Weekly Interview Program with elevating guest host interviewing top nonfiction authors about their work. All afterwards programs are also available as a podcast. Host lou dobbs before we start on the recent fascinating one a book of yours, you worked on and on cnn 30 years with a variety of shows coming for nonorthodox republican obviously not a liberal democrat. Code you go back into that environment today ask her what was the formula that allowed you to exist for three decades did you have a relationship with ted turner . Enlighten us a little bit with that development. It was hopeful that i joined in 1980 at the beginning one of the founders of cnn. One of the fortunate ones from the creation and it is a spectacular place to work because it is something i thought of before ted turner the global cable news cast and he put it into action and institutionalized it. It was truly remarkable. But it changed over time. We founded it in 1980 and with 1984 he was on the forbes list of the wealthiest and basically on the edge of the day just four years earlier when he found it. So tos position changed, so that hours, and white house we are groping and over time with tens commitment to a more liberal approach to the news became far more serious and emphatic and by 1999 it would be a tough balancing act but at that point i was in advocacy journalist go by 2009 when we had our final falling out, not with ted with time warner, it was simply a matter of ideology. I said as many critical things about george w. Bush, perhaps more than ever said about barack obama. The truth is they were committed to a different approach and decided it would be ideological but theres only one interview instead of a tent with many voices i was the only conservative on the air and obviously that did not work out and now even more decided fashion to the left rather than two independent journalism or to moderation. Host will last question in the three decades of the evolution of cnn you and a more specific interest of business and the economy to a wider panorama and i watched you during these years to have a certain worldview that would not be easy categorized on issues of trade. Did you ever think there would be a candidate, not 33rd party but for the presidency to dovetail with this formula of ideology 30 years you gravitated to . Honestly i think they would see it in my lifetime. I was hoping that we would i have known donald trump for as long as i have known ted turner but we were not friends. It was a personal relationship. As this man stepped out by 2016 running for president and to rejoice independentminded and secular and even agnostic about his politics. Thats exciting because not aligning with the Republican Party or the Democratic Party in ideology or philosophy. But he was with patriots in this country. My blanche every time i hear see hear the expression white nationalism. It is nationalism it is not right. It is every color and creed. Being an american nationalist means that you embrace the constitution which is our great assurance of quality and equal opportunity respect for all citizens and he embodies that. Was glad to see him run i was an independent and a fierce independent of most respects. You outline the signature issues to ensure that it is measured and meritocratic and overwhelming and getting tough with china, favoring free trade you didnt buy into the idea the industrial midwest laid out and you were very skeptical as i read the book of these optional military engagement specifically of the costbenefit analysis. There were other thirdparty candidates so what was it about trump . Did he incorporate these issues with the broader fabric or was it his personality . Why did he succeed when other thirdparty had failure . The thirdparty candidate , i mentioned at because he was an independent thinker irrespective of his political preference for republican. He is a conservative. Donald trump was propelled into none of the establishment. This is a clash of so many influences in our society that this is an establishment that controls both political parties, or did until the arrival donald trump. Donald trump and said i will take on the orthodoxy. I will be a descriptor and represent the forgotten man and woman in this country, he pledged to do that and within days he was doing that. He is one of those surprises and delights that we really have in politics has said what he meant and kept his promises. And that drives the left and the establishment mad because he takes on this multitrillion dollar Business Roundtable , 135 ceos controlling a huge part of our gdp he took on the chamber of commerce and the ridiculous mantra that free trade that is the into the american economy. It certainly was not we refinanced the rest of the world and wall street did great the reason the working man and woman in this country did not share in that over 20 years before trump was stagnant wages a mass opportunity, is because it was a financial benefit for the elites but not for the middle class which is the foundation of the country. Host in your book you talk jobs jobs jobs and as we here in the trump century and its true he has a record unemployment for minorities in 2019 down at the. Five almost got the percent were almost did annual gdp but the point im making is that what you say was a twopronged assault on the left and the right and the populist message. Why do you think if he gave innercity youth for the first time in their lives there are labor is it on by employers or with that empowerment why do you think that empathetic message or that attitude was never picked up or resonated the media didnt like it . By do not think he is the most empathetic and concerned president of the lower and middle class . He doesnt speak in the same language as the elitist of both parties. They have a lexicon all to themselves. It is problematic with a number of assumptions they are talking about the dependency of the innercity that are low income and that is the basis. It is a condescension of government locked up in the idea that without dependency it is the role of government now we have a huge bureaucracy that requires dependency on a goodsized or number of our people. They got used to it