There. Still be throughout the topic you want to support the two authors as was her books to read go head and click the green button down there to go in and purchase the book. With that being said, i will let them take the screen. High guys welcome. Lets see so again i am tony woods, it is my pleasure to moderate tonights book talk with my two friends jordan and chris. So union is a book that answers the question what happens when a liberal and a conservative decide to jump and drive across the country breed that is a question at the heart of this book. Union, democrat, republican a search for Common Ground by my friends jordan and chris. Jordan was a businessman my coworker, conservative informant marine from california. Chris is a democratic speech writer and journalist in berkeley, california. This paramedic law school quickly became friends. They couldnt stop argue about politics. In 2016 the arguments got worse and worse. So they decided to take a road trip to see american understand different perspectives. They did it again, and again, and again. The union is there friendship and how that friendship changed but also the story of the people they met and the lessons they learned about what it means to be an american. In the end, union restores hope, hope for Better Future future and for a better united states. So offer a warm virtual welcome to both chris and jordan, i will give you a moment to say hello to the audience. High everyone, thank you so much for the introduction. It is so fun to be here with you. Thank you awe for coming we are excited for this. Yeah, thanks everyone for this is exciting and thank you jordan and tony for staying up late for this. You guys being out on the east coast at awe. Happy to do it. Alright everyone lets go ahead and dive right in. So you mentioned you talked with us quite eloquently in the forward. But on the surface, it is possible that former similarities and huge differences. What good to straight white guys from california possibly do . Someone you guys could maybe push back on this notion a little bit and tells about yourself. Why both of you see the world differently, what shape some of those experiences in major see things differently . And perhaps way found yourself regularly disagreeing. That great thank you for the question. So think the truth is superficially chris and i are very similar. We are straight white guys in california. And i think that at a deeper level, we are also very similar. And there are some similarities and made us feel like theres a great friendship here. So we first met at yale law school. We bought it over things like our shared love for great literature and chris wanted to be a war journalist and i just come from a war zone. We also talked with the influence of our mothers and how they kind of shapes our sense of values and character. So awe these early things and bound us together in similarities were very powerful. I think it also became evident that very different worldviews. I grew up in a republican family. After 911 my mother started a nonprofit that sent care packages to troops. So i grew up packages to troops were going overseas and chriss upbringing was different. I think theres different i think those Early Experiences were formative for us. I think in my household, we had dinner conversations every night about republican policy. It was inevitable that shapes. But yeah. Yeah, i met with. Some assets there. We agree come from varied political backgrounds. That was enough to both step have the background to write together but also have something to disagree about. But too much thats different, some terms of our world is i think it be a lot harder to get a project like this done. In terms of my background, this is part of got two people to fact check the eye have known tony since i was 19. Im from berkeley, california has read by a mom who is an activist to shut down her College Campus in the 70s. I went to the iraq war protest. I grew up reading black panther literature in high school. We come from very different backgrounds in terms of our political influences and principles. And yes, in 2015 politics did not seem awe that prominence. Were actually able to build the friendship like jordan said on the other things. Not until 2016 that for like this friendship may be transgressive or something that was not socially acceptable or we should be doing. And that was when the book in the project release sort of took off. One quick followup on that. We talked earlier about our mothers and their difference in our lives. I think this was symmetry that growing up my mom was in the care packages where chriss mom was protesting the war. We actually had a chance have her moms meats. A year ago. They are now great friends. [laughter] [inaudible] that is really cool play what i love about them bonding over there experiences you could almost say protesting the war or sending troops care packages are both out of a common sense of love for that individual. And about being the people who served which is really nice thing. We go a little further it sounds like you describe some real differences as it person who had many arguments with chris on the road, what inspired the book that you spent hundreds of hours traveling the country trapped in a car together. Maybe could tell us a little bit about the road trip that animates the story. Maybe what you hope to find on these journeys . Yes so chris and i met in our sky was a seckinger chris was his first year at law school. We were introduced by someone meant for a drink and end up three hours. Over the course of months we built this great friendship. Thats 2016 got closer, i got closer. But, stations and they call chris and i both started pulling back from this bioassay happens. Because we felt like it got anywhere. I had to be in l. A. For my sisters wedding at the end of the year. One night we are sitting in people were shouting around us i leaned over to chriss it hey man tunic on a road trip with me . And that first road trip together, we are still friends together for seven days. Knowing wed probably fight about politics was a little unnerving. But on the road the country is so beautiful. Theres something beautiful about the