With passion and commitment, perhaps with a disagreement but with principal disagreement which is respectful. Because in my country and australia, editing perhaps here, too, there are a lot of people who yell at each other from one side or another but never really come constructively to engage with the issues of such profound importance that we face here in australia and around the world. So i welcome you to the first session. We have a marvelous panel were going to talk about history and what we are as an island. It is being shared by john podesta who is in the center and joining him [applause] please. John and henry, please welcome them all. [applause] john, your presence here, as to every hour of everyday of your life for other people who are in your presence conjures up the specter or the memory for the muscle memory of the experiences for decades ago with watergate, as we sit here in the week or the beginning of the 11th week of the Trump Presidency, obviously one of your themes over the last 70 days has been this question of whether the Trump Presidency is an unprecedented event or whether it evokes uncomfortably evokes the period in which you were a major actor. So do you think that we are in uncharted territory, or is the territory all too charted, shall we say . Well, we are not at watergate 2. 0, yet. I find echoes of what happened in the past. I find tremendous differences in what happened in the past. I find the two president s are very different personalities. Mr. Nixon was well schooled in the presidency before he arrived in it. He had been a Vice President dick yet been a member of the senate and a member of the house. A lawyer trained. He argued before the Supreme Court. So we came into the job understanding it on the run. His campaign transition was very quick. I find the Trump Administration about 180 degrees away from there. They seemed surprised to win. They had a very weak transition. Weather didnt get themselves prepared to take over. And the takeover for the first couple of months has been awkward at best. So i find that difference, but weve never had a president , in my knowledge, im a student of the office as well, coming with the kind of baggage that mr. Trump is carrying, that he arrived on the scene with unfolding scandals and the disposition thats very different from what were used to in the presidency. So the disposition question i guess is where analogy, this id that there is an analogy between donald trump and Richard Nixon because of course nixons public persona until we discovered what was on the tapes, whitey said in the secret recordings and then all of the things that you testified to and that we learned from haldeman and ehrlichman after the presidency about his behavior and his late night ranting sessions and orders that were never carried out and do we have donald trump who is doing some of that in public. Thats whats different. No one would ever come Richard Nixon comported himself with a great deal of personal dignity, oval office beaches. He was always very cognizant of the grandeur of the Office Spirit ill give you a very small example of the true that was disrespectful to office. I once went to a press conference and east room stand in the back. He had just hired a new pr man to sort of change his image, and one of the things that had been suggested is that he went like you were wearing, a blue shirt. Because he was told he wouldnt be quite as start a comparison in his tent up a 5 00 shadow. And he told his pr man, he said president s do not wear blue shirts. Rick, this is a disposition question. In other words, maybe what we see in trump in his public behavior echoes with a lot of us uncomfortably but that was nixons private behavior, that he would never have shown that face to the public but trump has, natalie has no compunction but seems to revel in doing it. He cant help himself. The public trump and the private trump are differentiated only by a slightly more elevated use of language in the public. He hasnt mentioned yet from the president ial podium. This is unprecedented. Theres never been, even Chester A Arthur was better prepared for the job than donald trump. And he seems almost proud of his ignorance. So we have a man of very bad character here who is prone to line, who is ignorant, who seems to know nothing about how the government works. And so its a test. Its a test of the institutions that we have, because theyre going to be subjected and are already being subjected to tremendous strain by this. We were talking about this just before we got on stage. So rick, youre talking about the institutions, the separation of powers, the ability to enforce such things as the emoluments clause, the question at which level of president is or is not subject to law as we understand it, in some context. The thing we have the institutions, you know, the of powers, congress, legislative, judiciary, how the almanac. I think the campaign, what was revealed in the campaign over a year and a half, and in his ability to get 63. 