Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger is with us. Were focusing on his piece titled the altright comes to washington. Callerguest thank you for havi. Host based on your reporting, how do you describe the group . Guest the definition of the term is a little bit of a jump ball right now. Foras originally a catchall more fringe elements of the right side of american politics. Anyone who was on the right was not attached to mainstream conservativism. More recently that term has narrowed to a connotation of white nationalism. That is the way the Associated Press and New York Times style editor defined the term. That has caused a lot of consternation in the movement as some embrace this White Nationalist label and others say i want nothing to do with that. They are looking for an alternative name were saying they dont want to be labeled at all. The First Movement that encompasses a range of rightwing figures that are mostly young, addicted to provocation, and have made their names on the internet. On the less extreme and are economic nationalists. Encompasses White Nationalists and proponents of a host of other ideologies out not long after world war ii. Are concerned about this because of their perceived proximity to the trump administration. How did this come to be influential . A lot of it has to do with the fact that the Mainstream Republican Party shunned donald trump for so long. There were these voices in the wilderness on the internet that were viewed in many and if not most corners are still viewed as fringe that loved that donald trump was an outsider. For those who are over to racists like Richard Spencer, they love that trump was willing to talk about race in a way no had ineam republican decades. They glommed onto a campaign that was sort of a doityourself campaign. There were not a lot ofdecades. They barriers to interacting. You could tweak to the director of social media and get a response. You could start forming relationships over platforms like that in an open way. Some had some sort of relationship with michael flynn, doldrums National Security advisor. Ato you not less who worked breitbart knows steve bannon. Havef a sudden these guys proximity to power that is real. Host do you have a sense of what they are seeking . Guest it depends from figure two figure. For someone like Richard Spencer, he wants to make overt racism no longer taboo in American Public life and discourse. Cr someone likes mike ernavich, he talks about refocusing Economic Policy on median gdp as opposed to gdp growth. He says he has come to be concerned with the fate of american workers. He grew up in a factory town in the midwest. , hesomeone like milo describes himself as a freespeech fundamentalist. He says he wants to win the culture war on the left on american universities. He has been getting a fair that of attention for his book deal. A lot of these people are capitalizing on this newfound attention. Host all right. Ben schreckinger is our guest today. We are talking about the altright. For republicans is 202 7488001. The line for democrats is 202 7488000. Is line for independence 202 7488002. We are to have a call on the democratic line. Good morning. Malcolm, are you there . Caller yes. I am here. Host go ahead. What is your question . Elected,f hillary got they would have been doing a lot of different stuff, not blocking this and not blocking that. All the protests, it is ridiculous. You know, we are trying to keep all of the illegals out of the country. She was for open borders and all the refugees coming in to the u. S. It is ridiculous. Massachusettsromm up next is mark from massachusetts. One, the label altright in magazines like politico is propaganda trying to put a Smear Campaign on everything that disagrees with this radical leftist perspective. It is just false. I have been reading news from dgeitbart, info wars, and dru for years. You are lying through your teeth. It is discussing. Guest that was quite a perspective. What we get into in the piece is the fact that this alalt right label has acquired this racial connotation. People are now saying dont apply that term to me because what im talking about is not racial. His point to the fact that wife is persian. Culturales in nationalism, but not at all in a racial nationalism. We did not talk about infowars too much, which the caller mentioned, they are also concerted altright, but they would not embrace, i dont think, these racial theories that Richard Spencer has, but certainly plenty of conspiracy theories. Alex jones, the host of infowars , accused barack obama and Hillary Clinton of being literal demons during the campaign. Not what most would call a literal news source. With spencer, for example, he would like to move his ideas into the mainstream. They are currently considered outside of the mainstream. He would like to see the u. S. Become an explicitly white country. He would like to see members of other races leave the country. That is an idea you really havent seen since before world war ii and in many cases before world war i in mainstream conversation. For other people, people like a guy named jeff gc who is lesserknown, the figures from or the new right as they are calling themselves, they would like to change the way the think tank culture works. White papers are dead. Institutions like cato and heritage are no longer effective at achieving a conservative agenda. These are guys that came up on the internet and are very wellversed in internet culture and meme culture. They talk about using internet memes to spread their ideas. They are thinking about new age think tanks that work in that way. Culture tanks that are less and at washington itself and aimed at American Culture generally. That has trickled down to affecting policy in washington. Host lets go back to the phones. John in pennsylvania. Thank you for your patience. Caller good morning. I have been waiting a long time. Give me a chance to make a couple of points. Democratic party plays identity politics. That is the core of their policy. It is africanamerican, jewish american, lgbt. That is all they do. It really masks theyre moving issues. M economic the wealthy and billionaires have become democrats. The working man is a republican. That whitetable people have interest as well. They have interests. Way past due that the republicans should be playing the same game that democrats do. If the Democratic Party has become a nonwhite party, the Republican Party should explicitly state, why not, they are a white party. The democrats have been doing this for a generation, why are republicans refuse to play the same game . They are cowards. That is the perception from traditional conservatives that feel that they are cowards. One last point. I guess the hbd movement and race realists is part of this socalled altright, and it is just mi still on . Host you are. Go ahead. Caller ok. Instance, black