gun owners out there, disagree with that perversion. They believe that if theyre going to own a gun, ever responsibility to neighbors and their community to know how to use the gun responsibly. I would argue that means i can take a license, registering that levin, and we have been owners all across whose country stand up and see we are going to redefine in 2019, with patriotic gun ownership looks like in america because they tell posters, the kind where they are. The actually stood up, made the case i think we would be able to make some actual legislation of product crime progress as well. Nicole our organization is the bipartisan organization. We welcome people from different backgrounds and political affiliations and gun owners and non gun owners. We have a good number of gun owners who are part of our authorization or organization. You said earlier 90 percent of more support requiring bakken ground check on my handgun. The will of the people is there. Theres a disconnect. I think he spoke really well to that. I was so, ive done whose for almost seven years. When we first started, people were very part of why its in their support and best. People the average person, inverter, also lawmakers, they would whisper their support. They didnt want to come out front on it they did want to be politic. That was a third rail issue. I think it is very obvious to all of us that its not any longer. I really feel like our movement has largely impacted that movement of their actions despite. Now, you see people voting on whose issue. You see canadas hunter running on whose issue. People are taking it to the voting booths. They have literally lined up at our meetings during election season to talk to our membership. That is something really new. So i really think that we have change the conversation. I think people feel empowered and emboldened to speak up on whose. And until theyre almost, they have come out to their loved ones that they support common sense gun law. And two, and for people to open up conversation that i promise you seven years ago, they did it. I fully there yet, l. There are still hundred americans being shot and killed every day in whose country. Lets keep going. Having made huge progress in the huge shift, absolutely. The one i have guided my book how to talk to your family members of the disagree with you. Host the new second compact. In your previous, you outlined some elements of the inner broke. Can you tell us with whose new Second Amendment compact is. Igor generally restores the balance. And how we think about gun laws in whose country. Mineo ten policies in whose book but i will break down to three specific markets for the purposes of whose conversation. The first bucket really focuses on cracking down on the gun industry. Whose is an industry that is able to produce weapons of every increasingly partly because there is no federal agency that actually test the product. The manufacturer puts forward into market. Whose huge problem because really the federal feeling is a fully automatic machine gun. So laws are a fully automatic machine gun, you make your weapon incredibly dangerous. Whose part of the reason why we now have specifically in our urban areas, people dying from gunshot wounds today but they were surviving 20 years years ago when the most popular handgun was a revolver. Today is the semi automatic pistol with a highcapacity magazine. There are larger in the coming at you faster. Dying is a result. Thats not an accident. Thats a result of business decisions. The gun Decision Makers made those decisions. Second bucket really deals with increasing the standard for gun ownership for everybody in whose country. Whose right about licensing and registration, buybacks. In the third bucket deals with farming and violence which is most of the gun violence in the United States what we know is that in most cities, a very small number of people responsible for the overwhelming amount of gun violence in a given city. If you structure communitybased programs in a small way, you are able to identify those individuals. Able to offer different incentives to those individuals. Is a result things like pure violence ceasefire, have dramatically reduced carbon rates of gun violence where theyve been functional and operational. I argue in the book whose programs really need to be funded in a big way and just last week senator booker and some others introduced legislation to begin funding those Community Driven efforts to work with folks within the community to help really change the way they see guns and his guns and is a result. Host recently passing the nra. In shaping american gun culture legislation regarding guns or in either direction with her sort of increased or listening regulations. Be one one of the most revelations ive had in writing the book is where i lay out the history of the nra and also talk about why i think the nra has been so incredibly effective. Igor theyve been making whose argument that weve all heard, that if you Institute Gun reform measures that only the bad guys will have guns. In making whose argument says about 1911. It is been the same argument for all of these years. Is a remarkable amount of consistency. The second piece is the nra recognized really after about 1970s, that is not just about the tool. Si how you help the gun grocery some guns and increased your membership offers. What you actually have to do, is pretty systematically is you have to create an entire social identity around gun ownership. It goes beyond the tool and extends to all other aspects of your politics, your wife, the kind of music you listen to, the kind of religion you practice. It is who you know fully is a gun owner. That is something they been messaging to their membership for decades. And that is why you have a relatively small number of gun owners you know such loud voices in a fight because when they hear us talk, i think what they really care is we are trying to strip their entire identity away. And that to me along