5 million votes and to win 30 states was that many institutions in the United States have already failed or are already any condition of failure, the institutions that would have made it such that a president caught on tape and then access Hollywood Tape would have some out in a previous time come together and forced him out of the campaign. I dont just mean like the Republican Party or this or that, but speed is not all prior president s have had russian bots working for them. Take care of the negative impact of a story like that. Right, but what they also had or had to keep them playing within the lines was the fact that if you violated certain kinds of social mores, it would be a kind of institutional, you couldnt do it because the institutions that sort of help undergird the Civil Society in the United States would have chewed you up and spit you out, and that did not happen with donald trump. It was never tried before really. Because of his other shamelessness, which means, which meant the revelations that came out about the access Hollywood Tape, for example, he blustered his way right through that. I think the institution, the media gets a lot of blame here, but its not really, its because of their failure of the Business Models of the traditional media. I think that is the problem. That is led to a sort of still piping where people, people, if you get your news solely from fox news and talk radio, i think talk radio has been underestimated, then you dont really know about most of these things. You have a whole different Knowledge Base man if you read pretty much any standard newspaper or standard news website. But even with all that, i think we should lose sight of the fact that is when, his victory in the president ial election was a product of an old institution, namely the electoral college. Hillary clinton got almost 3 million more votes. So it cant be said that this was the choice that was made by the american people. There was something of a fluke about his election because of the way the forces happen to come together, where things like the hollywood access Hollywood Tape got discounted because it was topped by a new scandal or Something Else breaking so quickly, and no one could absorb it or even react to it in time. Ive heard somebody say, i cant remember who, that Donald Trumps genius in this case was to place before people a binary choice and say, we are both awful. So we are both awful, and so the question is, who is least awful to you . And that that sort of maybe is what hes tried to do right now with the fight between him and the democrats in the media about russia and the New York Times. You dont like me, you shouldnt like them either. Its either a wash or pick your side because everybody is a player. Everybody is a party to everybody as a liar. I am a liar, they are a liar. Everybody is a liar. So this binary choice thing crash the whole system down. But thats the secret to success, saying the system stinks. Everybody was bad. Obama was bad. Which was bad. Iraq was a disaster club on the care was a disaster. Everything that me is disgraceful, disgusting, and a failure, and everyone is a loser and i am the only, so im going to come in and win because look at all these losers before me. They could have one and been successful if the system had not broken down. How long will that play out at the president ial level . What do you think . I guess everybody is wondering if you can last the full four years, and if not, how will his exit he brought about . I cant see it happening in lesson until unless and until the republicans in congress decide it is in their individual political life or death interest to get rid of President Donald Trump and replace them with Vice President pence. Theres a great difference between trump and nixon if we go back to this. Nixon had a republican, Democratic House and a Democratic Senate, and he had a Democratic Senate and house investigating him for two years, and trump has ended up very, very different democratic party. The south was still highly democratic. All those people who were southern democrats during nixon today would be members of the Republican Party. And he played on that. He made no effort whatsoever during the 1972 campaign to try to win congress because he was happy where congress was. The southern block was Strong Enough to help him join the Republican Party, often losing some of the progress is in the Republican Party, but to get much of his legislative agenda enacted he relied on the same protection that prevented him from being impeached. Its interesting to think about 1972 and now, not to belabor this point, but when you go back and read about the origins of watergate, which of course is this burglary thats the origin of the name. What i mean is, originating factor that made these investigations possible and initiated the specific cover up that opened a pandoras box of Everything Else that was going on. You look at it and you think that happened in june 1972. In november 1972 nixon won the second largest landslide in american history. He won 61 everything that massachusetts and the district of columbia. Right. And you think, why on earth, why would you be so paranoid as to think you needed to break into, listen and of the Democratic National committee . It was the white house direction for that act. So the whole world of politics and then still briefed and lived in that paranoid but it was all hidden. So the whole thing about trump is he takes subtext and he makes it text. Everything is on the surface. You have literally no, why doesnt he say i dont like putin. We should put sanctions on putin. Even if hes a proven aging, wouldnt that be the thing to do, cover your tracks of all of it . Thats not his game. He covers no tracks. