Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jackie Gingrich Cushman Our Broken America 20240713

As part of the learning makes a Difference Foundation which test innovative learning programs to struggling students learn that they can learn she knows the importance of learning every day. By helping lead a new life a homeless shelter for newborn babies and their families, and the 5 million capital campaign. She has learned the value of giving to others. Jackie is passionate about improving the world, her two chill military and endeavor to inspire others to learn, love and live their lives successfully. As a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate jackie writes with her heart and mind. Noted by the Washington Times for considerable talent in writing, jackies outlook is highly energetic of inspirational and thoughtprovoking. Jackie has authored numerous books including five principles for successful life from our family to yours which she coauthored with her father Newt Gingrich, the essential american 25 25 documents and speeches that every american should read. Should probably start assigning my students. And today our broken america why both sides need to stop ranting and start listening. Jackies work has been on the today show, nuke times magazine come yesterday and the Washington Times. Shes appeared at abc good morning america, cnn campbell brown, the 700 club, ox news channel, fox and friends, sean hannity show, the Strategy Group and the list goes on and on and on. Not least of which this past week where shes been doing numerous interviews for her book where you might have caught her on Tucker Carlson. Any Tucker Carlson fans . [applause] jackies nonprofit activities include serving on the georgia Advisory Counsel for the trusted publicly. She serves on the Advisory Board of genesis a new life. Shes not a chairman of the board of learning makes a Difference Foundation. She works with American Solutions back a company dedicated to issues in american politics. She lived in atlanta with her husband and their children. Lets give a warm welcome to Jackie Gingrich cushman. [applause] okay. Well, thank you, and im thrilled to be here today. Im going to step back a little bit and kind of give you what i wrote this book. I started this book our broken america a little over a year ago and if you are like me, im really concerned about the polarization of this country and im not alone because 86 of americans believe we are to polarize and its a danger for our country. But im a Firm Believer that a country is exceptional, that we are structured differently, that we believe that god has given us rights as individuals. We loaned them to the government and the government doesnt pay properly we have to pull them back. Im a big believer in limited government which informs what im talking about. Keep that in mind. I believe we are today not only requires a political response which is what President Trump is to also quite frankly a cultural response. And thats what it what you talking about because i can only be done on the ground in communities with people like you. And i know you can lead this effort. So let me back up and say about myself and if you read talking about nancy posey being here and the Fifth District and congressmen the bath and how important is to her, and in that it read entire article you will notice that talk about the current district and how it is been in republican hands beginning at 78. I want you to know the j. C. Made a mistake and it is the six district but the six district in send it was not this district. From those you have been about as long as i have, right, you understand its that same district. In the 70s six district was from South Atlanta down to griffin and over to alabama. I grew up in carrollton georgia where my dad was a professor at west georgia college. To be truthfully with the because its only place he could get a job and he had two small kids, okay . But he had a job the college and moved there when i was very, very young. Even though i was a boy i was born in new orleans. All remember is a georgia. In carrollton at the time life was pretty much church and football, and thats all we did went to Church Sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday night, they do one of the time and with football friday night, right . With the carrollton trojans. That was our life. My very first memory for my dad running for congress. I will back up one more generation because my father was an army brat and his father was a career army officer. He moved around a lot and it was during that process when he really learned about the history of our country and the sacrifices that our soldiers have made on our behalf not only for our country but to free other countries. That he began to understand how important politics is here quite frankly will be engaging on a daily basis in the political world is the civil war but with words. When people get frustrated about how hard it is sometimes, this is so much better than an actual support weve gone through but we have to learn what Margaret Thatcher said. First you win the argument, and then you win the vote. I think too many times we tried to rush through getting the vote with that actually winning the argument. Lets go back to 1974. My first dad ran in 1934 and for those of you who wrote in 1974 he will know what happened during the time of watergate. Talking about impeachment right now. Dad was working very hard. They had come his opponent was a democrat at the time if you can imagine in georgia it was a democratic state. He worked very hard but watergate happened. He knew it would be rough and i remember that night sitting, they were not painted boards, not any digital tv. With people calling in a landline phones from the precincts telling us how many votes were cast. No, yes, yes, yes to my dad would sit there with a legal pad and he would put the numbers down and you would add them up to see where we were. At the end of the night we lost. He had 48. 