Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20160904

Biographer talk about president ial politics. Go and to cspan. Org for the complete schedule. Next, the impact of the 2016 campaign. This roundtable with analysts was held at the Steamboat Institute freedom conference. Im going to introduce my wonderful candidates. They are very brave to participate in this conversation. This is a very divisive electionyear. Strong feelings about both candidates. So we have a diversity of opinions. The goal is not to change who to let your, it is understand the discussion that is going on right now. Ted of ahat, we have National Consulting company. He serves on the board of a ton of nonprofits. The third way Citizen Engagement board. And i hear he is an incredible rooftop garden or and has a knack for crawling things that dont normally grow in colorado. Next to him we have james toronto. An editor of the editorial board. Read his bestave of the web column. His entire living based on Critical Thinking and he has a taste in cigars and probably is singlehandedly responsible for and we have kelly. She is the executive Director Director of compass, colorado. And she has a pet wallaby. It is the cutest thing ever. I am a little bit obsessed. Thisthought we would kick off by laying out what we think about this election. I want to say thank you to jennifer and rick. A special thank you goes out to bob and claudia. Do, being thell resident liberal, i feel like a circus animal. Much, i am happy to be here. This is something i was looking forward to. So, when i look at the 2016 election, i think it is important to frame this in the context of what is happening in terms of the evolution of how we do politics and what is happening in terms of the evolution of our parties. There is such a level of disenfranchisement and trust. It is more than i have seen in the last 10 or 15 years. And that is why we ended up with donald trump on the republican side, and that is definitely why we had Bernie Sanders on the democratic side. And to my democratic friends, i say listen we have to Pay Attention to the far left. Because what happened to the Republican Party will happen to us if we dont figure out how to address it. Where thee a process width do electoral politics has overcome the way we do policy politics. I am the first person to say it is legal, i will do it in a race. That is what we have been doing in colorado for a number of years and it is why we have the resurgence of democrats that is here. Is one thing that we do here when it comes to policy, we do it together. It is easier to poison a well then dig one. We have too many people handing out poison and not enough people handing out shovels. So in this election. The bottom line for me, it is far too soon for Hillary Clinton to win. We should be watching the rise of gary johnson. Because that number now is north 15. I think this could end up being a competitive race due to the unfavorable at a levels of Hillary Clinton. That is the frame for me starting. I want to come back to the numbers that steve mentioned earlier. First off, thank you to the institute. I think we all attend a lot of these conferences and i see a lot of familiar faces in the room. We do often isgs that we will set it a room and surround ourselves who think like us and we all know it and we talk about the fact that it is the apocalypse but we havent really taken a lot of time to real, indepth, honest, tough conversations with our liberal counterparts. Is an evil genius. Largely has anyone in here read the blueprint. It is a great book about longterm political infrastructure and why it is so important. And that was largely created and tenant. D by so i think having this conversation this year, when we are all coming forward and disagree but in good faith to talk about what is an election isdly ugly something that we all have to face. We have never, in the course of what i remember in politics and i look like im 20 but im not. I have been working in politics it while. Clear never had a year both candidates are so hated by everyone. And frankly, the donald trump people will say that Hillary Clinton sucks and the hillary people will say that donald trump sucks. Both think that the other person bring the apocalypse and that is the argument. I have not yet heard a coherent. Nd consistent argument and based on voter disengagements, that tells me it is time for us to rethink how we do politics as a is, moving forward. Continue to do it this way, people will continue to be disengaged. Panel, we can before thinking and we can think about what a shining city on the hill for republicans and democrats could look like. James, do you want to take it . Sure, i thought i would be opponent view the here. Most people talk about how Hillary Clinton is going to win in a landslide. And so, i guess i assumed everyone but i agree with ken i reject the premise that the election has been decided. I think august is awfully early to declare a winner. But that said, i hate allege that Hillary Clinton is the soored based on poll numbers far. But to put that in perspective, if you go to a website to find probabilities based on bets that people are making in betting markets. People these things are not always right. Brexit was Something Like a 4 1 underdog and passed. The figure for trump is just about 20 . It sounds like not very much. This sounds like a very small chance. On the other hand, to put that into perspective, if i were to roll a pair of dice and guess what i was going to roll, your best guess would be seven because that is the most common combination. The odds of a seven are about 16. Which is a little under 17 . If i were rolling dice, there is no way you would say you are not going to roll a seven just give it up. Based on the probability, trump has a shot. The comparison does not exactly work because a pair of dice the probabilities are a matter of math. With politics, it is much more complicated. What you are measuring is uncertainty. Lets talk about some of the sources of uncertainty. One is time. We have 74 days until the election. A lot can happen. Ted raised the possibility of a terrorist attack. Other things like if there is another attack on police were things we may not anticipate. The known unknown is the debate. Trump is unpredictable. Sometimes assumptions about how donald trump has done in a debate not even pan out. I remember an analysis of the first republican debate. Everyone did well except trump. They did focus groups and the voters said trump won. It may be that pundits dont always anticipate what trump is going to do. Also, the polls, you mentioned gary johnson. A lot of these polls consistently show clinton in the lead, but quite a few of them show a large number of people undecided or voting for one of the thirdparty options, gary stein im sorry, gary johnson or jill stein. I guess, maybe they will start including the sky, whatever his , whatever hisuy name is. The conservative alternative. Thirdparty candidates tend not to do as well in the actual voting as they do in polls. John anderson in 1980 was polling 26 at one point and ended up getting less than 7 . The one exception to that is ross perot who got almost 19 . He was a businessman, political amateur, had a tendency to say crazy things. He was running on a platform of skepticism about trade deals and immigration. A lot like donald trump. [laughter] maybe what we have this year is 1992 if perot had gotten the nomination. Who knows how that would have worked out . That is my take on the election as things stand now. It is well known that these are the two most hated candidates in american history. 53 of americans had an unfavorable view of clinton. 