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot and if it was Hillary Clinton, president Hillary Clinton who was being connected, who was being identified as a russian intelligence asset. Hes working on that. [laughing] he said it this morning our last night or something. He said something about why are you not investigating her . The oil sale, uranium sale, where she, why dont you talk about that . And the foundation, he wants it investigated. Watergate was not that big a story during it wasnt a story at all. Until mid73. In april april 73 when it becomes a story. Watergate runs approximately 900 days from the june 17 break in to the last trial of haldeman and ehrlichman and mitchell for the coverup where there convicted in january of 75. During the initial period the only newspaper covering it was the Washington Post. They didnt crack any of the story. What he did was make it an important story in the beltway. We see right now the media is very confused about how to handle trump, what to emphasize, what do the emphasize. We really have two papers in competition this time, both the New York Times and the Washington Post are doing some of the best journalism thats happening. But see i would argue when we get to the institutional breakdown, the media is responsibility, that trump is playing on real emotions, real feelings and justified ones, about how the issues and concerns of a great many people who were associated with more conservative part of the ideological spectrum feel as though they are disrespected, falsely covered, dishonestly covered, impugned either mainstream media. And so when he says dont listen to them when they talk about me and russia, its just the same old nonsense, and the way that they have treated conservative issues all along. That has residents, perhaps it shouldnt. Are consumed is really embracing his position on russian . Know they are not the question is, when he rallies their faithful as he is, we dont, we know we are pulling data but when he says dont listen to them, they are lying. Dont trust them, they are lying, theres a great many, theres a lot of historical experience that conservatives have two back that argument. Hes using it i think completely opportunistically to say dont Pay Attention to things you ought to Pay Attention to, but it still resonates. He doesnt sound like any conservative ive ever known for a long time, and i know many of them. I dont find any real driving ideology or core beliefs in the man. Hes had positions on almost all sides of all issues at different times in his life. Slides around even today as president on different issues. I dont disagree with that at all, but that doesnt mean thats not his base and thats not who he is playing to as he attempts to distract and sort of tell people not to Pay Attention to the things that what can he deliver and how long will they stay . We dont know. Thats part of the test in some odd way that you are saying that were in the middle of. I think it goes a lot deeper than the media or any recent current events. I would kind of lame the framers for this. [laughing] regardless of the government was designed in 1789 and it was stateoftheart political technology. We still have that same machine even though theres been a lot of experience how democratic governments work since then, and a lot of kind of new technology, new governmental technology. We still have the old one. We talk about how darn it, its worked well for 225 years, or whatever it is, but that overlooks, for example, 1860. The machine that was created could not solve the main problem of the United States. It was incapable. It had to be solved by what was up until then the bloodiest war in history. I think if you look at systems around the world that are based on our model, the president ial model with congress and separation of powers, most of them end up military dictatorships at some point. Nobody has adopted an electoral college. Well, look, the cardinals. One of the thoughts i have though is where six states away as you know from another Constitutional Convention, which is maybe even more terrifying than living with the constitution we have. The late philosopher sidney hook who delivered the jefferson lecture when he won this National Award for the National Endowment for humanas in the 1980s made this passionate pitch saying everyones care of the Constitutional Convention itself is a mark of this total lack of trust in our own system. Because of course its built into the system that you can have one. Im scared about what people might want to play around with with the first amendment. For example, if you do it, but nonetheless it you can pull it off, that is part of the system and i think they are close. Obviously the stateoftheart system has been altered over the course of 225 years to the amendment process. We now have direct election of senators. That started in 1913. We have the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments which, you know, changed you still have the machine that requires the president , a congress and the Supreme Court, all within the separately chosen, separately elected to agree. Its shot through with so many veto points in so many places where well organized interests can get