with the donations, that to me is really the power of the nra. It is a cultural identity they been able to build up and frankly i think our movement has a long way to go figure out how to truly handle that. Nicole i think igor spoke really well to the truth of the gun law is poison our culture and our politics primary long time. With a lot of people not noticing, and not fighting back. I think now quite a few of us are fighting back but you dont do something whose novella got in a day. That very patiently and consistently in weakening the laws on a federal essay by state loophole for monday years while people went about the business. Now i think people are ready to stand up to that. I spoke earlier about candidates running on a platform that is new. Were electing candidates see my seat on a local loophole and state loophole federal loophole but again it is election by election. See my seat and you cant change that in the day. When he was really promising to see them. Its extremely thrilling to see so monday moms in action leaders and volunteers in office. We have one. Others are running because i think, i have realized that if our lawmakers will do the right thing we are going to do it. Ive been to whose building monday times and set ten hours and waited for testimony in a room full of grunt extremists. He learned set up in your in your power to be brave in a way that is really remarkable you do whose kind of work. By the way whose can conclude all of you. None of us have special gifts, were just volunteers he learned along this way. You want to join us by the way, i can tell you how. I encourage you to text ready 6643. Find out in what way can make a difference. Theres a lot of levels of volunteerism we can offer. I think for the lawmakers that have been given a chance to do the right thing and have that on it, and sense of their thoughts and prayers when people really want and need action. I think they are going to face consequences to that. Come election day. May have them half and monday more will i hope you all will hold them accountable for that. Host , question and then well open it up to the audience. Im curious if you have of look for forward ten or 15 years, you think there will be any kind of change in either direction weather we will continue to see what we are happening on a larger scale or weather what you know advocating for might get legislated. Curious to hear what your thoughts are. If we were to sit here ten or 15 years from now with the conversation look like. Igor im very bullish on whose. The reason is because i think even since i started working on whose issue, ive seen a tremendous amount of change. Is a change on the state loophole, changing the kind of advocacy, our side of the issue has been able to perform. Ive also seen an incredible change among young people and among corporations. We quickly talk about that. Is im traveling the country and monday of you and that these experiences as well. Whose issue for the young people isnt just another political issue. I think they realize why they have to do lockdown drills every month and why they have to walk through metal detectors and said they saw themselves not just in those who died after parkland but in the young people who started a powerful movement and they begin to identify not just for themselves, they begin to fight the younger siblings and for the future children in the kind of tradition and energy they have, you cant put that back into bucks so to speak. In terms of corporations, after parkland, we saw about 40 companies and special discounts they provided to nra members. Saw two large banks announce that they were no longer going to do business with the manufacturers of assault weapons. Whose not an accident. They recognized corporations did, their most important asset, their brand was at real risk. It was associated with the gun industry or the nra. Because i saw all of whose people in the streets and they saw where their future customers are on whose issue. Again, i think our power in our voices is consumers, have real power in whose space. And it is time again with the federal government is doing nothing. I think theres a lot we can do to move us in the right direction on that is it too i think, is something i think going to continue to grow in the next ten to 15 to 20 years. Nicole i largely agree with you. I think there is a fire and tradition. Surreal sensible approach to whose that the Younger Generation of voters, have it. I think that the tactic the gun law lobby has used to kind of infiltrate the psychology of americans and voters, shes really not going to have a big impact has to think that if you look at recent events, then lobbyist, the nras frankly, they are having monetary issues. In leadership issues. Liquid going to see a real change. I know that i am going to keep fighting on behalf of the 100 americans that lose their lives every single day. We cant give up for them. Host clamp about ten to 15 minutes for questions. There are two sorts of ground rules. First were respectful of each other the second that your question contains a question. Theres two microphones. Theres one here and one in the back. Guest lists framework. You spoke about gun licensing, can you speak to some of the Research Behind that position and maybe a little bit about the climate for gun research. Igor i think is monday folks know, its been a real stranglehold on gun research partly because of a congressional ban on most types of gun research. We know we should know more than we do in terms of what kinds of policies are effective in what types are effective for which populations and certainly all of us here would support funding that research in a serious way in terms of the licensing research specifically, there is in some credible work at john hopkins and uc davis, that we really focuses on the power of gun licensing. I should see specifically to the difference between a point of purchase background checks, which is what we talk about generally when we see universal