Transcripts For KQEH Charlie Rose 20170426

Have to be that kind of a call because, when i complete my term as governor, i will have Held Public Office for 30 years. Rose we conclude this evening with author Frances Fitzgerald. Her new book is called the evangelicals the struggle to shape america. At first, meeting fundamentalists, thats meeting sort of the outside range of evangelicals, that these were the most foreign people i had met in america, and that really interested me. Rose dan balz, john kasich and Frances Fitzgerald, when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we continue tonight with our coverage leading up to President Trumps 100th day in office which comes this saturday, april 29. The president continued backpedaling on his ambitions ahead of the milestone which he now calls an artificial barrier, this part of the campaign where he promised to achieve a range of accomplishments by this time including building a wall with mexico, obamacare and tax reform. He promised to cut corporate taxes to 15 from over 39 . Joining us dan balz, chief correspondent at the washington post. Dan, thank you for doing this. Thank you, charlie. Rose everybodys asking the same question and writing about the same idea but to hear it from you is important. How do we assess these 100 days leading into the beginning to the time we are now in this presidency . Well, i think we address it with some caution, because it is only 100 days. We address it with some concern because of the kinds of problems the trump team and the the president have run into. I think its a little premature as it always is at h this stage to draw conclusions about what this ultimately means for his presidency, but theyve done a lot of things wrong. Theyve got some things that they can point to that they will point to as successes, but, overall, you know, this has been a very rough and rocky first 100 days for them. Rose successes include the confirmation of the Supreme Court justice. Some say the syrian airstrike was a success. What else . Well, i would also say that, from their point of view, some of the things that they have done on the immigration front. Put aside the fact that the border wall is not in process at this point, but the actions that theyve taken are consistent with what he talked about in the campaign and, you know, by some measures, they are cutting down on illegal immigration. Theyve created alarm within the hispanic community, certainly. So im not suggesting that they are not without some negative consequence, but theyd say this is what we came in to do, this is what we said we would do. I think they have signaled on the issue of trade that they are going to be much tougher than past administrations have been, you know, unraveling the north American Free trade agreement or, you know, simply stepping away from tpp, you know, doesnt necessarily fundamentally change things, but i think that what theyve done on the order on looking into whats happening on steel, the canadians, lumber. On that one i think they would say were keeping our promise. Rose i think so, too. The chinese, just having yesterday talked to some prominent chinese, that this relationship, theyre listening to each other, and thats a positive thing. I think thats right. They have obviously stepped away from the Campaign Promise to label the chinese currency manipulator. If you talk to people, oh, he didnt fulfill that promise. The answer that comes back is, well, the chinese are working with us on north korea, why would we not want that to happen . And if, you know, the currency manipulation issue were to get in the way of that, thats not worth the cost of it. They obviously see the north korea issue as a much bigger and more serious problem, and i think they think they are developing a working relationship with the chinese that could perhaps bear fruit. Rose i think it was a republican who said this, because of whats happened in the whatever number of days, 90 counting, a republican said they no longer say that donald trump views Vladimir Putin the same way he did as a great leader and believes that theres a lot of room for russia and the United States early on to Work Together against terrorism and other issues. Thats exactly right. Now, the question is was it circumstances that created this new view of russia in his mind . Perhaps thats the case, but the talk in early january about a president who had cozied up to Vladimir Putin, you dont hear that much anymore, and those around him, whether secretary tillerson or secretary mattis or others, have been very, very tough and very ex plies it in their language about russia and putin. So i think that there is a different situation there. Obviously, he was hoping that there could be a different relationship with the russians because of his desire to do something to eradicate i. S. I. S. , but, you know, lots of other things have intervened to get in the way of that so hes in a different place on that. Rose he views this, even though he talks down the 100 day standard, he really is working hard to have a big week so he can claim credit for a lot of things. Well, i think thats right. You know, hes a person who prizes success, and he wants the best ratings every time, so he obviously wants to have the best report card ever of 100 days. Peter baker of the New York Times wrote a good piece today which said h he thinks the idea of these report cards at 100 days is ridiculous but nevertheless he wants an aplus for his 100 days. Theres a lot of truth in that. They have loaded up this week with all kinds of