i have to say there's no one better to speaker with dave guest tonight david frankel. in-depth. he spent 15 yearsmmd in brent cummings his world to create an in acutely observed and beautifully written portrait of his life, community thoughts and feelings as as americamore and more divided, his book is an american

book. and people geraldine writes in aatlanta suburb to neighbors both decent yet themselves on opposite sides of the line infracturing david finkel accoun poetic, profound and irit's white album for a new decade of dissolution. david finkel is an editor and writer at the washington post he won aitzer. also, he's a macarthur fellow author, the author of two really really gr about tonight as well. thank you for your service and soldiers now. now, dave lawre needs. no introduction at all. but since this is on think i'll let some of the others out there get to know davedave david lawrence junior is among the country's best known journalists. he retired at the early age of 56, but he really retire. we all know that he basically has become an

incredibly an children, especially focusing on the crucial early learning years as he was at the miami herald the detroit free press and. now he chairs the children's of florida. he's got 13 honorarys. he's chaired the local. he arrangements, the 1994 summit of the and he co-founded a vocational technical in haiti. he and his wife, rta, are live here in coral gables. we're so happy to have robby let's give her a big round of applause as well well. so for those of you out there in c-span land, you need to find this book. it's a remarkable book. it's called thee journalism. journalism justice and a chance and dave, this is his memoir and it forget. so please welcome both dave lawrence and.

thank you for having. that promotion. and one thin forgot to mention anything, though this is my so we're glad to be here. thank you fo'm going begin with a quotation. some of you read new york times who i think column. and to sort of set read from a book he just wrote, which is called know a person quote there is no way on hard. you can never fully a person whose life experience is very different from your own. i will never. he writes what it is like to be black to be a woman, to be gen z, to be born with a to be a working class man, to be a new immigrant or a any of a myriad of depths, each person, he writes. there are vast differences between differente need to stand

with aware. nevertheless, i have found that if you work on yousee and hear others, you really person's. and i found that it is quite turn into trust and to build mut respect. i start. with enthusiasm to tell you. book. i read it in an early but i set my finalree months ago. it's called an american dreamer life a divided country. and geraldine books brooks. and you may have read r rk. she wrote horse andther good books wrote in a lovely atlanta o neighbors, both decent but damaged themselves on opposite sides of the fault america. so i didn't know that david books, too. in fact, and i read both of them there. they're up here.

one is called the good soldiers, and it's about this pulitzer winning newspaper man in07 for the of the surge that thordered. and you'll remember, we in deep tr iraq. things were getting worse and worse. ple hurt or dead. does that mean? he was embedded for a year and had the full run. could quote a and made david particularly good for stunt ing amount of empathy. we talk guy with deep empathy and then he writes, he comes back from the sorts thingssimply people with rifles and grenades. this is not alr in world war two. it's a war ideas and you're traveling along and all a sudden un an ied is exploded and your face mayliterally. and you may end up as a you.

these are 90 year old boys, men much you many of them. they're not long out of high they believe deeply the then writes a few years later a service which is what you don't what else to say. the next book, that book is about the consequences of the first book back in the war. the consequences are medical, and that was the ng men who went into the war with all sorts of enthused chasm, with many, of them returning with grievous wounds medical. and it gives a much deeper sense of what war is all about. so david and i. i like this guy. interesting. actively and since the first time we back, we have a lot of things in a wife and children and

he lives in silver spring, maryland, where bobby and i and our first two children lived. journalism from the university of florida. he spent formative years, as t times. i worked at the washington postst does. neither of us can figure how retirement would we both saw oppenheimer. we both like the netflix show the bear. we love to read good books and we loved the best of journalism and we both worry about the status and thetate of journalism. today. we anything, worry about our worried in my whol'll le, a be 82 shortly. he reports and wri well he is better at both than i will be, but i do no good and reporting. and is as good an example of that as i wouldn't be a great idea in these america

that we one year all of us as many of grown up 335 million americans could muster. maybe we oug read one book together and follow that with real conversations. we'd be a better people for that. and be exactly that book. there are two central characters inone is a man named michael quadruple. tragic. didn't happen in war. he fell out of a tree 60 feet down. he washe tree parrot back is alive and in some ways painfully unlucky in many he's a confined. but in greater sense of the word confined this is not he is a fierce believer in donald and. he would tell you, quote everything thatom right and he isutprotect american values.

