Transcripts For CNNW The Van Jones Show 20181111

Had a major mid term election with the votes still being counted in some of the big races. And all of this happened literally just in the past few days. So im still trying to make sense of all of this stuff, but heres where i am. I see new reasons for real concern about our country and new reasons for hope. Now on the concern side. Trump is acting less and less like a traditional u. S. President or any leader in a western democracy. Instead, hes acting more like an authoritarian strong man. Heres my evidence. First, hes trying to use his influence by calling regular ongoing ballot counting in florida a disgrace. A disgrace. Why . Look, it seems like hes upset that a full vote count might derail his hand picked leaders down there at the province level like brian kemp in georgia or desantis in georgia. Before that trump was going all over the country barnstorming using lies and fearmongering to whip up his supporters in frenzy. That sounds moore like hugo chavez than ronald regan. Now for authoritarians, you have to crush or coopt. Hes attacking the media, punishing and putting down reporters just for asking tough questions. Hes trying to capture and curb the national police, the fbi, the justice department. Hes packing the courts. Hes threatening a war against a coequal branch of government, congress, which will soon be controlled by the opposition party. If they dare to fulfill their constitutional duty as a check on the president , its a war footing. This sounds like putins playbook right out of putins playbook. Now these are the foundations of our democracy, and instead of protecting them the president is consistently undermining them. Unfortunately trumpism is real and its working. The republicans actually made some gains in the senate and the ones that won are more like trump. The moderates wound up getting booted out. Thats the negative part. On the hope side, folks. The opposition is real too. Now to stay with this metaphor, weve got a beautiful, determined, Pro Democracy Movement inside the United States, and it just proved that it can elect courageous champions in every corner of our country. You remember the womens march, all those people were marching almost two years ago . This week tens of millions of americans marched into polling booths and ended one party rule in washington, d. C. That is the First Step Towards hopefully restoring some balance and sanity to our country. And i also think that in the end this blue wave was actually bigger and bluer than it actually looked like at first. Republican gerrymandering ensured the democrats got fewer seats than they would have gotten if the districts were drawn fairly. On a percentage basis, this win was actually bigger than the Tea Party Wave in 2010. Also voters passed positive ballot measures, medicaid expansion, medical marijuana, criminal Justice Reform even in red states and perhaps most exciting, this weeks rainbow wave elected more than 100 women of every color and creed to the u. S. Congress. Were going to meet a couple of them right now. Please welcome to the van jones show my reason for hope newly elected Congress People and leaders from the commonwealth of pennsylvania, chrissie howelly han and mary day scanlon. [ applause ] welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you. Help is on the way. Congratulations. No women from pennsylvania before you and now there are four women in congress and youre two of them. First of all, you are going to be some of the people in our government now who might be able to do something about this situation. What are you most concerned about as you get ready to get sworn in and to become Congress People . So i am concerned about our nation, and thats largely why i decided to run for congress in terms of my background, im an engineer, im a veteran, im a successful businesswoman. Ive been an educator and i really thought that our government was supposed to be doing its part to advance those things that matter to me and to all of us. And i was so alarmed after the election of 2016 that clearly that wasnt going to be happening. And you eluded to the fact that over the course of the next 22 months it hasnt been happening, that its disheartening. Youre absolutely right, it just feels as though every day is a dog year. It just feels exhausting. Youre just waking up every day with a different reason to be motivated to run and help make change. Im worried about a lot of people but i am hopeful there is a calvary of fresh legs to effect change and right the ship. One of the things that, you know, is a tension, do you operate as a check and a balance on the president , try to stop him from doing crazy stuff, or do you find ways to work with him and get stuff done . I mean, how do you how do you see this its almost like this impossible choice between stopping him on bad stuff and trying to get good stuff done. Whats more important to you . I think the country and what we certainly heard from voters, that they think both. They think congress hasnt been doing its job of making policy, legislating, acting on behalf of voters, but also not working to act as a check and a balance on the president. The president says youve got to pick. He says, if you want to work with me well have a big, beautiful bipartisan moment but if you come against me it will be a warlike posture. What do you say to a president that says you can only do half your job . Read the constitution. I mean, thats beautiful. Sorry. Mike drop. Sorry. But, i mean, even Mitch Mcconnell says you folks are coming in, you are too tough on this president , it could back fire on you guys. You are not in super blue districts, youre in purple districts. I am. Couldnt it back fire on you if you stand up to the president . So i think a lot of us are answering this call never expecting to do this and never needing to do this. Im not going to serve because im looking to be wheeled off the floor of the house in 35 or 40 years. Im doing this because the nation is in peril. I think a lot of us are doing it for that reason. So you can threaten me all you want. Im going to represent the people of our community. Speaking of people who have been there for a long time, Nancy Pelosis been there for a long time. Shes going to be asking for your vote to return her to be the speaker of the house. She broke that Glass Ceiling once. Are you going to help her break it again . You go first and then ill go. Right now shes the only person running so that makes it easy. Okay. Shes good. Do you worry as great as she is, shes been a great leader, shes just too toxic . People keep saying you need fresh faces . Does that move you . Does that sway you . Shes certainly been an amazing leader. We have the Affordable Care act because of nancy pelosi, but shes also been very proactive. Shes been to the region where i live in philadelphia several times to help mentor younger women, helping them move into office. So, you know, as long as shes willing to help do that success plan, i think thats great. We were a little bit kind of sad. At least i was sad on Election Night because i wanted everybody to win every race and so i was a little bit sad, then looking at the numbers, should we have been happier given how many races we wound up winning . Im enormously happy. Many of us made it through that gauntlet and all of us who tried made a huge difference and thats something i took away. No matter if we won or lost, we pushed the narrative and we pushed the country. Im very happy we have taken the house back. That was goal number one. It would be very hard for me because i won two races, i won a special and a general so im going to d. C. To ahead. Im getting sworn in on tuesday and its a seat that in some ways it was sweeter. It had been gerrymandered to be a republican seat and weve taken that back. Youre going to be in congress in 20 minutes. Yup. Thats good. What advice would you have for other women . I mean, i think its a totally different thing, even today, the level of sexism, the double standards, but a lot of women i think are great but even hold themselves back a little bit in other professions. What did you find in yourself that let you make this step . And what would you say to other women who might want to make other kinds of steps . I think it was important that at key points in my life ive seen other women stepping up. When i graduated from college i got to work for a woman who was running for congress in new york state. I got to hear Shirley Chism speak. She had just run for president. So seeing other women take on those roles has been really helpful, and regardless of what the outcome of the election was, the number of young women who said that, you know, they felt like they could do this now made it really, really gratifying. The guy who was a door knocker for me was driving with his 3yearold daughter this weekend saw one of my signs, yard signs and she said chrissie howelly han, is she a fairy or is she a scientist . Well see. You know youre making a difference. You can be a fairy and a scientist. And amazing new leader of our congress and our democracy movement. Thank you very much for being here. Youre both special. Special election. We appreciate you. Good luck in d. C. Coming up, weve got unfortunately another week, another mass shooting in our country. Thats two in two weeks so im going to be checking in with the survivors of the parkland shootings for their reactions and. Howie hear how theyre doing with it . Should democrats be a check or work with him on new legislation. Heres what some of you had to say about that. I think holding the president accountable is more important than passing any new legislation. We wasted too much time with the shenanigans of the white house. Its time to get down to business. burke fenderbiter. Seen it, covered it. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum whats the mascara lash paradise from loreal. My lashes look amazing . Fuller and longer no wonder theres one sold every 5 seconds. See what your lashes are missing try lash paradise mascara from loreal paris. It was always our singular focus, a distinct determination. To do whatever it takes, use every possible resource. To fight cancer. And never lose sight of the patients were fighting for. 