Between celebrities and various world leaders new polling shakes up the presidential race or does it. The media. Is present. Welcome to left right and center. To the self-contained opinion the dominant political debate. Of The Daily Beast. This week later in the show we'll chat with a successful. Democratic candidates compelling stories to voters all that plus an in-depth look at the unlikely alliance between President Donald Trump and evangelical voters. Should we be worried about the values of millennial That's all coming up next on left right and center will be right back. Live from N.P.R. News A in Washington I'm Jack Speer hurricane Dorian is picking up steam as it moves towards the U.S. Mainland Dorrien officially becoming a Category 4 storm with winds of up to 130 miles an hour this evening Dorina still some 400 miles east of the northwestern Bahamas and if it stays on his present course it would not reach the U.S. And possibly the east coast of Florida too early next week we're speaking of the White House today before heading off to Camp David President Trump said it has all the hallmarks of a dangerous storm this could be a record setting Eric and that maybe things change well hoping for one element that might happen and that's that it makes a right turn it goes up north just prior to or equal to heading sure that would be great trumps winner White House Mar a Lago could potentially be in the storm's path though the president downplayed that today Meanwhile Florida residents are buying up bottled water and other key supplies U.S. Secretary of State Mike POMPEI O says tonight the U.S. Has will liable information Iranian oil tanker is headed toward Syria that's despite assurances from Iran's foreign minister Mohamad job it is a relief to the British the tanker would not sail there the tanker and its cargo of some 2100000 barrels of oil has been at the center of a controversy the ship was detained for a time at Baltar but was later released despite U.S. Objections Iran's government has said the tankers cargo has been sold to an unknown 3rd party. Prosecutors and lawyers for Michael Flynn say the former trump national security advisers cooperation with the government is complete but N.P.R.'s Brian Lucas reports the DO sides disagree on whether the case is ready to proceed to sentencing in a new joint filing the government says Flynn's case is ready for sentencing and that there are no outstanding issues that need to be resolved before hand it proposes dates in October or early November Flynn's new defense team however disagrees his lawyers say they need more time to get up to speed on the case and its voluminous document load they also accuse the government of holding back classified information that Flynn's team claims is relevant to the case the government denies that and says it has provided everything and more than it is required to do under the law Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. About his contacts with foreign officials and cooperated with the special counsel's Russia investigation and other probes as part of his plea deal the presiding judge in the case has scheduled a court hearing for September 10th Ryan look as N.P.R. News Washington United Airlines says it's again delaying the earliest possible return of its grounded Boeing Max $737.00 jetliners the airline now says it's taking the max jet out of its rotation to at least December 6 weeks longer than previously planned United owns 14 of the planes the max jets have been grounded since March after the 2nd of 2 deadly crashes that claimed the lives of 346 people combined Boeing isn't working to fix fly control software and located in both crashes a mix close on Wall Street the Dow up 41 points the Nasdaq fell 10 points today this is N.P.R. And at 7 o 4 on a Friday you're listening to K.C. Or W. I'm Matt Gillum Here's what's happening nearly 60 people at Disney lost their jobs this week as a result of the company's latest attempt to consolidate operations Norbu Z.D. Has the details this week's layoffs are one of several rounds at Disney has undergone since they choir 21st Century Fox Disney bought the studio for over $71000000000.00 back in March they projected that the merger would bring in $2000000000.00 to the company now. Now some are saying that those savings would come from job cuts a significant portion of the jobs that Disney has targeted are senior level executive positions from Fox Studios Greg dragon and Jennifer child were among the 60 people who were let go this week they were both top marketing executives at 21st Century Fox this latest round of layoffs comes only a few weeks after Disney's earnings report showed that they were losing money some speculate that the drop in earnings may have resulted from a quote disappointing performance by Fox assets Norbu Z.D. August is winding down and in L.A. County that means fair time the 92nd L.A. County Fair opens today in Pomona This year organizers are taking a dive into pop culture link frozen T.V. Dinners and disco the theme is L.A. County Fair goes pop and the idea is to highlight highlight Ellie's influence on cultural trends over the decades their president Miguel Santana tells K.T.L.A. There are a large number of art installations based on iconic L.A. Locations when you come here you'll be able to do the bucket list that all the tourists do you visit the Grauman's Chinese Theater the Hollywood sign even though the bread tar pits and what is a fare with a vast quantities of fried food buffalo chicken chimichanga it's buffalo chicken mac and cheese crispy bacon all wrapped up in the charts and deep fried top fashion crispy that's chicken Tony from the chicken Charlie's restaurant if you prefer to go meatless he recommends the deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich that comes with Ruby pebbles on top but they're runs through September 22nd and law enforcement is going to be out in full force starting tonight and through Monday cracking down on people who are driving under the influence or breaking traffic laws Los Angeles Police Department conduct 5 different driver's license and sobriety checkpoints this weekend and the C.H.P. Will begin a maximum enforcement period starting tonight at 6 Support for N.P.R. Comes from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company family owned operated and argued over since 1980 drought supporter of independent thought whether that's online over the air or in a bottle more at Sierra Nevada dot com. Relisten Casey R. W. It's 7 o 6. Welcome back to left right and center and Keli Goff your center and a columnist at The Daily Beast on the right is Rich Lowry editor of National Review on the left is Elizabeth bruited columnist at The Washington Post it's the last week of August and it started with the G. 7 Summit and headline grabbing fires in the Amazon polling that seemed to indicate the Democratic primary had become a toss up also dominated headlines before more polling showed one candidate dominating the field Meanwhile other candidates got shut out of the next debate but the out to press on while others decided to throw in the towel and is the love affair between President Trump and Fox News over