american highways in the national parks. We had great conversation. We also fought. We fought really hard. But the beauty of a car as you are stuck there. So you had to reconcile. We realize are actually Getting Better values and better conversations. As we headed in to 2017 we decided theres something important about getting back on the road. That set off our road trips. And chris,. [inaudible] perspective first of awe, your point tony, i did cut my teeth on our arguments at everything from god to how many wins the 49ers will have next year. So thank you for preparing me for these things. So after first road trip, we were so impressed by how powerful it is to be on the road both in terms of the art through conversations can have going from anger to understanding to apology to greater understanding to more anger. And continue that cycle, purchase cycle in many ways. Also with the country. So we just theres a chance that we can get out there and learn something and maybe bring back something of importance to say. So on that second road trip we ended up going to both we started in the valley. [laughter] the heart of that is likely road trip. We had no idea what was happening, sought only from the day before. I casually said jordan you want to go check out this trump rally . And of course jordan said absolutely. What an opportunity to see the heart of our politics. the same way we are both inspired by the activity outside and pull back from the violence inside we were amazed by the president s ability to move his flock, move the people there but we were both a little nervous by people at the edges of that really. The simple fact that we were able to see the world do the same set of eyes at such a fractious political moment made us go, i think we have a voice here i think there is something we can say together. Because of the street violence we saw that night, because of the anger and vitriol, the inability to actually get beyond the veneer difference and actually talk inspired us to go out and try to find stories that were outside of politics. That spoke to more universal valleys that spoke to ideas that bonds jordan and i together and maybe the country as well if we were able to get our stories out from there we turned to trying to identify values and stories that might get us there so we spent time with a group of veterans who run a gun range and page arizona, we spent time with pete, a truck driver who took us from las vegas to louisiana. From there we did all kinds of things that we found exciting from spending a couple days on ato rehearsing king lear with a group of inmates at parnell prison outside detroit. All with the intent of finding stories that speak to a larger purpose as different kind of value sets. I love that. Obviously the book is very much about your friendship and it captures that but also really enriched the characters that chris started to speak to whether the trump die hard, the Community Activist ai imagine you met hundreds of not more incredible people who told incredible stories, having not written a book like most of the audience, probably not written a book just sort of wondering if you can give us a little bit about book into the writers process and what made you choose these characters over others . What jumped out in the stories . What were you hoping to eliminate by sharing their perspectives . Each story was slightly different. All the stories we chose to tell spoke to both realizations on jordan and eyes part as well as something about the country. We spent a lot of time with pete, the truck driver, who we sort of went in intending to tell the story about bluecollar work about what its like to be on the road as a trucker in America Today and we got to tell that story but ended up emerging in conversations with pete is really how comp located americans can be underneath the surface. Pete showed up on day one wearing a make America Great again shirt, my thought was, so much for getting away from politics. We found him to be a quite competent thinker. The first thing he said about politics was, i wish the president talked more about climate change. He talked about how god is love and therefore he has to support lgbtq marriage in a way that he didnt not that long before. We start to see there is more to this country and the people on the road than meets the eye at first. At the same time, jordan and i were able to come together and talk about things like regulation, corporate control of truck driving, importance of dignity and telling dignified stories. That was just one example and everyone else in the book as this animating value to the story as well as a take away from what we learned spending time with these people. Jordan, do you have anything to add on that . One thing i was really ab we were writing about these people because we thought they were a standin for some trend, we met people on the road, often serendipitously, often no real intention behind finding these people. It was all just lucky. What ended up happening is they had a big effect on our lives and taught us something to eat. Often when we are writing we are just trying to share that. They were so important to us we wanted to capture that and share with others. As we wrote the book, there is these amazing people and we are so excited to share the story but we didnt select them, like the trump supporter and the other abthey were just great people. Its great. In a moment, this is a statement of the audience, in a moment i would love to start bringing in audience questions. Please feel free to send questions using the chat function on your screen to ask a question, then you can type in questions you have either about what we are talking about now or general questions about the book, we would love to start reading those throughout the conversation. May be turning now to my next question, in the book you use the third person narrative and often describe yourself in many ways as representatives of your respective tribes from camps. So chris deliberated ab liberals, conservatives. Found it interesting why these conversations sound so heated, youre not personally representing yourself, youre representing a whole community. Its difficult, it becomes