arizona saturday at 6 p.m. eastern on c-span2 book tv and on american history tv on c-span three. working with our cable affiliates and affiliates across the country. we talked to historian julian zelizer about the campaign, the legal fight that followed and how it relates to 2016. this is 45 minutes. >> host: julian zelizer with princeton university, history and public affairs professor and the author of the book the fierce urgency of now. thanks for joining us this morning. >> during this campaign at some point raised the specter of wha happened between george w. bush and al gore.

could you paint a picture of not only what's been said about it in the context of this campaign but if there is a merit to those campaigns? >> guest: it was a close election and there was a dispute about the account in florida looking at particular ballots in certain counties and what we saw after was a process where there were recounts over contested votes that ultimately ended in the supreme court's decision.od that is different from what we are hearing today. today we've heard from donald trump may be in the last month about the idea of a raid election where it's not about the contested ballots after the election in certain areas but the entire political system. it's about the entire media being stacked against one candidate over another combinedd

with allegations of voter fraud without any evidence of that happening. so there are two different kinde of issues. bush v. gore ended the recount that the supreme court acted improperly and stop the process too early but i think they are different. >> host: so as far as thisca election, the people more than the actual voting process.then >> guest: exactly. though then it was how do you count the votes. so there were those you couldn't see exactly who someone voted for or there were claims the voters were confused because appellate was constructed. today there was one aspect of the process that submerged. donald trump argued that would be able of voting fraud which is

the kind of arguments we heard from many conservatives for over a decade now and that's why we had new voter id laws put into place in many states where there will be fraud. they will claim the identity and he's called on supporters to monitor on election day to make about o such fraud takes place. >> host: we heard about the infamous hanging chad and that is what you were referring to and now we have more of a paper ballot system in place today. >> guest: it exposed some of the inadequacies of how we conduct our voting. it was very archaic. dispute in

the dispute really focused on some democratic counties inwhera florida where many voters had voted for the reform candidate even though it was pretty clear that this into most of the voters wanted to vote for so that gave rise to the question over how the ballots were constructed and we saw television coverage during theou recount of local officials trying to figure out who people voted for looking for the magnifying glass to see if someone punched a vote for some of the paper on the ballot was still hanging which is what we call the hanging chad. today, it's what we've talked about in terms of the voting process will there bef identity conscientious fraud and theft of identity to vote. there is no evidence that this exists on any substantial level but politically it's been a verd potent issue in addition to hisr

broad claim that the entire jule system is rigged against them. >> host: julian zelizer to talk about these. he's been going back to 2000 examining the aspects of that. you can ask questions on the phone lines this morning and again, for democrats, 202-748-8000, republicans,. 202-748-8001, independent, 202-748-8002. julian zelizer, the legal ramifications of this year's election, what do you expect might happen and i know that is considering the turnout but are there lessons learned in far as the legal process we can gain from a year 200? >> guest: it might take place in the contest after election

day. it is extraordinarily close. neither candidate was able initially to reach that electoral college totals, and that's why the 25 votes mattered so much. we are not sure where things are right now. at least a week ago it looked like hillary clinton might have a pretty substantial lead in which case the campaign could lessto obtain recounts in any close state but it's likely that what we saw in florida. we don't know if the news and the weather from the fbi and the other week will narrow and create a closer outcome in which case i think both campaigns would be prepared in some of these battleground states to mobilize for a recount. we learned two things, both campaigns today i remember 2000

and the republicans under secretary, former secretary of state james baker, who led bush . recount effort treated not just as a legal issue but a political issue. they thought about how to frame the debate in the media and they were much more defective than the democrats. so i think the campaign is not only preparing the legal battle but the politics of the post election then there's the issue of the courts for many peoplee after 2000 it seemed much more political, especially the supreme court after it stopped the recount when many peoplees thought it should go on and i think the memory of that will certainly shape the legal debate that might unfold if there was any sort of a recount effort. if the results are as people think it might be in as we are

hearing in the last few days than it will bthen it will be ho conduct ach recount challenge. >> host: the first call isr james on the line for democrats. you are oyou're on with our gue. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. on a scale of one to ten i give you 11. it's different with al gore and president bush because one is being contested and the other is saying it's rigged. at the bottom line is donald trump said whether he's jokingns or not, he's going to contest it if he doesn't win. he didn't say if it was close or one state was close or not he said if he didn't win he's going to contest it and that is the

issue we need to be addressing. in some instances there may try to be but you can see this is my question if there is voter fraud in a state that has already caughcostindividuals for voter s this ac eight to the -- satiate with donald trump has said? >> guest: it wasn't as if that democrat al gore in 2000 spent the final months arguing that this wasn't going to be fair and also saying that he wouldn't accept the results if he didn't win. he was talking about social security reform. talk about social policy and then after this all unfolded in after the dispute emerged over

florida first the networks were saying that he won and then leave in the morning, fox really set off the whole debate. this is the case today thehetalu republican nominee is talking about this being unfair long before there was any evidence to support that combined with his claim during the debate that he wouldn't necessarily concede onn election night if it seemed he lost, so there's different cases and of course al gore after the supreme court decision would offer a concession speech, so that demeanor was different after this was a result and on the voter fraud there might be some fraud but again, we have to remember there is little evidence of systematic voter fraud. there was a study by the brennao center at nyu that looks at how muclooked at howmuch this happey