61 unfavorable view of trump. I want to know from you guys, how did we get here . Do you think that American Voters get the politicians they deserve . Are they really that bad . First off, to talk about hillary. If you have spent your entire life having dumpster diving going on in your alley and people try to dig up dirt on you and its written about you try to tear down your character and make something you are not, and for a while, a media machine that was going after her as well, of course you numbers will be down. Of course she will be defensive. I cant sit up. On donald trump, i think he is more of an example of the distrust and disenfranchisement. People are pissed. If we dont Pay Attention to the fact that they are, we will continue seeing Something Like that happen. That is driving more of the negative numbers on hillary and than it may be on questions about her or her character. I dont think that her numbers were that great in 2008. She was also the inevitable the democratic nominee. It was a little different because you had a talented young politician come in and actually beat her. The anyone but hillary vote on the democratic side was a grumpy old socialist. No one thought Bernie Sanders was going to be serious. I would echo your point earlier about how this is going on in both parties. I attended both conventions. I was struck that ted cruz got booed for declining to endorse the party nominee. It was my understanding that the people booing were his supporters. Bernie sanders got booed for endorsing his parties nominee. Sanders people were more bitter about the outcome than the from trump people. I was in the hall for trumps acceptance speech and clintons speech. Clinton was interrupted by hecklers at least a dozen times. You could tell they were these random chants of hillary. They were to cover up. They were trying to drown out the hecklers. Republicans get hecklers also but they are outsiders. Their delegates to the convention they are not delegates to the convention or whatever. I recalled trump being interrupted twice. He handled it very well. The moment i remember most of what was a rather forgettable acceptance speech, he said instead of encouraging people to them, he just said, isnt cleveland wonderful . He is learning. This is an example of the level of disenfranchisement and distrust, that took off later on the democratic side than on the republican side. Had that started earlier, it would have been a much more competitive democratic primary because when you think about it, this is someone who passed one bill his entire career. Spent most of his career as a independent. Describes himself as a socialist but does not get what that means. Ignited a base of people that really outside of his rhetoric dont have any real connection with him. What that says to me is it is less about the policies hes talking about and more about the rhetoric and the passion he was giving and people were attracted to that. That is the same type of dynamic we saw happening with trump. Not just that he did not spend much time as a democrat, before this year he had never run for office under the banner of the party. This goes back to a theory i have, which is that i think the Democratic Party is twothree cycles behind the Republican Party. I remember the 2006 caucus, 2008 caucus. I remember i was setting up a caucus and i had gone through Historical Data trying to figure out what is the highest number of people who would show up for this caucus. We were blown out of the water. Absolutely wall to wall people who had glommed on to these new libertarian, ron paul revolution. They just came in and took over our party structure, kicked out s. Establishment rino took over this resurgence. It was before the tea party. We saw the same thing in the caucasus this year in colorado with Bernie Sanders people. Just absolutely came in, blew the doors off democrat caucuses. Beat hillary at the caucus and then took over at the precinct level, the county level, and we will see what happens at the state level. I think the actual core of the democratic machine in colorado is fundamentally different than what we saw a year ago. What im hearing is there is a lot of division amongst the parties and it is important that they unify. What does that path look like . Speaking as a democrat, i think we are having a better shot at getting some of the unification. I dont think folks are going to run left. My concern is will they go out to vote. Particularly with younger voters. Making sure we figure out some type of connection. I do want to take off on one point that kelly made. This will be controversial. I think a lot of what the Republican Party and you are facing today is the result of seeds that you sowed. With the Tea Party Movement and afp, thinking this could be a way to reform the party, that took off more than i think some of the people initially made the investment thought. If i were you, i would be somewhat upset because a lot of the people who funded this effort are now hands off. Trump is not our problem. We will not do anything about that. I would be ticked off because you are getting to pay to clean it up. I got a column earlier this week asking if the Republican Party can survive a trump lost. The basic assumption of a Political Party is to come after the competition is over and after the nominee has been chosen, to unify behind and nominee. Everybody remembers the Rosie Odonnell moment. Nothere anyone who will pledge to support the partys nominee . Asking for a show of hands on a negative question. Only trumps hand goes up. This made republicans nervous. So they went out i dont know who initiated this all the candidates including trump in september of last year were induced to sign a pledge to support the nominee. Fastforward to march when it is down to trump, kasich, and cruz. All three of them say they no longer feel bound to the pledge. Kasich said it was silly of us to sign in the first place. Cruz said, im not in the habit of supporting people who say outrageous things about my family. Trump says the rnc has been mean to me. India, donald trump in the end, donald trump gets the nomination and kasich and ted cruz have refused to endorse them as has jeb bush and mitt romney and other elder statesman of the party. It seems to me that if one of trump had been the nomination and then refused to endorse the nominee, he couldve run as an end i think that party could not , recover from that. They would have said, this guy was never really a republican and approves it. The real republicans can get back together and rebuild. At this point, donald trump was the choice. The people who are real republicans, jeb bush, ted cruz, john kasich did not support the nominee. Does this not set a precedent . So if ted cruz and john kasich have a bitter battle in 2020 assuming donald trump loses, why should either one of them feel compelled to support the nominee . Lets say it is some young firebrand who challenges kasich and comes in a close second and sees ambitions for himself in 2024 and thinks it better suited purposes if the Party Remains divided. How can the party possibly continue to function if they can cant unify behind the nominee . Two points. Number one, i want to respond to teds controversial comment. The rise of things like afp and much of that has been a direct response to stuff that you made in the state of colorado and have franchised all over the country. Very successfully, by the way. I tend to think that a lot of this is a function of, im going to get nerdy, a function of Campaign Finance reform and a function of the fact that through campaignfinance reform money has moved from the candidates themselves to pieces of infrastructure like afp. Voters can no longer be can no longer hold the candidate themselves responsible for speech. They can say i did not say that, afp said that. Progress now said that. Without that voter accountability, without somebody looking at a ballot and checking a box and saying that guy was a super jerk, that has removed a lot of the response ability and has made the rhetoric worse. I want to start there. Also, you want to talk about holding your