events to indicate the progress that they are making, but i think the one big void they are quite aware of and everybody else is theyve done things on executive orders and Foreign Policy but they dont have the big legislative achievement, even getting some big piece of legislation through one chamber, i. E. The healthcare bill, and that stands as a void. They know they will be downgraded for that and theyre trying to force people to look at other things theyve done, weve done this and that, dont only look at the legislation. But theyd dealer love to have the healthcare bill go through this week but they know thats not going to happen. Rose why are they so insistent on that in terms of something that gave hem a lot of problems because nonot only buzz it no democratic support, it was Division Within the Republican Party. Well, thats the problem they run into on a number of these things but particularly the health care front. You cant lay the entirety of the failure of the house to Pass Health Care on the white house. They may have contributed to it or may not have been able to resolve it, but thats a longstanding Division Within the Republican Party that they frankly inherited. They have not found a strategy to overcome it. I think theyre hoping it will in a sense organically resolve itself, that the members of the house will find a way to work themselves through it and that the white house can ratify that. But, you know, every time they seem like they may be getting close, theres some hitch that, you know, gets in the way. So i dont know how to predict when they are actually get to that vote. I mean, everybody is still confident that, at some point, they will get it through the house and move it on to the senate, but who knows when. Rose there is also a question of how many things are a part of what we have seen are continuing issues that have nothing to do with a specific legislative goal but have to do with overall performance of a presidency. What can we say about those kinds of factors . You could look at staff and staff shakeup and solidification of speaking with one voice, of eliminating and minimizing distractions, all those kinds of things, do we esee that happening . Do we see a president who is learning, who is listening . Charlie, as ive talked to people this week about that, i get mixed reviews on it. Some people would say, okay, he has learned that the presidency is far different from a campaign and certainly different than running a big business and that there is some evidence of it. I think there are some people who would say that the white house today is a little bit more settled than it was six weeks ago, but there are other people who say, if i see donald trump as president , its the same donald trump i saw in the campaign and, in some ways, that surprises me most, that normally you think a president who comes in with a lack of experience will begin to operate differently because of the constraints built into the presidency and the traditions and conventions that go along with that and, in many ways, people will say, look, hes very much the same person that he was, and that could be concerning. But i think the other thing we know about donald trump is the conventional ways that we have judged past president s or past president ial candidates dont necessarily apply to donald trump. But i think thats why, you know, its a little bit difficult to render any real conclusion. I mean, theres no question that this has been a white house that has had more palace intrigue and more seemingly infighting in the early days. Is that a function of the fact that no one was really empowered at the outset to bring order to it . Has that changed . Has the relationship between steve bannon and jarre jared kur changed in a way that will bring a more harmonious white house . I think those are still open questions, but there have been changes in the balance in the structure there, but that comes after some very difficult weeks and months. Rose the idea of predictability and being unpredictable as either an asset or a risk, how do you assess that . Well, we know what the president believes. Rose yes, we do. We know he believes unpredictability is valuable, particularly in Foreign Policy. I think that the leaders of other nations say they dont necessarily agree with that. I mean, in many ways, they want to know that there is predictability, particularly about a president who said a lot of things during the campaign that were alarming to others in the world, and who is still, you know, relative novice in terms of making Foreign Policy decisions. The other area of unpredictability, i think, that continues to cause some problems is he can be unpredictable to the people working most closely with him as he was last week when he announced they were going to unveil their tax plan on wednesday, and this obviously caught people by surprise. They do not have a fully formed tax plan. From everything we know, they are going to have some key elements of it, but this is not a plan that is ready to go to the congress in terms of legislative language. Rose dan balz, great to have you. Charlie, thank you. Rose dan balz from washington. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Rose john kasich is here, he is the governor of ohio. He is a former president ial candidate. He also served nine terms in the house of representatives and chaired the House Budget Committee six year years and sp8 years on tarmd services committee. He reflects on the 2016 president ial campaign in a new book called two paths america divided or united. It comes out of a speech he made. I am pleased to have him back on this program. Thank you, charlie. Rose you made a speech, and i assume that whats here is a fundamental sense of where the country is and where the country ought to go. Thats exactly all right, thats exactly what it is. And, you know, i didnt know that i was going to this is the fourth book. I didnt know i was going to do this, but, charlie, i am so worried about where our country is going for two reasons one, i love my country, two my daughters are twins, 17 years old, and its become coarser and coarser and more divided and we cant have this if were going to be a great country again. Rose coarser meaning what . Well, just think about United Airlines and how they yanked that guy off that plane. It was like they were treating him like he was some sort of widget or something. There was no sense of his being a human being with hurts and loves and cares and struggles. We see that in a lot of ways. I tell you you will find this amusing i took up swimming after the olympics because i wanted to look like those guys. Rose like Michael Phelps . Any of them. Rose he has a wing span of nine feet. I understand. I dropped my phone in the pool. I went to verizon and they made me wait and wait and gave me another phone. Rose when was this . Ecently. Rose the governor had to wait is this. You go to verizon, you will have to wait, too. laughter i said how much do i owe you . They said you had to wait too long, were going to give this to you. I said thats nice. The manager said, thats noting. A week ago, a lady brought her smartphone in, we fixed it and it was our fault. When we gave it people. Rose coarseness is the dumbing down about everything we do, the lowest common denominator. Its part of that, too. It is. I dont want to say were in some sort of apocalypse but the drift is not where i would like it to be. I pay a lot of attention to young people, too, you know, and i watch what they do, and some of them get it and some of them dont, and i talk to people who have authority where they are and i say, listen and if a young person is particularly polite and respectful you know, i walked into a gym the other day. You know, i think thats where i was. A young guy, must have been 18, 19 hey, hows it going, man . I was leaving and i said have a nice day. He was leaving and i said, can i give you some advice . You dont say hows it going, man to someone that is this much older than you. You say, have a nice day, sir. Because you will stand out and you will get so much attention i will help you with your career. Rose weve lost sense of unity and purpose. Families are fighting over politics. They gave up bowling and now theyve taken up politics. They feel strong about what they believe. Im all for that. What im not for is the unability to look at somebody elses point of view and im not for a certain anger embedded in that. I have been a populist republican which, in some ways, is unusual all of my career. I grew up in a democrat, bluecollar, workingclass environment, and populism is sort of the name of the game, but i am a positive populist. Rose positive populism, how is it defined . You want to think about the middle class, the working folks, you want them to get a square deal, including those who live in the shadows. They need an opportunity to rise and realize their potential. So when i see the republicans continuing to worry about cutting taxes for the very rich, i think, wait a minute, what, are we worried thaifer not doing well enough . What about the the middle class and folks at the bottom . When i cut the income tax in ohio, in the legislature, we created an earned income tax credit the first time we did that in ohio because you want everyone to have a sense they can get ahead. Back in the days when i was in was if we can reform welfare for the poor, we ought to reform welfare in the pentagon and for the rich. I fought the issue of corporate welfare. But im a positive view of things, and i think they are populous, and we saw some things out of our president negative populist, which is somebody who says, yeah, you have problems and somebody else created them for you and you have been kind of taken advantage of. Rose and thirdly, ill take care of it. Oh, yeah, ill take care of it all. Rose ill be your voice and take care of it all. Which we know you cant do. But we live in an environment of a Bumper Sticker or let me take this pill and im going to feel better, and life doesnt work with quick fixons any serious problem. Rose if you feel so strongly about these kinds of things, i mean, you have said you dont think you will ever seek Public Office again . I think sometimes when i say that, maybe ive overstated it in one sense. If i feel called to duty, charlie, to do something, im likely to do it, but it would have to be that kind of a call, because when i completely term as governor, i will have Held Public Office for 30 years, and i enjoyed the years i was out when i was in the media, you know, writing books, making speeches. Rose you worked for fox news. Almost ten years. So i always thought, when i was at the media, that you dont have to be in public life to shape the culture or shape our country, so you would never say never. Maybe i have been a little bit too definitely, but i dont have plans for that. Thats not why i wrote the book, why i travel or speak out. Rose well talk about whats in the book, but also this what has shaped your own views about government, about the relationship between government and people, about significant Public