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With the new iphone xr . yeah, iphone xr included. For 40 bucks . that is big. From capital one. Nd i switched to the spark cash card i earn unlimited 2 cash back on everything i buy. And last year, i earned 36,000 in cash back. Which i used to offer Health Insurance to my employees. Whats in your wallet . Well you remember what happened last year. You cant bring a backup thanksgiving to my sisters house. Its not like were going to walk in with it. Well bring it in as we need it. Phase it in. Phase it in . Yeah, phase it in. Welcome back o the van jones show. Look, so far 68 people, 68 human beings have been killed in Mass Shootings in 2018, including 12 at a California Bar just this week, and that 68 number is just a fraction of the more than 12,000 gunrelated deaths so far just this year. Heres the problem, because of the power of the gun lobby, the United States doesnt even maintain an official counts of firearm deaths. We have to rely on information from advocacy groups to even know whats going on. Doctors are calling gun violence a Public Health crisis and they want more freedom to do research into firearm deaths but the nra doesnt like it and is firing back on twitter saying selfimportant antigun doctors should stay in their lane. Im sorry, i think bullet holes are very much in the lane of doctors. Our next guests are leading the charge to stop Mass Shootings. They are both survivors of the horrific mass shooting in parkland. Please welcome our guests. [ cheers and applause ] i am really, really honored to have you here. You guys are leading one of the most important movements in the country with two Mass Shootings in the past two weeks given what you guys have survived and gone through, how does that make you feel when you see once again the country going through this . You know, and im almost ashamed to say it, but at first i was completely numb. Numb . I was just like, wow, look at that. And then i kept scrolling. But the more i thought about it, the more i realized that that was so fall and convoluted to ever think that any act of violence was just something that you can keep scrolling past. You guys have been through it. You actually were shot, you know, had to survive. You had shrapnel in your face for a while. How do you feel watching this whole thing repeat itself . I definitely agree with you in the sense that i do feel numb, and i feel that way maybe because it happens so often. And because it happens so often, you know, people, they turn into statistics, you know . Shootings become another number, but i think more than anything, im just devastated because its grown to be personal at this point for me. I walk every single day of my life now until the day i die with not just memories of, you know, february 14th and losing some of my closest friends, but the physical evidence in my body and my journey is never going to be the same. And i know what that pain feels like, and i would never wish that upon anyone else. One of the things is that, you know, you all could just be under your bed, but youre not. Youre out there. Youre raising your voice. Youre trying to organize. What have you been learning about your generation and about the political process by being involved and trying to get other people to be involved . I think something about our generation specifically that a lot of people saw is like a negative thing but is now whats been pushing us, we dont really know how to take no for an answer. Somebody tells us no and were like [ applause ] so but thats Something Big about activism in general across all generations. What do you say . Something i learned is this idea of connectivity, and this idea of being connected online social media, the internet. Connectivity starts the conversation and gives people the information and what they need to become activists themselves. What do you say to people at the Thousand Oaks shooting, it was a handgun, people might say none of what youre saying is going to make a difference anyway. What do you say to those people . I think those people are part of the issue. That kind of denial and ignorance towards a scenario is only just going to perpetuate more of us. It shouldnt matter what kind of gun or what kind of state of mind that person is or if he was weird or like bullied. Did the person have the ability to get his hands on a firearm. Even if they pass a Mental Health background check. The mental background checks we have are not efficient enough. There hasnt been enough put into place to make sure that these evaluations are thorough enough. There hasnt been enough money in order to make sure people are going to be efficient enough for when people buy a handgun. You put some work into the mid term election, in florida. We dont know whos going to win but it looks like people who are more pro gun may squeak it out in the governors race and senate race. How does that make you feel, you feel like youre doing all this work and you didnt win . No. Definitely not. Theres a win involved. People my age, millennials are going out to the polls and advocating for people to register to vote. Advocating and participating in politics is an accomplishment on their own. What do you say to young people . How do you keep them inspired . You know what, i was disappointed at first too and then i thought about it. I sawed to myself, how long has it been since weve been advocating for this cause. A few months. Not long at all. It feels like to us forever. It hasnt been long. Rome was not built in a day and the country is not going to be changed in about nine months so we have a lot of work to do, but regardless of who gets in office, were going to hold them accountable. Thats awesome. I cant tell you how much we appreciate you. I cant tell you how much we appreciate you and you have put a completely different, i think, face and voice behind an issue that really touches everybody. We appreciate you. We love you. Keep going. Weve got your back. Coming up, if there is any hope for bipartisanship