nose and voting for somebody. I think john mccain is a great guy. Im grateful for his Fabulous Service to this country. I think mccainfeingold was one of the biggest affronts to the first amendment. We dont talk about it a lot because it is nerdy but it is changing our political landscape. When i think about donald trump and that many people in leadership are choosing not to endorse him, i look back to colorado politics because colorado tends to be the microcosm of things that happen nationally. Anybody can remember dan maes . Anybody . No. Really . Nomination of the Republican Party here in colorado. A lot of people decided once they got to know him that was not the path for them and so another guy comes, a former congressman, he joined the American Constitution Party and ran third party. He created almost a crisis in the state by creating a different balance with what was considered a major party or not. I would like to remind everybody in this room that after dan maes, we got cory gardner. We have the ability to pull together. Maybe not on trump. I think there is a path to trump. We should be continuing to have those conversations and be pushing back on those people. Our polling says that 20 of republicans, and where the chairman is, his number said about 5 of republicans havent yet decided how theyre going to vote and probably wont until october. That is a base that if donald trump wants to win, must turn out for him. There is a path for him. There is also if the incoming apocalypse does happen, theres also hope on the horizon. I want to challenge you. Dan maes in 2010. You said people learned about him and decided he was not really their cup of tea. You cannot really say that that is what happened with trump. Jeb bush and john kasich and ted cruz and some other minor ones, including the guy from South Carolina they all signed the , pledge after having gone through at least one, probably two debates with trump. Everyone knew what they were pledging to. They signed the pledge on the theory that trump wont win. We had kasich in for an editorial, he said i dont take donald trump seriously. They signed this pledge knowing that what they were pledging was to support donald trump if he became the nominee. You cant say they did not do it with the eyes open. It is not a perfect analogy. But im try to be forward trying to be forward thinking saying that we have in the state suffered pretty close to an implosion at the top of the ticket. Theres a Senate Candidate with an analogous situation. Ken buck. He was running for senate at the time against Michael Bennet. It is a similar situation where there were a lot of unhappy people and yet, we managed to pull it together and put somebody on the ballot later that a lot of people got behind and eventually we prevailed , despite the fact that colorado has been swinging more and more to the deep dark bluepurple side. I have to say one thing. I probably should not say this. A large part of the reason why dan maes lost is we played in the primary. He played heavily to go after scott because we did not want scott, a former congressman to , be the one to run against. Right. That raises an interesting question. The left came in and played in a race where they tried to help handpick the gubernatorial candidates that they thought was the weakest. Then turned around and did it this last time as well running krato ads and we turned it around and highlighted it and turned it into a liability. The question is campaignfinance. Campaign finance reform means it is much harder to track the money and harder to track who is responsible for what message. Im all for hearing that there a large percentage of undecided voters. I have a question for james. You can chip in. For the voters that are uncomfortable with trump what is , the strongest argument you have heard for not voting for trump . What is the best answer to it . The strongest argument for not voting for trump, the argument that the democrats made at the convention which is, he is a mentally unstable lunatic who will start a nuclear war. [laughter] that is pretty much it. I think the strongest against that is it is not that easy to start a nuclear war. [laughter] he has had incredible success in business over the years. He is never been known to engage in physical violence as an adult. This image that people are painting of him is probably a false one. The same question about clinton. Sure. The arguments to not vote for her. What are the strongest arguments for and undecided voter, and what is your answer to it . I think it is worry for undecided voters in determining whether they will vote for her or not is the trust issue. I would love to say that is not the issue, but it is. As much as the our side can go after character and trust, it is difficult because the email situation is not going to end. There were so many of them. Just statistically, there will be a couple issues a week paid so we might as well just hold on and it used to it. When you do a comparison of qualifications of trump and hillary, i think it will be a strong argument for undecided voters, and i think it comes back to very similar with what lbj did with Barry Goldwater and the Mushroom Cloud advertising. I dont think we should go that far. That is probably overstating the case. All you have to do is show a clip of donald trump talking and that takes care of it. The other thing i want to make a note of, this is what i find very frightening about his candidacy and the strategy, the only way he can win is to drive up blue collar white voters. He has to do that in pennsylvania, ohio, michigan, wisconsin. And hopefully have some shot with florida which will not happen because of the hispanic vote. In order to do that, the things he has to say, when you listen for me as an about liberal, listening to his speech at the convention, i was fascinated and horrified how he took the Police Shooting incidents and turned that into law and order and then accused the president as to doing the race baiting. I know you will all disagree. [laughter] im just try to crank this up a little bit. Trying to crank this up a little bit. To that point, the bluecollar vote is important. To what extent do you think the Democrat Party has embraced that divide by embracing environmental agenda. The proantitrump division based on immigration and other issues. Is there an issue that you see that it gels on . How could the Democratic Party handle that differently . There are two responses. You look at hillarys numbers for nonwhites and they are , extremely high. We are starting to see numbers higher than they were for the president. The second piece, i think you have to be careful to make this simple correlation or to say that bluecollar voters are going to be more inclined to vote no for hillary because of as you phrased it the environmental agenda. When you poll afl members and some of the more trade oriented union voters, they dont necessarily make that connection. There will be pockets of that. Particularly in pennsylvania. I dont think overall you can make that assumption. One point, i dont think that Hillary Clinton is doing a good job of alaying those fears of anyone. If you saw in this weeks wall street journal, there was an article about the fact that Hillary Clinton, although they announced early on the Clinton Foundation that bill and chelsea would be leaving and they would no longer take international and corporate donations, they have changed their stance on that. It looks like chelsea can stay. We can take international and corporate donations for the Health Initiative because we are clintons. That does not help when they are telegraphing that there will be these new rules following clinton and then walk that back when it becomes convenient. It becomes hard for people to feel like they are rule followers and grow the trust that is so desperately needed from her. It just doesnt seem like they really care