Policy issues . Is it the way you grew up . Is it the education you have . Is it the experience in politics . But i would assume a lot of those basic values were shaped before you got into politics and you got into them pretty young. Well, my mother, she was something. She was very, very intelligent, very articulate, and very opinionated. I used to say, she was a pioneer in talk show radio or in radio talk, and people say why was that . I said, well, somebody on the radio would Say Something, and she would yell at the radio. So she always said, johnny, tell it like it is. My faster was a postman who kind of had a twinkle in his eye and knew everything that was going on. Im a combination but more melded than i used to be because i was so much more outspoken. Charlie, ive changed. Ive gotten older. Ive examined my life after my parents were tragically killed. Rose how were they killed . By a drunk driver. I was 35 years old and searched for who i was and what im about and my relationship to the creator and is there a creator and all those kinds of things, and then becoming governor. I have 11. 5 million people, and when people in my state hurt, i hurt. I cant really explain it to you, except i am i tell you, i was riding with one of the guys that looks after me, one of the guys in the Highway Patrol, and we came up to a corner and there was a guy sitting in the grass in the dirt, and he seemed to be combing his hair i was telling this story last night combing his hair. The more i looked at him, he had a cigarette lighter and he was burning thats how he was giving himself a haircut. I looked at the trooper and i said look at that guy over there, he said, yeah. I said, hes your brother. I said my brother, too. Its a good thing to feel for this. Rose it was said during the campaign in 2016, you know, that you had the most sort of open, reflective attitude towards the voters, reaching out to them, listening to them, wanting to have a dialogue with them. Donald trump, on the other hand, primarily had huge rallies, obviously that was very successful for him. Yeah, he won. Rose he won, exactly. But i can say that, as a governor, you feel my wife said to me and i have been saying this for a number of interviews, when i was in a rocky start as a governor because i was acting like a congressman in the Governors Office rktsd and my wife said, john, youre the governor of ohio. Youre the father of ohio. Why dont you act like it. Weve taken on incredible issues. People talk about Medicaid Expansion which we did, controversial but i can help 700,000 people in my state. We did another thing thats incredible. I have a lady by the name of nina turner, africanamerican liberal former state senator who heads a task force along with our Highway Patrol on the issue of community and police. We put the first policy in on the use of deadly force. We are now going to have reporting on all stops police have inside of our state. We have policies now on recruiting and hiring. We brought the police, we brought the community together, thats really something, and there is no other state doing that. Rose okay, you come from a state and youre the governor of a state and you have good poll numbers, all of that. Why didnt you do better . Yo its the craziest thing. First of all, here i was, congressman, Budget Committee chairman, pretty high profile in washington, almost ten years at fox, and then governor of ohio, i we want to New Hampshire, do you know what my name i. D. Was . It was like 2 . No one knew who i was. I figured out, being in the midwest, nobody comes there. Oh, they might come do a story, but if youre shutting the government down in washington, the reporters fall out of bed and cover you. If youre in the media market, they cover you. Rose but more governors have been elected president than senators. I know, but its changed, charlie. I was unknown. I go to New Hampshire and do 106 town Hall Meetings and finished second, i beat everybody but trump. And the ability to be there and connect resulted in success. Wherever i did, i did well. I won manhattan. Rose suppose you started earlier. I couldnt raise the money. Rose but the town hall thing made a big difference for you. No yes, everywhere i went. It was a grassroots growth thing in New Hampshire. When you look to the northeast, as i got better known, i finished second everywhere. The trump juggernaut was rolling. I thought if i could hang in, he would not get the delegates, go to the convention, have it be contested and they p pick someoe else. I was wrong. He rolled, couldnt be stopped, and i wasnt going to be in there to disrupt and lose my message. Rose and you didnt go to the convention. I didnt. Rose which happened to be held in what city . Cleveland. You imagine what that was like . It was fine. Rose did he call you and say would you please come, john . No, he called me and asked me would i endorse him. I said, look, donald, we are two companies and people want us to merge, but the problem is we have different values, different visions, different structure and a different way of doing things. When thats the case, as you and i know in business, mergers dont happen. Rose mergers involving companies with different cultures dont work. Thats right. I made a speech in new york about the way i think we should conduct ourselves and id like you to read it. He believes politicians are malleable, when they Say Something, doesnt matter. There are a heck of a lot of republicans who thought i didnt endorse him because i was bitter and angry. Some think politics is transactional, say