background checks. You got the gun against our only run through a pretty fast background check. In the licensing process where you have to go to a Law Enforcement office and you have to get fingerprinted. Theres often some kind of assessment and is awaiting. Those kinds of systems are in place and about nine states are nine stations in the United States. They really have a dramatic impact in reducing gun homicides and gun suicides and folks who see the gun to in their live during the short period so that research is really powerful. And certainly if we have additional funds to really expand it and grow will learn more is a result we understand how to scale whose types of systems down. Guest my question is for igor and i wanted to know if you have looked into any of the impacts of, probably not a great thing, the effects of gun safety on the whole question of how to maintain our lives and world were all at close range. Bring whose up because a few months ago, our governor said you can get any gun law you want, just good of the year Police Department and the look at. So all of you guns can be secured. In the city of austin, that is not true. You get water to but if you have six guns, to be several steps in. So the theory here is if these goods are locked up, theyre all going to be safer from accidents in addition to suicides. But in your book during your research, but if you look into is far is the impact of gun safety and securing guns. Igor guns ever stored safely, particular house was children in them are pretty helpful indicator of ensuring they dont get into that child San Francisco. I think there is to see so im not mistaken that if mandatory gun storage gun law clause in the book, i talk about really having a robust federal requirement that if you going to own a gun pointed licensing is part of that, is going to be a requirement the story guns. Nicole if i could, thank speak to that question. Theres a program called smart. It critically focused on safe responsible gun storage. We give presentations and table an if it and we cannot literature and try to partner with Law Enforcement and local government. In his seat distribute gun laws. We help formulate ways for parents to other parents where the children might be visiting that home or even family members with their children might be going. They store the guns. Ideally what it should be, is unloaded ammunition stored elsewhere in locked in the container that needs access to keys or something. We know that we need whose. 4. 6 million children leaving in homes with unsecured guns. Shared absolutely is in a really important. I will see that and working loophole local government, we worked on initiatives to try to make gun law literature more accessible. Also recently, we launched the first ever Gun Violence Task horse here in austin. Going to be one of the things they look at is how to have a more robust Awareness Campaign around that and to make things more accessible to people. Host it would take two questions at once. Guest my question is about gun rights activision not 1 inch. Nephi gave into any gun regulations, is onestep about having ones having their guns taken away. How close to is that to that to gun regulations. Guest i know my gun when i six years old. What i observed, is were becoming more urban. In an entirely different way. I was in the rural area i know the problem is. Anonymous solution when i was going ask you i grew up carrying guns in the pickup. My gun rack. With one is open and events didnt huawei they were stolen or misused. First time i heard of a problem was the ut tower is, and i was shooting before that when having problems. Appears to me now have a problem. My question is why we have the problem. Host in terms of the extremist position that the nra has. If you were to compromise one piece of legislation all of your rights we huawei. I would simply. To the fact that over decade we have had all kinds of federal reforms and we now have more circulation 393 million guns in circulation. Organs of people. Also in those states that have much tougher laws. Places like massachusetts and new jersey. I think that for those folks, just is free is people in New Hampshire for instance. That have certainly lived up to a. In terms of why are we facing whose challenge today. On the it has to do with the fact that the gun industry and gun dealers and particularly the product the gun industry produces, are becoming deadlier. Is a major challenge. The fact that you can legally obtain an assault weapon the highcapacity magazine echo is it too monday around and kill people and efficiently. Is with the weapons are specifically designed to do. That creates an incredible devastation. Whose weapons were readily available in the 50s and 60s and 70s. So thats a fairly recent phenomenon. Nicole regarding the question and mentality. Whose set classic nra tactic. I should distinguish between leadership. Its quite a few members and the nra they dont necessarily feel that. Of view. Or thats what theyre doing. I really want to. To the leadership. They been using that for a long time. They been silencing lawmakers. I hope it made whose. Earlier that through electing guns with candidates and action volunteers where were going to elect people that wont allow themselves to be silent to that ridiculous idea. Host all three of you know if you could ask your questions in succession. Guest what is your opinion on School Districts allowing their teachers to carry weapons in their classrooms. If you like that will solve part of whose problem. Guest there monday people that would be very hesitant that the fingerprints taken because they may not looked at the same way is you know. If there are to go to a Police Department and give their fingerprints for a gun. So how would you convince someone in a position to do so. Guest in the United States, we own 46 percent of the guns like to believe guns, in the world so how is banning the sale of certain guns, going to do anything if theres already like 