he's his third marriage and a good one with his wife and but his estrange daughter and has been for many years from an marriage. and then you would meet a named brent cummings and you would see hist book where is the second in command of alion of about 800 soldiers? iraq. 2007, he is a career officer. he saw the cast of tution as his guiding force and came to believe that donald trump'salleged u.s. forces were elsewhere. he soldiers, all those 19 year olds and 20 olds, he a great number of them, lives snuffed out before. they could have lived like we hear can have. and now, as the starts he's

suburb suburb. the war is still in bedded in his and while he was not physically wounded. his dreams are full of he has a wife, laura, and they clearly love each other and he has daughters. is a student in doing quite well. her name is she has a younger she has a younger sister. her name is meredith with down's both of these men are in their fifties. south. they both loveguns. and both of themsouls. they live exactlydavid finkel writes, the houses were a few feet apart, and yet the span of those few feet was an felt wide as the country.

but they did talk. did each other. it wasn'tthey each tried to listen. neither could convert the other. and in their not. andy all these stories and in this fine are lessons for all of is, going to start with an from the boodavidhi. and thank you for coming andk quite i will read an excerpt be quick set up to elaborate just on what they was talking about. i in when the army he was with was wasand i lived next to brant actually for, for the year i was with these guys. what saw in brant weo was wrestling with the

strategy of war but war. he was he was a good sol.he was a good human being. and if yous later and theountry in 2016 seemed to be movingd moment of a moral reckoning. and i wanted to write about it, find a way to write about it. i decided to write aboutnt's life because he said me on survived one war only to find in united states. and thatso built this book around him and it's it's like see you'll see as we't may have been a soldier but but he's he's us. which is another reason i lit see versions of ourselves in the wayrant has been trying to navigate a very tough period in american conflicts everywhere in the most banal prosaic places at costco at the grocery store. and one day in the driveway

where michael was outside and br porch just trying to figure out how to get carpenter be out of his porch. and he was taking it out when he heard michael call. hey, colonel. hey,ill on his stomach. i'm trying to get this carpeto be. and then he stood up because hadn't talked to michael much at all he leaned against the porch railing. he had h black to replace tucker. this one named finn. his dog scout, pass me aked about dogs for a bit. and at some point, michael said, i'm glad our governor is getting things. this is during pandemic, by the way. yeah i'm just frustrated at the national level, brant said. what do you mean? michael asked. for the first time in all of their conversations o decided to say something about donald trump before his retirarmy. he never would have done such a thing. he had been taught over and over solers weren't supposed to voice public opinions about thei chief not unless there was something going on that was illegal, unethical

or immoral that the standard. it blind, but necessary respectfulness orders after all. but since retiring, he had slowly bd about things getting used to the idea of freer expression. and now referring to what trump been saying about the growing pandemic. he said to, he really lost big when he said, i take no responsibility michael? asked again. maybe next hour things took off from there, leavingdiffering. ance, would remember going inside to do a puzzle and thinking, shut stop lk michael would remember saying to let's understand each other about something. i hate everything. replied, i hear you. i want this to be cleai'm a hard core conservative and far right. bible and the us constitution as they written. i understand it. and brentwood. i remember saying, micha was very in the president, but not's not a good leader. a leader. full responsibilitthhe lies.

he lies to us every day. when ever that? michael asked. so brant started listing the lives. well all politicians lie, but all don't lie all the that's what he does. he lies all time, brant said, and listed more examples. i hadn't heard that, michael said. seen that. i haven't seen any of that. brant began mentioning sources and michael pushed back, saying those sources were the lia trump, that the mainstream media lied the time and deliberately. and the proof was that they never, never only the right. yeah. yeah. i understand that point was that leaders should be held to the violating that standard every day. t the man, brant said. i don't trust with your life. with mythis street. and then added h least that's the way he would remember the c that were getting heated and that if they were to cross a line that would be difficult tried.o bring things to a cooler level. i'm just frustrated, he said. to rally around our flag. i do.