right now, one area may be Prison Reform. Ive been reaching across the aisle to work closely with white house Senior Advisor Jared Kushner. Hes got a very personal reason for taking up this issue. I want you to hear about this more in my exclusive interview with Jared Kushner when we get back. I just got my cashback match, is this for real . Yep. We match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. Whoo i got my money hard to contain yourself, isnt it . Uh huh let it go whoo get a dollarfordollar match at the end of your first year. Only from discover. They work togetherf doing important stuff. The hitch . Like you, your cells get hungry. Feed them. With centrum micronutrients. Restoring your awesome, daily. Centrum. Feed your cells. Should happen everydred five hundred years, right . Fact is, there have been twentysix in the last decade. Allstate is adapting. With drones to assess home damage sooner. And if a flying object damages your car, you can snap a photo and get your claim processed in hours, not days. Plus, allstate can pay your claim in minutes. Now that you know the truth. Are you in good hands . [ neighing ] [ neighing ] [ sigh ] its bring your own phone, not pony. So i couldve taken the bus . Yeah. Bring your phone. Switch your carrier. Save hundreds a year with xfinity mobile. Call, click or visit a store today. [ cheers and applause ] welcome back to the van jones show. A bipartisan glimmer of hope this week. Voters passed ballot measures for criminal Justice Reform in blue states, red states. Florida restored Voting Rights for 1. 3 Million People to felons who have served their time. Kroed banned forced labor without pay. Washington state passed a measure regarding Mental Health and deescalation terms. I love this stuff because when im not on tv im working hard with people on both sides of the aisle every day to fix our criminal justice system. And to the surprise of many, one republican leading the fight is president trumps soninlaw and Senior Advisor, Jared Kushner. Now remember jareds dad went to prison and the pain of that experience gives him a personal connection to the issue. So even though jared and i disagree on a bunch of stuff, we joined forces this year to pass a federal Justice Reform bill and this month that bill could pass the senate and become law. So in that bipartisan spirit i invited jared to join me at cnns First Citizen conference. Now fair warning, i didnt ambush the guy and start going off on him. You know, fireworks are easy. I wanted to give you something more useful in the long term. Insight into how jareds brain actually works so i hope the following conversation helps you better understand Jared Kushner. I think that, you know, through your critics, for politics you have a very small resume and you have this big, big portfolio. What you say to people who say like what qualifies you to go and take on these tough issues all around the world . Why should we have confidence in you to do all of this stuff . I think the first thing is that the president trusts me. I think he knows that every task hes given me from the start of the campaign through ive been able to do it quietly, ive been able to do it effectively, ive been able to deliver results. I dont make a lot of noise. Noise is sometimes made me about me but i try to keep my head down. I think that hes a businessman and im a businessman. The way i look at it is that its all about accomplishing the objective. You have to be very laser focused, not get distracted by it. I find that when im asked to take on something, the first thing ill do is reach out to people who have experience doing it. Ill talk to a lot of people and ill put together the different perspectives and come up with a plan of action to execute on. To date weve been successful on a lot of things people thought we wouldnt be successful on skbl o. One of the reasons why i wanted to have the discussion is you have an unorthodox approach. A lot of people expect the megaphone approach, which is to broadcast your ideas, get a lot of people on board. You have more the cell phone approach. Youre not broadcasting, youre kind of narrow casting to particular leaders. I think its important for people to understand how you approach this stuff. Lets start where we started on Prison Reform. Why are you working on Prison Reform and criminal justice . So when i came to washington i obviously had two primary things that i wanted to work on. The first one was helping the transition. I think that we had a First Six Months that maybe were a little chaotic. A lot of people hadnt been in government before and i do think the president made a lot of the right adjustments to get the right team on the floor and i think now hes got a Fabulous Team and i think that the next thing i really wanted to focus on was the u. S. mexico relationship. The president asked me to do the middle east Peace Process which is something weve made a lot of progress on. Im as optimistic as you can be about that. There was one issue very close to my heart because i had a personal experience which was Prison Reform. What i did very quickly was i said, okay, lets look at this like i would any other problem. Because when i had my personal experience, i wish that there was somebody who was in my office in the white house who cared about this issue as much as i do. And if they had been focused on it and making a difference, perhaps that would have made an impact on