we're going to be discussing all of this news in just a moment and later in the show will be interviewing a prominent screenwriter on his efforts to teach Democratic candidates how to rise above the noise of Twitter and tell stories that connect with voters in the heartland rich you have an interesting column this week in which you made me laugh out loud by critiquing the political strategy of French president the manual McCrone through a comparison with both Diddy and Leonardo Di Caprio something you don't see every day why don't you tell our listeners about it Well I think macaron fell prey to this celebrity panic over the Amazon fires that was deeply misinformed that level fires this year is not really remarkable it's actually lower than levels we saw in the 2000 it's not true that these fires are spontaneously starting because of global warming their man lit fires there most of them don't really involved in the jungle there are people clearing using fires to further clear areas that are already been cleared now that does speak to the forest station that's not great but this isn't doesn't speak to us being on the verge of a planetary catastrophe and almost all these tweets including Metron refer to the Amazon of the. Longs of the planet which isn't true and referred to this factoid that the Amazon supposedly responsible for 20 percent of our oxygen which also isn't true and McCraw on the base of basis of all this misleading information made the Amazon fires a major agenda item and the G. 7 summit so it just seemed to me great example of how elite opinion even at the highest level of Western government can be moved by fashionable opinion that's not very well informed so I did it interesting that you're talking about opinion leaders because I was going to say that I'm someone who believes the science on climate change but I have to say that climate change has actually never come up as a major issue among any of the voters in my family they are for the most part die hard you know Democratic voters I've never literally heard them mention that at any time discussing any election and there was a survey I found from Yale University before the midterms that said that 38 percent of voters polled identify climate change as a very important issue but when they were asked to rank issues of importance climate change was actually ranked 15th out of 28 which seems to indicate it actually is not that important to a lot of voters so I hate it when people talk about liberal bias in media because people in media yourself included who do not identify as liberal but I do wonder if some of the breathless and sometimes inaccurate tweets are driven by the fact that it is considered the sort of issue does or of people in places like New York and Malibu well as part of that I also just think that advocates for action on climate change know that if you actually have a really responsible accounting of the state of the science it's complicated you know that clearly have warming and there's a manmade element of it but that that's not really a catalyzing force so they're desperate for mediagenic easy easy to understand planetary catastrophes and they thought you know the images of these fires that they had one is just. If you actually a rigorous scientific factual account of what's going on Amazon does not support the hysteria and many of the photos shared actually including McCraw nds photo that he shared with his tweet were not of the current Amazon fires Liz what do you make of the intense coverage of that story this week and then I want to follow up with a other question about how that percolated in the news. Well I think that the politics of the Amazon fires have been jarring with both in our refusing to take a based on some remarks McCrone made I think that is exemplifies to quite a few people the sort of conflict between these far right some people who call Boston are of pseudo fascist but certainly right populist politicians and then the remainder of the global community that seems more committed to liberal democracy so I think that the fires themselves are extremely concerning They certainly bring to the fore climate change issues that have been very prominent in the Democratic primary with the release of several plans for bold climate action but they've also highlighted more of that political rift that we've been seeing since the election of Trump between right populists and liberal Democrats around the world all around the world right little be Democrats well and I was going to follow up by asking about the spat between both in our own McCrone regarding the 1st lady of France Brazilian president Bos'n R.-O. Has been criticized for gauging in social media I know in comments that were seen as sexist regarding the 1st lady of France as age and actually I noticed today that women of Brazil have been apologizing on Twitter on behalf of their president which kind of brought everything full circle with women apologizing for what a man said about another woman but I was going to ask what did you make of that dispute. Well I mean I think it's certainly very familiar to anyone who's spent a few years with Trump as president right now. We all know how that goes at this point and so I mean I'm fairly a newer Trump says you know makes remarks that are off color all the time to say the very least about other world figures and Americans feel about you know what I would care and and women's appearance is right I mean it's certainly a type of attack you can watch especially if you want to go after masculinity would seem to be the point so I mean not surprising completely of noxious and ultimately a distraction from the actual politics that are playing out here so there's been some interesting news in American politics this week as well what caught your eye in terms of the presidential election this week the summer is winding down and so the Democratic primary field after former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper in Washington Governor Jay Inslee the latest to dropouts New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Jill a bronze drop is probably a symptom of the unique nature of what's increasingly looking like a 3 person race while voters have their pick of fairly traditional Democrats the 2 bold progressive Sanders and Warren have ticked up and up set the tone for debates and led headlines Shila brand seem to recognize this during the last debate she seemed to lean in a dramatically progressive direction but ultimately she was a cautious shrewd Democrat in the mold of Hillary Clinton and she was never able to break through the din of more than a dozen similar Democrats the most prominent of which is former Vice President Biden but Biden slipping in his support is fanning out among the remainder of the field including Sanders and Warren Meanwhile Harris who enjoyed a full some polling bump after her explosive performance in the 1st debate has dropped back in the single digits where it goes from here is anybody's guess but my read on the polls is that bold progressives in the race are well positioned heading in the fall interesting I'll be honest I'm a New York voter and I care about women's issues I did