whatever you want today and tomorrow is another day. I think thats baloney. Rose spend your life in politics and stand up and say im not a politician. I dont know at the i really said im not a politician. Thats the job i have. But i dont determine what im going to do by checking in with the Republican National committee. I do my job by looking at things, just like my mother would have wanted me to, look at something, be honest about it, get good advice and make a decision. Thats why being an executive in this job, its challenging but its not hard because i dont search around saying, okay, if i do this, hows the wind going to blow . I look at it and let the chips fall where they may. Rose how much trading between ohio . There is some but we have a lot of trade with germany and Great Britain. But were interested in a relationship with china. Rose do you think donald trump is on the right track with respect to china . Which track is he on . Rose one having the negotiation and basically saying we have to change first he got out of t. P. P. I was totally opposed to that. I thought the asian trade agreement rose you liked it or didnt. I did like it, and the reason is not only because of commerce and the potential to expand it but also because of the strategic side. So now we worry about, you know, asia. Well, we kind of walked away from those countries, and i was very clear about that fact, went to the oval office with president obama in the lame duck to try to get it pass snood he was in favor of it. Yes, he was. I agree with donald trump and i said it in the campaign, if a country cheats us on trade and we let them get away with it, were crazy. Rose thats what donald trump says, its not a level Playing Field and were not going to tolerate it anymore. If it isnt, we have to have to the country that takeslow peoples jobs. Because even if we win, weve lost the jobs. Signing an expedited process to look at trade in a fair way is good, but free trade, open trade is critical. We live in a global world. We cant go hide. We cant be threatening people. Rose so globalization was the enemy of brexit, as you know. Yeah, i dont agree wit. I just have to tell you rose china went to lets talk about brexit. Heres the problem with brexit. These were institutions that got sclerosis. These things became very bureaucratic and werent responsive. If an organization is not going to be responsive, then it locks up and can melt down. I think the vote in Great Britain and frankly i would tell you a lot of people thought brexit wasnt going to pass, they didnt go to the polls, but the reason it happened was frustration with the bureaucracy. Rose who didnt go to the polls were young people who supported remain, not go. Thats right. Rose they didnt go to follows. They didnt. Rose the older people with pensions who were worried about what was going to happen to them, they went to the poll. Yes, but you see, a fear of trade and competition means consumers pay more and products werent very good. I remember when Japanese Cars came into this company, people were saying japanese were going to take over america. American cars got better . Competition is good. Unfair competition is silly. Rose we have been living with it, have we not . We have been, and thats why from the populist, bluecollar side growing up in the keys rocks, i have been concerned about free trade. Rose what donald trump did and you can correct me because you were there in the battle, what he did was convince those people who were factory workers and the middle class of america, convinced them he was going to save their jobs. Hows it going . Rose he pointed out to people that were villains and said these people are responsible and im going to stop them and had a scapegoat in every way. I didnt say that, charlie. Low i. D. And secondly being governor handicapped me because i wasnt going to make promises. Rose you were the governor in ohio. I beat donald trump in ohio soundly, and we were competitive in michigan but, thats behind us. I didnt win, thats the end of it, it was a unique time. But by making responsible and not making wild promises i couldnt keep, i became a boring candidate. Now what we see like they said, for example, on the iran deal, im going to rip it up on day one. They said, what would you do . I said, i will have to see. That didnt get anybody interested. I was too boring. Ive never been boring in my life, but its fine. And now i think i have credibility. Rose well see whether donald trump rips it up or not. He didnt. He said the first day. He didnt rip it up. Rose thats my point. But hes only been in office less than 100. But they said the first day. Rose but he has not said i was wrong about not liking the iran deal. No, if the iranians violate not only the letter but some of the spirit of it, we cant look the other way, all right, we just cant do that, i mean, so, its not as though i say, oh, we can trust iran or anything else, but, anyway, charlie, what im saying is you cannot let me tell you what i fear thats coming. Rose all right. Weve got people worried about globalization. Do you know the number one occupation in America Today is driving. Rose right. Drivers. Rose right. You know whats going to happen when we have Autonomous Vehicles . You know whats going to happen when Data Analytics replaces Stock Brokers . Artificial intelligence will have a big impact. Rose you put at the in your speech. My state speech. Rose the most recent state speech. Exactly. Rose you talked about artificial intelligence. Yes. Charlie, heres the thing, our academic