to support ourere. colonel, i respect you, michael said. well, i really enjoyed brant said. got to get back to the bs. he liked michael. having this is a neighbor. but this now felt different until that conversation, brant hadn't realized how devoted michael was to trump, and he help but wonder whether that devotion would be returned. what would trump of michael? what if michaele to the oval office and he went in not walking, but wheeling his chair, would trump take imperfect hand and shake it? like he mocked other people he fell fall. trees. losers fall for to imagine what trump would think of him. white guy. veteran. i would fit the am dream for him. so what interesting about that interaction in terms of our conversation was this the first time they crossed over into they might have been having privately, but never betweenthey went there and then they pulled back. and that is really an

interesting thing to me that they didn' going. they pulled back and and i thought about that so much since because i think, i think there's a lesson in there, but i'm still trying to figure out what the lesson might, because on one hand, i thin there to ignore thet's that's that's right there to be discussed. it it might be a form of willful ignorance that is that how you get by in these times by willful ignorance. but there's another retation they have so many things going on in lives. there are so many other things to berned with that they talk about, that they share that they like each other for.this aside all the name of getting along with each t quite know what the lesson is, butnt in reporting this book and it's five years of reporting but then i return to offer. but don't wait to some degree do that in miami and silver maryland that. pardon this but it's sort of nobody to be converted on the subject. conversation and i knol sorts of people who think

de÷" i on this subject. i'm with the colonel myself. and the thatwise i've got very good qualities and i've got other things to talk about to done in our community, in our country. and maybe you send somebody article, but i don't have a lot of converut people feel that strongly about that person. so why don't the conversations they're not conversations necessasi attempting to persuade the other that i'm right.now here's my case. there. i was reading something a few weeks ago. it was it was a it was a research last year. pretty good study. think about 6000 respondents. and one of the findings was that something like percent of republic earns find them crats immoral and something like percent ofame thing of republicans immoral.

i disagree with them unlikable immoral. and i was that this point of all the marriages going on 4% of marriages are between a democrat an country. it's not interesting. i'm a non party affiliate asian person so but if the i know what we're going to solvebut except getting maybe people thinking but it's it's it's fraught it's such and the divisions, as we know, are are so in you know with michael. we spent a lot of time together. we would go long walks, rolls together and and it wouldearly morning and and be out rolling, trying to fit, trying to stay in shape, trying to stay alive. five mile rolls as the came up and and he'd just be praying and he'd be god his wife for and and you rented a home across. they live right next door to and as you rent a home on the

other side a way to ge so like hanging out with mich's it was interesting the book came out and he read it. he he said to me, david, i don't know your politics. you don't lead on about yourself. assumption. and i didn't correct him or it wasn't my you going to make fun of me? and heappreciate that and that was that's an endorsement of the kind of journalism think you and i believe in. spent a lot of time with print and and mean this guy almost die so us but he has a s i think because he put it on the figure out what is the right way to be an ame is this country. there's aat line in the book there's a line in the book save with something 14 months in iraq, 28 years in the army, all defending the country. and now het it in time to watch it unravel. and th what he was dealing with over this four year period. i watched. it's the same thing we're all

dealing with. and in his example well i find myself edging into conversation sometimes people where there is a basic core and and i use the example of what how be more mature in my me reading all e and focused on the last one that thes real humanity in their souls. there are a lot of gabout each of them. you tell a story and. on books, maybe the first book when battalion and there's acesspool. right. tell folks that story because fully to humanity. well this is this is when i began wanting to spend a lot of time around brent cummingswas 27. and the first time i really spent time with them, there was a mission to move maybe 100 a company of men out were on into an even place closer population of of a i shouldn't say --, but it was i

don'b't s. okay a place called leo and they had to move a couple guys there and they found this abandoned spaghetti factory and they thought it'd be a pretty good place to move these and there was one problem when when up day with another officer, they were going through courtyard there was a there was kind of a manhole cover, a lid, and inside was a bunch ofag water, a bunch of crew water and ewand in the pool water wit was a dead iraqi. and before the move, it became brent's problem. how do we get out here? because we can't put a company of soldiers in a place where a body floating this water about this absurd is it can seemcomedy here's this floating body kind of drifting in and out of sight and saying we need to this ser because was somebody's son and he might