not find Senator Gela brand to be a particularly compelling candidate but I do feel it's important to address one of the theories regarding the collapse of her campaign what do you make of the narrative Liz that she struggled in the presidential race in part because donors and supporters of Al Franken punished her for being the 1st senator to call for his resignation due to sexual misconduct allegations do you think there's any truth to that and if so do you think that's fair. I think that is likely very true I think that Jill a brand was outspoken not only about Al Franken and that obviously angered major Democratic donors and party players but she was also outspoken at one point about Bill Clinton having been you know a person who if he had come around during the era of me too might have experienced a very different legacy and place in history and I think that similarly alienated members of the Democratic Party who could have helped her fundraise and so I do think that did lead to her struggling somewhat in the primaries but I don't think that if she hadn't done that she necessarily would have stayed in the race much longer than she did because there was also the issue of struggling to differentiate her campaign from a lot of similar campaigns she is interested because if she was punished for essentially standing up to someone who had some credible allegations of sexual misconduct that in and of itself could be perceived as somewhat of a form of sexism towards her right but I don't know if I ever fully bought that that's what bob her down as much as the fact that she was seen as an opportunist and sort of like a Tracy Flick type because that was so always sort of her M.O. For people in New York politics who've been following her a long time that she flip flopped on so many major issues you know not just evolve but literally was like I'd like to be a senator so I've changed my position on gay rights and guns but I do wonder having said that if women candidates are punished more for being seen as opportunistic in ambitious than male candidates are which still means her gender played a role does that make sense. That does make sense I mean I do think you could say her gender played a role specially Senshi position herself as a champion for women's rights that was a lot of the energy of her campaign and her opposition to Frank in her calling for his resignation was based on that aspect of her advocacy and I mean women being seen as opportunists tend to get a lot more in the way of accusations of duplicity and to face Ignace and these are . Insults that have a dogged women for thousands of years women are liars women are secretive women have top secret agendas that they reveal at the last moment they operate on cunning instead of out not aggression So I mean I do think that could have factored in to her struggle for support but this primary has had a record number of women candidates and several of them are still in the race and doing and doing pretty well so and you know the most exemplary of which is Elizabeth Warren so I do think women can make it it doesn't mean gender didn't factor into how Kiersten Jila brand came out of this race rich John Podhoretz who's a conservative had an interesting column in The New York Post this week he basically chided members of the media for being so excited that one poll showed Biden tied with 2 other candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and he pointed out that Biden had maintained a significant lead in over 60 polls over 4 months and that 2 other polls released right after the type poll showed that he still holds his lead he kind of argue that there's a sort of glee and media for a horse race and that's why it's leading to people sort of holding a ticker tape parade when there seems to be Biden slipping Yeah absolutely I mean that's part of the phenomenon and people who polling experts who poured cold water on that Monmouth poll that had the race basically a 3 way tie turned out to be right you had polls showing Biden up by 13 and 18 in fairly short order but there have been a few other polls last couple days that show The Lead 4 and 7. But you've got to average it out and it's it's a double digit lead if you average out the polls and it's been remarkably stable over the last several months despite poor 1st debate performance despite gaffes just despite what has been time for this reply will have an effect either despite Biden completely botching a war story that The Washington Post report about the other day so I think if you just look at the polling you think nothing has really happened in this race except for Elizabeth Warren steadily gaining and I actually I give her better odds of winning the nomination this point than Biden does because my perhaps simplistic belief based on the Obama phenomenon in the Trump phenomenon is there's no substitute for just lighting people up and you're really seeing signs of that with Warren now crowds of you know estimated 12015000 people really big crowds so she's clearly catching on and I just I Maybe it's because I also want to horse race and want something interesting but I also just legitimately can't believe that by the kind of kind of lead this thing pillar to post without severe disruption at some point well can I ask you why have the gaffes not hurt him worse so far because the 1st you know that's pretty bad and it hasn't been a really great sense so yeah I mean the 1st debate was bad but also I think is as always happens in these events gets magnified after the fact so it was it was bad at the time but then the coverage makes it seem so much worse as total debacle and just I don't think average Democrats experienced it that way they gaffes you know is clearly going to be a narrative certainly makes the general trouble use this narrative for all it's worth that Biden's losing it and as out of his mind but they're fairly innocuous things most of them you know he's standing in New Hampshire and says it's it's a beautiful day here in Vermont you know so just like that in and of itself is not going to crash his support it's just I consider him a clear. Front runner but I consider him a fragile front because the energy clearly is on the left of the party and the next debate here almost all the moderate candidates besides Biden and club which are gone and probably never be heard from again and it's you know Sanders and Warren who are who are in a strong 2nd place ask a question though about then what happens with black voters should it come down to those 3 because Bernie Sanders has consistently struggled with lot of voters and I don't see how making and RHODES I think Kamel here is it's a real damage to bite on the busing thing with which most a lot of young African people didn't even know what that was until that although Biden's held on in a way I wasn't entirely sure he would with a lot of black voters support Yeah I know a lot of older black voters who still like and then when it comes to women of color I don't think Elizabeth Warren has adequately addressed the fact that she essentially lied about being a racial minority to advance her career and I think that if all of the candidates of color get knocked