that much. This is my frustration on the issue. We should be embracing i know you will not like this. For those of us on the left, we need to embrace the great things the Clinton Foundation has done. [laughter] seriously. Hivaids in africa, so what if they took a political approach to fundraising and brought it into the c3 space to do good . Thank god. Thank god someone took that approach into the space and have roi on the money we are spending out of the foundation. If you take a look at money on foundations, that number keeps going up and up and up and when you look at the type of problems, ones that are a function of money, they continue to prevail. We do not think about having this money spent with a return on investment perspective. Do you disagree that that creates a conflict of interest . Clinton of all, chelsea can remain at the foundation. Given the places where the corporate money comes in, i think there are good arguments to be made. Does that look optically bad . Of course. Have they handled it well with the press, one day they will be on the board and whether they were not, no. I almost think that they do of course it is going to look bad. Themselves a service by muddling it up as much as possible. The simpler it is, the worse it looks. They announced last week that they will no longer take foreign and corporate donations if mrs. Clinton is elected president. What does that tell you . If you have not been following this, you learn that the Clinton Foundation has been taking foreign and corporate donations. By the way, there is something wrong with it because they go to stop it when she becomes president. Mrs. Clinton said in an interview this week that there is a lot of smoke year but not fire. What the hell kind of thing is that to say . What does this mean . It means that mrs. Clinton is not very good at this. She has a certain lack of political skills. That is what happens when you become the president ial nominee through nepotism. By being married to a former president who is a political natural. One big disadvantage is that she does not have a lot of natural political talent, and trump, weirdly enough, does. That raises a larger systemic societal issue that we have to confront, which is that i think if poll numbers were tighter, if hillary were less comfortable, they would not have walked back on chelsea, and would not have walked back on foreign and corporate donations. We are the same thing here in colorado. We have Michael Bennet telling the denver post that he does not know if despite the white house admitted they paid 400 million ransom for hostages in iran. He does in no whether it was a ransom, although the white house says it was leverage, which i am pretty sure is another word for ransom. When these races are not tight, when people feel too comfortable, the people that lose out are the American People. Because when races are tight and they are competitive, that is when we get the best outcomes as citizens. I feel like this is my stalking horse, but back to Campaign Finance reform. We are in a position right now where these races are not as tight as the American People deserve. Ok, so lets get back to the issue of the American People. Going to the Democratic National convention, i heard an extraordinary amount of frustration with lifelong democrats. All of my millennial friends are very frustrated with the Republican Party right now. Everyone who does not like these candidates is upset with the voters. What are the voters trying to tell us . One, what it says is that the way we do Political Parties will have to change. A thirdparty . I think it would be great. It would add some additional competition, but the challenges way the system is set up today, particularly and caucus states, is going to be very difficult to do. In terms of how people were talking about the dnc at the convention, it was true. You look back and see what Debbie Wasserman schultz did and the rhetoric and she used, i cant sit here and defend that. When you see that in your partys institution, if you are not upset about that, then you have a problem about being a democrat or the party you are in or you are just blind and dont have a soul. Seriously. On the thirdparty question, we have had a two party system in this country basically since 1828 when the democratic Republican Party split up. I dont think a three party system or a more than three party system has the possibility of being stable and our system because there is so much power in the presidency that if you had three parties, unless they were exquisitely wellbalanced, one would emerge as the dominant party. There is a need for two parties in order to have any sort of competition. Even if a third party emerges, the result would either be quickly received or one of the existing parties would within a few election cycles. That is a broader Political Science point. On the question of whether we should have if you want to have contempt for the voters, you are entitled to. Im entitled too. I tend not to. I like the voters. Some of them are my readers. [laughter] i try not to have contempt for people with whom there is a significant overlap among the people i count on for my livelihood. I think for my fellow panelists here working in politics and politicians and people who are interested in persuading voters that they should not have contempt for voters. They should try to have an empathetic understanding, the better to persuade voters to do things their way. With that, what we are seeing in both of the parties is a deep dissatisfaction from a significant contingent. What do these parties need to do to fix that . Are we seeing a fundamental shift in what the parties platforms are . Is the party being redefined . What changes do you think this election is telling us that is not a feature of other past elections . On the democratic side, i would say that a lot of what these folks are saying is you can be liberal, he can be proud to be a liberal, you can talk about it loudly and it still win elections. It will be in competition and in disagreement with 90 of what the folks in this room believed. The more vigorous debate we have, the better policies we get in the end, and power is going to go back and forth. On the democratic side, the voters are getting frustrated with wishywashyness. Have a damn position. That would be consistent with my observations of republicans. I did not take trump seriously at first for about the first two months or so. I started taking him seriously earlier than most of my fellow conservatives because i had an occasion to talk with trump supporters. One was the night of the first debate. I was asked to provide commentary on the debate at the Womens National Republican Club in new york, and i really the not have anything to say about it. Instead, i started to act as a discussion facilitator or whatever the jargon term would be. I asked for a show of hands to see who supported which candidates. Too much of my surprise, trump was the most popular candidate in the room. I asked, why do you support trump . The lady in the back of the room said because im in favor of freedom of speech. What do you mean by that . He is not politically correct. Then a few months later, a young woman i know, i was talking with her and she turned out to be a trump supporter and she said, none of these other guys really excite me. I think it is time for someone who fights. The same spirit. Were tired of being pushed around. I think the other thing that we have learned from the republican primaries is that conservative ideology as it has been traditionally defined is not as powerful as it does not have as wide appeal to voters as perhaps conservative thinkers and commentators and thought it did. A lot of that helps explain the bitterness of the nevertrump conservatives. I think the inverse is on the democratic side. But i would just add to that, we sort of should have figured that out. Neither