396 million guns out there. Should be focusing on the people of the weapons themselves. Host mary back the questions. First month policy of Arming Teachers and school, the second was a question about if one was implemented greater regulation of firearms, involve contraptions where they can criminal Justice System in place. And community sam history of negative interactions with the police. How can you ask them to get involved in whose kind regulations. The third question was how in any kind of policy to limit the sale of future guns having impact when already there is only firearms in circulation in the United States. Nicole i like to speak to that question schools. And you see that that is been very real here in texas and in other states. It is one of our highpriority items. For our chapter. We have been in whose building monday times fighting just that in the gun law has not only fought to weaken our gun laws to push more guns in more places even sensitive places like schools and hearts and sporting events. Weve had to absolutely been fighting that. We will come back again and do so. We consider that to be extremely dangerous. Teachers dont want that. They have said that monday times. In fact i have heard for example that the daughter of the principal who died at Sandy Hook School see it is just extraordinarily offensive to assume that some other could have prevented that from the fake tragedy. The police were given extensive training and cant respond that way when we need to. In a madhouse and in a crisis. So thats absolutely not the answered but also puts her children and her teachers at great risk. We really have our eyes on the Texas Legislature for that reason. We hold every years few years, and advocacy data fight laws like that. We had about 20 people at a first 2015 and 2017, at 250 of us whose last year 2019, about 400 of us. We are watching. And i dont think theyre going to get away with it but we can be sure we will be vigilant. [applause]. Host could want to be respond to the question about, because both of you in various wave talks about the need to address the problem of gun violence in increased regulation. Appears to to the question about how you would respond to people who are hesitant to enroll in that kind of policy. Igor is the really important. Because obviously we have a history in whose country and is very much true today laws are applied differently to different people and often times, there applied with racial bias so it is absolutely the case that if you are going to take any kind of licensing system that requires a fingerprint component that requires interaction with Law Enforcement you have to ensure that its done in the way that went out racial bias in the fact of the matter is they try to tackle whose in the book, is that whose is still very much an open question about how do you ensure that all communities have equal access to the system. Enter the structure so maybe theres a way to do it where Law Enforcement does not the public facing is massachusetts grandsons but i think it is very clear from all of the folks who are now very actively working on whose issue figuring out how to scale it up to ensure that the communities that are disproportionately impacted by gun violence are not hurt by these regulations. In nerve the mistakes of the past. That in terms of the question about if you cut off the production of certain kind of weapons to the civilian market, what you do with the millions and millions of guns already in circulation. Thats a very difficult question i spent a lot of time in the book trying to figure out how you tackle that within the framework of the Second Amendment. Is only no, whose really the heart of the debate are having within the democratic president ial primary. Two approaches, one is an approach that where you outlaw the production of the new assault weapons for the civilian market and you make it illegal to own those firearms. You require people to sell them into a government run buyback and then those who do not comply, will be penalized in some way. Thats one approach. The approach that i talk about the book really builds on our success with regulating machine guns. In 1986, we decided to outlaw the production of new machine guns for the civilian market. We grandfathered existing machine guns. And we said you are going to new license, you are going to need to register them theirs would be all sorts of fees associated with it if i just give you my machine gun which i wont. And what we have seen is that those regulations have been incredibly successful. Right now theres about 650,000 machine guns in civilian hands in the United States. But when was the last time you heard of a machine gun being used in some kind of shooting. Its very rarely happens. So suggest that you could probably use the Regulatory Regime to really control those weapons. And at least what we did with machine guns, may be provide a place to start. They would want to build upon the millions of assault weapons that are out there. Host we do need clan space. If you please join me and thinking both of our speakers today. [applause] igor will be signing the books over here and i think nicole can see a for a couple of minutes. [background sounds] the reps of our coverage at texas coverage in austin. If you miss any of the programs, you can watch them all online. Apple tv. Org. Every year but tv covers book fairs and festivals around the country. Including whose weekend his live coverage of the texas book festival. Heres a look at some of the events coming up. Next month the baltimore book festival will take place in the city his inner harbor. Later in november, the National Book awards will be presented in new your city. And will be live from Miami Book Fair with two days of author talks and programs on november 23rd to 24th. To find more information about upcoming book fairs and festivals and watch our previous festival coverage click the book fairs tab on our website. Tv. Org. Booktv visited the Ronald Reagan