very animated very quickly, in some ways you dont hope for. And wondering if you can take a moment and think about your various camps and some of the more prominent voices within most camps are the wings or fractions that the media likes to use and highlight our polarization of country. And im wondering if you can tell us something you discovered on these journeys that these groups within your various camps get wrong about the other side chris, i will start with you. If you are talking to aoc or the squad, what would you say she doesnt understand about jordan . I think what really struck me, i hate to out you hear jordan but on the road it was always like jordan and the conservatives he spends time with do actually care about progress. They might not be progressives but they want everyone to have healthcare. They want everyone to get a good education. They dont like the criminal Justice System as it exists today, and jordans telling. But they approach it very differently. The way jordan and i will talk about these issues we would often fight until we were blue in the face and sometimes we would end with, i guess we agree . One of us would say, yes i guess we do. The idea as we want the same ends then we can talk about the means to get there. I think thats really important, thats one of our big takeaways, there are quite a few shared values around this country we all agree upon. We believe in second chances, many of us agree upon. When jordan and i talk about criminal justice it was very clear we just needed to figure out the way to that end. I think that is something that gets lost in the mix sometimes, i think on the National Scale much harder to talk about these things but knowing jordan quite well i can tell you hes pursuing the same values and same hopes and dreams i am when im thinking about policy. I think its a really powerful starting point. Jordan, i hope you are not too mad at me for saying that. Same question to you jordan, what is the maga Community Get wrong . Thank you chris, that was very well said. Anytime i talked to my friends who are big maga supporters, i told them chris only whines half as much as they think he does. [laughter] i think one of the perceptions on the right especially some of the more red meat throwing hard rights, the left, especially progressive left, that in some way they abthey have to see the same and look to the. [inaudible] spending so much time on the road with chris i think what i learned about his perspective and athat in fact they do love america deeply and love it for the values and the ideals and principles enshrined in our family documents and hours certain religions. What they are generally going for is for us to live off those values and they have a deep concern and empathy for those left out and continue to be left out today. As chris and i talked, he often responded to to minimize the challenges that people face especially marginalized communities and certain experience today to respond correctly to ensure they have a rightful place in the american abonce i really understand how deep that love was now we are talking about shared values, shared ground, things we care deeply about. Thats an easy thing for us to engage on. May be sticking with this theme, im really interested in the converse of this. Maybe i will start with you jordan. And wondering if you could be honest and maybe a bit vulnerable, whats the criticism you hear from the left that slobs toward your camp that you agree and we opt to work on as a party or political ideology i would ask the same question of chris, what are some of those things that i know especially in this day and age is really hard to admit because many ways you feel like life and death struggle and if i feed any ground on anything thats a sign of weakness and i can do that. I think there are specific policy areas i think Republican Party like i wish they would take a different stance but i think a metapoint i think the Republican Party and the conservative movement as a really hard time articulating desired angles, they have a really hard time staying in one awe want every kid to have the best education possible we want a society in which everybody has a minimum standard of living that includes enough to essentially build a bridge. The reason they cant articulate those things is because i think in doing so they admit the need must be on spending so they have abevery conservative i know doesnt care about those things yet and makes them come off and mix republicans and conservatives come off as deeply ayou cant say things like of course every american should have great healthcare. I wish republicans would get much better about an turkic dominic articulating why because thats where we do share a lot, there is ton of overlap. I think it would be easier to disagree in a productive way. Where in the middle can we get to so we can move the ball forward . Chris, same question, i think you sort of say that the liberal camp could be better on and might want to do a little cultural turnaround. One that comes to mind largely because jordan and i have talked at length about it is a more nuanced understanding of tradition. I think there are a lot of really powerful elements of the american tradition that we really need to embrace, whether that is the democratic founding ideals, the system as it was designed, of course there are deep flaws in that system that remain today and have been made worse over time. We do a lot of talking or writing in union about how we wrestle with history. There are a lot of elements about history that i really quite important to hold onto, even while we change monuments, we change names, we cant let go of where weve come from and a lot of senses, also i was primed to hear this message over the last few years because i consider myself an obama liberal. I was just listening, i was listening again to his eulogy for john lewis and he talks about these things he talks about redeeming the american idea. He talks about living up to the american creed and our original founding weather liberty, freedom, pursuit of happiness, these are important ideas would all lose track of. I think more and more we are losing our ability on the left, losing our