how predictive it was that your parents politics were or were not. one of the things they found was if you did not grow up in a very political household your parents politics were not that predictive but if you grew up in the house where it was then there is 80% chance that you will be probably of the same political orientation. in no way, there's plenty of people who are in exactly the same environments as these men it, who maybe saw exactly the same flaws in the orthodox of the left and rather than throwing it all over they said will that piece of it maybe we need to let go of, maybe i will not be, maybe i will disability from the communist party but i will become become a democrat or member of the socialist party, absolutely. that's probably the more common experience, i think i was interested in the more extreme one because that much bigger transition, in part allowed me to explore and reveal how

complicated belief is in a sense. if someone is just moving a few inches you don't see the whole guts, if someone's moving from the left to the right and there's trauma and oppression an explosion of their lives, i think you can see they got guts of belief more clearly. you're absolutely right. i also do not know whether it is or is not a more male phenomenon. the book is about six guys which i am a little bit embarrassed by. and like six white guys. the only defense i can mount for myself is as part of why i started with my own story, it's kind of a struggle for me, i'm looking looking at people who remind me of myself and i'm wrestling with the beliefs of my father, my grandfather and people who kind of look like my

father and and i don't know how good of an excuse, but why said if it feels like more of a male phenomenon but i do not know statistically if that is true. >> actually related to this question is do you think there's some psychology, obviously there are plenty of people who have been on the left and experience trauma and oppression, situations of access and not made such a severe break or had a transcending change in their belief system, did you see any commonalities among the studies are any indication of why they were able to completely tune your belief system upside down? so to the question of psychology, the book is all about psychology, when i sit at the beginning when i mention my wife and said she was deeply involved in the book, part of that is that my psychotherapist wrote a book on-might best part

of the intellectual world i live in and the very instant that sense. to my interest it is the deepest part of my interest in the stories is the kind of psychology belief and kind of psychology of these people that at the same time and i don't think you are necessarily suggesting, it's also an effort to say the book is also an effort to kind of ward off the people that would save these people shifted because there psychology. from my perspective it is all our of our psychologies. it's about what her psyche is and what our weaknesses and fears and vulnerabilities are. who our family wasn't what her jeans are, i do not say that to dismiss it, or dismiss our beliefs, but just to complicate them. is there something in common? i think these people in part because they were different in certain ways, to the extent there is something in, i think there were people who are

atypical for most of us in that politics was absolutely embedded in the core of their identity. they were drawn with maybe reagan being the exception, as intellectuals they were drawn to a fully developed, coherent system of ideas and when that started to break down they probably had a harder time than most of us from just adjusting a little bit. it's like throwing some sand in the machinery of this very complicated system. i think they were people who needed to believe is sort of believe passionately, to a next step beyond what most of us experience and that is another reason why that modified the

belief it was not very appealing to them, is not appealing to become good liberals are social democrats or something like that. in fact one thing that a lot of these people share the left and the right is a very active very active contempt for precisely that kind of person. for liberals. >> but they were idealistic and needed all or nothing thinkers, were they able to find, were they imposed by the right? >> to some extent. somebody, it depends on the person and i think it has to do with something i talk about witches certain temperaments or characters to be more dispose from one side to another. i think the best example of that is with the chambers who actually was able to live a fuller, more mature life on the

rights where his greatest commitment i would say is to his christianity then he was. that was a system, i say this is a secular person, that was a system and a paradigm belief that just seem to have more space and it for him to be more human than marxism was. and then there's other examples, think the counterexample in a sense, i mean david horowitz from this the day he's one of the few people who are alive and to this day he is profoundly angry about this trauma he experience and that he blames on the left and blames on himself. he does not seem any more more intense. he's written a few books about how content he is and how he's at peace with the universe. if you talk to him for five

minutes that is not true. it it depends on the person. i think there are people - my courts was a much more interesting and compelling writer on the left than he was on the right. it depends. that should be the epigram at the beginning of the book, it depends. thank you so much for coming out. i out. i really appreciate it. i'm happy to sign books. feel free to email me if you have questions. go to the university of texas website. [applause]. [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation]