institutions are not preparing our people for the coming changes. The c. E. O. Of seamans has invited me to their Board Meeting in washington to talk about these issues to their board, because hes concerned about it, im concerned about it, and we have to prepare our people for the digital revolution, or were going to have more division, more anger, and it wont be pretty. Thats one of the warnings i have out there. Rose youre talking about what we have to do to be prepared for the future in which we live in a very competitive world, and china across the pacific, you know, has not only an Economic Growth rate thats bigger than ours, has a Larger Population and has enormous potential. Yes. Rose there are people who will question whether they will be able to deliver on all that potential. Thats correct. Thats correct. This book that looks at the most powerful countries in the second half to have the 21st century does not call china being one of the super powers, its interesting. But we have the intellect and the freedom which comes about the ability to bring about great advancements. The problem is, charlie, and this is back to this book, when were self absorbed and not thinking about others as ourselves, then we maintain institutions that may not be delivering the goods for our people. Rose therefore, you are very much in favor of not reducing in the budget, youre very much in favor of the kinds of commitment weve had in the past to the National Institutes of health. Oh, well, thats a given. Rose and education and science. You believe that you have to support. Well, i will tell you that the National Laboratories are not very helpful to people that do want to create. They are bureaucratic, hard to get into and i dont think theyve changed. Rose what do you mean by National Laboratories. The National Labs that conducted, you know, operations, run the Nuclear Plants and all that. Its hard for them, not running the Nuclear Plants, but involve in managing our Nuclear Stockpile and things. And theyre not very theyre not very useful. Let me tell you about universities. If you think about universities, you have stanford, you have m. I. T. , you have harvard, maybe the golden triangle. Its so hard to get University Research and commercialize it. We have all this potential but were not taking advantage of it. Rose they certainly do at stanford. They do because theyre a different institution, have businesses involved, provide incentives for professors. This should be happening across the country. Michael novak, the great catholic theologian we just lost, he said the Free Enterprise system not underlaid with a set of values is bankrupt. I buy that. I think hes right. Rose government shutdown. Will not happen. Rose the president wont hold it till they get appropriation force the wall. They will get something but it will be a smarting. Rose from a budget standpoint, doesnt matter. Healthcare legislation. Weve got to make sure democrats and republicans do it so we reform the system that needs reformed but we dont leave people behind and have people with Mental Illness and drug addiction rose or preexisting illness. We have to take care of all of that. Robert taft, great conservative center from ohio years ago, hes the great mr. Conservative. He said if people cant afford healthcare, weve got to give it to them. Rose thats medicaid, isnt it . Well, he said whatever. Rose would you therefore find yourself at some point being in favor of a singlepayer system for everybody. I dont think thats the way to go. I think its transparency. I think its paying for performance. Theres a whole variety of thing with Market Forces that can make this system work better. Let me Say Something about this book. What i think is its critical to find our common humanity, to work where we live, to work to defeat this drug epidemic together. Rose are there more deaths from opiates in your state than anywhere else . True or not true. Doesnt matter, but were high. Were high. The fact of the matter is this is education. I met with a Drug Enforcement agency. Everybody has to be involved in getting the next generation to stay away from these drugs, and were also clamping down and doctors can prescribe very few limits. But its humanity, feeding the poor in our communities. Its the kinds of things where weve seen movements that resonated from the bottom up and united us and broken down the walls. Rose your central message is about humety, breaking down walls and finding Common Ground than any specific policies. There is policies that can get us there. Public policies can help us do it. For example, we have a mentoring program where we want people to be in schools. We have a program called Start Talking to warn people against drugs. If people do this, well have people talking even if they dont agree with the president or do agree with the president and we can begin to inform reform things from the bottom up rather than top down. Martin luther king didnt change civil rights starting with the politicians. We got the people to drive the change. Rose two paths, one exploits anger, turns fear into hatred and divides people. This solves nothing, it cheepsens each of us. It has but one beneficiary and that is to the politician who speaks of it. The other path is the well trod, steep, but solid, the same path our forbearers took together, it is from this hiring path we are offered a greater view. The book is called two paths america divided or united. The author is governor john kasich, thank you for coming. Its a real honor and pleasure to be with charlie rose. Ay