their piece of the pie that it designs incoherent public institutions. Obamacare is not what obama or me or probably you would like for our country. Id like Something Like france has got a candidate has got, works fine, very understandable. You dont have to spend your life filling out forms and trying to decipher hospital bills. Socialized medicine since the wilson administration, every president elected since truman, every democratic president , nixon too. I wish we had that one. It has gotten worse since then. Nixons plan would look like bernie sanders. You came in with an administration that was washington based. Carter administration, speechwriter. I worked for the reagan administration. You run the gamut here. I am curious when you came in as a nonwashington group, the organizational breakdown we are seeing with this administration. I dont recall that as part of the carter startup. It felt that way. Basically the machine was working well. It is true the white house staff was the most inexperienced, they were damaged by our ignorance in the way this machine worked. What is the learning curve . How does the machine work . 31 2 years. If you read George Stephanopouloss in the more all too human which is a very good work, he was one of the people who is credited with having gotten bill clinton elected in 1992, clinton, no one got more votes than he did but he was a minority president , 43 of the vote. Brought in and experienced staff and the first few months were a disaster. The wrong issues at the wrong time. Clinton hidden self, and know how to work the levers of government and made stupid mistakes and had a chief of staff who never worked in washington and didnt know what to do. It reminds you a lot of what is going on with the Trump Administration except the difference is it is not trump and not the clinton wanted chaos, he wasnt sure how to be president yet. Trump brief chaos and there is there are now i think 520 confirmable positions and offices throughout the cabinet for which there is and a nominee. Not even an intention to find somebody. You have an effort, purposeful i dont think it is purposeful but the chaos they cannot still the most corrupt understanding. They dont have they cant to that. That is the easy part, everyone in the Administration Knows there is some job at labor, has life ambition it is to be that assistant secretary, you should pick one out of the hat, those were part of the republican establishment, think tanks, Republican Party, for people who were the kind of people, were all against trump. He was against the more being against them but still you have to what they have done is as my understanding, they have minders at lower levels they put out to watch cabinet officers to make sure they they have cabinet officers. In the soviet system there is this overarching ideology that in tropical he guided people in a policy direction, what do you know about the the province of commerce. It is all executive orders all the time. This is the question in governmental terms. There are sometimes institutions are fighting back, two executive orders on the travel ban, courts had prevented it, you could have a showdown in which trump asserting executive supremacy which is not an irrational doctrine constitutionally, you dont have any writing, and the security act of 1962 gives me strong powers, executive powers over the immigration system. Courts have no right to intervene, you are not using a constitutional or legislative framework to say what i am doing is wrong so i will ignore you. And hasnt done that. 37 approval president dared take on the federal judiciary. He could, he hasnt. One of the peculiarities of the system is the existence of essentially Sovereign Court where it wasnt designed to be this way, the Supreme Court you might say was forced to do the job other branches couldnt do. Legal segregation of in the United States of america, congress and the president could not solve and this is the problem that was damaging, to say the least in the cold war, the court solved that problem by fiat. And the court is a place where we had a coup detat. Eisenhower enforced it too. We have separate power structures and they have their own their own separate but equal power structures and we look at trump and we think he is going to test this as it has never been tested and generally going tests issued an executive order, just as was true with obama and the dream act, he hasnt said i am ignoring you because he is not ready. Before you leave executive orders, they are very thin. We are going to do it, going to study, i was interested in nixon tried which is an executive organization. He failed because he knew he needed congress and couldnt do it by pure executive action. A lot of time was spent trying to design an executive order that would get around it. Trumps organization, press release the travel ban specifically directs his government to do a very specific policy that involves more people now. But the cops, the courts, stopped it. If you havent been briefed on the system in this conference, we are in position where we can invite a couple people to come up on stage, and participate briefly, a seat at the table and talk if anybody wants dont get water. I have a cold but if anyone wants to come up. If you look at what he has done, got the nomination by ignoring the republican