>> book tv continues in prime time tomorrow with the books on george washington. our lineup includes edward larson's book on the events that led george washington to becoming the nation's first president. the lower fraser talks about her nonfiction work on the relationship between george washington and his wife martha. that is followed by ph green, discussing how george washington's journey through all 13 states transformed through all 13 states transformed american political culture. and we will conclude with the first on trip and newer. how first washington fostered creativity. >> when i tune in on the weekends it is usually authors sharing new releases. >> watching nonfiction authors on book to be is the best television for serious readers. >> on c-span they can have a

longer conversation and delve into their subject. >> a book to be weekend, they bring you author after author, they spotlight the work of fascinating people. >> i love book tv and i am a c-span fan. >> new jersey senator cory booker has a new book out about finding common ground on issues. he talked about the book in his own experience in public service with new york post editorial writer robert george on afterwards. this is one hour. >> united, here we are in the middle of one of the more divisive presidential years ever on both sides. and you drop a book called united, why the title, why now? first of all.

>> first of all it's great to be here. it's nice to actually be on the tv screen. i appreciate you being here and not making me feel in any way followed clean challenged. >> absolutely, shave just yesterday. >> make me feel good. i appreciate that. i ran for this office crisscrossed the state of new jersey from all the southern counties and heard from people time and again the lamented that our country is divided. the lament of the lines that seem to be not only dividing our country but we can it. i really wanted to speak to that because the much my personal experience growing up with an african-american family, attending a black church but also living in a all-white town. i crisscrossed lines a lot, going to stanford, yale, it

showed me as i crossed different lines how united we as a country are. some of the best leaders i had many had many coming from communities like newark taught me about the urgency of breaking down these divide, helping people rise and can't just understand it that the ties that bind us are stronger than the lines that divide us. >> this is an interesting book because it is not your kind of chronological memoir kind of thing, it is almost cinematic in terms of zero in on interesting people and interesting moments in your life, tell us about ms. virginia jones. >> she is a remarkable soul that is revered in newark, even yesterday people are talking about here. for me i got my pa from stanford but my phd in the streets of newark because of people like her. i worked in inner-city communities since i was a teenager, east harlem, but i

decided to jump into newark out of law school and try to find the most difficult of that i could find and i moved on the south mark luther king boulevard it was full of abandoned buildings, drug trafficking, i move onto the street and my first reaction is that i was robbed first moments there. there's an old saying that when you come tell the let you know and you're about to step into the darkness one or two things is gonna happen. you are either going to find solid ground beneath you or your going to meet someone who's going to teach out apply. i'm at this elderly woman, tough, rough, profoundly wise. she broke me down and rebuilt me. the first moment i had with her, i went to go talk to her and i am cory booker, from yale law school, and she just did not care at all.

and i'm like you don't want my help? so she has to bless you. >> i will never forget this moment where it seemed like she was frustrated with me and she took me to the middle of martin luther king boulevard and said what you see around you, and i described a crackhouse in projects and described the neighborhood and she said you can help me and she walked away and discuss. then i ran ran after her, grabbed her very respectively and said what? she said you need to understand something that the world use the outside of you is a reflection of what you have inside. if you only see darkness, despair problems, that's all there's were ever going to be. but if you're one of those stubborn people every time you open your eyes you see hope, possibility, love, see the face of god. then he can be someone who can help me and then she just walked off and then i thought okay grasshopper that's a good

lesson. so eventually i went back. when i first got to the neighborhood i was victimized but now i am back with humility and was willing to surrender my agenda and plug into her and learn from her. she had me doing menial work in the beginning but i really became an apprentice for her and what was amazing to me was this woman showed a love and a grits and a capacity to care that i did not fully appreciate until i was writing this book. her son was murdered in those building. a son who served in the military he came home and yet she still stayed there. i trace that arc in the book from the rise to the fall and she never gave up. when i get emotional now because this was emotional for me to