out of the race I'm just a little bit curious about what happens to black voters when they are still the base of the Democratic Party because none of them of really this is a huge question and if I know the answer to it I have a much better idea what's going to happen eventually in this nomination fight but the question is are black voters attached to Biden the way they were attached initially to Hillary and 08 look strong she can when we were have have a practical side so we're we're with her and now with him or is it a deeper connection and is it. Or is it just that that Sanders and Warren just no matter what even if they one of them or to win no Iowa or win New Hampshire and really look like a much stronger candidate and they even do today well that that they won't flip African-Americans to vote to them even in that circumstance so I don't know the answer to that question but it's obviously one of the top 2 or 3 questions that will determine how this nomination battle goes I gave up predicting anything after I like many people and correctly predicted Donald Trump would not be president but I will say that I actually think that if it's looking really really tight my I predict the wild card is someone in the Obama sphere steps up for Biden. And I don't know that will be President Obama but I he says does something that nods to the community to say you can trust him and I don't know what that knot is it could even just be something that someone says in that interview that makes it clear that they trust him and African-Americans can trust him that's just a theory I could be totally wrong because I've been wrong before the story I've been watching this week is about one of the most enduring love affairs in American politics which appears to be coming to an end using his favorite media outlet Twitter the president tweeted this week that the new Fox News is letting millions of great people down we have to start looking for a new news outlet Fox isn't working for us anymore Fox News analyst Brett Hume fired back on Twitter that Fox News isn't supposed to work for you but he was not the only one 1st of all Mr President we don't work for you I don't work for you my job is to cover you not so on over you or rich people just report on you to call balls and strikes on you my job Mr President our job here is to keep the scores not settle scores that was Fox News Neil Cavuto sounding very fired up and impassioned in a segment aimed directly at President Trump So Liz is one of the greatest love stories of our time coming to an end I don't know I imagine Fox will be pretty chastened by Trump coming after them any journalistic outlet or an outlet that wants to purport itself as a journalistic outlet is going to have to hit back at a statement like that by saying we do independent journalism we don't work for you and to some extent there is independent reporting done by FOX That's certainly the case but the opinion side of Fox the bent and the slant is completely in favor of the right if not the institutional Republican Party and I doubt that they'll want to lose their viewership by turning on their good old fashioned dance partners so I assume they'll continue to dance with the ones that brung them. Aaron Blake of The Washington Post had a really interesting piece this week rich in which he analyzed Trump supporters in their cable news habits and while he describes the relationship between Fox and Trump is beneficial to both of them he actually made a really compelling case based on the data that Fox will remain the number one cable news network without Donald Trump Donald Trump cannot be reelected without Fox News as help to some degree. What do you make of that. Well I think this is it's part of an ongoing shadow struggle that began when Trump 1st really caught on in the Republican primaries and when Roger Ailes was still the head of Fox over control Fox effectively with Trump actually more than anyone else has ever had having a greater influence on the Fox audience than anyone and therefore kind of representing a threat to Fox at that at the same time there is a huge overlap of of interest and audience and an issues so. Trump needs Fox I think this is part of him working the refs and there are a lot of people there who like Neil Cavuto and Bret Baer who do really good work interest while a journalist and Chris Wallace course but then the primetime programming you know like the other networks is opinion and that's very pro Trump and that's never going to change and Trump's never you know there's no alternative Fox I mean there is this one America network that he sometimes pitches or plays up but no one knows what that is no one's ever going to hide that so this relationship they're yoked together Trump and Fox but they're going to be tensions and Trump you know he watches all day long he doesn't like seeing anything he doesn't like seen polls that he doesn't like he doesn't like seeing Democrats he doesn't like them so this is legitimate on his part legitimate irritation but as I say it's also working . Trying to get in their ads and if you can tilt further in his direction to take a break I'll be back with Rich Lowry of National Review and The Washington Post. Between. Us. On demand. Another fantastic Friday night. With her. Starting at 8. Support comes from the L.A. County Department of Public Health committed to helping. Healthier and. Are more than $15000.00 on the market. These flavors can. Have up to 6 times the concentration of toxic. Over 80 percent of L.A. County High School. Products. Back again with left right and center I'm Keli Goff columnist at The Daily Beast on the right is Rich Lowry editor of National Review on the left is Elizabeth a columnist at The Washington Post Liz I want to start by commending you on such a well reported piece and I encourage everyone listening to read it you did some deep reporting in the state of Texas where we're both from where you met with evangelical pastors you talk to evangelical parishioners and the end result is this fabulous new piece in The Post titled in God's Country evangelicals view Trump as their protector will they stand by him in 2020 will they I actually discussed your piece with my mom who occasionally teaches Sunday school back in Texas we are practicing Christians who visit evangelical churches but don't identify as evangelicals ourselves which I learned from your article is not unusual because African-Americans make up a very small percentage of evangelicals and yet there was something in your piece that resonated with both of us you wrote about the fact the. A lot of Christians have felt bullied socially in the years leading up to the election of Donald Trump and you cited a Pew survey that found that half of Americans including a 3rd who lean Democratic do believe Christians face some form of discrimination now especially in New York and L.A. I have absolutely had people make remarks to me about religious Christians particularly our perceived you know ignorance that would probably be considered un-P.C. To make about other groups can you talk about how this specifically helped fuel Donald Trump's election yeah I think that you know the dominant culture