6 of the vote and he lost. We worked very hard. This was a very big rural district. We spent a lot time in the car, a lot of time in little bitty gas stations on a four way not even a traffic light. We stopped at you were talk to anybody but he lost. The next morning we got up. We went to the factory across a original chickfila and shook hands at the change of shift. He said im Newt Gingrich. I need your support again. He ran again. In 1976 he has worked for two more years. Hes now working again very hard and were out, its a film it then. We dont have babysitters watching a spirit we are out with him sleeping in the car on the way home, exhausted. We take breaks from the can. He works very hard in 1936. He thinks he is a chance and then he notices in the spring there somebody named jimmy carter doing really well and the president ial primaries. He begins to think this may be more difficult than i thought. Its hard enough when youre republican run at the time in georgia but now you have a past governors running as president and what is that going to mean . He sticks with the turkey works really hard. He thinks he has a shot. He drives up the vote in carrollton that day and at the library, he sees buses pulling up and people getting out. He realizes they are not there to vote for someone named Newt Gingrich. He was right. Remember this, the ground game is important. We again get the calls in from the different precincts and counted them all up, very late in the night, he did not win again. By the cut 48. 3 of the vote. Still very close at that time. Jack flint retires in humans get someone seminoles, has different opponent. This time my mother stopped working for you. Shes all and as well. My grandmother comes and stays with us so we can go to school while theyre out campaigning. They camping world hard for an entire year. Again this this is a very rural districts we cant afford theres no social media. We go to radio. We go to smalltown newspapers. We have a site on top of our car that has Newt Gingrich for congress. If you can imagine how embarrassing that was for a teenager, you know how i felt. I had to say the third time was the charm and he won. What i can tell you is i learn persistence matters and give you have to keep working. What i also learned is that ground game matters. You have to get out the vote. You have to make sure people are registered to vote and you have to make sure they can get to vote. You have to make sure you win the argument. Thats what i want to talk about today about winning the argument because we have george is an exceptional state. Ive grown up in georgia conflict in georgia all my life. I raise both my children in georgia. We do live in atlanta. I tried when her kids were very young, can remove some of the smaller . A little smaller town. We didnt and were in atlanta but with such a great state because were we very involved o think i know we understand what government can do and what government cannot do which is quite frankly a lot in what we have to do. But i also know theres a middle in georgia that may be new to george or maybe hasnt been around georgia very long that quite frankly believes all the horrible things they hear about republicans from the news media here quite frankly that makes me sad. I know you are wonderful people. I grew up in the republican party. My fourth of july every year starting at sunrise, we go to fayetteville and some of the places we would walk in the parade but sometimes we would jog in the parade because it was kind of fast. Sometimes we would just write in it. I grew in the republican party. I know you have great hearts. I know we are loving people but im saddened by the fact we constantly get maligned nationally. I i want us to think about selectively how we combat that. So im going to transition from the 70s to hear for those that remember, my father when he was finally elected in 78 the speaker of the Georgian House at the time was tom murphy. When you did in my dads six district is a reason im telling you this. He was not a very happy to have Newt Gingrich as his congressman. He wasnt happy. After the 1990 census at the redistricting because remember this applies to the future as well. As they were redistricting the democrats decided they were going to cut the old sixth district which was again south atlantic down to griffin, west alabama into little bitty pieces in an attempt to get rid of Newt Gingrich. Speaker murphy wanted to get because he hated to have Newt Gingrich as his representative. So they did. At the time my father was on the republican congressman from georgia. They created this new tigers six district. And what happened . Dad walked rent and that everybody here and dad ran for congress in the new six district. That year after election there wasnt just one, there were three additional republican congressman. Thats what tom murphy gets her trying to cut it up. We actually one more which was good. [applause] exactly. But it does remind you of the power of redistricting which is going to happen again so lets keep that in mind. Bad loser and he has a primary right and at this time i joined a college, got my mba, working business valuation and us networking for, youll laugh again, a Wireless Company Cell Phone Company which at the time the wireless, the phones like as big as they were huge, big bag phones unbelievable and installed in your car, ui cup is amazing. It was enormous. I remember one day i was going to work and i heard this add on the radio about my father against my father talk about how basic am going to paraphrase a terrible person. I thought unused of people say things that is set on a jew. I read was little my dad was in a limousine. We never had a limousine. I had people tell me theyre glad my father lost when i was in Elementary School and glad he wasnt serving. Finally it just really got to me. I i got to work and a cold and i said dad, you havent asked me but im glad to do a commercial for you if you think would help. This is outrageous, outrageous. Hes like i think it will help. I did. I went and did a commercial and i said the truth. Its just not true. Those lies are just not true. Sure enough he won the primary and obviously in the great six district he won in a landslide at that time. That was two years before the republican revolution. I want to talk about the republican revolution because its been 25 years. I dont know if you saw the special on fox, thank you, theres also a miniseries on fox nation if youre interested it