a lot of people who i came to meet and care about through my experience. A lot of people dont know, you had a Family Member who went to prison . Yes. Yeah. So i did a very similar approach, like ive taken to all other problems whether i was in business or in politics, which is i usually have a three phase approach. The first phase is an Assessment Approach where you try to understand what the issue is and whats been tried, what can be done . The next phase is you develop a strategy. So we came up with a strategy and then the last phase is really vigorous execution. What i found through the assessment phase was actually quite surprising to me, which was that there really was a lot of bipartisan support for this issue in the sense that a lot of the conservative states had been leaders on this issue saying that, you know, the prisons have become too full. Were spending too much money on warehousing people. We should be figuring out how to improve people so that when they get out they can become productive citizens again. Theyve been very successful in conservative states like texas and georgia. The democrats have liked this issue for a very long time. That was the first thing i found. 95 plus of the people are going to get out of prison. We have 650,000 people who leave prison every year. Out of those 650,000 people, 400,000 of them will commit crimes in the future. Thats just the statistic right now. If we have these people in our custody, instead of warehousing, we should be figuring out how do we help them get the skills so that when he this get out of prison they become productive members of the society instead of spending time in prison to become a better criminal. This is my heart and soul. Ill work with anybody or against anybody to get something positive done. I think theres an incredulity. Donald trump cares about people in prison . Because his rhetoric is so tough on so many different people. Its just so hard to people to believe. I get that you care. Does the president actually care about this stuff . So when i finished my second phase, which was the strategy phase, i had one small problem, which is that i hadnt really spoken to the president about this issue yet. So that was after so that was after about a year of really research and bringing a lot of people from different places and coming up with what we thought was a good plan to really try to make progress. If youre a business guy, this doesnt really come up unless you have a personal experience. So we set up a meeting with the president , like with all policy processes, and we went through the issue. First we went through the statistics. We started explaining kind of the problem, how these people, you know, they obviously have problems, which is why they committed crimes in the first place. They leave prison with the Scarlet Letter of having a Scarlet Letter. Their skills have atrophied, their connections have grown apart. Theyre not trained. What do you expect them to do . Most of them will commit crimes. The president got that. Then somebody in the meeting said, when you campaigned you said you were going to fight for the forgotten men and women of the country and theres nobody more forgotten or under represented than the people in prison. I talk to the president and i know when im talking to him and hes listening. I know when hes listening and it penetrates. I could tell right then that that really hit him in his heart. Since then hes actually spent a lot of time on the issue. Hes pushed us to really, you know, see if we can be successful with the effort and i think that, you know, the president s tough. I mean, he can be tough on crime. Hes tough on a lot of things, but he also has a lot of compassion that not a lot of people get to see as much as i do and this is an issue thats really, i think, hit his heart and something that ive seen him want to make a difference on because i think he feels it as a fairness issue. The first active bill youve been pushing, got through the house, 36059. 100,000 federal prisoners will be able to get home earlier. Stops women from being able to be abused. No one has figured out how you do. You have trump and pelosi on the same bill. How did you do that . So it starts with the 235k9 th fact that we have a good substantive bill. In the prisons, we dont know what were striving to achieve. What this bill does, it creates a Risk Assessment for each prisoner. It gives some kind of prescription for them to earn their way down. It means you have to do job training, you have to get skills, mentorship, melt, drug addiction. It deals with all the Different Things that allow them to have a higher probability of leading a pro durkttive life. Got a good bill. Starts with substance. If you dont have substance, its harder to get people to come together. The next thing was i had a lot of help. I had help from hakeem jeffries, doug collins, a lot of democrats saying to congressman jeffries, youre doing this. This is something that trump says hes for, how can you be working with him . Or this doesnt go far enough. He said, no, no, this policy is virtuous. This policy is right. We had somebody send him a letter that basically had all of these pages saying why the bill was racist and doing all of these things. He said, no, no, i want to respond to it. I can summarize this. You should read the bill before you criticize. Everybody doesnt like this bill. It passed huge in the house but theres still people