that you get out of sort of mainstream pop film T.V. Music literature the people who are doing culture production definitely don't perceive committed Christians as on the vanguard of social change which is you know the thing that is is good so I think that that can be taken very personally I understand that I'm a practicing Catholic myself I think that people are very very sensitive to when other people especially people in positions of power look down on them and I think that Trump was very able to. Harness that resentment and those feelings of inferiority and even though he's not a Christian himself in any detectable way he was able to take the resentment that Christians felt especially by evangelicals and make it an issue that they could vote their way out of and not by becoming the dominant group in society you know I spoke to Robert Jeffress who's one of Trump's biggest evangelical supporters he's the pastor of 1st Baptist Church in Dallas and he said they don't want to retake the country for God that's no longer the game plan for evangelicals they're not even looking towards a great awakening or renewal in America what they're looking for is a space where they can do what they want to do and an accommodation carved out for them and I think that Trump was able to take the resentment that a lot of evangelicals felt based on how evangelicals are depicted in pop culture and transform that into an energy that they could pour into his campaign and he promised them accommodations he promised them that they're in a muse wouldn't have the last laugh that they would get what they wanted and that they would have some power to manifest their own. Lives and so I think I think that's what happened to me one of the most fascinating sections in your piece is when an evangelical minister who did not vote for Trump in 2016 but did a write in for Evan McMullan who people might remember won the support of a lot of disillusioned members of the Mormon faith he said he plans to support trump this time around and I want to read exactly what you wrote the things he strongly disagrees with Trump on immigration and threats to infringe upon the religious liberty of Muslims via travel bans have been in his view mostly unsuccessful thus he reasoned many of the excesses he worried about in 2016 now seem unlikely to unfold so with Trump deliver. More than evangelical skeptics had expected and causing less damage than they had feared barber now feels more open the casting his vote for the incumbent in 2020 which leads me to a question for you Rich you were a vocal Trump critic in the last presidential election devoting an entire issue of your publication to how problematic his candidacy was do you feel like this evangelical minister though that Trump has not been as bad as he thought naturally better than you hoped. Well it's been 2 things the substantive upside has been considerable I mean he's been faithful to his coalition and delivered on the issues most important to it whereas I thought he would kind of tone it down at least a little bit in terms of his tweets and his personal conduct and he hasn't tried at all so I do have similar feelings a lot of people quoted in Liz's story and I think kind of the most important factor there among evangelicals was just partisanship they. You know a lot of them are the last come around to try they supported you know cruiser or Rubio and as they fell off their face with a choice between Trump and Hillary and they just didn't consider that a very close choice for a lot of issues and abortion was really a prominent issue and Trump just has been a rock on that issue and they kind of I would prefer Jefferson others go on T.V. And they play up Trump like he's this Figure out of the Bible you know Cyrus or David who had their flaws but wonderful men of God and it just seems to me the more realistic cases is look there are moral downsides to having Trump president United States and it requires significant compromises to support him but we still consider him better than the alternative. But you know a lot even gel because there's a really bonded to him because they feel as though he's done some things no other Republican president would do even though they promised them they feels he has the right enemies and critics they feel as though even when we've had more upstanding Christian men as President George W. Bush they recalled races they were accused of having designs to establish a theocracy in America so why even try to play nice with the other side or with the with the with the press if you're going to get excoriated anyway but I. Surprised at how much they seemed to actually think that those men were too nice to get the job done that that's actually what surprised me more yeah so there's that element is as well that drop has done some things. Embassy to Jerusalem pulling out of the Iran deal pulling out the Paris Accords that no other president would would do and it's a function of what what a wild character he is and that only only such a wild character could withstand the assault that has come from the the other side not everyone feels that way but there is certainly a strong element of this phenomena I want to pose a philosophical question to both of you because it's one I've struggled with as a voter and I know I'm not alone and I feel like it gets to the core of what your piece is really about Liz which is for example I'm a huge Jimmy Carter fan because he's a good human being who has dedicated his life to teaching Sunday school building houses and public service plenty of people say he wasn't the greatest president I wasn't around that but what is actually smarter for a voter and what is best for the country voting for leaders who are decent human beings but either you may not agree with policy wise or are you are you better off voting for someone you may know to be a jerk but either you agree with them policy wise or they're just a brilliant policy wonk and say you know they'll get things done. Well president's role doesn't really come down very much to policy wonk they get to threat agendas and they have a huge role in foreign policy but they can't ram through legislation without Congress so that's I guess a technical point and maybe it's a way of alighting what is a really difficult question which is can you morally allow yourself to vote for someone you know to be a morally problematic individual I mean nobody's perfect but there are much there are gradations of iniquity among politicians I think that knowingly giving more power to someone you're well aware will abuse it is a moral hazard and at the same time that might be the person who would also on the other hand wield power in the more respectable way politically so I think it's very complicated and I think it has to come down to a case by case judgment and it's hard to set you know a firm principle that you have to follow every time because the situations just change I mean you saw a test case in the ninety's when Bill Clinton you know conduct an affair with and in turn lied about it perjured himself about it and Democratic Party you know there are some voices that were very upset by this there are some op ed columnists who