establishment, and powerful institutions like the republican National Committee of governors, endorsements by politicians, they were tested by somebody who said i do not recognize your authority. That is not new, nixon ignored the republican National Committee, ignored the Republican Party, support for them, didnt raise money for them. That with after he got elected. How he got elected, first, 68 and 72, his own organization, the republican National Committee could do anything for him, he could do it better, that is why he had his committee to reelect and did himself at the expense of the party and the party dictated to the party what he wanted and didnt expect much out of them. It is not new what trump is doing but it is nixonian. Trump became the nominee. The rest of the Republican Party bleeding itself into so many bits and pieces that he could win the plurality state to state and emerge at the end of the process as the last one even though he was explicitly disliked by the majority. Became known as wedge issues. I think again in terms of this institution imagine in a different time, the 80s or Something Like that, or gary hart as a counter example. Gary hart dared the media to find out if he was monkeying around hands the Monkey Business with donna rice. The scandal seems preposterous because we have advanced so far beyond anything like that. Gone into the 1980 election, a serious candidate. Imagine the combined force, the voice of the catholic church, we disapprove adultery is great we have an enormous impact in 1988, the largest in the United States, 50 billion, and an archbishop, even though it wasnt that way, would that have made a difference . And that is what he exposed. Those institutions you have an audience member. Speak, go ahead. It isnt working that well. Not particularly who cares and reacts. The trump white house. The overlap of the diagram, where can i identify i extrapolate the breakdown of social interaction, what we lose from learning from cell phones and settle or overt cues and i become disturbed by people not abiding by the proper line system quote authority but i do extrapolate that to lack of concern and awareness beyond a very limited view in some peoples life. A lot of caring about this. As important and significant as these institutions, what dont kill us make us stronger. Talking about this tribal is asian. A tribal thing. What is the percentage of nonvoters, nonregistered voters, people, who whatever. The 1980s when i was a kid in the 1990s, one of the things that distinguished the right from the left is the way culture was built, people on the right, like me, a lot of People Like Us used to say were bilingual whereas liberals were monolithic. I knew my own side, the issues of the right. I read conservative texts. I understood conservative policy, but i knew ricks side, the editor of the new republic, i knew where the left came down on things, understood the vocabulary the left used, read their work also. We had a Real Advantage in some odd ways, we were behind it, left was very didnt concern ideas, totally astonished by the rise of ronald reagan. Because of the rise of these stovepipes it is entirely possible to be a conservative who is largely ignorant of the things liberals are concerned about just as throughout most of my life it has been easy for liberals to ignore what they dont agree with her live around. That is a big change because in terms the ideological struggle between the sides, there was an advantage the right has put it no longer has and it is brute force. Would you describe for those who were too young to be familiar with us . In a mental world, people who agree with you through the meeting, what you talked to. You have an advantage, you speak very good liberal. You and i are from the same gene pool politically. My father on commentary being published. I think that is being lost. You guys were kind of an elite commando core, to sneak behind enemy lines and pick people off. We reach the point where most most liberals cant speak conservative and there was a time when they could but conservatives were different then. Lbj speaks conservative. All those southern democrats who were secret liberals knew how to do it. We separated ourselves into these blocks but dont touch each other. Most recently holding the goldwater chair of american institutions but not sure goldwater would be considered a conservative anymore but i think our guest makes an important point. A lot of people are confused, uncertain and also particularly those of us tend to talk down to Trump Supporters which i think is a serious mistake and very troublesome to me. These people have deep beliefs in this man and that he will accomplish everything he has promised and it is hard for them to be told he doesnt understand the process, doesnt understand how it is going to work, not likely to deliver as much as he promised them. I think the world of the hard level trump supporter is much less policy driven than it is driven by a sense the country has gotten away from them and it is no longer there country, it has been stolen, like largely trump it has been stolen by those who benefited from nafta, trade deals, wars. Made the most minor suggestion. That is the point. It is an expression of this terrible thing that happened. This is not a country i grew up in, dont have the