on the right who say youre letting out drug dealers in an opioid crisis. Quick response to those critics . So the way we were able to overcome that in the house is that, yes, people have the ability to earn marginal, you know, decrease in their sentences, but the operative word there is earn. So if you have somebody in prison for ten years, you can say would you rather them go back after ten years of no programming to the streets or would you rather leave after 9, 9 1 2 years after having earned that six months to a year off by participating in all of these programs that will give them a much higher probability of becoming a productive citizen . I think once you explain that to people, we find that everyone gets on board. To the question you asked before about how we got that through, we had a lot of help from people like yourself. Again, you were able to take the situation and put the politics of the situation aside. You were able to say, if we are fighting for something thats right, ill put the politics aside. That helped a lot of left leaning organizations to come out in support of the bill when they were being pushed to be against it because trump was for it. Speaking of the left wing groups some didnt like it because of trump, some said the bill didnt go far enough. Some should have sentence reform in it. Its one thing to get people ready but why dont we put less people in prison . Both sides want something. I think the process of washington is bringing people together. Everyone says washington is broken and the time ive spent on this bill actually shows me that our system of democracy is really an amazing system because it shouldnt be easy to get laws passed. You should have to fight. You should have to bring people together. You should have to win the arguments. What i will tell these people is, look, this bill will help 100,000 people find a way to not become future criminals, become productive members of society. These people have families. If they can have these people back spending their time improving themselves and back sooner, thats a win. Sentencing reform, one of the senators whos very smart said to me that the sentencing reform is basically impacting people who havent committed crimes yet whereas the Prison Reform are helping people who are in prison today that if we dont help them their probability of committing future crimes is much higher than it should be. So its called the first step act. The goal is to be the First Step Towards hopefully broader reforms. Weve got a lot more of my conversation with Jared Kushner coming up, including what advice did he give to the Saudi Crown Prince about the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. Plus, his plans to tackle what seems like mission impossible, peace in the middle east. When we get back. [ cheers and applause ] whoa phone rings daddy, mommys on the phone hi how are you guys . 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See your doctor right away if you experience new or worsening cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, diarrhea, severe stomach pain or tenderness, nausea or vomiting, rapid heartbeat, constipation, changes in urine, changes in eyesight, muscle pain or weakness, joint pain, confusion or memory problems, fever, rash, itching or flushing, as this may keep these problems from becoming more serious. These are not all the possible side effects of keytruda. Tell your doctor about all your medical conditions including immune system problems, or if youve had an organ transplant or lung, breathing, or liver problems. roger before id think of the stuff i might miss. But now with keytruda, we have hope. avo living longer is possible. Its tru. Keytruda, from merck. Ask your doctor about keytruda. [ cheers and applause ] welcome back to the van jones show. It has been weeks and we still do not have a good enough explanation for the murder of the journalist jamal khashoggi. Jared kushners close relationship with the Saudi Crown Prince has been under intense scrutiny ever since the incident went down. I asked him about the potential geopolitical consequences of all of this and if he finds what the saudis are talking about to be remotely credible. Heres what he had to say. As an administration were more in a fact finding phase and well determine which facts are credible. After that the president and the secretary of state will make a determination as to what we deem to be credible, what actions we think we should take. Ill also say that buy have to be able to work with our allies, and saudi arabias been i think a very strong ally in terms of pushing back against irans aggression, which is funding a lot of terror in the region. The middle east is a rough place. Its been a very rough place for a very long time. We have to be able to pursue our strategic objectives but we have to deal with obviously what seems to be a terrible situation. Do you trust the saudis to investigate themselves . I mean, it seems like mbs is the prime suspect, do you trust the saudis to sort this out . Like i said, were getting facts in from multiple places. Once those facts come in the secretary of state will work with our National Security team to help us qerim what we want to believe and what we think is credible and what is not credible. Trump says theres deception and lies. Do you see anything that seems desoepttive . Deesh septembertive . I do every single day. We have our eyes wide open. The president