condemned him for the end of a the entire party stood behind him just because of this kind of negative partisanship we were talking about anyway that he used the salt allegations too as well right which you know were were taken very seriously at the time but they had a new king which more they hated and they oppose new Congresses agenda and even though you know in theory you would have had Al Gore president and he believed all the same things that both Clinton did just that there was that rally around the flag effect and we're seeing the same thing every day with Trump not the most edifying thing maybe Ideally that's not the way it should work but this way it does work. Still with me on the left Liz Brunet of The Washington Post and Rich Lowry of National Review and now it's time for tweets of the week sometimes it only takes $140.00 characters or maybe 280 to distill the spirit of the week Rich what's your tweet so my tweet is from someone who goes by A.G. Conservative on Twitter and used tweeting about a new poll showing the new British prime minister Boris Johnson a little bit underwater in the polls at a minus 6 percent rating but the leader of the opposition Gerry Corben at minus $59.00 and a g tweets the thing about the opposition being led by a pro terrorist anti-Semite as it gives the governing party a lot of leeway Wow Liz What's your tweet of the week our president Donald Trump in his ongoing war against my employer the Washington Post tweeted the Amazon Washington Post and C.N.N. Just did a fake interview on pardons for AIDS on the wall and that I didn't think the wall in the southern border was that important to stop illegals wanting to come into our country wrong vitally important will make big impact Phil bad a tip from the Amazon Washington Post try to copy editor. My tweet of the week comes courtesy of Fox 5 D.C. And a company's And now viral photo of 2 adorable little boys who happen to be of different races holding hands the tweet reads Sometimes all we need is a friend Connor aged 8 has autism and was finding it hard to adjust on the 1st day of school he was crying by himself until 8 year old Christian went to console him and hand in hand the pair walked into school I was one of many who felt there must be some onions nearby because my eyes started doing a funny thing I've been talking with Liz brunettes of The Washington Post and Rich Lowry of National Review will be back with a conversation about politicians turning to Hollywood for something other than donation You're listening to left right and center. Join the conversation on our Facebook page. Left right and center and other great shows. 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Back again with left right and center I'm your host Kelly got in for Josh barrow on the right as Rich Lowry editor of National Review on the left is Elizabeth brunette columnist at The Washington Post we know that great screenwriters are great storytellers we also know that Democratic politicians have traditionally turned to Hollywood to write checks for their campaigns but last election cycle 30 Democratic congressional candidates in swing districts turned to 3 prominent screenwriters for help with messaging to help them tell stories that connect with voters in the heartland 21 of those candidates actually won including some in G.O.P. Strongholds dubbed the Hollywood 3 by Vanity Fair magazine these screenwriters turned advisors are Billy Ray known for writing the film The Hunger Games Marshall Herskovitz known for writing one of my favorite shows the ninety's teen drama My So-Called Life and Gregg Hurwitz bestselling author of the orphan X. Series and a writer for a host of television series including Queen of the South Greg stopped by to tell us how they were able to use the fundamentals of psychology and great storytelling to help Democratic candidates rise above the noise of Twitter to Wendover voters some had dismissed as unwinnable there's of the field of personality psychology called Big 5 personality theory a lot of a lot of us are familiar with the Myers Briggs task that sort of like the Cliff Notes version of that introversion extraversion neuroticism and one of the things that liberals are higher in is trait openness and trait empathy and so openness tends to correlate a lot with creative types that's why you see it pocketing around Hollywood we have you know a lot of artists tend liberal least I always joke that the good ones like we have Bruce Springsteen they have Scott Bale right that's a sort of unfair distribution if you know. He plays at the Republican conventions but we tend to make a mistake and we tend to mistake higher empathy for being something that's a morally superior trait conservatives tend hired a trait called. Conscientiousness and that it that breaks down into orderliness and industriousness OK it's not that they lack empathy it's that they have something higher in their value structure they translate that to say maybe like personal responsibility that's why that comes up a lot of money conservatives right yeah that's one of the frames or working hard and being accountable Yes but so one of the things is with higher conscientiousness one of things that I say to Democrats a lot is before we go and educate conservatives or Libertarians or swing voters into higher empathy we should be aware that higher conscientiousness codes for better health better finances more stable marriages and longer lifespans So it's pretty tricky to go over and tell people that their whole world view is lacking There's also the fact that these are fix psychological trades so it's like going up to Cory Booker and saying Corey dude why can't you just be an introvert this is this is a basic setting and so the approach that was very important for me when we were looking at the ways that we had failed to connect was we didn't make our argument well and so one of the approaches that I wanted the candidates to take and we worked on this was to make high conscientious arguments for classically liberal values and we all know this intuitively we have family members and friends who we talk to differently who take information in different ways if we're stuck on an empathy gear and we're just grinding it till the motor breaks it's not going to work and so we can hold the same values but figure out ways that can talk and frame our arguments more convincingly to libertarians and centrist Republicans and all sorts of people if we're willing to get out of our own perspective and be willing to accept the utility of other people's perspectives so and just to clarify that the proof is in the putting in terms of your strategy working because. As you all advised about 30 candidates and 21 of them won including a number in swing districts and some of them were even in solid trunk country like Kendra Horne who was a congressional district in Oklahoma that Donald Trump won convincingly so can you talk us through how you all ended up deciding which candidate you were willing to advise as they know that you turned down plenty of people well I wish that there was a clear strategy from the outset I mean looking back on it what was evident was all 30 were in red districts