since 1965 with the war on poverty began spending over 22 trillion and we have everything but a metrics bureau for success nobody wants to follow up on the youth in the innercity of what happens to them when they go to these Public Schools run by unions rather than their communities. Its a strange world we created and that both parties have been perfectly content until now to permit to continue a status quo to perpetuity. Host with the jobs Trump Success that we have not seen in 50 years is china and you talk that prior to trump everybody felt everybody among the bipartisan elite the more concessions we gave the more they would repay that gratitude with magnanimity in that part they were westernized and they were take over the world in a general way and we would manage the decline, you come along and say stop that what im interested with the general ide idea, you never thought that china was all that strong and determined that it had intrinsic weaknesses we did not see you want to see but i never got in your pocket was a steamroller that was inevitable that there were contradictions that you are trying to warn people about. I started 20 years ago talking about the red storm rising weve known quarter century that china has Front Companies operating in this nation with one purpose to steal technology in military secrets, take them back to chin china, and exploit our technological advances and they save themselves money online investing and education and research of development on their own. We build china in some respects literally we built it taking 600 billion a year from us an intellectual property. They had been running deficits with this country from the beginning of the relationship we have been a deficit to them and trade in shared technology openly and willingly as well as massively it has been an extraordinary unprecedented relationship between wealthy power and the emerging one. At no time was it required you could not ask for a trifecta of worst president s to string together in the national security. It is devastating to look at what we have squandered. We did so with the knowledge go joseph, leftwing nobel prizewinning economist but a brilliant man warned us what the wars in the middle east would amount to heat is to give us a sufficient warning and is it would cost 3 trillion and it was 6 trillion and counting. In addition to the lives we have lost. We have gone through a period of madness that is remarkable and it took donald trump to step forth. Trump derangement syndrome i love that phrase he is the only one that wasnt arranged in the entire city of washington. It is quite something to be. One is how insidious the president is we saw it with the 5 billiondollar market with the mba that offset the losses but that changes the ideology itself was more critical of the misdemeanors in the United States to ignore the felonies of human rights in the education camp the same we found out with hollywood that part of the anger at the racial makeup of movies was in part two reaction to directors who were under orders from china they wanted lighter skinned actors. You have ideas but how feasible is it given his presence we dont even feel we can detect sports or entertainment or media or politics with so much more indepth and the soviets but the cold war . I and for from your question you are suggesting you can change that we brought you are so intertwined with the china which is insidious but you suggest and then enmeshed itself in our economy, society, even culture. As you say hollywood is editing their homes and shooting their movies in many cases with catering to beijing because they want the International Market to be excited about their product. Its no longer for a us audience for us product we went along. It was always an american product for the International Audience now coming out of hollywood is a international and chinese product in the United States tags along behind it. And his major change in our society and entertainment and media this gives an order and it influence their values are representative in many cases the world knows it and see it and they are accepting it. T15 214 talk about the wuhan virus that originated in wuhan china, with all of the narratives that we were told that did not emerge until january when it was known far earlier and 19 it emerged in a wet market now we know that has been discredited. There was a consensus that came out of the lab whether accidental or no matter the narrative, what is your attitude . Why do they allow direct flights for 12 days after you can go from wuhan to anywhere else . Forget about the origins or if it was accidental or intentional what is the mindset that unleashed this from the western economy in a way we never thought would be possible . As you say, this virus was unique because it engineered . We cannot say scientifically with empirical evidence or judgment what it was if it was manmade. But we do know for a fact whether accidental or engineer the communist Chinese Government new for months it was transmissible into humans and they knew very early on that it was deadly. They had those truths from their own people course and very importantly held on head the truth from the cdc, who and the rest of the world. What people may not realize is that the Public Health institutions and some of the best doctors in the world are great friends and colleagues of doctors in china. We also took up our to fund their research. We also help them to design their version of our cdc. Thats on the part that i believe that they would be forthcoming with a professional and medical relationship with individuals with any communist institution in beijing or on. They truly believed it. None said it to me but my discussions from january on with those doctors, they were very very certain they would know best what is going on and will on one on wuhan and i declared on my show that it was a viral pandemic two weeks before the who would move to the point the cdc would not call it a pandemic because the who had not call that the tag on pandemic. It is just stunning we had so much to catch up with. Host you say we are in the Election Year 2020 engaged in a trade war with china at the time so those force