with us. In a moment. Rose 81 of evangelicals cast tear vote for donald trump in 2016. Pulitzer prize winner Frances Fitzgerald traces the history of the American Evangelical Movement in her new book called the evangelicals the struggle to shape america. Her study spans awakenings in the 20th century to the 2016 Republican National convention. Pleased to have an old friend back at the table. Thank you, charlie. Rose you got the Pulitzer Prize and i remember that book and how much we talked about that way back when. Yes. Rose after all the books work and journalism, why this subject . What sparked your interest . Well, you know, it was an accident. Rose yeah. I happened to be in lynchberg and some professor pointed me toward Jerry Falwells church. Im a new yorker and episcopalian background and i never, to my knowledge, ever met a fundamentalist before, so i thought i better go. Rose yes. I was fascinated, and, at that very moment, Jerry Falwell was mounting the moral majority to go into electoral politics. Rose right. Then later he formed liberty college. He was already starting a college that became liberty university, i in the end. So i wrote quite a long piece for the new yorker at the time about not just falwell but about his community and what it was like to be a fundamentalist and why people became one. So i then dropped the subject for some period of time and tack it up againo and took it up again occasionally. I wrote quite a bit about it for the new yorker during the last phase of the w. Bush administration. Rose yes. So i began to think that i better wrap this up, and i thought to myself, you know, its really impossible to understand the christian right or, indeed, the progressive evangelicals that have appeared in recent years without understanding the history of the evangelical movement. So thats what im trying to do. Rose this is about white evangelicals not black evangelicals. White evangelicals, absolutely. Black evangelicals have a completely different story. They start from a different place, and their rituals and liturgies are not the same at all. It would be another book to write about black evangelicals. Rose what surprised you the most . Well, i tell you, at first, meeting fundamentalist, because thats sort of tot side range of evangelicals, that these were the most foreign people id met in america, and that really interested me. It wasnt just their dress. It was how they took care of their children, what they expected for their children in higher education, what they felt about their pastors, how they felt about their lives being born again in christ in this very emotional moment that came upon them, and i sometimes felt that they were speaking to god, as if god was sitting on their shoulder. Rose well, they probably think that is true. Yeah. Rose lets do terms here. Evangelicals, whats the definition . Well, its a religious definition. Rose yeah. First of all, its a very high view of the bible. Secondly, salvation through christ alone. Thirdly, this bornagain experience, which really its a divide in your life between your old life and your new one. Rose born again is when you accept jesus christ as your savior . Thats right. Then finally, the duty t to evangelize, to spread the good word t the others. Rose people like Jerry Falwell, what about billy graham, was he an evangelical . Yes, and more than that, he really invented the modern terminology of evangelical because, in the 19th century, virtually all protestants were evangelicals. Rose then donald trump. You end this with the 2016 convention. I expect at the beginning of the 2016 convention, no one would have said the person most likely to get the evangelical movement was donald trump, but he did in the primaries and the election, 80 of it in the election. I think the people that were most puzzled before the evangelical leaders. The christian right had gone to a meeting, some 50 of them, and they had endorsed ted cruz. Rose right. The progressive evangelicals never endorse anybody, thats not their thing, but i think they were hopeful that more people would vote for a democrat this time. Then what i saw, which i thought made some sense, was a poll done by lifeway, which is an evangelical research center, and the poll was done before the election and it asked what issues people were going to vote on, and when they asked the pastors, the pastors would talk about religious issues religious freedom, whether the judges would be religiously minded and on their side, abortion and so on whereas, when they asked th the laity, te laity said the issues were going to vote on are economics and national security. So it was a complete break between the two. Rose yes. Between the laity and the preachers . The laity and the preachers. I think that the evangelical community is splintering now in a way that it hasnt in a long time. Rose into . Into various parts. Rose the division between economical issues or natural issues versus cultural issues. Yes, i think thats one of them. The other is sort of a generational change between the christian right as we used to know it under Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and a much more socially engauged group of young people who for whom social justice issues are just as important as what they call below the belt issues. Rose so when did the evangelical movement get political . When did policy become politics become a component of their you know, i think its always been political. Rose yeah. I mean, for example, political in the large sense. Just after the second great awakening, evangelicals