look at that as well. Its interesting because they did a couple things that are think a really valuable for us to think about. One is they were specific and heres the things are going to do. It laid out, it was a last, he punched off when they did it very specific. Second it was positive. It wasnt things were not going to let them do what things we were against. It was what are we for, what can we do together. It was positive. The third thing was it drove all the legislative action and, quite frankly, part of what happened i think, that was a huge amount of work. There with you that in 100 days. My dad did this great idea. He has a lot of ideas for those of you who know him, a lot of ideas bittman of them are great. Im not sure if this was great but let me tell you what it was. His idea was see want transparency in the speakership and water to be in front so they decide to do a daily press conference. Which theoretically was a great idea except it turned into a daily let me see if we can get Newt Gingrich with the clip he shouldnt have said. He would be talked about everything and then you get these little snippets of it turned into what can we get newt for. This was around the same time the government is getting shut down and he was the grinch stole christmas, hes never stole christmas, trust me i would know. A lot of things are going on but im not sure the press conference held. This was back to what i want us to think about as a community. If you let someone else control the narrative they get to choose what points they want to say. He would talk for an hour half and pull things out they wanted. He learned from that and he was incredibly persistent so he talks a lot and i talk a lot about cheerful persistence. You have to be persistent because if youre not persistent you will never get anywhere. We all fail. I could tell you about my failures but a note have to go eat lunch eventually so im not going to do that. But you also have to be cheerful because if youre not, no one wants to play with you. Watch future or somebody elses children. The children that are sour and our, hard to get some to play with them. Thats what i want us to think about as republicans, how we can be more cheerful. Heres some of the framework for a broken america, the questions are are we polarized . I think the answer is yes. Is it dangerous for our country . I think it is. Are we a nation exceptional in worth saving . So good, you agree with me. I agree with all those things. How do we save it . Is it true that Many Democrats on the left that out to get President Trump . Benches yes, i think we all know that. This is not a hidden secret. If youre like me after watching the 2016 elections, i was at trump headquarters in new york and i could tell the sound was off but i was watching the tv and i could tell by the body language and expressions of the angered faces that donald trump was going to win, right . Did you notice that . [applause] when they got very upset and looked as if they might cry. And also i could tell when they quit calling states early, i knew in georgia should be called and also new where the votes were and unlike georgia should be called them be called back to george and i like i dont know why george is a called because its done. They wouldnt call, wouldnt call them wouldnt call. Maybe an attempt if california someone some of do Something Different but they couldnt admit it. Then you had the whole, he couldnt have been elected and were so upset we cant go to work or results that we cant go to school or where subset we can do whatever. Quite frankly i have to admit i made a little fun of that. In retrospect i should have and ill tell you why. We didnt stay at home, we didnt cry when barack obama became president. We got up and went to work. Thats what you do. I think we miss an opportunity, i think we miss an opportunity to learn. I think we miss an opportunity to learn, to learn, why . Why . Y with a that upset . Why were they so surprised and what have we not communicated properly . I firmly believe in republican foes. I firmly believe that our foundational structures as as a country and a firmly believe that we can communicate better as a party. I also believe we have to if we want to win this next election and we have a lot at stake. I want to talk about the framework for this book our broken america. One is the new cisgender. When i was little there was news. Information that was given not for very long, and edwin had the same framework. With an over the last few decades, that was how old i am, that has changed. Its no longer news. Its now opinion. Social media, perspective. Not only that but theres so many channels that you had to figure out which ones may or may not be right in which ones are slicing and dicing facts. Quite frankly its really confusing the average person. Think how confusing it is for all of us and we care about politics. Imagine if youre a person that is a single mother goes to work and has to worry about her kids and has to pay the bills and she doesnt have time to think about it. How confusing would that be . We need to think about that. The second thing thats happened is that we become because of this, this news is no longer news, is that we allow, things travel so rapidly that once they take flight in the social media its really hard to get them back and give you a few examples. Im not sure how to fix this quite frankly. I dont have the solution but i know together we can figure this out. Let me give you a couple of examples. In june of 2018 there was a time cover with trump and a little girl and the title was something either, said come to find out there actually was in, but didnt have it. The girl is not separate from her mother. Not true. And, in fact, her mother had been deported from the u. S. She then come years later she brought her child back with her. They were not separated and when asked, the daughter said i did initially pick the appropriate tone mightve been mother kidnaps child, police to foreign country without telling husband. That should been an appropriate title but that wasnt it. If you ask the average person not a republican and that a democrat but that huge block in the middle of independence about that, they will have no idea that wasnt true. Think about it. Secondly think about the page of the child that was in the cage, right, he was what happened, the child was in the cage and acidic with quotation marks because the child was actually in a demonstration and they had a cage put the for demonstration purposes and one of the people that were at the protest their child got behind it and tried. This is a picture that everybody saw. You and i know its not true but what about how would they know . The picture of the bus with the child seats with the entertainment attached to trump saw the narrative is hey, trump, must be trumps old. I hate trump. Must be trumps all. That was during the obama administration. Again you at onto that but the middle doesnt know that. Part of the problem is whats covered. If you look at before the midterms they had 33 hours, this report said 33 hours were dedicated to the Russian Investigation which we now know was nothing for trump. 