expectations i used to have, somebody has got to do something so he said do something. I doubt he will do anything basically. It is an expression of emotion rather than which program, which set of policies do you endorse because people lost faith in the government to carry out those policies. Where do you get your information . Those two still are journalistic sources, wnyc, stating supporters, the new yorker, i also work in the world. I am a professional fool. One of the things i do is work in hospitals as a clown. That is amazing. [applause] today is your national holiday. Some of my friends who cannot come today are marching in costume. It has been a tough year for clowns. I can show you a picture. I just wanted to basically challenge something that has emerged during the campaign and subsequent discussions, because i feel basically it gets in the way of the discussion of all that is going on and that is trump tapped into the frustrations of people who have been lied to by their institutions. My feeling is in fact, the institutions havent been lying as much as suggested. A lot of the real frustration comes from forces beyond the control of a government or any particular institution. It seems that has taken away jobs and altered the world and the problem is people are told not told enough about those forces but because of fox news in large part and other Media Outlets a are told the problem is dysfunction of government and that is a wrong appraisal. It is like everybody is against the government among certain groups but if you ask them about medicare, yes, social security, yes, how many of you know that medicare is far more efficient for example van private Health Insurance companies, 3 or private insurance, so much money denying claims, Something Like 30 . That is an example. I totally agree with you on the point that there is an effort to say things that are gigantic historical forces like globalization are the result of bad policies, if you hadnt done the other things then we have factories in these small towns in ohio as opposed to the fact the United States as a result of the oddity of world war ii and 60 of the world Industrial Production for 20 years and jobs that were in class jobs become middleclass jobs because we are supplying the world entire industrial needs two thirds of the worlds industrial needs and europe rebuilt and japan rebuilt, and over the course of time, china and india came online and industrial players and rolled, the United States was going to shrink inevitably because what you are not supposed to say anymore, that is a fantastic thing, and alleviation of poverty, worldwide policy of a sword the world has never seen, listed out of subsistence living, middleclass life and the life in which you are not likely or as much as possible that your children might die of starvation. This is a fantastic thing. Sound like a liberal. This is the result of market forces. That is a liberal solution. What i would say, people like tom friedman, took the fact of globalization and started saying this is great, everything will be wonderful, great for everybody. A lot of politicians and stuff. Talks about how community humanitarian life, abound us to each other and kept civilization going were dying because of all sorts of things that should have been going on. Not just that the government is broken but the idea that government was starting to take on a roll that was harmful, it was taking on the role of parents and churches that were done and not just that fox news barack obama said government is broken. Blame republicans for everything, fox, 3 Million Viewers out of 330 Million People in the United States, regular daily viewership, fox newss fall the governor that is a large historical impersonal force going on. When you look at the analysis, it has gotten notoriously single digit approval, when you ask the same people how they feel about their own individual members of congress and members of the senate, by and large they voted against them, you have a lot of conflicting views since the process works. I find striking ignorance about the way government works. When you talk to people about what happens and what doesnt happen. I want to respond to a show by fox, 3 million data doesnt sound like a lot and influence well beyond that, the New York Times, 1 million subscribers officially or more. Not failing anymore. Two years, maybe the echo chamber reverberates, the liberal outlets, in other areas. I think when fox, my quarrel with them is it is not just honest skepticism of government but a platform to uninformed claims about government, obama personally with he is not a citizen of the us, a platform for people to say things like that and it is not helpful. Other threats in the overlap of fox viewership is fundamentalist religious thinking which to me is a manifest issue. Trump in that interview where he is like russia, look it up. We are not so great. That is actually something when bill meyer and other people on the political spectrum said that, all the people now, many Trump Supporters, this crazy opposite, that was there and type position, now it is the pro position. There is a disregard and for me the use of the word conservative is erroneous. It is reactionary and nixon brought in the eta. That is a conversion, the bizarre conversion of so much of what is going gone