find out is eventually we became partners and there's a drug lord that was convicted in federal court in that the building is out of control because the city comes in and it's being run by a political opponent. at the end of this now i'm writing this think you have the story to tell but i decided go back and interview, and track down everybody who may have been around in the 90s that could tell me what they observed. i know what i remember but i i want to know what they remember. i went back to guys who are dealing drugs and we are all much more than the lowest things that we have done. so they will come out of prison, i find other tenant leaders, this is what i found out about her, it was very moving to me is that she made me feel at the beginning like i had to work really hard to earn her trust and what have you. but i heard from another tenant leader and she said you have the

story wrong. when you left, one of your first meeting she told to me and said that's my son. and not so moved to me. then when i am interviewing the guys were dealing drugs who one of them said at one point, like he intervened and alleged that they had decided that i was a threat they were going to shoot me, just a warning shot in the leg is the way he put it. but they started telling me stories about how ms. jones, because i had tough interactions in the early days and that ms. jones was going behind my back and telling them. >> this is when you are moving into the projects. >> and she was telling these guys, leave him alone. then she used a word and again got me very emotional hearing it in a interview that she was calling me family from the beginning. this is a woman who really shaped me in profound ways.

not only because of the colorful things that she says in her character which is really like she is rough justice, but because more personable and example. at my lowest moments of those eight years i lived in buildings that do not have heat or water, mice infestation roach infestations, elevators that didn't work, all of the hardships that for me as a young man were difficult for seniors, and children it was very threatening. what i found out and what i saw within her was an american character that is the best of who we are. in many ways her ability to hold united this community has profound lessons for all of us. >> family is a recurring theme through this book. in fact you start with when you bought your ancestry and having gone on the gates program and finding those

back to a slave master, james who goes back to the days of the pilgrims. the flashing forward you talk about how one of your grandfathers was raised by single mother, your father was raised by single mother. at that point they had the feelings of a master. but you growing up with two parents, there seems to be a theme of trying to identify the familial links of both blood and non- blood. >> rate, so i thought the chapter in a funny way, i hate henry louis gates because of what he did to me which was finding your roots and giving

this gift, and i'm gonna partner with john lewis which is like partnering with superman. so it starts off this really comical, humbling connection with this amazing hero. then the thought of seeing finding out that i could trace lineage back to the earliest american coming to this country, that i am a direct descendent from a white confederate soldier and a direct descendent from men who fought in creek wars moving native american indians out of their land. i'm a difference descendent of slaveowners and slaves. this tapestry that i reveal to me made me understand our connections including introducing me to my mom's first cousin who never knew that they were related to a black family because i was a time in the south where you had a lot of. >> and we had that reuniting. so that expanded my view of

family right there that i could be walking past folks and as henry louis gates says there's not a black person in this country and less they came right from an immigrant from africa that does not have white blood. the flipside of that as there are many whites went black branches of the family that they do not know about. so. so that expanded my idea family. but then delete for me and this discovery was that we are as america a spiritual family, much more than we know. we are all tied to each other and influencing each other every single day. beyond our imagination, people give up their powers not realizing they have it in the first place. we have power to touch, to connect and influence that we don't know. so the story ends with my family now fighting a court case or legal efforts to integrate in a white town in 1969. and i and up growing up in it.

i dedicate this book to the people of that town to the people of newark, new jersey. but yet my parents had to rely on white folks at the fair housing council. i had listened to the stories going up for my parents, now my reporter basically i want to find the people that were there and interview them. so i find a lawyer and i ask him, why did you, back in the 60s get involved and he said i remember the day and he i said you remember it it's a monday and he said because the day before was a sunday and it was blood he sunday. i watch the edmund pettis bridge, john john lewis and others on this bridge, the night that we need to go to alabama and we're struggling lawyer so

what can we do right now to help out this great movement for civil rights. so they they found the fair housing council. a little later they were given the file of my parents. some not related to john lewis that i know of, i'm not related to the whites and blacks on that bridge, christians, jews, others , but their actions sent ripples out to that almost immediately change the course of my family. those are the ties in this country. my father would say growing up to a single mom who couldn't take care of him but he broke that cycle of poverty that a show on the book because of a conspiracy of love. because all these people understood, they cancel all the problems and they can change all of the outcomes but they would never allow their inability to do everything to undermine their determination to do something in this moment, small act of kindness, decency and love. the biggest thing you can do