14 minutes, 14 minutes were about the economy. 14 minutes. Less than 1 . Here we are with just the greatest numbers yesterday incredibly great numbers for the economy, right . The great news about low and upon means you have choices for jobs and you can either get a promotion or get a raise or you can change jobs and mobility and increase income. Think about how do we deal with this . Lets talk more about come the next and we have is social media. Social media does two things. It spreads things are rapidly that are not to advise you to comment from your bed at 3 a. M. If youre one of those that does that i would suggest you dont. Do what you want its a free country. The other thing that happens that allows you to feel like you have a connection when you really dont. I get on twitter and i see that look at that. Thats not real connection. Let me tell you what real connection is. This is real connection coming to breakfast. I then on my pal palathon andf at the depressive on demand, highly motivating. Ive also belong to a runny group when we meet every week and we run. Guess which one helps me when i have a problem. The people you see and do things with. Not the people you happen on demand download. You dont even know who they are, even though you are their favorite. Think about that because what that means is we are changes in our society. We no longer have small communities. Again i grew up in carrollton, georgia, so we were such a Small Community that we didnt lock our door at night. Why would we . I really come in mother why was because i would only be a couple of places and trust me if i did anything wrong she would find out about it, right . Very, very rapidly. The only time i got in with big trouble in high school was when i inadvertently left this is a ridiculous. I left the church would like to go to the movies with a youth group and forgot to tell her. But, of course, some other mother let her know that i was fine when she called around. I was a very loving, nurturing environment close families and people like you that only about their kids but other peoples children and look out for each other. Thats what we need to recreate today. We cannot do it alone. We must do in community. The hard thing is sometimes we are in this we have to remember that we are not mrs. O all the same are believed the same but we still have to make sure we respect one another. Ill tell you why. Because i think theres this vast middle that is been led to believe the republicans are terrible which i know we are not, that they are so precondition to not like us that we have to be the first one to reach out our hand. We have to be the ones to say you are welcome here. We would love to have you involved. Please come and join us. We need you. We need your input. We need you to be with us and i want you to be there. What else has happened in society . We have become less religious as the country. There are fewer people who say they belonged to her religion. The good news is that 87 still believe in god and 55 believe religion can fix almost all of our nations problems. Think about that. Lower religion that high, high belief in god. So to me what this means is i think we are actually do for a religious revival. [applause] right . How can you explain that . Trust me i prayed a lot when i was writing this book. Often at two or three in the morning. Please lord help me for the next word. I think were right for religious revival and youll see that in the big churches in new york, in churches in georgia, youll see people hungry for that connection to god and that connection to people but not necessarily connection to religion institution that they no longer necessarily believe in. And i think thats hard because were in a real transitional time. And so theres a lot of fluidity. What it do think it also means is we have the opportunity to reach out to others and say youre welcomed here. I love you. Your child of god just like me, and to make sure we have that connection. Ideally we will have a religious revival. I think going to happen. We have a huge change in immigration we all know that. In 19 signified only 5 were firstgeneration immigrants. This is that good or bad, just the factor when i was born it was a very low number. Now we are at 40 with an additional 26 secondgeneration. We are shifting. Part of that shift is yes, it is great to have immigrants come to our country. Yes, they bring a lot. I didnt loose barbecue. I cant wait to tell her husband, hes going to be so happy. He loves barbecue. They bring so many Different Things and yet quite frankly a lot of the values of family and faith and belief of exact same that founded our country and we need to make sure we welcome immigrants who say welcome to our country. This is going to be, i want you to come into our country. One of my daughters best friends, she just became, she moved it from ecuador and she just became a u. S. Citizen and she was so excited to finally become a u. S. Citizen, she worked very hard, had passed the test and we have to remember that we are that coach of the people want to come to. We have to make sure that we reach out and wrap them in our arms. So that is happening at the same time where this lack of news and more opinion, its whats happening is its creating this tribalism. I hate the word tribe. It drives me