and he might have been somebody's father. and it was my body innt people to respect me. we have to figure because we're not human. otherwise, we're not human. i thought, man, this thi an interesting dude. and and and and that's how he through war and and him so newspapers for four plus decades. you were in the golden era journalism newspapers. even if you and i didn't realize it's true. and that is true. and now newspapers to a large degree have been shredded, although the washington post en people in the newsroom. yes. and so can still do great things. the the post the resource sense, but you'd be hard put to find others with those kind of resources. advent social

mediaou can bet your bottom dollarl owens are getting a good deal of information fromare in the journalism media world now, trust for journalism. what do you see? good. what worries y i'm i'm terrible this question because i'm just going to talk rrowly abopsut the kind of journalism that i learned from the miami herald from same few times from the washington post a kind of journalism that the postieves this kind of immersive journalism where you know what they say, it's the kind of journalism in this book as well. and there's there's a scene i want to read that i think will we'll get to the point give sometimes i take a to the point it's a it's it's a kind of story most journalism the story hasned and you go do interviews and you compile that story youat happened. but this of journalism that the post supports and again that i at the herald i learned at the

story hasn't happened yet but there's an interesting interesting person moving into kind of go and hang out andlops and that that was the underpinnings of a american dreamer, very much because because when brentwood was talking about i feel like i'm moving it to another war. here we are in 2016. the book tracks from 2016 throughelection and inauguration. what happens ind again, this is a long to question a kind of i helpsrs read because because if i do a good job in these book to is just for a minuteu'ng to you're going to feel like you're not reading book. you're going to be transported into occurring in a very important hidden plac excavate added. and you're reading it andf5 being transported and that do you mind if i read. more excerpts. oh please do forgive me but but i really the question and i want

to make i do a good job answering it because this will giveou i think a sense of what this this this great was feeling as to 2017 and then 18 and 19 and of 2020 was getting closer and closer might iaywere about to enter once again and i think there's relevance in that. the scene is this. and again, it just comes from 'the journalists of of being they're not even asking questions, jt happens and how it might berelatable. you as a reader, everything wasfraying. that's what it felt like to brant. a of a trump rally in wisconsin. said. four more years! four more years! the crowd chanted. and then after that, we'll go for another four. and as the crowd cheered brant thought, why are they cheering? have these people read the cons he watched clips of windows being smashed and fires being set in dowatlanta

after another police shooting of black matterdemonstrators surrounding some people eating outside a restaurant i tried to intimidate them into raising fists in solidarity. he went with laura to costco where worker approached a woman with a dangling mask and told her that because of covid, she needed to pull the mask up over her mouth and nose. i don't your demeanor, the woman said. sorry, it's just a policy. the workers. well, this is ri woman raising her voice. how am i supposed to drink, buy e yanked up her mask raised the bottle of water she was holdingd clothing and yelled, is this what you want? we cannot have four more years laura said on a day when trump was sending barrage of tweets 41 in all america first slow joe. make america great again. i really want someone to tell him that for every all caps tweet he sends out he willousand heartbeats. laura said it was nighttime. no brant went out on to his front porch all during his time in iraq, he'd held on to a vision of what be waiting for him after t

war. and the porch was always part of the deal, along wi dog, a beer and a rainstorm. yes, it was sentimental, but to a man who had been scared and often lonesome and wore it, it seemed a version of life worth worked that way. he called of his old soldiers. hey, man how are you? it's brantacer soldier said a little thunderstorm going on here, brant said, insoldier was hearing explosions. it was a big thuch anyway. the soldier wanted to know what they talked about the meaning of what they had don boom prince said, all that goes, you know, what am i going to do today? you know? so it's just it's just a weird weious feeling. or at least it was for me. hey, sir. thanks. said. and at the end of the conversation, be safe, ma'am brantand 10 minutes later he was still on the porch listening to thee a car lighting up the road turning in the driveway next another of nursing. the broken. opened, the garage door closed everything