ability to talk about the amazing parts of this country alongside the difficult parts. Great point. We have our first question from a member of the audience, to encourage folks to continue to send in Great Questions and share that. One of the questions we have from alexis is actually around the idea having shared a similar discussion for members of congress, maybe i will open that question a little more broadly but ask if there are lessons you wish you could share directly with our National Leaders or members of congress, in many ways the book talks about the roles that the media play and i wonder if you have advice for our National Leaders and the role they play in helping to maintain some of the polarization, amplify some of the polarization in ways that perhaps arent healthy or helpful for the national dialogue. I think our National Leaders have a lot for polarization, they found it easier to raise money and abinstead of finding ways to move forward. I find it very stressing that in the midst of a pandemic we still cant even seem to get to a shared compromise over bills to help americans. The two lessons i would offer to our politicians is, first, the time together really matters. Chris and i were able to have these amazing conversations because we both the Dean Foundation abdeep foundation of trust. Earlier and our relationship might they might have wondered, does person value i might not be available to abwe have so much builtup trust that i knew he would take it with good faith and he wouldnt judge me for thinking like that. It took time but once we did, it was incredibly productive conversations we did have alignment and often found that the disagreements between us were much smaller than we initially thought. The way our party talk about the issues that drive us apart were really actually pretty close together. But we need to spend more time together, maybe that means getting a group together the same group every week so that you can build the bond. The second thing i would offer is, everywhere we went across the country there was this deep desire for Common Ground for a better message, for more unity, for politicians to bring it together. Chris and i sent out a study, called more in common asking questions in june about the publics perception of government and how its handling issues in American Life and was one question after another their responses were less a less trust in institutions or that aspect but you get to the last page on the sixth page of the bottom it said, do you want a leader who can bring the country back together . 94 said yes. The next question was, do you think americans should abmy view to politicians is the country actually wants that. And if theyre able to bring an inspiring message about bringing people together finding Common Ground to solve our biggest issues that resonates with americans i think far more than a chris, solar question, any advice you have for National Leaders are member of congress . Absolutely. First thing i would say is that union is our effort to collect stories from outside the bright lights. We went out and talk to people in new orleans and portland and south dakota and not so much dc. I think that actually gives us some sort of insight into how dc can change. I would only add one wrinkle to something jordan said otherwise i completely concur with him and thats to say on top of spending more time together i think its really important we spend different time together. I think that the context is very important. I often think about pete the truck driver and if i had met him at the trump rally we probably wouldnt have been able to talk whatsoever we would have been yelling or not given each other any notice it wouldve not been conducive to conversation but when its 9 00 p. M. , the sun has just gone down, maybe jordan snoozing in the back, maybe hes not. When the two of us are talking we are far more able to talk about more human things naturally in the intimate contexts try to find that connective tissue that makes you puts you in the same species. I think there is really something really powerful about that. At least my time in dc i didnt spend any of that intimate time with the other side so to speak. I think with the National Leaders, state leaders, there needs to be context for quiet, vulnerable, intimate settings to talk mother over a beer or dinner at one anothers houses. I know that doesnt seem like a grand change like a change that is going to fix our politics overnight but i think losing that is very detrimental to our ability to communicate and makes it that much easier to get in front of the cameras, the cspan cameras on the floor and say whatever the heck you want because you havent broken bread with the other side you dont know who they are when you get away from the bright lights. I think thats a critical part of spending more time together is spending it in that different context. I think you are right and both of you alluded to this the lack of knowledge and familiarity that are members of congress and senators have with one another. Shorter election cycles mean you have to immediately get back into the district and campaign and fund raise and do those things, which means a lot of time sharing a meal, spending time with one another, getting to know one another and building that trust. I think senator Lindsey Graham speaks incredibly highly of his friend joe biden, it seems as though they built a real enduring trusting relationship that i would imagine these are two people who can find Common Ground and work out some of the issues. Theres a followup question, comments are mentioned you mentioned shared meals, there are other communal experiences that forge friendships that we can use to replicate and build national, build community and in deeper ways that we could replicate elsewhere in our daily lives. Thats a great question. Two other things that we noticed on the road that were really powerful, one of them was ritual, we often think of that in the context of religion. Theres many ways to have rituals, theres something about creating sacred space for ritual where separate from us from everyday life purposefully to come together and do so regularly. It really bonds