nuts but i would use anyway. Tribalism, my trike is better than your tribe whether my tribe at telethon and yours, what of the tribe is, how we all are different. The problem with that is we begin to see ourselves not as individuals which is individualism that we are individuals that Work Together but as members of a tribe even before members of a country. Thats where he gets a dangerous. This was in the party basis, ive gotten i learned so much into this book i cant even tell you because it is frightening whats happening. I learned a ton. If you think about the friends you have and how you interact, whats happened is we have slowly as the country sorted ourselves into a lyrical parties. Not just geographically which has happened if we know that but also in the same geographic areas. As the fact 64 of democrats and 55 of republicans have few or no friends in the opposite party. Just think about that. That is frightening. What that means if you have no contact with anyone in the other party, you dont understand how they think of what they care about, or quite more importantly they think you dont care about them. Thats what i think we are as a country. I know we care about all of america and all americans, and i know that we want the best for our country. I also know we are not communicating that in the way in which people understand. While we can scare people to vote for us for a year or two, im concerned quite frankly about my children who are 20 and 18, and we cant do this for them. We got to fix this. We must learn how to communicate effectively so we understand, people understand that we care about them and we care about america. That i think is our next challenge. [applause] im a huge believer in divine scheduling which means id ive nothing to do with it. And so this morning actually i was going through my email and i received, ive some of his into all kinds of articles about everything and one of the articles i received was about getting information from other people. And you can make it was somebody i dont know for those of you who have spouse or children i dont know if youve had albums communicating with them, i know i have but ive learned especially if they are upset and their ranting and raving at me and screaming, i learned from experience it doesnt help a lot for me to scream back. Having tried that, i was not very successful. If you were, please let me know afterwards, im glad to learn some tips. But what i learned from that experience is people shut down and become more defensive. Thats what this article is talking about, that the way to really committee with someone to understand where theyre coming from is to ask them tell me about that. Why is that . Can you explain to me whats happening . And to not judge them to make them feel safe and welcome. For those who say she is juicing rolling over and agree with that. No, no, no. I never said that if i never several over and abandoned principles. What im talking about is a little intellectual curiosity, just a little whats happening with them. Even if you dont learn anything about their position and dont agree with them, youll learn about them as a person and then you can communicate with them. If you dont know what they care about or if they think you dont care about them, it doesnt matter. The facts dont matter. You are not going to be able to communicate. It is so important that we make sure people understand that we care about them and we want to listen to the problems. And, quite frankly, if you dont listen to the problems we cant help them solve it. Which is the only way i think we can move forward as a nation. We talked about tribalism. As you know our parties have pulled apart in terms of ideology which makes it very hard for Bipartisan Legislation but weve had some really great legislation in the last two years. Weve had that Patriotic Community and decency act, the mission, agriculture improvement act, first step act, format and credible bipartisan bills, that trump signed all past, great work. No one talks about them. One of the challenges for as rebel because we need to proactively tell people about this. I know we think we do it and im just as guilty as you are, my husband laugh about this. You can tell your child once. Just tell them once and they do it. Again, if that works for you let me know. I tell my child about a thousand times and occasionally they do it. But what kind of the same way. We cant just tell people once that we did these great by parson asked her where them so many times that they finally here. You cant just tell somebody one time. You have to tell them 1000 times in 1000 different ways for them to understand. You cant yell at them. I have tried to yell my child to get them to do things. It is not very successful. When the young i could pick them up and move them physically which i did a lot especially in the Grocery Store if they were having a fit. Just pick them up and leave the card. But were not children. We are adults and so we have to learn how to best motivate people, how to understand how to deal with people, had we get them to understand where were coming from and what we want from our country. This polarization got worse. In 1976 the first big map on tv. At that time it was actually read for the democrats and blue for the republicans, and mississippi turn red when carter won that state. Littleknown fact, there was a light behind it and it was i think a plastic type map and it melted and went up in flames. You can imagine that in 76. From 1976 through 2000 the colors and the maps change to been on what network year the parties would be red or blue depending on what youre looking at. It wasnt until 2000 that the colors became the same. Also remember that was cnn the big map and the bushgore recount every day we saw, not just week of the entire nation saw that map. All day every day for too many days. And i both feel like this is part of our polarization issue because net which no longer who won, its about what color want and what team went and i call this this notification of politics. Its no longer just about politics. Its not about a fort. Interesting enough the data backs this up. Youre all engaged so not talk about your engaged active republicans, youre in the issue if you know its