was dark aga more thunder. it was turning into one of those nights. he didn't want go to sleep because he knew the dream would be waiting. and the reason it would be waitingause he was thinking now about what all of them had beenlmost died. the fuel truck, the laundry the day he almost died in thehis window, the day he almost died in the rocket contractor the day he almost died in another attack when the chaplain was, in the midst of giving him aaircutdied when a roadside bomb exploded just after hisomb had been buried, the day he almost died day 14 months in iraq, 28 ye all in the name of defending democracy. and now he wasn'tding it. he was in it just in time to feel it on arrival. so so, so and so. i mean the passage anyway but i think and again, for the conversation we're having, wha in

a kind of witnessing and writing like can bring you all a place where you haven't been and it it helps guide you into conversations that we're all having. i don't quite know how that as corny as the sounds with the more wen be in a conversation. you have your sense of optimism republic? can you see lessons in history the continuum in history that would help us understand? it seems to me thatone of the great new factors is social talk about faketell there is a lot of fake news and if you don't learn history in high school, if you don't know that hitler to power legally which. because the business community in berlin and other places says we can control these guys and

he's better than the and ultimately 60 million people are dead in world war two arethere of previous history that help who died a country of 32 million from 1861 to 65. but we didn't have the weapons then that we have now. we didn't have the commio we have now. what's sense of optimism personally? well when one of i think if i'm a goodrnuse i, i keep my opinions out o just among us. it's just us and c-span and, you know. oh and besides the other thing that makes me a pretty good journalist is, is people have told me this and and i don't take it as an insult often you're a pretty forgettable guy and so so rather answer the question from what i've arprinceton's because brant does

widely. deeply he thinks he he knows history. he reads he thinks he watches different he watches he'll watch fox or watch cnn. watch msnbc. hill. hill he starts every day reading the bbc and listening to the bbc. so he's getting lots of stuff in. and i think an opinion. if i say i think makes him a a rather remarkable person that says, you know what's funny about print, it's so easy to make assumptions about this guy. right, because because he is you know, is you're talking about he's a he's a. shipley family. right. so his family traces back to the confederacy drives up pretty good truck. he's got his dog, he has his guns. he loves to he loves toun hunt. somebody was telling me that in south carolina primary that trump got 67% of the veteran

about is he by everything you assume him but when you get to know he and it's the same for michael they exist in a really interesting place beyond and beyond assumptions. they've they both dot was that was maybe that's a me that if you ask brant he's optimistic you he's and this is some hard earned optimism man i mean all those things i was reading about all times he almost died there were more this was a bad deployment and along with everybody in that battalion he he he put it on the line doesn't ask anything for this what he wanted to do it's it's he volunteer for this he put it on the line and and i said the term let's fast forward again to 2020 so now it's election and and brent's not in the army anymore

but he's still somebody who i think like most of us certainly like you when i lo at your life and certainly like me when i think of my life, we're lucky enough that we're not just scrambling for survival, that we actually get to think and and search for meaningin. and brant is a version of that. and so he's not in the a(rmy anymore. he's made the adjustment into retirement, the army, but he's still a guy looking for meaning what does he matter? what he matter in this election day and he goes to vote and he loves to vote. he always does because because if you think about it, this cornball and i'm sorry, but this is like the purest thing we can do in a democracy. we can vote. and he and he felt really good when he came out of the booth that day and, you know, he's living in georgia, bu't matter. you could be anywhere in the country. and then you watch what happened over the next few weeks and months even the vote became,

something that was being attacked a vote a became something to doubt that's we are heading into this election. so all this sounds like a litany of reasons this guy should be depressed as, hell and pessimistic. but not. and i really do think it came from upbringing. his his his being raised to believe that if you lead a good life got a chance at and a better that fiercely and d he's not giving up and you can see in every one of the interactions he does. was writing a book about you you would behave the same. he goes in not judging people, but with curiosity and and lots of questions and open to learning something new. that's optimism. e here i've heard this i'm as domestic and was ten years old. and sometimes it' naive. yeah, but you get more done if you think they can be done.