people together. Theres something extremely powerful about it. Once you have that its very easy to expand it, Strong Communities are generous they welcoming the outsiders, chris and i found that Strong Communities are built on the shared principles. I think that is something thats really powerful. Today with the ability to connect virtually over long distances, this can create the shared rituals that are powerful. Another that really struck us as being able to bring people together and break down barriers, there is something about abyou are able to tap in tomorrow transcendent feeling and as one musician told us, theres nothing dualistic about it. You can approach it, come at it and love it from any direction and thats all that matters when you do. I think theres Something Special about music. I dont know how you take that side away to produce together but chris and i found its very powerful. I want our audience to know that the conservative was the first one to bring up spirituality. [laughter] not the berkeley liberal. This might not be scalable but i think its important are on the road and i think its also a little bit selfindulgent but storytelling i think storytelling is really only important, listening to teach or listening to gabriel, one of the inmates at the prison and listening to his poetry and his life story or listening to mimi who runs our Drug Diversion program in tulsa for women and mothers tell the story of both the program and the women in the program. Its bonds empathy. We are truly wired for story the way to get across an idea thats uncomfortable or Life Experience that is unknown or foreign to us is to tell it in story. When we were able to be around the campfire and telling stories are in the truck telling stories or listening to the Correctional Officers outside in a room talking about shakespearean story, you are able to connect in a totally different way. Storytelling generally might not be the answer but storytelling to other people to the people that might not otherwise hear your story. Thats really powerful. One of those things that immediately comes to mind, maybe to jordans point, is i also find ais a very much common bond. If you cant talk about politics but you can usually talk about what happened with the local sports stop whatever it may be. We have a lot to talk about on the niners and everything else. We certainly do. [laughter] these are Great Questions from the audience, i encourage you to keep sending those in, this is great. We really appreciate that. Please keep sending those in and we will get to those. Maybe i will turn it back to something that ive been thinking a lot about, actually even before the book came out when i know you are writing the book. I think most of us can agree and talked about already theres really a benefit in coming together hashing through differences and arriving at Compromise Solutions for the good of the country for the sake of progress we really need to do that. Theres a wide range of issues you cant do that with but theres all sorts of issues that were compromise dont feel like an option. Typically one side or the other views stark binary choices. For example, if im a prolife person, i cant compromise on ending the life of a child, thats how they view it, if i am a Transgender Service number and we are literally talking about my rights to serve in the military, we are taking the right of service away from somebody who has should be allowed to serve openly with respect to how they feel. My question is, are there circumstances when compromise is actually not the answer . Or do you believe that there is always an opportunity to find Common Ground in every circumstance . Maybe we will start with jordan on that question. Its a good question. One thing that chris and i came to believe over the course of the book is that Common Ground isnt getting to an agreement, getting to the point where disagreement and to break away from each other. We found that we were convincing each other of our side but we were getting to the point we could articulate our side and the other person could empathize and understand and engage with us. Thats the argument as well, how do we get to that point. The incredible things about the system of american governance is that we built it so that we are not always going to agree on substance, there are certain issues we are always going to be deeply divided on, i think abortion is probably like the obvious one. The belief in the process is actually one of the virtues of the american system that allows us to live together even when we disagree on issues. Thats true for the vast majority on people and issues. There are some that that process breaks down. There are some things that are just such moral course and wait that that process cant work with that function. The society goes to extraconstitutional means. You also have this great tradition, of doing that where it becomes part of we can actually transcend that process and then come back to it. I think my belief is that there are very few issues where that cant be true but where they are the moral weight is judged by history and to date americans have been on the right side of that. Chris, what you think . I think you put it pretty damned well, friend. What i would add is that Common Ground is our project but i dont know if its everyones project. I would like to think it should be more peoples project than it is right now. Theres always going to be people who maybe dont want to do this and we also want to say that it takes all types. To create an open society. There might not be those who want to do this but i think the vast majority of americans or anyone any citizen who lives in a democracy that dialogue even if Common Ground is impossible the dialogue is important. We are going to the new definition of Common Ground not that we all have to be in lockstep with an issue but need to talk about it. I know this is a word that elicits a lot of feelings but we need to be civil. Sometimes we dont. I think in most cases friendship trumps anger when it comes to getting somewhere. Whether we like it or not, this country is made up of millions of both sides. Its also just a necessity of modern democratic life. 60 