we only worked in flip districts and now it's all I got was a big plan that we set out but all the messaging that we felt like where we felt like we had the most to offer was for people where where they were running that D. Next to their name was a liability that people had turned off their arguments about abortion and gun control and immigration that people were were no longer listening or willing to hear us and what we wanted to do is be able to frame arguments in ways that came in through a different angle that could open that could open them up to winning in places where this is very outside the bubble these are very different frames of mind I've joked before that being raised a Democrat in Texas made me a Republican when I moved to the east village of New York and I'm actually registered independent and I feel that most candidates in the major parties are kind of speaking to the extremist members of their based which excludes people like me and a lot of people right now and so one of the things that I that I know that you really tried to specialize in Greg was helping candidates make a compelling message that specifically reaches someone who disagrees with them and so my 1st question is why are so many people in politics so bad at preaching to anyone who is not already and their choir and can you give me an issue specifically where you help candidates reach someone who is not in their party to help them when so the example that I'll use is when we talk about health care we tend to come into a room and say universal health care is a raw. So immediately you've split the entire room by drawing a line that anybody who doesn't agree with you now will not agree with you you know whatsoever and we tend to lean really have only on an empathy argument don't you care about this poor kid is going to die if he doesn't have a surgery and if you don't how dare you what sort of vile human being are you but if you're a higher conscientiousness that argument doesn't hold water because people go for course I care about that kid but I care about I can't pay for everybody's kid every single surgery and it doesn't make sense and then I won't be able to pay for my own kid right and that's not that's not the society that we're in that's not how this works structurally and so one of things that we have to do I think as liberals is to make sure that people understand the kind of changes that we want to make are the kind of policies that we want to have but that America can still look and feel like America but that there are ways we need to care for communities and so with health care for instance one of the discussions that we had is to say look we already have a baseline of medical care in this country now when people come into emergency rooms. And they're uninsured the hospitals raise the prices on everybody else which the insurance companies hike the premiums for us and we wind up paying for it anyways the average cost of an emergency room visit in the US is $1233.00 the average cost of a vaccination is $1000.00 so it's dollars and cents people who are paying for this anyways if we can sidestep whether it's socialism or how it is if we're just trying to deal with the problem that we have to pay for the most effectively and strategically what do you think makes sense are there certain free market solutions to getting people preventive care or can we start to have that conversation Additionally Canada has a higher rate of entrepreneurism than the United States of America and one of the reasons for that is that people have health care that they can take with them when they go to different places and they're willing to innovate and they're willing to risk and guess what when they do that they can take big swings and create more jobs which creates more workers which creates more taxpayers and so there's a huge return on investment to figuring out to make sure that we have a threshold like a sort of safety network beneath people so that they can take those swings as they're building their future in a capitalist society in order to make more headway and to create more jobs and more wealth so you just made an argument for how universal health care is actually better for business as opposed to freebie give giveaways of socialism but let me ask you this Greg you know one of the reasons I was interested in speaking with you and I'm interested in the work that you all have been doing is I'm wondering if our country is less divided between liberals and conservatives Democrats and Republicans and divided by people who are open to having conversations with people who disagree with them and people who are not I have friends of every race and political persuasion under the sun and his never bothered me to sit at a dinner and have a conversation with someone I disagree with now obviously if I find someone to be agree just silly you know racist or sexist and they believe that by places home barefoot pregnant in the kitchen there's not a lot for us to talk about at that point but if we're just. Talking about policy differences it's never bothered me and yet I know so many people who take the position if someone feels this way about health care or about immigration policy or they voted for Trump I have nothing to say to them what do you think separates people who are willing to have the conversations from people who do who are not. Boy that's a good question. I 1st of all I think there's way more people like you and me in this country than we think and I think there's something there's sort of a chill while law fact that comes out of social media right that you just feel like that like that is these big loud barks but you're not sure exactly how many people are there I mean that number of people who are actually on Twitter is a significant minority of Americans and and and then there's a crazy statistic that a very small percentage of them are responsible for 80 percent of the tweeting and so I think there's way more people like you and me and I think America's actually starving to have more civil discourse you member I mean I keep thinking about at the when George W. Bush shared you know Candy with Michelle Obama remember that as like it or oh yes that that the N.R.L. Yeah everybody is dying to just be able to have conversations without this constant drumbeat that everyone or you know raging socialists are going to turn us into riotous Venezuela you know or that they're evil racists who are you know who everyone's a Nazi who we disagree with there's a lot of people who are in the middle and a lot of people can point to specific policies and there are some specific policies that are grievous I think and that are morally reprehensible and that we need to go after and we need to fight for but we have to fight by making arguments and winning votes we have to win the House that was one of the reasons why we focused on the house we thought the best ball work that we could get in there to an administration with whose views we did not agree was to flip one of the houses and that was our focus but guess what you know a lot of the bills that they're pushing forth. Are just dying on McConnell's desk right now in the Senate and so people aren't aware