president ial library in simi valley california where Supreme Court justice neil corset discussed his views the judiciary and the u. S. Constitution and heres a portion of the program. We all know our First Amendment rights. The Fourth Amendment rights, we know the bill of rights. We know how they contributing to our liberty. But i sometimes wonder if we dont appreciate enough separation of powers and how important it is. To our liberty. Monday countries have wonderful bills of rights. It is my favorite. [laughter] promises all of the rights you can find in our bill of rights. Every one of them and more. Education, healthcare, and even my favorite, a right to relaxation. [laughter] now i dont know how thats working out for the political people of north korea, but the point is, medicine knew whose when he wrote the constitution. The desert just promises. He didnt even think we need it a bill of rights. We got the constitution and the structure separation of powers right. He knew the man are not angels. In the key to your liberty, is keeping power separated. I am one night, of one third of the federal government which is one half of the government in the country. Divide power. I think what happens when we ignore the separations of powers. It has sometimes been forgotten and i noticed the separation of powers seems academic and monkey. I did to me when i learned hike School Civics was bored by it. But is a judge, ive been a judge for a while now. Especially just in the day in day out cases the tenth circuit. I came to see what happens we do blur the lines of the separation of powers. In real people his lives. Can i offer a couple of examples. So what happens when the legislative powder art of making laws the executive branch. Lawmaking could be really are predisposed to be public process to have whose happen of congress. The response of two different electorates at different times. The whole idea was to make minorities part of the legislative process so the excerpt special powers to protect themselves. Thats how we thought minority rights would be protected most of all in the promises the bill of rights which he dutifully wrote after everybody made them but didnt feel it was necessary. What about you but the process in the hands of the executive branch. They are supposed to apply the law. Horse law gnomic lodges enforce it. If you can make it through whose difficult process, should be vigorously enforced. So lets put all of the power and one person his hands. The president. And by management and by committee. What happens we do take out 435 elected residency but one person in his place for four years. I dont want to exaggerate, but what happens when that power is delegated. You have cases like what i talk about in whose book. Small business in colorado, momandpop dive boat operation. Provides nursing care inhome nursing care. Its a good sized business. They get accused by the federal government of medicare fraud. Blessing to be business right. And they find 800,000. But that later turns out monday years later through litigation, they have complied with all of the rules in place at the time. And that the agency was propagating so monday new rules and laws enforceable, and sanctions and even the agency couldnt keep up. I asked my law clerk, how monday of the regulations are out there in the books written by federal executive agencies responsible only to the present. And sometimes not even to the president and all. And they said that academics stopped counting monday years ago. When they got over 300,000. Alright that is one example. What happens when the power to judge is transferred to the executive branch. Well i had that come before me. Immigrants come before me when i look at the law, they win. They deserve to win. We had doctrines essay no, judges independent judges, should defer to the interpretation of the law. Executive bureaucrat. Same though i think, the veterans should win, the pit Social Security benefit should win. I have to rule the other way. What happens to your right in an independent judge. What happens to your right to participate in the lawmaking process. Supposed to be republic stack to watch the rest of the stock visit our website, but to be that hard. Search for neil corset, the titles of his book, a republic if you can keep it. Single bucks at the top of the page. Heres a look at some of the invisible tv will be coming whose week. On monday we will be in jackson mississippi. When study of the final year of the civil war and on tuesday look for us at the Schomburg Center in new your, city. For a carry washington talk on James Williams chief porter of the Grand Central terminal strike caps in the early 19 hundreds. It was the face of his africanamerican workforce. And champion their upward mobility. On wednesday, in new haven connecticut, yale lecture Charles Barber reported the live of william jun boy a la and his journey from a convicted felon to a community advocate. Then on friday, will be in the San Francisco Public Library for the presentation of the 40th annual american book awards. All of these events are open to the public. If you know in attendance take those pitcher and take us apple tv on twitter and facebook or instagram. Here are some of our current bestselling nonfiction books. According to the new your times, topping the list msnbc rachel argues that the oil and gas industry has weakened democracies around the world and blow out. Is talking to strangers, new your staff writer examination on how we misread strangers words and actions. After that, fox news, offers his thoughts on the molar investigation. It was sick. Followed by the United States of trump. Bill oreilly his look at the live and career of President Trump. And rubbing of our look at some of the bestselling nonfiction books, according to the new your times, is the book of gutsy women. Hillary and Chelsea Clintons thoughts on the women who have inspired them. Some of these authors have appeared on book tv. You can watch them on line about tv. Org