Million People voted for trump, 60 Million People voted for hillary clinton, we wont get into specifics but thats a lot of people on both sides and a lot of people didnt vote there so what it means is theres a lot up to us and if we cant talk even if we disagree on issues then we cant get anywhere and we cant make progress and then everyone loses. I feel like this is a project that will grow even if i dont believe its going to be everyones project ultimately. I think i will take a little bit of moderator privilege and add i think maybe to jordans point that its really incredibly important we also ensure that we safeguard access to the vote, its incredibly important that there be healthy civil outlets to disagreeing and productive ways and maintaining access to the right to vote, its incredibly important from that perspective. Maybe we will turn to another audience question i think is actually kind of interesting. May be related to our talk about the points to the National Leaders or even on this one around compromise. Historical figures, do you feel particularly effective at reaching across the aisle or political tides to find Common Ground . Its so funny that question just came up, i was going to say in response to abone my favorite speeches is abwhere he said its about asuch it presents a stark choice for society. To chriss point, in return was that he thought Martin Luther king s speech was butter we were comparing the speeches. I think Martin Luther king is by far to me the best example of someone who is able to speak and find the language that can have broad appeal in order to foster some ground across tides. The way he did it by he articulated his message within the tradition of american history. Heeds holds up the back of america and said heres the ideal and im just asking for these ideas to the extent of this community. That ability to speak from within the place that people care about to use the identity people hold so dear to show what reality is out of step with that in a very powerful way of forging common purpose. To me hes the greatest example. Chris a in the spirit of union i want to point out the first person on this call to bring up malcom x in a positive sense was the conservative. Things are more complicated than they may look. I wouldve said mlk, largely speaking i think to echo something jordan just said, theres an opportunity to tell stories that reframe the founding ideals for the moment and something jordan and i agree on and have said often is that politics is always going to be fractious because of the competition. Someone wins, someone loses. I do honestly believe that but i think every once in a while people can get beyond that, you can tell a much larger story and you can change the way we look at the country and are future. Mlk was certainly one of them, kennedy, both the kennedys in my mind, was one of them. Ragan i think was also somebody who was able to speak a larger truth about america no matter what we think of him as a president. I think i would point to, mlk for sure, i would say kennedy in the spirit of giving two names. Audience, id encourage you to keep sending in these Great Questions, its fun to hear your perspective and what youre thinking about. We will turn back to a portion of the book where, a great conversation one of the ones where abyou are probably right in the face by the end of it. This is the tough conversation you all had about race and Police Brutality and that jordan highlighted failures of leadership, and the risk associated with being a Police Officer, chris, you share pretty vivid recounting of an incident that was pretty clear racial profiling of one of your friends. When chris described that experience of a black friend in this case being singled out and pulled over in a car i personally had a very visceral reaction of what it feels like to encounter Police Officer and recognize this is a potentially life or death situation and thats true as a teen and from you today is a 40yearold man. Knowing that it made me really think a lot more about the importance of empathy and understanding that sort of shared or different experience. I wanted to think about how we move beyond the surface level conversation about topics like race, gender, Sexual Orientation and religion so maybe my question is what advice do you have for audiences on doing a better job of learning more about the perspectives of others to clearly topics where it might be difficult to understand mothers perspective or put yourself in someone elses shoes in a way thats pretty effective. Maybe i will start with chris on this question. Its a hard question. Jordan and i to this day still fight about things, we were just laughing earlier on the phone today about a fight we had yesterday. This is a messy process. To understand one another on ideas and issues that are so core to so Many Americans it can be really really difficult. That goes to jordans point about coming back to the table. I think we are at our best, jordan and i, when we are talking about these difficult things and trying to find empathy, when we are starting with shared values, identifying values that maybe are competing but that we both agree upon. For example, in the boating space weve often tried to talk about voter id laws or the way the franchise should be legislated and when we talk about Mitch Mcconnell and nancy pelosi we often find ourselves red in the face and fighting but when we are able to start with things like we both believe in the franchise we both believe Everyone Needs the vote and should have access to it, like jordan was just saying that abon the opposite side we all believe in abwe care about making sure that the russian intelligence operation cant interfere in our election. That facebook is not used to change everything about outcomes. These are big problems. Ultimately on a volume perspective we agree on both of these. Then we are far more able to talk about outcomes or policies or where we should go with something. I think that is one aspect of our conversation thats been really helpful toward talking about really difficult things. I dont want to bogard all of our lessons, do you want to throw anything in . I like the way you framed