and henry ford, the first who was not a good human being, if you look at its history, once said if you think you can do a thing or think you cannot do a thing, you can so more good things. brant, thesoul makes this a better place. example? sure. so there was in the second book, one of the characters in that book was a a four star general named pecorella, a vice chair of the army vice chief of staff of the army. i'm and one of the things he had to do in that job was convene a monthlyeeting at the pentagon to discuss all the suicide ieds happened the previous month and would go over him 5 minutes at a time.ssons learned, lessons learned and. and they would sometimes lead to larger discussions about disability and about as one guy said, one day, you know, you know sir there are a lot of people fakin things. there are a lot of people faking things in order to get t we be concerned with that? and chiarelli god, i love this uw guy for that.

he said, yeah, i get it. i get it. that's happening. we only have so many resources. so instead of spending time worrying about the few people who are trying to take advantage of us, why don't we spend our time thinking about the peopleo really need us? what a great answer. oh totally. and i write in there. and i think think brant has that for from reading your book you're full of that man. ' it's i've been accused of being for poor well you're about optimism and i maybe i maybe i'm i be laughing more and why did you go this it's it's there. it's david why did you go into journas the same reason as here. right? but were originally i'm kind of a right. originally i went into it becauserestry major. i was a forestry major because there was a major. and then things didn't out with the girl. and then i was a forestry major at that. and then friend said, why don't you just come down and see the newspaper at the university of florida?

the alligator and i went in there and there were all these kind people, and i thought, these are my people. i feel at and why do we go in it? you know, it's somewhatf:at first, i'm sure i had this idea that if going to save souls and change minds and, all that. and and then over time i realized that, no, that's that's really a foolish way to think of it, becausehat was insistent as if i'm going to change things. journalism is that if i can tell anyone here a story that that that kind of pierces your thinking a little bit then that's that's all i want from it. that's that's that's value. well, what are the lessons for us inm michael and brant. oh can i flip thisnd they are. know you can. what do i think that was the lesson i got. they said whenever you're asking the question you want to answer, th guy. that was my lesson. i remember to 2016, the night

bobby and i wnight and trump is one and it justi think it would be possible. polling up to that time was basically hill't this and that night occurs anbd i can remember saying, bobby, what don't i kn about our own? that this could happen? and then i read subsequently i read j.d. vance's book now a you united states senator from ohio. i read an even better some ways called demon copperhead. barbara kingsolver i've it and i think i've been a lot of i don't think i knew anywhere near enough america. i and i didn't know there was thispeople and. i didn't know there were this many out and let i we got to listen a lot

better and do this really consciously and we can start in miami. a good place here is a community where we at the cutting of american pluralism 2.8 million people in this county, people like you and me are 15% of the population and only 12% of the 35,000 year. and if i were coming fdetroit would say, and the cuban american population is only half of the 65% of the people in thisnty are hispanic. and then when i come from the detroit black and african-american, we're interchange a lot might look at racism, other subjects. this is in this in myne of us is but the best you can do is be a good example of what could be done. and that's the enormous opportunity of a place.

miami is to show people how we we can talk. i'vei0n my friend matt anderson mosaic, who worksme on these kinds of issues but lots of people be. this world is a pretty good example, whether it's or me or any of us. and that's the that's the unity in miami is to listen and learn well maybe 's got me thinking maybe the lesson out of out of the brant and michael in the back weren't being afraid of the they they were they were other's i that that and, you knowe i do think about it where they chickening out where they were theym the conversation they needed to have. were they findingerpurpose in the relationship they havei think what you're saying helps me understand that. so i think we have time for i have no idea what the drill

here. me mitchelleverybody i. have a quick question for you. a question so let's look see the story of brant. it about either his ba personality or his view of aife, him not be one of the 68% of theveterans who voted for trump in south carolina? why do you t be with who he became? hat question he would he would draw a line. was an influence rop, interestingly, in michael's case, his father, if you read the book,huge, huge factor in how m turned. and i mean, the most generous aspects of michael in brent's case this is a father who.