is focused on whats good for america. What are our strategic objectives. What kinds of advice have you given mbs . To be transparent. Fully transparent. The world is watching. This is a very, very serious accusation and a very serious situation and to make sure youre transparent and to take this very seriously. Anything anything about this kind of just shaken your basic confidence in mbs as a partner . S i think a lot of people are making a big bet on mbs. People on wall street, davos, hes a reformer. I think you made a bet on him. Anything happen out of this that makes you reassess that . Like i said, once we have all the facts, then well make an assessment, but, again, i think that our administrations made a lot of gains in our fights against terrorism. We have to deal with the longterm ideology of extremism and saudi arabia is a partner for that which is very significant in the relationship of islam and a lot of the reforms theyre making would help us track down the Terror Financing and push back on people who are reverting the religion. Very historic over the past four years. That push back against irans aggression. Were going to stay focused on that. I think the core of the core, like the people who are mad at Jared Kushner right now is i think people feel like weve got this american prince, hes making friends with a saudi prince but the saudi prince like killed the dissident and its your fault because if you hadnt been friends with him, he wouldnt have felt like he could get away with that. How do you respond to those kind of critics . Im not sure where to even start with that. Look, i dont respond to the critics. I think my job is to every day, you know, focus on what are the objectives i have to accomplish . Things come up every day that can make that more challenging, but we have to work through it. You look at all of the prison starts with prison set backs. Some were selfinflicted, some were not. But, again, you know, theres a short period of time that youre serving in government and what we have to be doing is figuring out how do we leave our government much better off than we found it. I come in every day trying to figure out how do we push forward to accomplish the obj t objectives that will make the American People better off. So i dont really spend a lot of time worrying about the critics. We did president s, we did the middle east. We did saudi arabia. How are we going to get peace in the middle east, by the way . So this is i think weve made a lot of progress and, you know, the president s done a very good job of not allowing the old ways of thinking to con strain his actions. One week when we got to the middle east i did the same approach, to go out and talk, understand what had been thought of. Whats the situation in the regi region. Weve been fighting for the last 25 years but what dwee was took an approach a very in depth document that goes through the issues and we thought something much more prescriptive. Ive always found that with conflicts when i was in business, when youre fighting over a concept its much easier to be diskreetd than when youre talking about this. Isolate where the disagreements are and see if we can make progress. I think theres a bigger gap between the negotiators and the people. The people want to have a better life, better opportunity and i think what were working on will allow both the israelis to have the security they want and to allow had the people and respect the bigger issues. I dont think anybody can argue with those aspirins and those as ideas but, you know, other people have come up short and this is the one area, dealing with the palestinians, that feels a little different in that you dont have that partner with the palestinians . How are you going to get it done without the palestinians with you. Ive gotten to know a lot of palestinian leaders. But our sense is na when we put our plan out, if theres reasonable leadership and if its a reasonable plan, then theyll come to the table and try to fight for how to create the best opportunity, the best outcome for their people. I think people are tired of the situation. I think this has gone on for two long. I think the status quo is not acceptable and i think that its just getting worse and worse. So at some point, you know, leaders have to be able to take the bold step and make the compromise, were help fall that well find leadership thats able to do that. Coming up, ill tell jared the real reason i wanted to sit down with him, and thats next. [ cheers and applause ] the new Capital One Savor card. Earn 4 cash back on dining and 4 on entertainment. Now when you go out, you cash in. Whats in your wallet . Now when you go out, you cash in. This is big tmobile is offering the awesome iphone xr with an unlimited plan for just 40 bucks a month. Unlimited. With the new iphone xr . yeah, iphone xr included. For 40 bucks . that is big. Smile dad. I take medication for high Blood Pressure and cholesterol. But they might not be enough to protect my heart. Adding bayer aspirin can further reduce the risk of another heart attack. Because my Second Chance matters. Be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. To give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you dont. [grunting noise] ill take that. 