john mccain nor mitt romney was anything like a movement conservative. Somehow the conservative opinion leaders were able to more or less for the most part to get behind them. I think the difference there was one of attitude. Trump really didnt care about whether he was consistent with movement conservatism. He showed that contempt and that was perhaps part of why republicans who were Movement Conservatives found him appealing. If he will fight with ted cruz, then he will fight with Hillary Clinton. I differ with ted. We can still be friends. I think that what we are seeing particularly with young people and in swing states like colorado and many others is that more and more people are kind of backing away from any type of label, whether it is republican or democrat. We are seeing all kinds of polling and focus grouping that everybody does not want to identify one way or the other. I agree with james analysis that it ultimately has to be a two party a system unless we figure out how to divest a whole bunch of power back out of the executive branch. I think that is a constitutional crisis, but i digress. The thing is that we have more and more people who just say im not a democrat, im not a republican. Dont put a donkey or elephant on me. And so, i agree that, yes, we need people who will stand up and are not wishywashy. However, we also need to figure out how to nominate people who take a strong stand, but can appeal to people who are in the middle. The evergrowing majority of people who now dont identify as republicans or democrats. Donald trump has managed to tap into this river of frustration that i think has started with the crazy culture and all the safe spaces that have been identified and written about. People are just feeling more and more oppressed and controlled. That is one of the things about donald trump, is that he may not speak for me on all the issues is what voters are saying, but i like the fact that he says things. Whatever he means is not really scripted and he is out there in front of people. In a society where people are more and more scripted, more and more buttoned up, are afraid of making any kinds of declarative statements. Like, i like chocolate ice cream. Then all the vanilla people will not vote for you. You cant say anything anymore without turning somebody off. Donald trump is like, i will turn everyone off and they will like me. It has worked. It has worked. So we are in this very bizarre place in our society. Frankly, there is a lot of opportunity. At both of the conventions, one of the things that that was interesting was the appeal to patriotism. Democrats bringing out the parents of a fallen soldier, bringing out generals. Then again on the other side, the resonance of trumps make America Great again. This is an election where there has been a discussion about patriotism and nationalism and that being a potentially dangerous thing. Do you think there is a difference between patriotism and nationalism . And if so, what is the difference . How concerned should we be or happy . I think there is a difference. One is pride in self, and the other is pride with the exclusion of others. I think we can all say that america is exceptional. I think we can all say that. I think this is a unique and exciting and awesome place to be. I think that even though we are sad, we are on the precipice of so many technological advances. Pull out your phones. Those things are like magic. Can you imagine 10 years ago, 15 years ago, having a smart phone where you can video call your family . There are so many things im excited about that america has brought us. And yet, i think that a lot of the discussions about nationalism and to the exclusion of others and saying americas exceptional does not mean that you dislike or are hating on anybody else. I feel like that is what democrats are trying to telegraph on to american exceptionalism. I say there could not be a more stark difference between donald trump and Hillary Clinton. It is in part because there is a huge difference between patriotism and nationalism. Nationalism, you can be a patriotic nationalist of course, but the sense of patriotism that our culture is embedded and how we think about it is very different in my mind than a lot of the nationalistic rhetoric that you start hearing from trump. I think it is very dangerous. This kind of isolationist, lets withdraw from the world, yet when we want something, talk about the world. To even say that he is anything like Ronald Reagan is such an offense to reagans legacy. I have a lot of things to say about what came out of reagan that i thought was bad, but there are a lot of good things that came out of him. Probably one of the most important was restoring this kind of sense of pride and patriotism in the United States and a sense of pride and patriotism for the United States around the world. I am fearful that this nationalistic rhetoric, he will say he is patriotic, this nationalistic rhetoric is going to undermine that legacy that reagan left us. Im not sure about the difference between nationalism and patriotism. I was reading an article somewhere a month or so ago which was trying to draw the distinction. The distinction this article was drawing was a patriot is someone who believes in the goodness of his country. A nationalist is someone who wants to, who not only thinks his country is good, but wants to to impose his ways on others outside of his country. You justify nationalism as meaning in part isolationism, the opposite of what this piece was arguing. I think that nationalism and patriotism are roughly the same thing, but one of them has a positive balance and one has a negative balance. Im not sure how useful it is to get into the question of definitions. This does lead me to think of an observation that occurred to me during a senator speech earlier. He said, you completely miss the point. He are busy believe in american exceptionalism. I think there is a more charitable reading of obamas answer. If you ask what countries in World History or western civilization have made a contribution comparable to americas to political philosophy, the list would probably be limited to britain and greece. So it is possible that he chose those countries advisedly. Finally, one more related point. One thing that was impressive about the democrats, on monday, the first at the convention, people pointed out on twitter that there are no American Flags. They dont even have an American Flag on stage. By thursday, they had adjusted. When mrs. Clinton came out, i took a picture of this, the whole floor of the convention was a sea of American Flags. There were some other adjustments. I still have mine. I only got the michelle sign because my sisters name is michelle. Im trying to figure out a way to ship it to california. Another example is they had the mothers whose children had been killed by police on monday. I think David Axelrod tweeted, it might be nice if they had some widows of fallen policeman. And on thursday, they had some widows of fallen policeman. They showed a good deal flexibility in scheduling and learned quickly from their mistakes. This is where they had a big advantage this year in terms of the professionalism of their political machine. It is better than the republicans is in a typical year, nevermind this year. All right. With that, i would like to open it up to questions with two caveats. Dont ask who they are voting for. When i was in college and we went to speeches like this, we would like something called speaker bingo. One of the central ones we would cross off is when people ask a question that is not a question but a lengthy speech. Dont give me a chance to x that off. I dont think this is there we go. One of the things i have been saying for years that is wrong with our politics was something that just happened here the last hour, we talk so much about the individuals and we dont talk very much