every day is to do a small act of kindness. that community of kindness and love broke a cycle of poverty, lost my father into the middle class. we say all the time that i'm a hard worker, i made sacrifices to get where i am but i on debt to to all these people who did that. so that is how we are related in this country. we have this myth of rugged individualism, this, this ideal of self-reliance, i really respect those ideals. the self-reliant ideals especially. but rugged individuals didn't get us to the moon, didn't build amazing infrastructure of the 1950s and and 60s that was being built out. it was our ability to recognize common destiny, that we need each other. even the framers, read the declaration of independence, read of independence, read the word, there is the spirit of intern dependents when they say we pledge to each other our lives, our our fortune, and our sacred honor.

it is a recognition that if we are going to be successful as a country we need each other, we may not be blood brothers but we are brother and cause and spirit, and that is the cause of our country. >> there is an interesting and maybe it's a coincidence and story that goes in here, as i said you get your lineage and your great, great, great grandfather's great grandfather is from the pilgrim area and your father is ending up who is running a funeral home. he learns work ethic and so forth from them. it is from the slave time pilgrim to pilgrim that is a fascinating, almost a perfect line. >> i have learned in life and that there's no such thing as coincidental. there is purpose and everything. i do love that.

one of the segments that jumps out, is your visit to greenhaven when you're in law school which is a prison. i think it was your first or second year in law school and we just take a quick passage here, from your interaction with it convicts, there is the obvious feeling, there but for the grace of god go i. i can walk out of that place not just because of my own choices but because of the abundantly privileged environment in which i had live. but there was more to my discomfort than that, i was responsible, people were being put into this massive expanding facility in my name and until now i had given it to little thought. in criminal cases it is the people versus, or the united states versus, i realize now that we are the people and that we are the united states, people's liberty taken away their freedom prison after prison built and filled again.

now i knew and i cannot deny. i marched right in and i saw the good, the back, the truth of the rise, how the, how the system works and how it fails. what i saw here's another thing that leads to united. it's a balance between individual choices for which we have to face up to but also the idea of a social responsibility. can you speak on that? >> that is the balance between individual responsibility and the ideal of interdependency. i was told by my parents that you have to balance those. you have to know that ultimately you are responsible for your actions. you are responsible for your success or failure. you cannot lose that understanding. you have to be part of this understanding that you are also interdependent and the things that you have relied on, the things that you benefited from our blessings that have been

yielded by others. so my parents were relentless, my father joking with me growing up, i was an 18 euro kid with a lot of swagger, president of mike class. and my father was a don't you dare walk around this house like that. my father would try to remind me that the blessings i was enjoying, anybody who called himself american, i don't care what your struggles are, we are better to be born in this country regardless of circumstance and there's a lot of places on earth, we are are reaping the harvest of other folks. so understanding that is at the idea of taking responsibility. when you do not like something in the world, don't care if it is mass incarceration or the environmental contamination that's not just at flint, there many times for the country that

are facing challenges that flint is facing. that are hurting our children right now. i would say you have a choice to make. you can accept things as they are or take responsibility for changing that. if you know that you are where you are because others took responsibility, even though it did not affect them directly, they took responsibility for labor rights, then to be a patriotic american and who swears an oath that you are going to be a country of justice, then you have to be one of those people who steps up and takes change and responsibility. responsibility. one of the friends who read the book for me, really he wrote some books that challenge me and he calls out a lot of liberal, but he talks and he says there's so much depth in this and death in this book.