the question where i think what chris and i found is that as we are having these arguments there is arguments are emotional experiences we hold and what we are bringing to the conversation and yet the emotion is often beneath the surface and the data we bring to the table, the conversations end up being titfortat, i marshaled my data, you marshall yours, whatever they may agree. Because we are locked in this intensive abthe emotion boils over to anger. What chris and i found over time is that you could have better conversations when we are able to share what those underlying experiences were. By doing so from the front identities that really matter to us. If i drop a republican label maker we talk and experience the shared danger, i know what it feels like to go into uncertain situations and have a lot of empathy for somebody put in that position and oil i feel like for a Police Officer who approaches a car for an uncertain situation and afraid for their life. Chris feels the empathy and emotion i have and why am approaching the issue that we and vice versa chris can talk about his personal experiences and watching friends through who were racially profiled or experience what its like in a situation thats dangerous, i have a lot more empathy for how to approach these issues, it doesnt mean that those experiences have any necessary merit on what policy should be what helps us understand where we are coming from so we can then have productive conversations. [inaudible] that led to much more productive conversations. May be keeping on this topic a little bit more we are beginning to have a muchneeded reckoning on race to beginning of a long overdue National Conversation on this topic. And wondering if this particular moment makes you optimistic about the future and does your experience on the road suggest we are ready to have this National Conversation . Thats a great question. Going into the book on the road trips i think the biggest difference to me i was an optimist about the country i thought we would find positive signs in america everywhere that person after person who was good vibrancy everywhere. Chris was more objective where, based on the news and the tenure of our politics he thought we would witness america coming apart. I think a lot of that tension was driven by the underlying socioeconomic racial issues we were hearing about and our own perspectives coming into that. What we found on the road was we started to see going from community to Community Chris saw a lot of the things driving the opposite, he did see that and everywhere we went they were good people signs of vibrancy and i saw signs of trouble i saw racial issues i saw issues with the criminal Justice System, drug addiction, its hard to witness and not walk away thinking about what we have these very deep structural problems i think it all time together for us in tulsa which is very informative experience for chris and i wear we arrived in tulsa we had never heard of this abthis was three or four years ago the story had been suppressed, not using as part of american history, its not talked about. What we also found in tulsa, despite this very deep challenging racial history and anyone who has read it today we saw incredibly hardworking decent people working so hard to bring that story into the presence and part of tulsas shared history and to work to overcome those different challenges by first having a conversation about them. The fact that they were having the conversation doing it in the city, people from all parties and all sides were engaged and they were so hopeful about how they could have a Better Future together and left chris and i very helpful. One pastor there named jamaal leading the effort said that progress begins with having her conversations. Cant move forward until we talk about it. He was hopeful because the conversations that were happening. As he moved across the country you could see a lot more conversations about our history and how the scars were affected today i think im very hopeful and the message of the book is helpful. Chris, are we ready for this National Conversation . Jordan, your more than welcome to talk for me when youre talking like that. I think so, to underline something jordan said earlier, we finished writing this book on july 4, 2019, we reported it between 2014 and 2019 so this was well before this current moment we are in and it was unavoidable on the road. Talking about race, inequality, talking about how to create a more Perfect Union along those lines so i think what we are seeing now is that outpouring of readiness of anger in some cases and desire to change. I think thats really powerful and when you look at our streets right now this moment is born of terrible tragedy but its so optimistic and that this is now the biggest social movement in u. S. History if you look at the statistics it doesnt matter if youre conservative or liberal you care about Human Dignity you care about equality jordan and i had a call shortly after the murder of george floyd and i was a little nervous about the call because i was so overwhelmed by what i saw on that tape and i didnt want to get into a fight. Answer the phone and first thing jordan said was, that was inhumane, that was heinous, something needs to change immediately. Both of us are hopeful because we believe that hope is an active form of activism that if people are to the streets of people arent caring about these things that people arent having these hard conversations and working tooth and nail to change them to better our country than there is no hope but when they are, there is more hope than you can possibly imagine and i often return especially lately to the words of john lewis and especially his Memorial Service i cant think of anyone more hopeful than that man and i think part of his legacy is what we are seeing in the streets today and seen people pushing so hard i think of, take a long time for it to trickle up to washington potentially, which goes to our earlier conversation about the ways things need to change their but i think if you look at our streets and talk to the same people we talk to across this country you cant help but be hopeful this tragedy will turn