will do a couple of things. i'll try to make a quick there there examples that showed up for instance when the father was just basically saying and in this mom too but inmostly as father saying lookn you got to you got to chance of good thingshappening to you. it's not a guarantee, but it's a chacknowledge we're in a privileged position. there are people rough shape and we're going to pay attention to everybody. but he h h ae.nc if you behave in a certain way and. brant took that to heart again again there was a day when meredith, their younger daughter, was born and it became clear that that she had down and brant was terribly upset and he said to his father, what am i going to do? said, you're going to love her. and brant did, he has. and he does. and i think it's fair to say he brought that. heing to his

interactions with people he's in conflict and hope that's an answer. and also acknowledgment that he's not to try to have a good life. my question is about michael trying understand him where he's coming from so that i can understand better. is it justhe j.d. vance personify? right. this book is j.d. vance personified. okay, there's an opinion. i'm sorry. that's unkind. it's a it's a great, complicated story. and in the book there, michael's a recurring character. but ther specifically to him and it' to. it's i'm asking to read the book. i want to give a short answer to a complicated figure like michael. but there are reasons michael and his wife and i come have

come to think the way they think can and if you if you do read the michael but you're trying to understand himnyone in the. i line will bring you to an understanding of how he views the world and and and what his his are and there are legitimate. i want to challenge your idea david about ofstepping up of journalists in of for who are important to us but what is going to motivate. patriotism what kind of mot level. the russian patriot w people who said during selma march like sort of a career. i read about and i wat nothing and

it's only gotten worse. and so i'm wondering if there is any idea to motivate young people, people in their prime to make america great again? well, i'm going to i'm going to push this focus when i do my work is pretty narrow on the character in front of me. but i reade's on on yesterday and on the flight today. it's a magni moving and yourwider than mine and you've come again and again with e lift people up into the a mandela. so ibo in home have for ten years and it's a book about undersea standing history. book. we're going to discuss this coming sunday is called the againsts about patrice lumumba you don't know who he is. look himmportant moment in

world and american. and i'm thrilled when i finish the discussion a they among three books and you c' help be optimistic about america aft young in this community who give me the greatest possible and one of the poached that i've liked over the years is comes george w bhe talked about the soft bigotry of low and i think it is crucial to have a higher t( ex our five children and everybody else's. lot chance of getting good things from people in this and in this community. and yeah we got a long way to go but if you get out around, i find it almost joyous in my own life of all the good people that

i know and that gives me a lot of confidence. our five children9. we've been married 60 years they do different and various deeds. some are on a certain plane and some are on other plane, but they're really good human beings and they're really good parents. i see them and i'm thrilled with l become. andexpected good things and we have not a shortage of some teachers who expect that much from students. and that's an american tragedy. so i know the real world has a lot of pain and. our world of miami has a lot of pain, but there's so many people who give me hope about what the what the futureu know, we could we could turn the question back you because eventually you did. so something happened to you work ande what

you've done. and those forces are still work. it's not like it's not like as abandoned those things that are still going on out there. people still things. it is is every so so as much as i uestion, i, i don't want to buy not happening anymore. you in my ownay, i think i rose up to what i can do. it certainly has. i see it in my kids. i watch my grandkids, you know there things are clicking for them. and at some point at some point you get the chance to theyou or to use the most example, looking at a stupid, headlessd body floating in pool butter and saying, we need do something about this. otherwise we're not there. one of my favorite bam, more or less

the inventor of am school system. hundreds 70 years ago. and he speaks to a g ohio in 1859. and the civil ward the corner. and he tells theefore you have won some battle for need to be something that's publicized or, terribly well known. but each of us has opportunity to make ae. and that is the joy of life. allen your two characters in your book r deep divide within the united and 70 million people voted for donald. but it's like we live in two different world wars and we're going further and further apart. how can we start touring the two together and at least listen each other? well, that's the question. that's and and i canpoint to the examples what i've seen

that that i guess brent's case when he's somebody who trying to solve the world's problems, that doesn't quite work. but when he'salong with his neighbor, that does work.ic case, the same thing holds. true. and and so there's this old line in writing you have to write the whole book. sentence and then write another sentence. and pretty soon you have a so so as i to be a rather corny man tonightbe that's that's where you it just in the rsm interactions you have with people rather than larger know so but i'mtwo more questions and they're both coming from you. andto get his book and you caorder the two previous books and the books and bookel do if you want to do that. and and david's going to sign as many books people