into a cult of personality in which somehow that which is said by somebody you decide you like it excuse whereas anything said by somebody you dont like, anything negative you say about someone you dont like you accept immediately and that is human nature. The infection from that is significant. The evangelicals were the group in this country that approached his last election most hardheaded, 81 of them went for trump even though trump is the definition roe versus wade came down during the nixon presidency in january 1973. There was almost no reaction in the nixon white house. The only person who reacted was pat buchanan who was a good catholic. If you watch what comes out of it, the way it spreads out and gives birth to the religious right and also to the no compromise because these were not religious issues and they couldnt be compromised. This was the work of the devil if you are on the wrong side and it grows from there. In terms of that when you talk about the hardheaded this which is absolutely right, why did they look at trump and say him and not her . The Supreme Court. There is also the fact that during the obama presidency, there was the administrative state, regulations written to compel people of traditionalist religious belief to conform with modern morality, the case of the Little Sisters of the poor and hobby lobby. If you dont know the details we are almost done. This was where people said they are going to tell me i have to believe what they believe and i dont want to do that. Just like roe versus wade created a subculture that mainstream people did not know existed, it is not across ideological lines, most evangelicals were democrats like jimmy carter, his sister was an evangelical preacher. Astonishingly, they were democrats. Republicans and democrats joined in this movement that knocked everybody on their side. They didnt see it coming just as in some way trumps ability to combine and titrate with the country is being taken away at all sorts of racist dogma and all that too, not a lot of people for a loop. Those of us on the right thought it will be fascinating. We have a fantastic field of interesting candidates. A bartender at a made from florida, from very hard right guy from texas and the governor of wisconsin and the governor of ohio and governor of louisiana and governor of new jersey, these guys had remarkable like the electoral victories and some in democratic states. Fantastic field of stars, i come down it is just as it turns out things go on are bubbling on and that was really a good piece. Your piece was really good too. The country, what are you talking about . Havent gotten a raise in 15 years. It was better theater than the others. Everything stinks and it turned out the message that everything stinks, we are all going it is not too bad, 2 growth. My cousin just died of an opium overdose, i dont think everything is so good. Hillary ran, trump gave this Dark Convention speech and hillary and obama and everybody, like america is great, everything is wonderful. She did when the popular vote. She won the popular vote. The whole thing the closest in recent history. The house and the senate, the Republican House and the Republican Senate are the products of your people actually voting Democratic Candidates and republican candidates the house in a 50 50 election, republicans got and 11 seat majority but i hate to keep coming back to the structural stuff but imagine what the public conversation would be if hillary had eked out an electoral vote when. Trump was planning on that and making it hell for her. Everyone would be unhappy. The republicans would be you would be saying this is caught arising that wound, turns out you cant win the presidency with a racist sexual predator. I dont think i was planning before the election happens on the next four years being a garbage show of dissension, the Republican Party splitting anyway. Who he continues to be and probably would have preferred that because he could have run his life like a business without the accountability of the institutions that were examining if they were being tested. Go back to nixon, if you read kissingers white house views, january 20th, they get into the white house there is a war between china, the soviet union, stuff going on in india, they hit the ground running, this is on nixon cared about, foreign policy, they were domestic policy people, do what you want to do. He wanted to be president , had a sense he could manage. Be the peacemaker. He didnt like campaigns, wanted to be president , exactly the opposite of trump. Continuing to campaign and his favorite subject is i won, i won, i won. Here comes the hook. Lets start a war with australia. Absolutely fantastic. It could go on and on, to half an hour, the next session is about the problem of strangers. Do we go after our own or obligations to people further away, noncitizens, people in other countries, and extra ordinarily diverse panel. Before we do i should mention there are books for sale over there. You are prepared to sign those and i may or may not. Before we bind this up, say if you would like to have more of this conversation. Please join me in thanking our panel. [applause] on the far side over here. Good afternoon, everybody. I would like to welcome you to the New York Public Library for a forum, shades of red and blue