multipliers of the acrimony of the world for the divisiveness back home in a inadvertently or by design help to play into china cannon in a certain way as the western world we are not able to focus in a unified manner with that they were doing or saying or the what the who was there was coincidental we were right in the trade war you spent so much time eloquently defining and then you say there is a virus in the middle of it. Historically it is very odd. It is very odd because the counter events are not necessarily in conflict as far as the chinese are concerne concerned, you can almost see the depth of chinese intelligence in all of this. It is not a reach at all to consider the possibility to be engineered and in the chinese interest they had managed inadvertently or otherwise to have taken on the economies of europe, the United States, all chief competitors in the global marketplace, they have killed hundreds of thousands of people across the world and infected others we dont know the effects of those longterm infections but we do know they are the net beneficiary of it all and they are the only ones responsible for this infection and pandemic claiming so many lives and second so many millions and cause trillions of dollars of lost gdp for the world. Not just the United States. I am very suspicious of the coincidence and the convenience of will benefited. We also know the chinese consciously shut down travel outside of wuhan. That encouraged International Travel to europe and the United States. Guess what . By march the virus is coming back into this country from europe as well as china and asia. If one is not suspicious of all of this than one isnt paying attention and personally i dont get lost whether or not they engineered the virus but the reality is they made the unconscionable decision not to warn the world of what they do is a deadly virus they had unleashed upon it. That is a moral responsibility, a conscious immoral decision that they took. Another thing to characterize the trump achievement economy with the regulation is the theme you keep going back to globalism versus nationalism a couple more questions on Foreign Policy is the United States withdraw from the paris climate record or the man deal or the United States job owns nato in a way to get angry to meet 2 percent are now suddenly we move the embassy unilaterally to jerusalem and Golan Heights and not going back to syria now we see a new nexus but in the gulf states and israel and iran is out in the cold. What is your assessment . What did he do when he decided to pursue no better friend no worse enemy abroad then the globalist role of the third of man . One the brotherhood of man. He saw the decisions taken. And people dismiss that has hard edge to reasoning and the knowledge of what is transpiring internationally. The first act by the way from this congress after our founding was the tariff act and he exploded the idea a tariff will destroy the economy. Its interesting to think of the things we dont hear spoken about in the public arena you dont hear people saying that nonsense anymore. You hear the expression freetrade because now the whole country knows the Business Roundtable were lying through their teeth they said it was hardly a zerosum game. This makes us rich and wealthy and powerful we built up a huge trader joes trillions of dollars in Economic Growth as a result of those deficits particularly with china. He applied the same reasoning and clear i thinking to the war with mexico. Not only building a war with mexico but at the same time, and negotiating with the president of mexico to join forces to potenza thousands of mexican troops on the border of mexico to stop illegal immigration. Does he get credit for that . Know. And that is the lowest in decades and he has been immensely successful but the leftwing media will not credit that this is a man with two separate advancements and cannot even get the national leftwing media. He is fighting against more evil and seditious forces whether the media or the body of politics or his own party for crying out loud. He has to find them through every day and when. What you say resonates the subtitle how the president change the course of history forever. You say as much as he was opposed, he hit on a reality of truth that convinced even the enemies that after trump weather gender democrat you will hear pressure nato let them say what they want for lets get back into the climate accord or the iran deal or watch out for the gulf states or maybe we should stop the sanctions and iran. You are suggesting he did things whose very success almost like the emperor has no close look at the dialect has been changed. Without question. I would say he has demonstrated the assumptions of the liberal foreignpolicy establishment have been by this president s successes because he did the opposite of what they would recommend or expect or insist upon if its nato how dare you suggest the United States will not pay the bill but we have great benefits that result from deficit spending to support our wealthy european friends or in the case of the middle east. All of the palestinian dreams and desires and wishes before you begin with organizing and aligning the interest of the states in the region. The latter and the result is the united arab emirates. And we know from his statements that five other nations are waiting to join in a new relationship with israel. Working together to ensure peace in the region and confounding iran and only largest statesponsored terrorism but if it is responsible for killing one third of our troops in iraq and never being held to account. Host if joe biden is president and says trump is wrong we have to put the palestinians back into discussions of the middle east and reopened the iran deal can be skeptical that would have the residence because it has been changed by such a success its hard to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. There are so many variables this Political Year one is the national leftwing media they are a fifth column rather than the for the state they are working as a Political Action arm member of the Democratic Party and simultaneously the corporations that own them. At t, cnn, comcast, see