and there are stories of tragedy. one of the young men that died, talk about his decisions led him to his coffin, but our decisions did too. >> and i was one of the more painful chapters try. it's one of my favorite chapters the title of the chapters of my father son, it's really me and my father and a set and his father and the bond in his eventual murder. it just it was at a time when i was just weeks and the mayor's' office and suddenly it made me re-examine, this is a young man that you had bonded with in the projects, and it is chilling that he really was my dad, both of them were raised by single moms, well in this case my

father had got taken by his grandmother and i met him when he was living with his grandmother, it reminded me of my dad and his charisma, his humor, and god had put them right in front of me. in the lobby of my building. i started coming home and smelling marijuana, stuff that would've been innocuous. marijuana was common in my college but we all know that we live in america with the justice system and drug wars fought in different areas. so while people, they didn't get away with it in stanford, you're not nobody is stopping in for skiing folks coming home from parties, nobody thing who is the guy that you're buying pot for, that drug dealer, that drug kingpin on college campuses all over the country, they're they're just not facing the same justice system. in fact forget class, blacks and

whites using drugs at the same amount, no difference, they actually deal drugs the same they say some studies show whites a little bit more but blacks are arrested for drugs more than someone who is white. it is shocking disparities which means that hassan and his friends did not have a margin of error in the ways that my college friends who wanted drug laws cavalierly did, ecstasy, marijuana, marijuana, whippets, you name it, i thought be in use. so i thought i had to help these guys, he started helping them but then where busy people. we are professionals, i'm going after the brass rings. i'm in my dream job, so after doing some interventions with the kids i got so busy that i didn't have time to follow through on the relationships i was trying to set up.

there is still so gracious and kind to me, i get elected and have death threats. so put police officers in my lobby and kids don't hang out with their cops. i didn't see the kids i didn't see them until i got sworn him and then days into my time as mayor i was responding to shooting, i respond to one early on the scene and there's a body covered up and this is a lot of what i regret, i didn't even even ask the name of the boys, i just what about administering to the living, i come home that night and i see the police report and read it now and i see the kid a son, got put them right in front of me, he is now dead. so i begin my chapter with the dissent of a community in the base of a funeral home. and i liken it to descending into the how people - mike i

couldn't handle it i was choking in grief and guilt. i really start the story of these four men, two fathers, two sons and as i sit and i am weeping in the mayor's office when i'm the most powerful as i've ever been in my life but i feel the weakest. and i feel like a failure. >> that is really striking because it is not usually something that politicians own up to where they feel, even if it is not their own fault that they somehow failed. and show a lot of vulnerability that you do not often see among most politicians. are you at all concerns that people will feel that senator hooker wears his heart and his sleeve on some of these issues?

>> no. look it just broke me at times. i don't know how you can see america for who we truly are and not get broken at times. the problem we have in our country often comes from the fact that we do not want to tell the truth about ourselves. and admit to the injustice, people look at our history they want to whitewash it and sanitize it, so that does us a disservice. it diminishes our humanity. as opposed to telling the truth, my parents raised me, there were unflinching in exposing to me the horrors and the negativity that happen in our country and even in their lives, in order to make me a more hopeful person. i go through this in the book that you cannot have great hope

unless you are willing to confront great despair. mr. jones taught me that hope in its essence is a response. pollyanna's optimism is i'm going to be happy no matter what but hope confronts and says this conviction that despair will not have the last word. so i do not mind telling folks about -- in fact i was talking about this in a moment in the book and it started making me cry again because i still come as i was writing this book was working through the emotion of all of this in my mind. i just feel like this a division that i'm trying to be a voice against, one of the first things they do is a courageous empathy. really seen each other. not building walls around each other so we do not see humanity, see the trials, but you, but you

have to have courageous empathy. so i want to be authentic, i and that's a mistake we make in our politics, that you have to be stronger or mean, you have to wear this a veneer like you have iron for skin, that to me is just not the way i have chosen to lead my life. i think that we need more leaders who are willing to show their vulnerability and humanity because it helps more people who are struggling themselves, one of the things i tweet out all the time sometimes i'm feeling that way, i tell people tell people that's becoming to one another because we are all frazzled, when i was first at stanford i started crisis counseling center and i was stunned, it was almost as if someone lifted the veil that i had not been able to see because the calls would roll in about