into something beautiful. I know we are nearing the end of our time together but weve got a couple more good questions that maybe we could speak to quickly. In the book you speak to the beauty of the american landscape, how can we use that shared love of the american landscape to bridge political divide . I know, chris youre an avid bird watcher and awardwinning one. [laughter] you spend a lot of time on the road you saw the beauty this country has to offer. Had a similar experience i cycled from carolina to San Diego California its an incredible country we live in. How to the landscape shape your views of how you felt about country coming out of this . I will answer quickly and i would like to hear chris on the birdwatching. [laughter] [inaudible] i think there is something incredibly cool about the american landscape when you stare next to someone who had an allnight fight with their something about it that just calms you down and allows you to return to the state of tranquility. Its really special. Chris and i at one point talked about how we wish there would be almost like a birthright for america. [inaudible] [inaudible] thats a great idea, jordan, [laughter] tony is playing chess i see. [laughter] i prefer competitive birdwatcher, not awardwinning competitive. I agree with everything jordan said. I would only add that, i learned this from my mother that there is few places more american than an open place think democracy requires us to come together and be in a place to talk and often in history that has been public squares parks i think there is nothing more americans in our politics then abtrump just did it a few days ago. Signing land into public trust for perpetuity. I think its just the core to who we are as citizens and speakers. Not only as of this great tonic to pain and conflict but also to just have it as part and parcel of building democracy. This was driven home to us in a place called the Gathering Place in tulsa which is a massive park on the banks of the Arkansas River and was designed specifically with the segregated nature of tulsa in mind where they wanted to bring north and south tulsa together so they bolted on that line. Is supposed to be a place where everyone can come and see one another and talk to one another and hold events and grow. I think whether its late yellowstone or a park in the Lower East Side you have to have open place is you have to have public spaces in order to build thriving open society. Thats a great point. Im going to maybe do one more audience question and we will close with another question. A question of whether either of you wants to run for political office. I will add an addendum to this question and say having learned the lessons you have about compromise, how could either of you justify not running for office . [laughter] i can go first and say i doubt it for myself i prefer to work for politicians thats actually how i met tony who is a wonderful boss back over a decade ago. Im inspired by others is what i would say. Jordan . I think its an incredibly noble thing to run for office i respect tony for doing it and i hope its something most people can see open because its a public service, our country depends on it. I think the book tour experiences taught me a [inaudible] thats a great point. Keeping on the topic of running for office, we are entering into abwe are well in the midst of a president ial election cycle which is arguably our most polarized time of the nation, unfortunately these ab unfortunately these election cycles are getting longer and longer you have 18 months to be president before you start to run to be president again. We know of the media plays into that how the pride comes out in every different ways. Im wondering if there any moments from the book you think are relevant to this National Moment and advice to get to the audience for navigating conversations as we lead up to the president ial election. I think my advice to the country based on the book is that the next 2 to 3 months is going to be divisive. Thats the nature of political elections. We can breach that fight against each other and say we recognize the other side all the worst things we label them and that the day after we have to come back together. We are stuck together there is no doubt Going Forward in order to solve problems we have to work together. To the extent of moving into november 4 with the attitude of reconciliation of come back to the table as chris always says, we will be better off and not go in with this vindictive attitude that i have to use the power i have to punch the other side but lets find ways of working together to recognize we are still one country and one people i think we will do well. Chris . I would of course agree with everything jordan just said i would only add say, for the three of us i think the best place for us to and is in new orleans. I know this is an important place for both jordan and myself as well as tony, in fact, tony and i bonded early our love of new orleans, country that in particular. Heres a place thats built a culture specifically on bringing together other cultures, whether caribbean culture, french culture, american culture, afrocuban culture, slave culture, every kind of culture imaginable and creating art forms that are universally abthat are remarkably american and speak to universal emotion. And has difficult hamstrings and often complicated and painful deeper history and unable to exercise it through the means through means like music and art and getting together and food and building hybrid cultures that are uniquely american. I would say as we look forward, lets take that message of reconciliation and coming together of seeing one another and listening to one another that is so alive in a place like new orleans and hopefully take that with us to the ballot box. Thats a beautiful place to end. Ladies and gentlemen, the book is called union, the its in the link in the chapter you can purchase the book. Jordan and chris, thank you so much for your time for letting such an inspired piece of work and sharing your story with us today. Thank you so much tony. s you are such a great moderator. Thank you everyone for joining us. Thank you everye