lives obviously matter. They matter. Black people matter. Menreality is that black commit murder according to the fbi statistics more than eight times the rate of white males and hispanic males. That is fbi statistics. They used to break it down even further. Hispanic males commit murder three times the rate of white men. Black men commit murder eight times the rate of white and hispanic males. There are differences here. If you look at the last eight olympics, the finalist in the 100 meters were all west african blood. What does that tell you . Host were going to move ahead to angelo on the democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning and thank you to cspan. I am 70 years old. My daddy went to europe for four years to fight nazis. The guy fromeve breitbart who is on the National Security council now, i believe him and spencer are nazis. They can call themselves alt rights. They are racists. They hate lack people. They want all of the blacks out of the country. They want to propose a war billion muslims. More is good business. It makes money for the profiteers. I i just i am bewildered. Im totally bewildered. I feel like im living in bizarro world. Thank you. Do you have a sense of what kind of wallowing the group actually has . Guest it is a good question. It depends on how you parse the numbers. Richard spencer when he held a conference in washington after the election, he had a couple of hundred people show up. Lb good sense of what sort of following this explicitly White Nationalist group can draw. You go to another end of the whotrum, someone like milo disavows any racism, describes himself more as a western chauvinist, more against islam. Before he was off of twitter he had hundreds of thousands of followers. He just got a book deal in the six figures from one of the publishing houses and has become a pretty familiar face if you are watching cable news or Reading National newspapers. Looses really a sort of confederacy of people. Some of them are on the fringe and can only muster a very small , small group of people even if they do make a lot of noise and are able to make themselves part of the conversation in that way. It sort of shades over into a group that in many ways could represent a big part of the future of the Republican Party and have ambitions to take over the Republican Party and make it an american and nationalist party. Host back to the fun. Jack in rhode island. Republican. Good morning. Caller the reason i am calling. You mentioned the term altright. Sean hannity, i dont know if he started it, but he put the term out there altleft. Ok. They are going after banning quite a bit. I think they are scared of bannon because he is super smart. He has to work with Donald Trumps soninlaw mr. Kushner who is jewish. I am sure he is going to have to work with mr. Mnuchin, the upcoming treasury secretary who will be confirmed. He will have to work with him. You have to understand. Figure these things out. We need people running the government of highend intelligence. They dont like bannon because he is irish, white, and very bright. They consider that a threat. Nancy pelosi calling him a white supremacist, that is going to far. He is not a white supremacist. He is a nationalist. What is wrong with being a nationalist versus a globalist . Ok. Importantnon is an figure in the space. What the caller was referring to speaks to the issues around this label. At one point last summer in an interview with the wall street journal he said that Breitbart News, which he was running at the time, was a platform for the altright. At the time it did not have this nationalist connotation. When it did become perceived as a White Nationalist movement, bannon disavowed the term and said that is not what Breitbart News is. Democrats have seized on that comment and have made a lot of political hay out of it. At the time i think he was trying to express that breitbart was the standard bearer this nationalist strain on the right. He is connected to several figures in this piece, obviously milo. He makes a similar point to the caller that Jared Kushner is jewish. Steve bannon cannot be an antisemi, he took me and i am jewish, and he made me a star. That is something democrats have seized on, that comment he made. Host jake, democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I keep listening to the same. Cho chamber from the altright it is on every major social media network, every mainstream network, we are dealing with alternative facts. Said,et who it is that im not the smartest guy in the room. I dont know how to deal with this narrative that is demonstrably false much of the time and is being skewed by fellow citizens, some of i greatly respect and do great things for the community would aser to propagandist lies opposed to accepting verifiable fact. Immigration is a great example. Taxes 13 billion annually based on all of the sources that we have trusted for 100 years. The narrative is they are taking our jobs and our medicare and medicaid, and we are subsidizing them. It is just false. Yets provably false, and you try to engage with people that you respect and have a right to have a voice in the direction our country is going to go, but they refused to acknowledge facts. We were talking about vetting refugees. Why dont we that some of the we vet some of the talking heads . We talking about a guy who openly mocks judges against cases his office is bringing. The insane logic in that. Were going to a time where the judiciary might actually become delegitimized by people who dont even understand the structure of our government. The masses are eating it up. Im wondering what the heck can i do, or should we just succumb to fear, which seems to be driving most of these people. Thank you. Host do you see any parallel between our beliefs in the altright and policy positions coming out of the truck White House Trump white house . Guest absolutely. Many of these people are admirers of steve bannon. When we take a look at this travel ban from seven muslim majority countries. Someone like milo y believes that islam represents an existential threat to the united states. He says in europe may have already fallen to these migrants, and there is already a fifth column of muslims that will forever alter the nature of european society. He wants to see steps taken to prevent more muslims from coming to the united states. In some cases to make sure that some of the muslims here leave. Part of theo be design of this muslim ban, or this travel ban, which stems from Donald Trumps original Campaign Promise to temporarily halt the entrance of all muslims into the country. That obviously has not taken effect. Donald trump in his rhetorical emphasis on workers, that is something that this guy who is in the piece make a high priority. , beforeblican party donald trump, they kowtow to do newness interests, and this party is going to be trump and proworker. Host tom on the democratic line. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I thinkhe only things will happen, if we get it, and infrastructure built. The Democratic Party that i grew up with would have insisted the steel for that bill would be made in america, america made steel. If Something Like that platform that is now monopolized by the altright. Guest that is speaking to this economic nationalist strain that is within parts of this movement. Nationalists may reject the altright term and call themselves the new right. Say theyhese people have more in common with Bernie Sanders than they do with the establishment of the Republican Party. Richard spencer said that. That is the sort of policy that someone like Richard Spencer agrees with. A lot of these figures are focused on getting Bernie Sanders voters to reject Hillary Clinton and stay home or come around to donald trump. There is Nothing Better than as to anecdotal evidence how successful they were. It does speak to the fact that there are people on the left and right who have these more antitrade, antiglobalism thations now, who feel their parties have moved away from them. I think the last caller really spoke to that. Host enter in las vegas, nevada. Caller hello. Im just calling because i think the whole discussion on the issues is just missing. This is why i think hillary lost. You guys are making donald trump and all of this flunkies out to be racist. This has become a racial thing. I dont understand that. I voted for donald trump on the issues. That is what matters to me the most. This whole racial thing, i am mexican american. My parents came from mexico. I voted for child simply because rump simply because of obamacare. That has been a disaster. It is right is. It would have been better to expand medicare for the 20 Million People that did not have insurance. That would have been somewhat better than going to obamacare, which we did. It did not get a single republican vote. Think motivated most people to vote for donald trump, to get rid of this bill. Host next to charlotte, north carolina. Good morning. I am calling because im just so bewildered by the fact that america has become a country of us and them. I am a registered democrat. Race. Hing is about everything is about money. When are we going to come together as simply americans . When immigrants come to this country, the reason they come is because they are seeking opportunity. Everybody wants to do well. We have become so polarized in this country until we cannot see the forest for the trees. We talk about make America Great again america is great. People dont come to get jobs. They come because people are hiring them. If the people hiring them would follow the law, we would not have this problem. They are not taking jobs. People that go to get jobs get jobs because people are hiring them. Problem with gentrification. Every major city in this country is doing that. That is all about profiteering. When we come together and start looking out for each other, because we supposedly are a christian country. We dont follow christian principles. There is one commandment, which is called the great commandment, it says love god. It does not say whether you are muslim, christian, buddhist, whomever. Whomever you worship, love that god you worship. Love your neighbor like you love yourself. When you love your neighbor like you love yourself, we will be more inclusive. Im 74 years old. I have never been afraid in this country. I have lived in the ghetto. I have lived in the upper middle class. When we talk about nothing but crime, what about sometimes talking about the good things that are going on in this country . There is a lot more good going on then there is bad. We focus on the 6 00 news, the lead story is about somebody killing somebody. What about talking about some of the good things people are doing sometimes rather than always focusing on the negative . Host thank you. I appreciate your call. We have one more call from wisconsin on the independent line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I look at the big picture concerning steve bannon. If many people are aware of the voice of america, the radio show that goes to 120 countries, 16 languages. There was a board of 60 people that takes care of this. Hey were fired 220yearolds are taking care of two 20yearolds are taking care of what is being put out to these countries. That is scary. You can fact check that. It is true. What is the point . Why did they do it . Steve bannon did this. He is a selfproclaimed leninist, which means tear down the country and raises the way you want it. I think people should be aware of our freedom of speech and and i think people should be aware of freedom of speech, not from us. T away so yeah, this is scary. Hoechlt do you care to weigh in that one . I had heard some chatter that there were rumors that donald trump was eyeing a media or network in the eve that the voice of america would become an outlet for that voice of energy. Havent followed the board that the caller referenced so not sure what happened there but certainly, the voice of america has been an important communication s time. The world for some it will be interesting to see what will happen to that. Host ben is our guest this morning. The story for the political alt right comes to washington. Thanks for being with us. Up, jay Harvey Wilkinson will talk about his book the 1960s and how its affecting todays political climate. 8 00 er tonight at eastern, jennifer brockener and ginsberg discuss their book what washington gets rong and how american officials regard the American Public. The president s policy genda, for example, is much stronger and makes sense and we think there should be a stronger correlation between what the doing and what he public thinks the bureaucracy should be doing so ed like to find ways to make that relationship stronger. For many years, ive been nnoyed at the various surveys undertaken that seem ordinary americans dont know government. Out anouncer april ryan, White House Correspondent examines Police Shootings in america from the perspective of africanamerican mothers in her at mommas knee. Mothers and race in black and white. Women book focuses on because we are the first influencer and the first eacher, and if you look at stats, that shows that we are also increasing the numbers of household. Increasing the number of the sole provider in the household. So therefore, the talk is now transfigured from a man to a woman and its not just from a man to the son but its also a son and daughter. Anouncer go to booktv. Org for complete weekend schedule. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org]. C span, where history daily. In 1979, cspan was created and today by your ou cable or satellite provider. Washington journal continues ost his personal story of coming of age in the 1960s, show j. O the