eating disorders, but men and women coming out and what they were enduring being gay, about depression, mental illness, about rape, and sexual assault, and i said wait a minute wait a minute all of this going on, how can we be about confronting it if we will not even admit that it is happening at the degree it is happening in our country. >> if you talk the importance of seeing people in one of your mentors frank hutchins talks about -- speak about frank. >> frank was another great professor that wasn't my earliest years in new york and took me under his wing and i am where i am today, he was not a flashy guy, i go through this moments and i first observe him, i always get frustrated with him because we are dealing with a real crisis in these buildings,

conditions that are really bad that human beings are living in where we think our criminal behavior in the sense that people are accepting money and not providing services. i'm trying to get the legal area, i want to write letters to hud, but he is going slow, this goes on for hours. giving everybody space to talk. the next day i confront him him on this and i said and then he just gives me this powerful talk about you don't understand, it is not just about healing the building, we have so much trauma in this country that affects our children and others said that we do not address that trauma, people need to be heard, they need to have their moment to speak truth and power to authority. it was very beautiful going into the book but it was beautifully coincidental again. that this man who was so much about seeing people's humanity, and letting their struggles be seen, validating human human and

creating bonds where we could help each other, his eyesight started to go. my career went on and here's this great tenant later who was one of our most celebrated tenant leaders and he led the longest strike but his eyesight was going, he he was getting old and so i started taking them out to the movies and even though he could not see, is is one of the more precious moments we had together on his deathbed, we had begun this rhythm where i knew he was blind and i would come up to them and i would say hey frank it's corey. and he was a icu corey. and i say you don't see me. and that would be our joke. and again i felt like he was a man that saw the truth of me and validated me so on the day i walked in where i knew it was

the last day i would see him and now going to get emotional but i have this moment with him where i say goodbye and he his breath was erratic and very fast in the chapter ends with that powerful moment with where all he says to me is, i say i love you and he forces out very difficult lee, i love you. and that one of the last things he said to me as i see you. so i am a senator. if i cannot recognize humanity of my constituencies, even at tea party, trump loving guy who is struggling with his family, making $40000 per year in a state with high taxes. if i cannot see him just because i have preconceived notions but failed to see his humanity and failed to see my bond, i weaken

my country. and i failed to establish bonds overlords that divide us. so i know this is a time where we talk about the divisions in washington but you cannot change something if you are not willing to change yourself. >> people were just lashing out making judgments about me, lead with love. you can advocate your position but lead with love. we need to be celebrating that more, because we are where we are because of irrational love and courageous empathy. >> that comes up a couple of times where you said we need to be more than just tolerance, we need to love. you bring that in a couple of other times. it's tough enough to even legislate tolerance, you can't

really legislate love. as a leader how does a leader bring love into the public debate? >> first about some of the greatest leaders say these laws mean nothing, they are worth nothing if we do not have a spirit of democracy, of love, of connection of spirit. so i am frustrated, i am the first person to preach against power. i think tolerance is a lazy or cynical state of being that says i am just going to stomach the right to be different, just tolerating you. and if you're off the face of the earth i am no better off or worse off. because i was just tolerating new eve anyway. that's tolerance. we should be aspiring to have

compassion, empathy, love because love recognizes value. love recognizes that we have an interwoven destiny. love recognizes recognizes that you are hope for me. because i cannot win this country myself there's an old sign that if you want to go fast: but if but if you want to go far go together. when people say they are patriotic is often used as a sward to cut someone else off, a patriot you're not. to me that's not patriotism. patriotism is love of country, love of country necessitates a love of fellow citizens. so we are. so we're going to be a patriotic society we need to work on ascending above tolerance to be more loving with each other. >> ..