happening for a lot of people they are not engaged in issues. Whether engaged in is identity, who they belong to. Who are they a part of . They have done research with a switched positions between parties and said do you agree with this and they will say yes if they think its their parties stand even though its not. What this tells us is it really isnt about ideology. Its about who people think they are and how they identify themselves within that group. It also tells us with a lot of work to do communicating who we are to the vast majority of the middle. Weve got to think about that because if they dont think they belong to us we have to think about we know they belong with us so what will be communicating wrong . Weve got to fix that. Im going to challenge you with the last few things and then open it up. Our broken america started off a couple years ago. Politics is, its not civil war. Its civil war the words and just politics is important and we need to make sure we support and understand and back of our foundational values and we talk about when its not right but we have to talk about what he can do together. In the longterm we have to be optimistic. Not only for our party but for our nation. Id like to give you a framework, how i try to think about things. I challenge you to think about gratitude over grievance. Because the left has a lot of work on grievance, let them have it. Let tim grieve about who belongs to a group and you is a convict them and how terrible things are. Let them have grievance. Let me tell you why we should be grateful. We live in the best nation on earth, hands down. I wouldnt live anywhere else, would you agree . [applause] not only people want to cut a illegally because were such a great country and theres a reason. Were great country. Lets be grateful for that. We have a great structure. Whether structure what we believe in god and god keep us rights and we loaned into government. Thats amazing. To be grateful that. I had nothing to do with that. It. I was just bored here. Be grateful where the place where we have free speech. Yes are they tried to censor it . Thats fine but they cant. Be grateful we have free speech and, quite frankly, because we are free speech we need to use it and not to yell at the other side but to articulate more clearly why we are the better party. [applause] i think we win best when we win with clear communication, with explaining to people why we are the better choice, with understanding what we can bring to them. I love to think of this grievance, elmer grievances, just gratitude, and we should be grateful quite frankly we have an opposite party that makes us more clearly communicate. Because we need to do the work that if you think about sports, im an avid tennis player, not very good but i love it, and i love to have come petition because it makes me work and it makes me think, and thats what we are. We have to work and where to think and we have to communicate better. Secondly, i want you to think about our national narrative. Again, optimistic versus negative. The left has a full on terrible narrative about how terrible we have been. Im guessing where perfect nation. We are not a perfect nation but it do believe were. I also believe if we constantly tear ourselves down we will never be able to move forward. Try at home. I do, tell your spouse how horrible they are. Does that work . No. Try deter child how horrible they are. They will believe it and its terrible. I think we have an entire generation of people who we have told they cant be successful and, unfortunately, they have begun to believe it and i think it is a travesty and i think we have to change it. We must confront the national narrative. We must make it to people that you can be a success and the United States. We must commit to get a great we are as a nation and a great we can be together. I think to do anything else of that is quite private unacceptable and we must continue to be positive about our country, not saying where perfect but positive and move forward. The last thing i think is the biggest challenge. Ive spent the last 20 years so i was in Corporate America for a long time working in corporate finance. I ran a division and a 3 billion under me and after our second child quite frankly i was traveling so much i didnt want to do that. I wanted to be home with the kids. I spent time working parttime. I consulted. Im on several boards and ive been very heavily involved in the community. What i found is that when you work with people, when you find a problem you care about, i dont care what the problem is, from its homelessness, its the environment and its financial literacy, its only education but whatever you care about, they could be the symphony, the art museum, a garden club, healthcare. Whatever you care about and you spend time with whoever cares about that same thing and you Work Together and to make progress, you dont know if there democrat or republican, of hollywood, there will be democrats on the team and you will change their minds about what a republican is because they will see you work next to them. You will see them they will see you caring about people. You will see them caring about them and youll leave their lives changed. We cant sit back and pretend like 55 of the sedona friends in the other party okay. Thats not okay. We have to be in community with people even people we dont like. Quite frankly if we didnt reset alone by ourselves at home, which really isnt a very good choice. Sigh think a little intellectual humility to note that we may have a lot of the things right but not everything right, to know when you be part of this big system that doesnt always work well but works better than anywhere else in the world, and to understand that every time were out in public that we reflect not only ourselves and our country but also our Republican Values and our brand, reach out to people. If the yell at you, let me tell you i been yelled at so many times i cant even, ive been yelled at when im try to check out at a store and they start yelling at me because of my father. I finally for a while quite frankly i would get very upset about it and i finally just decided to smile. If it makes them feel better to yell at me, maybe thats my