nbc. Disney with the mickey mouse pictures to put the nasty reporter into the White House Briefing room every day who doesnt look nearly as cute as mickey mouse. They have an agenda and when the president talks about fake news. In my opinion hes not talking about the structure that the American People need to understand its media power of consolidation of economic power whether the vast Media Companies and Technology Companies and Silicon Valley to have the power, the economic power to absolutely block so many other president s agenda and the reason it hasnt happened until this man had the courage and the vision to stand up and say this is a right and with those antitrust actions against Silicon Valley and insisting there is a change in the relationship between the monster Media Companies that control fake news. The American People are awakening and these polls show they will buy into the idea of the biden harris ticket i think it is fantasy. Host you have a chapter on that with big tech and your argument is that they have the insidious way to warp the news whether a Google Search or a deep platform of the twitter account and predictably it is one way and therefore trillion dollars of Market Capital are all can find you talk about regulating and stopping them monopoly its almost as if that didnt happen because big tech says to liberals this money is at your disposal and they say to the conservatives with a libertarian freemarket laissezfaire is against her philosophy then they find a soft spot between the two parties. Then you Say Something has to be done before the octopus strangles all of us his but we all depend on so what can we do about it . First we have to identify just how vast and powerful that octopus really is because the interest not only of hollywood and Media Companies extending to those reporters sitting in the White House Briefing room have a closer alignment financially with china and the communist party of china and with the United States in the interest of this nation. And it is almost inconceivable that the United States government is a minor influence on Corporate America to the degree that it is. Its like gnats swimming a very large animal that is indifferent. That is trying to introduce that along with william bar with a counter in travailing influence and that is regulation and the ability to define markets and the actors within it which is not been done for a very long time you have to go back to microsoft and that failed antitrust action but nonetheless the last one attempted. After this election i thank you will see a highly energetic Donald Trump Administration taking on these critically important issues because the nation depends on it. Absolutely depends on it. Host you focus on the Federal Reserve and Interest Rates maybe you could clarify some of the confusion that i have when we say the farmhouse my greatgrandmother built i that we were getting good credit rates in 1980. Every time i would buy a bag of salt was two dollars and then i would see six or seven places were crossed out that is that inflationary high interestrate but now people are purchasing homes that three. 5 percent the middle class citizen if you count moderate inflation they are getting zero on the passbook accounts for 27 and trillion dollars is financed because zero rates were calibrated with inflation but you still seem to be worried the fed wants to raise Interest Rates and warned by the expansion of the threat of deflation. I have a simple human Interest Rates as it pertains no economist ever envisioned that Federal Reserve would raise rates for any other reason than motivation for price stability and the onset of inflation. This fed raised Interest Rates four times under Jerome Powells when he was put in place by donald trump go then the leftwing media started to clock because the president said wait a minute we were trying to kill this economy because it will benefit me in my reelection bid and it will shut down 3 percent gdp growth and alter the Job Opportunities in this country horribly. And he was right and they would not acknowledge at the restraints four times trying to do what . I have no idea Milton Friedman on Milton Friedman did not teach me that my professors to teach me why you would raise rates in anticipation of a market that you could not accurately protect at all anything beyond the six months. Thats what they kept trying to do in Jerome Powell is an investment banker not an economist where a lot of economist and the Federal Reserve but they are not world renowned because they are not prescient in the forecasting but you have to follow markets if you are in banking or in the central bank in Jerome Powell was doing on of that. So i applied to the president because he was right to stop the nonsense and all that he would never acknowledge the president was right, he calmed down and it ended so then he announced a new policy at the Federal Reserve which to point out precisely what donald trump had been saying since the point of their disagreement over Interest Rates without the presence of inflation what in hell are you doing . And by the way is the president against United States and those are looking to make money in the stunning economic historian to say that president s cannot, cannot with a great pristine white marble the Federal Reserve by criticizing it its over and its done and more energetic as they should be. George w. Bush and then we know barack obama starting with 4 trillion and then into 8 trillion and then 17 trillion so at what point do Interest Rates have to be de facto near zero or are you worried about that magnitude of a debt . And with that deregulation tax cut he wasnt successful so where do we end up dont do something . We replaced have never been before but not because of fiscal policy choices but in pursuit of a brilliant strategy is all reactionary to a virus that were this economy up. With the most beautiful economy in this countrys history. The virus from wuhan china sometimes the words find us we dont go looking for wars. That was the better america. I dont even know what other choice we had other than to add trillions of dollars to the Federal ReserveBalance Sheet to assure liquidity i