it's a wonderful book. i'm not getting paid to say that. n. oh, love. david's and i once read an article about how evil wins the world. it's loud and that the good people we are the majority were just so i would like to think that the majority of people here are we're willing to do something not only for the preservationuntry, but to have those conversations. so the question is very to you both. the reality is that we get into these hard conversations. it is physically question you is, what do you suggest we do befduring our conversation that iso our opinion as to what we think and what weonly for a sermon, have the stamina to, finish that to actually end up in in a good with it. your to shy away from expressing your of okay i think you started notbout the downfall of america or whatever

or my gosh are terrible start by having a conversationthat person is and what is i know a lot about these two people and where they came from. they're quote, socioeconomic status are and their lives, which are blessed and troubled and so forth, get to know the human, what do they read? what's the last movie they wewhat did they like a netflix? tell me about your family. th more human way to do this then and then you can other conversations. but i wouldn't enter a here is to make sure this other person how extraordinarily right i on this right yeah yeah that one thing to add if going into these conversations the way i shouldd this the wisdom of brant is when he said to michael that day, well got to get back to my bs. so maybe, maybe if we all like

we don't avoid the but we have our, our safe word. i got to get back to the but i'm going to say it's now that i think it directly st said it makes a lot of sense i've been sitting here need us to speak to each other and of course i believe that where my own personal there's an underlying current of change nobody's going to change my mind, not going to change anybody else's mind. so i'm not about of having that hard conversation. i am suring my neighbor's friendship. that's very important. and the question i kind of want to ask is i, i watch kimmel and he had a fox interview. you know w showed each other andpe if somebody did this and

it was they no, i made a mistake. it was about and what i saw their. logic was mind bo and is why i've been sitting here g ento this for conversation and i'mo. so suppose i'd like to know what dooptimal outcome of that people, assuming nobody's mind isbebut i think from the example you gave, i think two things. number one, there's a lot of ways to cut film with the show today. i know but there are then but but you know in life metaphorically there are a lot of ways to cut film if you go intoh an agenda trying to prove your point then those guess you can avoid the conversation and and you can get alrg about fishing and dogs and not talking about this one division between you and that's, again, as i said earlier, is a way to get along? and to out? we a have a hard conversation. what is optimal outcome?

ourion of what dave was saying. if if, if if in other words, the thing the thing about what' describing the way was cut and kimmel can do what he wants i's i's a gotcha move. yeah okay gotcha gotcha. you know, mother, i caught you. that's easy to do,same thing in my journalism i think if if thegotcha, what does that do? easy. anybody can do that. but but if you werere to if you can avoid the conversation, there's nothing wrong with avoidingnversation. but you can also if somebody changes his mind doing well, you can to understand why that happened and not that you're going to change that person's but maybe you understand something more about the dynamics going on that would cause a person to do that. so then it's not a gotcha conversation. it's understanding conversation. they' exhausting.

they're frustrating. i get ticked off of people all the time and i have to pull myself back. but but if i conversations and this is something trying to learn, if i approach mycult conversations, the way i approach my writing the job of a writer isn't to judge. it's to understand. then i have chance, a decent conversation. but it's aor me because the moment feels so urgent, right? line. but. but, of what they were saying. you know, understanding it is as basi sounds. last question. david lawrence knows i don't know wstioever st. i think that in our daily lives are a into who are not that hard core. and i believe that if we speak our truth, gentleness and can persuade people who arewe can bring a little bit of education to who maybe didn' high. i find as i get older, one of

the hiis that can be the eccentric lady who to a young person here, let me have you listen to me for a momentbecause studied something and i can help i it's not it's not all dangerous. s. and and need to have courage because there is human nature and human nature. there's that pugnacious part. but there is also that part that likes to preserve our friendships and keep the status quo. i did it in a marriage i know all aboutomise and these are onlyervations and i didn't mean to steal this but i think in our speak up when we see collusion happening. yeah, that's. i was just going to i was just going to add one thing. i can, when if i go into a conversation and trying to persuade somebody of it only works if i go into the be persuaded by add that it's hard to know where you in hiy stor

so. i'm old enough to remember the koreaneing f a asking my father what was that all about?i can remember vietnam where this country was time. torn in two. i watergate. there were times that it asunder and knowing that we'd come through so much in people's willing to die for this country and people are eagers country. i don't know of people as eager want come to this country versus any countries in the world. soul. but please thank david finkel, with.