about the policy. I personally hate politics. But im really into the political structure because i care about what happens with policy. I think most people in this room are that way. And i believe the reason that so many of us be voting for trump is because we are scared to death of hillary. We know that shes going to follow the policies that barack obama put in place, and he has been a disaster, an absolute disaster, and almost every way. [applause] this is no small thing for me. I dont really have a question other than [laughter] if anyone wants to comment that we should be talking about policy rather than individuals. You should have come to the earlier panel. I do want to address that. This is a panel about politics and this election. That is why i felt boring bring it up over again, i think one of the policies that is creating the political environment we are in is Campaign Finance reform. Sorry, i did it again. That is a specific policy point that has changed how we do politics in this country over the last decade, 1520 years. The better we get at circumventing i am a proponent and many of my counterparts are of 100 disclosure within 24 hours but limitless contributions. Money and politics, people on the left will say, money is the thing that makes politics so bad, but every attempt to pull money out of politics is like water in a river. You throw a rock into it and it would just divert and go around. Money will never be pulled out of politics. The only solution i believe is for people to be able to hold candidates accountable for their speech. Two things. One, i want to address that and go back to your statement, which i think is about a question. It is part of what i opened up with. I think it is really unfortunate that how we do electoral politics is not how we do policy politics. We have got to get back in the day where it is different. We know how to reach across the aisle and find common ground. That 5 , 10 . I think that a couple things keeping us from doing that is the political system rewards running to your base. Two extremes, but to your base because you want to stay elected and you feel like that is what you need to do. We have to figure out a way to fix that. Im not for sure what it is, but it is really corrosive. Related to that, i also think we have a problem with, this is a little bit of a criticism of my own profession, there are so many people like me that are in the middle and i still believe that if we had more conversations, principal the principal, we have people on the left that are very ideological, that believe in the betterness of america and want to do something, and i think the more we have those principles talking with is a post like yourself and you take more of us out, we should be facilitating those conversations, not making money off the fact that there is conflict with those conversations. [applause] the other point, on money and politics. This is where kelly and i agree, but i want to make one point. As long as spending money is free speech and no matter whether corporations are people and we have a free market system that i hope we keep. Wait, can you say that will more time . [laughter] a free market that is controlled by regulations and laws by people we elect to adopt or influence, money will find its way in. To say you are going to take money out of politics is like saying santa claus is real and will deliver toys in july. It just isnt the case. What this says to me is that on the right, the republican side, the chamber of commerce and those others have got to be willing to say how much money they actually spent. If we are going to have disclosure, disclosure means everybody. And unions. It is not like chamber of commerce are the only donors to this problem. You had union interests. Then you have the infrastructure. You cant simultaneously knock afp and not have selfawareness. Talk about progress now. This is a large, very difficult thing for all of us to get our hands on. That is why advocate for limitless donations and 100 disclosure. [applause] there is no other way to hold people accountable for their own speech. Yep. Oh, come on. Go ahead. Steamboat board member. A twopart question. I read with interest charlie cooks column this week. A lot of us have been wondering who is going to show up and vote this year. Is it going to be a depressed turn out . Is it going to be a normal turnout . Charlie makes the case that it will be normal, but for a different reason. His reason is that instead of the typical passion for your candidate of choice, it is that i hate the other one so much. That is going to drive people to the polls, at least charlie think so. The first part of my question, would you think, what kind of turnout will we get . The second part follows from charlies reasoning. At both conventions, the palpable anger at those conventions historically, and this is what troubles me the most, historically you go to a a National Party convention and theres a sense of euphoria and we are all happy. We are behind our candidate. We know why we are here. Lets go get them. This year, the tension, anxiety, the all out anger on both sides. Charlie talks about that. We hate the other guy so much and dont like ours, thats why we will show up and vote. We are not appealing to our better angels. When do we get beyond that as a nation . 2016 is going to be in the books here pretty quick here at the question i have is what do we have left afterwards. Regardless of who wins this election, where do we go next and had we get back to the kind of america that both democrats and republicans who love this great nation have clung to for so long . Yes, weve had our ideology differences, but the anger that frankly i think both candidates are trying to tap into right now, a sense of frustration, they are both sometimes fomenting, when do we get beyond that and get back again as i said to the better angels of our nature . Theres a politico piece that came out this morning that talked about what would happen or what do we see happening, i am just doing this as an example so we can talk about it, so dont throw glasses at me, hillary wins and there is this belief by some that there are so many folks, a number of republicans crossing the aisle to publicly support hillary. And the article goes on to talk about you need to be really careful what that means just after the election. A lot of these folks are going to go back into their camps. Are we then just going to see, because this will be the first, if hillary wins, she would be the first democratically elected president in 30 years that for the first term she does not have congress a congress of the same party. If you have republicans in both chambers, what happens . How do we cross the aisle . Bob, i do not know. And in operative electoral politics, it is about winning. But i care about this country a lot. When it comes to the policymaking, i have a record in colorado of reaching across, i pray that there are leaders that step up to do that. That needs to happen at the state level and the federal level. That encouragement is going to have to come from people like you and from people on the left. This goes back to my point where i wish there were more principled conversations principal to principle. People that are not in the machine that makes money off of the process. You go into d. C. And it is stunning the amount of money made in the lobbying Community Matter who you represent. Becomesand of itself selffulfilling in how the town operates. They dont get a reward of Something Big happens. Way to to figure out a get at that. I wish i had an answer, bob. I wish i did. In response to that, i think colorado eight a fair amount of National News during our convention. After the next 75 days, the key to pulling together, which is why that example is going to have to be a lot of selfanalysis, who are we as republicans, what we stand for as republicans . Is it free market . All of these fundamental questions i think are now up in the air. Issue wer one biggest are going to have regardless of how this all plays out is forgiveness. Think there is going to be resentment if he wins. I think there will be resentment if he loses. Fissure ofnt republicans is going to create a situation where we cannot prevail again until we can look each other in the eyes and say i disagree with you on that person, principle, and idea but politics and our ability to put forth good policies that actually help people is a function of addition and not subtraction. And it is going to be hard. It is going to be really, really hard. No matter what happens on november 9, someone is going to be really mad. Rolet is going to be the of whomever prevails and whatever camp Republican Party forgive,to reach out, and start those really critical discussions. I do not want to go the way of the wakes. We have better ideas. I think freedom and free market are exciting and awesome and i think we can prevail and start selling freedom over free stuff to young people but we cannot do that if we are just sitting here yelling at each other. We have to reach across, put our hand out and number one forgive. Regarding your second question, it it seems to me that inative this negativism politics is nothing new. If you go back to john adams versus Thomas Jefferson or lincoln versus thomas or more recently, republicans said terrible things about barack obama and democrats said terrible things about george bush. Mid1980s, ithe spoke with a person a friend of mine going to uc berkeley. They were at the uc berkeley antireagan festival or barf. [laughter] that is nothing new. What is unusual is a level of this taste for both candidates within their own parties for different reasons. I suppose that will probably who ise regardless of elected although on the republican side, i concluded my column by saying that if donald trump wins, most of the party will get behind him for a while but if he comes to be seen as a failed president , the divisions will come back. In response to your question about turnout, that is one of the rate unknowns. Factor thatertain make it impossible to know what is going to happen now. There are various theories about it. Each poll incorporates its own very. Charlies. That people will turn out in normal numbers but they will be motivated more by hatred than passion for their candidate is a perfectly plausible one. Another one is that donald trump will do well because although a lot of people most democrats and republicans cannot stand him, his supporters are passionately for him. I dont think that is as true in the case of mrs. Clinton. Or at least those that are passionate about her are middleaged feminists that tend to vote anyway. She will not get the turnout that barack obama got. But who knows. It is a big question. We will know when we begin to see the exit polls. I think turnout is going to be higher. Reality thatte people get more excited about being negative and bitter infighting then about being positive. That is unfortunate that true. The second thing we should note election could be very different. Turnout we saw a 44 from unaffiliated voting but there were 200,000 more unaffiliated voters than what we modeled for. And we had the third highest turnout rate in the country. In colorado, i think we will see a much higher unaffiliated turnout rate. That means both sides doing polling could be wrong. That is more potentially worse for us. Keep stamps in our drawer. Republicans are more likely to have stamps in our george. We dont even know what stamps are. [laughter] exactly. Let us thank our wonderful panelist. [applause] cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. This morning, Donald Trumps Campaign Manager kellyanne shares thers latest from the Campaign Including reaction to his immigration speech following his visit to mexico last week and his outreach to the Africanamerican Community. And the transportation reporter for the Associated Press on the implementation of the new faa rules that regulate the use of commercial drones. Watch cspans washington journal beginning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. App makes it radio easy to continue to follow the 2016 election where ever you are. It is free to download from google play or the apple app store. Get updated get the updated schedule. Stay uptodate on all of the election coverage. Cspans radio app means you always have cspan on the go. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies and brought to you as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Donald trump told members of a black church in detroit that he wants to help them rebuild their city. He made his hitch for support at Great Faith Ministries International saying the Company Needs a better agenda of education and better jobs. Mr. Trump thank you. [applause] jackson, thank you. And you have some voice. Talent. Thank you. I just wrote this the other day knowing i would be here and i mean it from the heart. And i was like to just read it and i think you will understand it better than i do in certain ways. For centuries, the africanamerican church has been the conscience of our country. So true. It is from the pulpits and the christian teachings of black churches all across this land that the Civil Rights Movement lifted up its sole and lifted up the soul of our nation. Pews that ourse foron has been inspired better moral character, a deeper concern for mankind, and the spirit of charity and unity that binds us all together. I see that today. This has in an amazing day for me. The africanamerican Faith Community has been one of gods greatest gifts to america and to its people. There is perhaps no action our leaders can take that would do more to heal our country and support our people than to provide a greater platform to the black churches and churchgoers. You do right every day by your community and your families. You raise children in the light. F god i will always support your church and defend your right to worship. So important. Imed here today to listen to your message and i hope my presence here will also help your voice to reach new audiences in our country and many of these audiences desperately need your spirit and your thought. I can tell you that. Christian faith is not the past but the present and the future. It gets stronger. Make it stronger. [applause] it will open it up to a leaders like pastor jackson, Bishop Jackson, dr. Jackson and so many others and so many others includingitting here mr. Scott who has been with me for so long. Moroso who is actually a very nice person. She is actually a very fine person and a pastor and i want to thank all of the folks there is someone that has been very special to me, dr. Ben carson. Stand up, ben. Come here, then. [applause] this is a great man and a great guy. Prepared to campaign all across the nation and in every community, i will have an opportunity to lay out my plans for economic change which would be so good for detroit and this community because we will bring jobs back [applause]. [applause] [applause] we are bringing them back. Taking them back from mexico. I will have a chance to discuss School Choice and how to put every american on the latter to success, a great education and a great job. But today, i just want to let you know that i am here to listen to you and i have been doing that and we had a fantastic interview with the ship jackson who is with is an amazing who interviewer. He is that are than those who do that professionally. [applause] really. And i did not really know what i was getting myself into. Was this going to be nice . Wild . A is a great gentleman and smart guy. I just hope you dont lose him to hollywood. And especially dr. Jackson. She may be gone. Hollywood is calling. Look at all of those television cameras. Look at all of the television cameras. [applause] to do that to you