were responsible for some of the or in fact almost all of the reform movements in this country ranging from the criminal Justice System to care for the indigent and the poor to the Public School system which they essentially created. Then, during the civil war, there was a big divide between evangelicals in the north and in the south over slavery, and, after that, there was the liberal and conservative divide in the north. After that, the critical moment in protestantism where fundamentalists and the modernists essentially broke apart. Rose right. And the evangelicals are sort of an outgrowth of this fundamentalist movement, and billy graham was the one who created the new evangelical movement out of this. Rose because he was such a popular figure, politicians were atracted to have his support. Yes. And i think that was true before, too. Even the separatist fundamentalists were also attracted to powerful political figures and they often had some support from lawmakers either on the state level or even on the national level. Rose their political influence today . We said trump got 80 of the vote. Can they be a divisive component of electoral success in a National Political race for president . Well, not exactly because lets say 20 of the population is what they are. Rose but 80 of them. But if 80 of them vote, thats a major thing. I think that, you know, the religious right have been trying to keep them in line all this time. Rose yeah. But with what i call the splintering, generational splintering and, also, ethnic splintering because more and more latino moved into evangelical churches just as they have in catholic churches. Rose i know catholic churches worry about that, that theyre more attracted in latin america and places around the world to especially latinos to the evangelicals and other movements like that than they are to the catholic church. Well, thats true. But here they make up a third of the catholic church, and i think rather less of the evangelical churches, at the moment. But that may change because they may become protestant. But im not sure it will because the latino, while being socially conservative, also tend to vote democratic because of economics and because of immigration. Rose well, except that we looked at the way the immigration vote went in 2016 that surprised some people, it was not at as against trump as people thought it might be. No, thats true. But if you talk about latino evangelicals, specifically, you will find, i think, a more and more determined vote to reform the immigration system. Rose where do you think theyll be in 2020 . Thats a very good question. I think there will be many fewer white evangelical churches, and many fewer white mainline protestant churches that the groups that do not accept the immigrants asians, latinos, so forth theyre going to find themselves very small, whereas the other ones are going to grow. Rose when do they become linked to the Republican Party . Oh, in 1980, really. Rose really . Yeah. Rose reagans run. Yeah, and that was Jerry Falwell and reagan who made this sort of pact and it was solidified by those two and it never changed after that. Of course, the south went republican at that time. So that was a lot of people and a lot of evangelicals. Rose so lets just review before we close here, i mean, they are very much antiabortion. Yes. Rose what are the fundamental issues that mean the most to them in the cultural arena and in the sort of social issue arena . Well, the thing is there is no them anymore. Anymore. I think abortion is perhaps the only thing which units evangelicals at the moment, certainly not gay rights because the Younger Generation has grown up with gay friends and acquaintances, and theyre not bothered by that, and they tend to be much more tolerant about other peoples religions. So its very difficult to describe evangelicals as a whole at the moment. Rose who are the evangelical leader today . Well, i think thats a good question because im not sure there are any of certainly none of the stature of falwell, Pat Robertson rose but falwells son endorsed President Trump . He did. He did. Rose Billy Grahams son, franklin graham. Thats right. Rose endorsed donald trump . Endorsed donald trump. Rose donald trump didnt necessarily have the kind of lifestyle that they would necessarily subscribe to in the pull p pit. Thats right. Rose but they wanted they supported him because some say they believed they need add strong leader and they saw him as a strong leader. I think thats right, and i think they also thought that, as a republican, that he would give them more of what they wanted that was on their agenda than a democrat would. Rose im thinking about the primaries when there were other republicans. Well, thats perfectly true, and i think that trumps economics, i think, persuaded a lot of people because most of these are working class people. Rose you talked about jobs and jobs and jobs. Thats right. Rose and china and so it wasnt just the very rich that would benefit, he said then, but the working poor. Rose yes, and he said ill be your voice. Yeah. Rose the book is called the evangelicals the struggle to shape america, Frances Fitzgerald. Its a great pleasure to see you. Thank you, charlie. Rose thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Youre watching pbs. A kqed television production. Kacyra it kind of was, like, the bang that set off the night. Rogers that is the funkiest restaurant. Thomas the honeywalnut prawns will make your insides smile. 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