dont think we should put another 3 trillion into a stimulus bill as nancy pelosi once. Is able to think we talked the difference between 3,000,000,000,001,000,000,000,00 once you talk trillions we have a big problem. One of the things i noticed is almost every other page you point out the role of the courts whether a travel ban or if donald trump is about the wall and after 2017 trumps opponents have lost control of both houses of congress one way to check the executive power is to turn to the courts and to point out successfully and now with the sad passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg road there is no other than the constitution that either confirms or it doesnt democrats lost the senate in 14 and 16 and 18 of the Senate Filibuster and ginsburg was confident either Hillary Clinton word when or trump after four years but not win reelection because she was much more vigorous but 81 or 82 and 13 or 14 when obama had the Democratic Senate and easily could have replaced a distinguished jurist at 81 did not happen. So now its a unique situation the president has a senate the liberal jurist passed away with a desire to be replaced with a liberal jurist with a conservative president and what you think will happen or should happen with this delicate situation and also the politics . And that they have become the legislative branch that has more power than the executive branch sometimes. I think thats right. Somehow we have to restore those constitutional balances and insist on checks and balances and our founders envisioned those checks being in place among the three equal branches with the executive leading the government. This is one of the great revelations over the course of the past two years in particular the degree to which the federal judiciary has been politically corrupted. John roberts chief justice famously said there are no trump or obama judges suggesting there is no partisanship from judges and justices. Poppycock. We know the American People are not fools we know who appointed a judge he looks at the judges in the Appellate Court in particular and how it will go look at general michael flynn. And the courts in the dc Appellate Court and the District Court judge refused to dismiss the charges. And forget the case there was the prosecutor except the court itself it is not envisioned they are just doing what they want because it is politically in their interest. And to where we end up with the courts will depend greatly whether or not we reelect donald trump and restore that original wisdom to the interpretation of the constitution and law. So the opponents of donald trump not just oppose without military or political experience or a populist agenda for structural changes to change the dialectic in the landscape itself. With trump were to lose and 20 that we would see a Court Packing scheme when i asked that the trump century how the president change the course of history forever assumes the president system that the achievements would be recognized by both sides because they hit on reality and truth. But if that has changed or the structures are modified where we have 52 states or 15 percent Supreme Court come all of this beginning in 2021, do you see the structural changes change the very foundation . There is another presumption. And he wins this election because it ensures this countrys destiny. Without donald trump in the way house all bets are off. There is no way anyone should dismiss what is happening on the party of eight that is simply rhetoric and a political squabble. This is a battle for the soul of the nation. And for the direction of the nation and for who we will be as a people. I dont mean that to be melodramatic. Talk about dcm puerto rico as states that changes who we are and what we are because then the Democratic Party has sufficient power to pack the court and then insist and go straight to totalitarian because that is what the left wants. They dont want to be bothered by things like the law. Or a constitution. And those values. In the idea that a Political Party can threaten death and destruction on the streets of america and still be regarded as a Political Party . To me it is nauseating. To see what the Democratic Party has become. My colleagues the most part dont care to talk that directly about it but i do because i believe that is exactly what we are staring at its a very ugly face indeed we need a tough leader and the smart as hell they always say he has great instincts great judgment a great great leader and he cares about his country i will tell you i pray he wins because thats my way of putting for the country. It is a fascinating discussion the book is the trump century these and other topics that we have discussed and more are in the book its an argument not just the achievements underappreciated with that conventional wisdom even away his enemies have to concede thank you for coming on cspan booktv it has been an honor to interview you. Thank you very much. The honor is mine thank you very much. We can have dreams of many communities many plans were derailed because of the pandemic even though i graduated higher i still can be a Fighter Pilot because im a girl so to find the t30 seven and they gave me the opportunity to gain to the pedestrians in dangerous situations but i thought it was a chance to keep holding my airman ship and excelling and growing and keep the door open so if they change the law the law was changed the policy was not. I felt like it would happen soon and i would be ready leaning forward and thats exactly what happened. The door opened i was in the right place at the right time with the right experience. What is your t30 72 dell rio . If i was not derailed initially i would not have been in the position to break barriers to be the first woman to fly in combat sometimes you cant see a detour takes you on your path to your destiny and thats my experience. For over ten years have been engaging policy makers and influencers and entrepreneurs an activist and scientist food and energy water and technology in transportation and housing. We had huge success when they sit down and have a candid conversation we find Common Ground in the basis for Real Solutions emotional