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. Ensure max protein. In two great flavors. But before you do that, you should meet our newest team member, tecky. Im tecky. I can do it all. Go ahead, ask it a question. Tecky, can you offer low costs and awardwinning Wealth Management with a satisfaction guarantee, like schwab . Sorry. Tecky cant do that. Schwabbb calling schwab. We dont have a satisfaction guarantee, but we do have tecky im tecky. I ca. Are you getting low costs and awardwinning Wealth Management . If not, talk to schwab. Welcome back to the van jones show. Working in the white house is a Family Affair for Jared Kushner. I asked him whats that like. Take a look. Whats it look working with ivanka every day . People talk about you guys as a super impressive power couple, i would take the power how far it, you guys are an extraordinary couple. Whats it like working with your wife every day in an environment with little kids . Anyone with advantaivanka woa power couple. Shes really amazing. When we started dating i told her if i wasnt so attracted her, she would just be my best friend. Ivanka is brilliant. We were always involved in each others business and knew what was going on. But working together has given me an even greater appreciation for just how effective she is with everything she does, she puts her mind to accomplishing things and shes able to get them there. Everyone wants to work with her and shes a great team player. Its obviously challenging enough having one parent working in the white house. Having two parents in the white house is a big strain, obviously, for the family. But she does a great job balancing it, i dont know how she does it because i wouldnt be able to do it. The kids have been great about it too. Are you having fun . Because all we hear about is the chaos and the destruction and were all going to be blown away by a meteor called mueller. Are you having fun . I wouldnt say fun. I have a lot of joy in my life and i feel very blessed to be there every day, fighting for the things im fighting for. Its a lot of responsibility, the jobs that we have. But i would say more i would say say more invigorated by it. Its obviously the challenge of a lifetime. You know, again, like i said, every day were in the arena, were fighting forward. I think when people look back, a lot of people get caught in the day to day and they look at maybe some of more colorful personalities. One of the big blessings of this is we work with so many incredible people. We have the waves and the action above but we have everything thats happening below the water where everything is calm and moving forward. I think when this presidency is over youll look at the full body of work and youll see that a lot of progress is made on a lot of fronts. It doesnt get covered every day on cnn. But i think youll see a lot of progress. I want to appreciate you for being here. I thought it was important to have this conversation, and i hope that people can see that we dont always have to agree with each other on everything, we should fight hard where we disagree and we should work hard where we do agree. I feel very proud to have a chance to work with you where we do agree and also im going to work very hard to get you a new job in 2020. Jared kushner. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, buddy. I want to thank all my guests and acknowledge, my audience tonight is short at least one important viewer, my mother. Loretta jones died last week after a long illness. I was there at her side in the nursing home where she always watched this show. She always believed in my and my sister angela. Were both going to miss her a great deal. If your parents are still with you, give them a call, tell them you love them. I sure wish i could call mine. Im van jones, this is the van jones show. Peace and love for one another. Thank you. [ applause ] your company is constantly evolving. And the decisions you make have far reaching implications. The right relationship with a Corporate Bank who understands your industry and your world can help you make well informed choices and stay ahead of opportunities. Pnc brings you the resources of one of the nations largest banks, and a local approach with a focus on customized insights. So you and your company are ready for today. Well you remember what happened last year. You cant bring a backup thanksgiving to my sisters house. Its not like were going to walk in with it. Well bring it in as we need it. Phase it in. Phase it in . Yeah, phase it in. Phase it in . So, lets talk about Conference Calls. Theres always a certain amount of fumbling. A lot of times it doesnt work. We have problems. Comcast business goes beyond fast. By letting you make and receive calls from any device using your business line. And Conference Calls you can join without any dialins or pins. phone there are currently 3 members in this conference. I like that. I like that too. I would use that in a heartbeat. Get started with innovative Voice Solutions for a low price when you get fast, reliable internet. Comcast business. Beyond fast. You are in the cnn newsroom. Im ana cabrera in new york. Thank you for being here as we follow breaking news right now. The deadly and very destructive, out of control wildfires in california. At least nine people have died so far. Most of them trapped in their cars or in their homes. One town in Northern California is almost completely gone. Nearly every home and building there burned down. Fires are also raging in los angeles. Close to 100,000 acres have gone up in flames. Stay with cnn. Were live from both of