>> >> a/s my present sizzling bull disruptive like never witnessed before people used to line up and i would say

to be so open when white friends would visit to denver practically throw the drugs through their window so a guy that consolidated that building rand and operation that was just amazing to me. tsa if you are making this much of our i will pay you this much on top of that if you help my operation. he went to the whole operation with lookouts on the building's if you could see a cop car coming for miles it was an intricate operation of dealing drugs and what was behind the veil so he was willing in the book when i was trying to trace and the people dealing drugs like could learn what was really going space on

wanted to get their perspective. he was or is no longer he is serving time and is out by saw his daughter yesterday but when he was really describing this to me it was a chilling part of the book that it was taken over by younger drug dealers because he said i saw how you treated my mother who was elderly for living in those buildings so what is interesting a lot of these guys is the sense of remorse the young ones were sucked in that you can see those

calls cofactors of the drug trade to have an option as a black me and. -- man. >> host: you are very passionate about the inequities and the criminal-justice system. you refer to as the american cast system people with the arrest record teeter on the edge americans to have better rested even though they're all have the disease they have the symptoms they live in the world that proven guilty is a fundamental value the 86 states allow employers to deny a job for someone arrested but not convicted facing legal discrimination.

that seems to guide you into issues you are focusing on now has a senator. >> guest: want to give deference to expose the injustice. but living in newark new jersey to see this system and how violates the principles, it is a just the urban black or latino. so we are the incarceration in nation 5% of their gross population one data for imprisoned people is in the

united states our jails have nine times the admission rates than prisons. they are held waiting for trial or are too poor. of we were arrested we paid a bale and get out the people are in jail right now for the minor crimes because they cannot pay to get out. often are mentally ill they are the most vulnerable who are minorities if you want to see the truth of the country to look at the halls of power but go to the prison to see if who they are in imprisoning it is shameful to the point where this is a nation in you are treated better rich and guilty then pour a and it is in so i try to expose a lot of this in the book to tell the story how we may live

and vice suburban house of your hurt so as to have read already to bear responsibility for this in the bus to address these continued injustices' if we can never truly say we are in a nation of liberty and justice for all. >> interesting line say he will run for mayor when your opponent paid to do as the of cider taking money from republicans. now you were in the senate and finding common ground with republicans on issues of criminal-justice. talk about that. >> that is the power of the issue that you have

republicans now who understand this is a violation of our values. if you read the bible like i do is rife with examples of compassion for prisoners if you are a fiscal conservative government expansion like never before. >> we were building a new prison every 12 days but disinfesting with all types of infrastructure if you are libertarian to see people's liberty the last few presidents admitted to crimes that are felonies that people everyday are incarcerating people. i don't care what you are

whenever your area like a koch brothers newt gingrich's ed teapartier member of the senate or rand paul this is something there is so much so why we making that change? even my final years where every year the gravity and impact was more and more. >> host: this seems there are a couple of bills is that almost make get harder? even though there is so much common ground? >> this is my first time being a senator during a

presidential year it seems that everything is harder during this silly season but i was working with dick durbin one of the great leaders of criminal-justice reform in the senate along with people like leahy who has been working on this issue for a long time reword discussing the coalition. can we get across the finish line? at the same time of the supreme court battle. use the the house is making slow but steady progress so i am hoping this is one of the great things to achieve this legislation to reverse the for the first time to a turn back around all the

state's are lowering their prison population by lowering their crime rate to demonstrate this actually creates more violence and more crime any hope that they can provide for their family if you come out of prison it cannot get a job you can get loans he can get the pilgrims you can get food stamps so to strip that away from people surprise surprise we now know that i work with the manhattan institute attachment to work it dramatically lowers your race and don't do these things and we found out it new work announcing the

murder victims 84% were arrested before average of 10 times so this is part of that incarceration that people get stuck on to that tragedy now for african americans there is the disappearance of black men pretty overwhelming because of incarceration. the time is now the urgency is upon us but we have to do things that the state and federal level to turn the ship around with the land of justice in to be about it. >> you are the fourth elected african-american in the senate. when dropped a bombshell was the third talking about the

intersection of race with his personal journey. but the first time to elected black senators with a similar hairstylist. [laughter] but if you look at success

look towards the vulnerable and poverty so when you use a racial lens with the health care outcome would health outcome is still a constructive lines there is a lot of work to. and it is a very important stream of protests and our country to get people to work up to. so please pay attention to the fact that if you are black-and-white it is not opinion but objective data