that if people just follow the news they think that all this new house this new Democratic House has been doing is trying to impeach Donald Trump and they've passed you know dozens and dozens of bills in legislation about prescription drug prices about clean government about violent history checks all these policies that are all the things why they were elected to go there and so. We've got to get those stories out I think that one of things that's very important is that there are people like you having conversations like this because the more we can shatter that spell of pluralistic ignorance and the more that we can let people know that there are smart people out there like you who are willing to have in Lightman discourse who are willing to be proven wrong who are willing to look at your own confirmation bias who are willing to gather more information who are willing to join hands with people friends colleagues politicians who they may not agree with on every single thing but you can find some common ground and get some things done imagine what a boring miserable world we would have if we were all only friends with people who agree with us on every single point what's particularly interesting to me is there would be no President Donald Trump were it not for The Apprentice and so his Hollywood ties run deep and yet I think he's done a really good job of reinforcing the stereotype that you have the coastal elites of you know media in New York and then Hollywood in you know in California and then you have real Americans somewhere in the middle and I think that the stereotype that he's helped kind of perpetrate is that people like you certainly don't exist in Hollywood. Do you think that he's done a good job of sort of reinforcing and sort of driving a wedge between this idea that people like you can connect with Americans who are not on the coast Yeah I mean I think he's a brilliant intuitive strategist and for some reason that I don't understand the Democrats are not willing to shatter the frame and shatter the game that he keeps asking them to play and they keep plodding onward as he sets the rules of the game and so when he was talking about you know for the for Congress women in the squad to go back to where they came from which is obviously you know a vital statement with with pretty hideous or overtones rather than everybody scrambling into the mix to in support in shoring it. I mean it's a very clearly is a calculated move to get the whole party back aligned and defined by the most left members by saying something vile about them imagine if somebody just come out and said Look we all know this game Donald Trump tweet something vile We all then scramble the Democrats to prove how an racist we are right and we do to flee tweet and say all these other things and then his base points to us and says see Democrats only don't really care about real Americans and polarization gets worse so this game that he plays that isn't a game that deals with adult governance is no longer something we're going to give oxygen to and instead what we really want to talk about is job creation but Greg this goes back to I think what you said earlier right which is he's not the only one playing a game because there had lot of certain liberal members of Congress who fund raise a lot of money that week because of what he said absolutely what do we want to do do you want to raise money and signal the things that can raise the most money or do you want to call out what the situation is now I have a contention that if somebody was actually willing to rear up and and call out the rules of the game that that would be more effective from a fund raising perspective but people are too scared to do it I mean are we going to continue to to react to this this to dig to the game in the way that he plays it and my contention is that somebody who's willing to stand up and just shattered the rules of the game in a way that of Vince is true leadership people will pivot and look at it and people will that's where you're going to raise money and that's where we're going to break the cycle and it tells somebody can they're going to go with somebody who has the trappings of leadership which I think Trump does. Leverage that time once again far famed left right and center rants featuring pet peeves from across the political spectrum Rich Lowry it's yourself box former F.B.I. Director James Comey declared vindication after the release of an I. Report over his leaks of memos after he was fired by President Trump it's true that Comey didn't commit a crime but he did flagrantly violate F.B.I. Rules something he'd be a little more abashed about if you weren't an incredibly sanctimonious figure who really believed and believes the rules shouldn't apply to him Liz brunette what's here at this time of year you always run into people who say don't act like it's ball just yet it's still summer it's summer until mid September I know it's technically summer until mid September but in my heart it's already fall the day August ends don't be said it's over summer was long fall is going to be great for my rant there was a lot of hand-wringing this week over a new N.B.C. Wall Street Journal poll that tracks the values Americans hold most dear over the last 2 decades for core values have emerged hard work commitment to religion patriotism and having children hard work remains the only traditionally American value that hasn't slipped among millennia while the goal of having children has slipped the most this should surprise anyone studies have shown American birth rates are at an all time low so it's church attendance but get this 2 thirds of actually believe in heaven studies have also shown that millennial is volunteer for charitable groups more than other groups and more millennial fathers are requesting paternity leave. Studies have also found that student loan debt is one reason a lot of money I don't plan on having children not having kids you can't take care of actually shows prioritize being responsible citizens over becoming parents at any cost and while the word patriotic has been sullied in part by white supremacist groups co-opting the word patriot I know advocating protest on issues they care about to try to make our country better that to me is the very definition of patriotic So I'm not worried about millennial values and you shouldn't either that's all we have time for today thanks to Rich Lowry Liz brunette and Gregg Hurwitz left right and center is produced by Sarah Bay Our technical director is J.C. Swastik Collin cab Washington is our production assistant tad in Simon composed our theme music and I'm Kelly got Thanks for joining us tonight next week for more left right center. Down the road and subscribe at K.C.I. Dot com slash L.R.C. The K.C. R.W. Apple or wherever you find podcasts left right and center is produced and distributed by Casey are you. You're listening to member supported K C R W Santa Monica Los Angeles K D R W Santa Barbara K C R I N deal Palm Springs K C R U ox not mentor and K C R Y Mojave where community service of Santa Monica College a National Public Radio for southern California state to music for a Friday night. Fever