bishop. It is just one of those things. Our nation is to divide it. We talk past each other. Not to each other. And those that seek office do not do enough to step into the community to learn what is going wrong. They do not know. I am here today to learn so that we together can remedy injustice in any form and so that we can also remedy economics so that the Africanamerican Community can benefit economically. Income in so many different ways. Our political system has failed the people and only works to enrich itself. I want to reform that system so it works for you, everyone in this room. I believe true reform can only come from outside the system. I really mean that. Being a businessman is much different than being a politician so i understand what is happening. We are going outside of the establishment. Becoming the nominee of the party of Abraham Lincoln, a lot of people do not realize that Abraham Lincoln, the great Abraham Lincoln was a republican. Been the greatest honor of my life, and it is on his legacy that i hope to build the future of the party but more importantly the future of the country and the community. I believe we need a civil rights agenda for our time, one that ensures the rights to a great education so important, and the right to live in safety and peace and have a really great a good paying job, and one that you love to go to every morning. And that can happen. We need to bring our companies back. It also means the right to have a government that protects our workers and really fights for our jobs. I want to help you build and rebuild detroit and we can do that especially with people like Bishop Jackson and dr. Zacks and. And dr. Are jackson it has been an amazing experience. Nothing is more sad than when we sideline young black men with unfulfilled potential, tremendous potential. I met some people this morning who were incredible people and theyre looking for jobs. These are incredible people, young people. Our whole country loses out when we are unable to harness the brilliance and energy of these folks. We are one nation, and when anyone hurts, we all hurt together, and thats so true. [applause] we are all brothers and sisters, and all created by the same god. We must love each other and support each other, and we are in this altogether. I fully understand that the Africanamerican Community has suffered from discrimination, and there are many wrongs that must still be made right, that will be made right. I want to make america prosperous for everyone. I want to make the city the economic envy of the world. We can do that, we can do that again. Factories everywhere, new roads and bridges, new schools, especially schools, and hope. I have been so greatly blessed in so many ways with no greater blessings in my family. Nothing would make me happier and more fulfilled than to use what i have learned in business and in traveling all over the world and sort of seeing a lot to bring the wealth and prosperity and opportunity to those who have not had these opportunities before, and thats many, many people in detroit. When i see wages falling, people out of work, i know the hardships this inflicts and im determined to do something about it. I will do something about it. I do get things done. Some people have strengths. Thats one of mine. I get things done. For any who have heard it, things are going to turn around. Tomorrow will be better. Much better. The pastor and i were talking about riding up the street and we see all those closed stores and people sitting on the sidewalk and no jobs and no activity. We will get it turned around, pastor. Believe me. [applause] we are going to win again as a country and we are going to win again for all of our people. I want to work with you to renew the bonds of trust between citizens and the bonds of faith that make our nation strong. America has been lifted out of many of its most difficult hours, through the marigold of faith,ugh the miracle of and through people like Bishop Jackson and dr. Jackson. So important. People have no idea how important they are. Now in these hard times for our country, let us turn again to our christian heritage to lift up the soul of our nation. Im so deeply grateful to be here today, and it is my prayer that america of tomorrow, that the america of tomorrow will be one of unity, togetherness, and peace. And perhaps we can add the word prosperity. Very prosperous. [applause] id like to conclude with a passage from first john chapter four. You know it. Most groups i speak to dont know that, but we know. If you want, we can say it together. No one has ever seen god but if we love one another, god loves lives in us and his love is made complete in us. And thats so true. Thank you so much. This has been an honor. Thank you very much. Bishop, thank you, sir. Thank you. [applause] we have another title now. Preacher. Honey, would you come a moment . My wife and i want to give you something. That is going to be a blessing to you. [applause] mr. Trump thank you. This is a prayer shawl straight from israel. This prayer shawl whenever you are flying from coast to coast i know you just came from mexico, and you are flying from city to city, there is an anointing of the power of god. When the issue when the woman who had the issue with blood, she knew she could be healed if she could only touch the garment of jesus. Nothing else could help her but the power of god. There are going to be times in your life when you feel forsaken, you are going to feel down. The anointing will lift you up. I prayed over this personally and i fasted over it. I want to put this on you. [applause] following an interview with the pastor of Great Faith Ministries International and his remarks to the congregation, mr. Trump took a brief walk through the neighborhood. He was accompanied by dr. Ben carson. He is now advising the donald trump campaign. Dr. Carson grew up in this neighborhood. Good morning. He did get straight as. Yes he did. Thank you. I just had someone cut the grass. She moved. After her husband died. This house is worth a lot of money. Say that again. You are talking to a real estate expert. It is up for sale. Berry nice to meet you. Berry nice to meet you. Good luck. Have a nice time. He is a great man. Dont forget to vote and when you go to the polls, vote mr. Trump. It was a great day. Is there anything you want to say . Mr. Trump, what did you think about your visit today to the city of detroit . I loved it. I really like it. Next, live, your calls and comments on washington journal. And then newsmakers with louisiana senator bill cassidy. Trumka on, richard labor unions, trade policy, and the 2016 president ial campaign. This labor day weekend, look tv brings you nonfiction books and authors. Here are some peter programs. Is live noon, indepth from Hillsdale College in michigan with author and radio host dennis prager. He is the author of the the nine questions people ask about judaism. Happiness is a serious problem. The reason for antisemitism. The 10 commandments still the best the best path to follow. At 8 00 p. M. , former White House Correspondent profiles the 10 first ladies since 1960 in her book first women the grace and power of americas modern first ladies. On monday, mary roach on the science used to improve the effectiveness and safety of the u. S. Military. Amarch on why the American Public has lost trust in its politicians. And senator trent lott talks about president ial politics. Go to book tv. Org for the complete weekend schedule. Morning, Donald Trumps Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway has the latest on the campaign as well as reaction to mr. Trumps immigration speech, his trip to mexico, and his outreach to africanAmerican Voters. Reportersociated press takes a look at the new fda rules for the use of commercial drones. As always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. The washington journal is next