job for the day. I dont know. What i do know if i yell right back at them, do you know what he would do, then go tell somebody, his daughter is just nasty. What does that do . That doesnt do anything. So my challenge to you is, go out, get involved, the pleasant especially when yelled at. And to remember that together i know that our country has a great future. Thank you for having me here. [applause] thank you. Thank you. Do we have time for questions . We do have time for questions. This is the book and we do have a microphone silage is ask that you wait, and you can tell me if you want but im not going to im going to applaud you. Hey, im only ship and let the question is i see and hear so much vitriol that we can have a disparate viewpoint. We can have different viewpoints but what i see is probably the number one issue for me day today is that we are calling each other names instead of calling out the issue and were getting its on both sides. Can you speak to that . Because i believe we are not going to be able to be victorious unless and until we become virtuous with our mouth. Thats well said, well said. The question talks about both sides ranting and raving and how do we get out of that cycle. Again i liken it to maybe because i am to children who are just leaving the teenage years and so fresh in my mind. My kids are fibrous, dont get the wrong idea but they grow. This is part of the process, this is what they do. I found it really helpful to ever scream back at some and screaming at me. My point is, and ive done this, i can pull up some video, ive had on tv people scream at me about whatever and they usually find it very disarm to smile at them so usually i linked in because it takes them so aback. And then ill ask them, explain it to me. This happened last week not on tv but with somebody i just met and she was like very emotional about what she thought and was happy to tell me about it. She did. I asked her a question and after she finished with him i said more about that to me. She would go again, about the fourth time she just quit. She just didnt have no more to say. So after that we able to have a discussion but it took a while and it took quite frankly i think its really hard because we are all human. Were all in perfect we dont to perfect things and we all when we get yelled at theres that basic human desire to defend ourselves and thats just the way we are built. I find helpful personally to take a really deep breath to say a prayer and if that doesnt work, saying in my head. It seems be able to keep me entertained while not responding back. And again its not about agreeing with what they said because thats not the point but the point is to respect him as a human and it think unfortunately so many people especially in the middle have been told for so long that we are so terrible that they dont understand that we care here and i know we care greatly. We care so quickly sometimes, we want to fix things so badly that we dont stop along the way and, quite frankly, think will have to stop along the way sometime. Hank you. First and foremost, i want to say that i love my president. I love his tweets i love everything about him. Hes a real. I like your parable that you shared about speaking positive to your mate, to your children so you can get positive results. Its almost like a parable. So i think also along the lines that what helps me, because i have, i started out with almost 0 when people found out that i was with trump. No phone calls, friends gone can everything. But i know the lord told me to get on his training and it was a winning train and i knew nothing about politics four years ago until the lord told me to get on Donald Trumps train. So in that i i found, i find tt actually giving true history, because black people, number one, they dont know their history because google is change, social media changed history and i thank god i do have two sets of encyclopedias to know that in the 1800s that it was the republic of the democrats, they were the only party in the United States at that time. So when you really shared knowledge and you open peoples eyes and you can also go and show them, when i teach the word of god i like to go to scripture. I just dont like to quote scripture. And what people are able to see this, then they can believe and they can walk in and yes, walk in love but just to walk in truth, too. I just wanted to just share that part as well and you what you have to say about that. And thank you so much for coming and sharing your wonderful testimony with us. Thank you so much. I do think, so when youre dealing with people that dont believe what you believe politically, how do you actually can mitigate and a lot of that your exact the right, is making sure they understand the history and whats happening and the truth and the facts. And again like for instance, the fact that reintegrate economy now. No one talks about it but we have great economy. Lets talk about the bipartisan things weve done that a great for a. A lot of facts we can share but the really interesting thing about what you said is your cleared in community, you are talking to and interacting with people that are different political perspectives than you do. [inaudible] they are on the trump train. And they are loving it and these are people of color as well as, you know, vocations. But they would not be if you would not have taken that risk and to be in Community Within and to talk to them about what you know to be true and that the interaction and i can tell quite frankly by your demeanor that was done with love and not with anger because of the way you talk. So again we have we need to change because we all talk yourself into nobody else its very hard to expand our base. We have to do exactly what you did which is talk to people about whats happening and then, right, share the information. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. This is the last one in the back. The microphone is on sorry. Im sorry. To make quick things. One, i know people for destroyed many years ago people were looking for how to get more people involved and my perspective was how may people walk down six flags drive, mlk and take Public Transit go talk to someone on the street down there. I had a couple of people that respond why would we want to do that . I pointed went back to them and said thats your problem. How to get more people involved. Somebody else i bending recently to get across partyline discussion going is finding which of the major candidates like on the democrat side they had 20, 20, now its down to an or so, people who are running, which one do you like best from the opposite party and why . Just because theyre the opposite party doesnt mean youre completely against, you might be 100 against certain of them but others they never have a chance, for example, i like stacey evans much better than stacey abrams, or like Tulsi Gabbard much more than anybody else on the democratic ticket, and its going why you might like them elyse on the opposite side and thats the discussion what unstrung to have an with people. Thats a good example. Again your time but how to get out and expand iq you interact with because if you stay the same old way you will not have that experience. Also intellectual curiosity. Its hard, we are very firm belief in a country and what we stand for one another saying to be intellectually curious and changing those police. Im saying curious about why people might believe Something Different because along the way to learn something about them and be able to give me get better so thats a good example, thank you. We do have one last question is up at you said . Thank you. In the back. Thank you. [inaudible] [applause] appreciate your being here today. Ive heard it said before they wont understand become the people youre talking to, they will not understand until the understand that you understand that we need to show an understanding of the difficult positions that our political opponents are people think different than we do see and show that recognition of their concerns and then begin to lead them back to position we know is based on First Principles we would understand. Could you that issue of being able to engage people, where they are showing the recognition of and an understanding of them and why they are where they are as a first step of getting people to whether youd be in terms of understanding things as they are. Thats a great question. So the way to describe that im going to sit again is kind of working definition of grace. How can you meet people where they are and take them somewhere else . That is god working three. I know im mixing things, cultural and got an political but for me quite frankly theyre very intertwined. I do think a less people know as you said ellis. The how much you care for them they will not understand or care how much you know. They dont think you care for them. Youre exactly right we have to understand and communicate that we know exactly what are and if we dont we need to ask them and explain to them this is what i hear, is that true . We need to help them to go somewhere else. Thats why ive been involved in a place called our house for long times, its homeless shelter and work on Education Training and job placement and we follow up for a long time but thats exactly the work we do. We people wherever they are and that we make sure they end up somewhere else better. Youre exactly we have to meet people where they are, still understanding our values and being strong and of ice and, quite frankly, to take that screen at us we have to be super strong in on those because otherwise you cant weather the storm and then we have to explain to them that we care and hug them and help them understand the way forward. So thank you for that. That was perfect. And again last night i i really appreciate you being here today. My husband jimmy would love to be a today but hes watching her 18yearold water polo who i hope one so i can go see the second game. So hopefully he won the game today, and he can the book is our broken america why both sides need to stop ranting and start listening. I know theres some books for sale upfront as well as the essential american which is 25 documents every american should own. So thank you again. God bless you. May god bless our great country. [applause] [inaudible conversations] its Martin Luther king, jr. Day and tonight we want to show you a couple of programs from our archives about the late civil rights leader. Beginning at 8 30 p. M. Eastern to an inn for three programs that look at dr. Kings politics and the last hours of his life. Find more Schedule Information in your program guide. Over the years booktv has covered several authors discussing president ial impeachment. Heres a portion of one of the. If they present is impeached most elite office and if not how does it impact the administration of the office . Impeachment is like an indictment, so we had some indictments this week and it doesnt mean anybody has to do anything except face a process. Then theres the trial in the senate where the senate ask and its very majestic is is working right, the senate is acting like a cord and has to convict by a twothirds majority. Thats the point at which the present has to leave office. There are certain kinds of accepting the nixon case was one where even a serious impeachment inquiry is lets say sufficiently allout signal for the president remain in office voluntarily would be a mistake. There are other cases like that of clinton where it was so highly politicized that the president s present state. Is a simplistic to say the senate does the trial the house brings the chargers . Thats accurate. The house is acting quite like the prosecutor though it is make an independent kind of judicial decision that impeachment is appropriate and in the house helps manage the proceeding in the senate which has to convict and thats the term by a twothirds majority. So we have in our constitution kind of two make safeguards of the president against, lets say losing his job because congress doesnt like him at the verses high crimes and misdemeanors standard, and we talked about how that can be met by things like evading liberty or abuse of the pardon power or interacting with other countries in certain ways. Its a high standard, then theres an institutional protection, majority of the house, twothirds innocent. To access all of the cspan and booktv archives on impeachment visit our website, cspan. Org impeachment