small. a handful of examples where there is concrete evidence so it is unlikely at this point that kind of problem is good to be central after the campaign. the other issue we don't know about is hacking and computer voting and whether there's any effort to undermine that. but right now again that is speculation not based on evidence but on election day that would be someho somehow dee the vote. >> host: sunset texas on the republican line. good morning. >> caller: yes, good morning c-span. i want to say i love c-span. i've been calling since the early '90s when i was in my 20s, no i wasn't, i was in my 30s. but anyway, i love c-span. thank you very much. to keep on the subject here, i never liked bush.

[inaudible] key used people's property for racetracks, malls and all this kind of stuff. i thought he was crooked and that it was always about the money. but those are my thoughts on. that. have a not only do they have a lot of clout in florida is quite powerful and it's usually among

democrats of some republicans as well for the whole process wasn't handled well and republicans within the state essentially were trying to stopr the recount and to obstruc obstd they realized the longer they, did that, the closer they would get to the deadline where the decision had to be made and that left a bad taste in the mouth of many americans and in both parties that it wasn't handled well. add onto that making a decision in december to stop the recount there were many people again mostly democrats but some republicans who thought thatwa wasn't the right way to handle this. some of that continues to linger and some will argue that it was. unfairly handled.

a very different than the idea that somehow the entire political process nationally ish grade which is hard in our system because it is so decentralized and fragmented that this is about the recount in a particular state being handled poorly that i think gives rise to those memories. >> host: danny is up next. >> caller: i think i have a pretty unique perspective on the florida fiasco because i was working the polls in south carolina and use he used the sae voter machines. the problem originated in the basic problem was they were nott doing the basic maintenance on

the machines.h they voted for the wrong person but it was very clear how to vote for whoever you wanted to vote for. there are 2 sep >> guest: there's two separate issues. first is the actual process of voting and that became a big issue, how the machines worked, how thework,how they were handly were maintained and i think it was surprising to people how antiquated the voting system was in the age of computers and the

internet emerging on the scene that we still vote in ways that looked more like the 19th century than the 20th century. this became a discussion after this all ended with calls for reforming the voting process and including electronic voting, in terms of people being confused it's always hard at this point to understand the intention of what voters were doing but there was substantial evidence that in places like palm county, people had voted for the person they intended and the reason this was an issue in particular is patrick buchanan was on the ticket and very controversial. he'd been associated with anti-semantic statements ands aa organizations. it was unlikely that it' those o

they intended to vote for. gavehat is one of the issues that gave rise to the question but since then we've learned in many parts of the country just how poor the machinery was and that's because in part we leave it to local governments often strapped for cash and didn't have the funds they needed or nr the man cover they needed to have the most updated systems possible. we shifted more and more to electronic voting with a hope that with improve would improvee kind of problems. >> was there ever a result ofwe the ballots in question and was there ever a result of who woulo have won? >> guest: they were recounted by newspaper organizations and most of them from what i have seen show that al gore did have

more votes so that was pretty consistent in a lot of the findings came after the election was over. ca >> host: democrats line. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i just want to -- what i have seen and heard is that trump p said he would trash the election process and then only if he didn't win so if he does when then it's okay. i think that is just a representation of his general

theme of the way that he's handled himself through the election process. he is a tabloid type tendency. >> host: thank you. professor julian zelizer. >> guest: that is what has been troubling to some of his opponents and even some of his supporters, that by calling intm question the entire process, many trump supporters will have trouble believing in the legitimacy of the outcome if this is over and if he is note the victor. even if he is the winner in some ways to hear these kind of statements not once, not twice but as a theme as a closing argument for the campaign will confirm and strengthen some of the distress many americans have

in how our political system works so in the era that we have a polarized electorate where already it is hard to get onside to listen to the other sid sidee to believe the other side might have legitimate arguments even if you disagree to lay onto this idea thaon tothis idea that they isn't just flawed and broken but it's unfair could create an even more toxic governing environment. and then as i think the caller was saying it also in some ways undercuts for some voters, him as a candidate. it simply says i won't followw the rules if i lose but i will follow it if i win and some of this now has emerged with the fbi and this writer because the system seemed to work more in t his favor than it did before.

so some will see this as confusing in terms of which way the system works. >> host: our guest teaches at princeton university and is the author of the fierce urgency of now, julian zelizer joining us for the discussion taking a look at this election and going back to 2000. going back now, al gore conceding after the decision by the supreme court. here's what he had to say back then. >> moments ago i spoke with george w. bush and congratulated him on becoming the president of the united states and i promised him i wouldn't call him backck this time. i offered to meet with him as soon as possible so we could start to heal the divisions of the campaign and contests we just passed. almost a century and a half ago stephen douglas told abraham lincoln who just defeated him for the presidency, partisan feelings must yield topatrio patriotism.

i'm with you mr. president, and god bless you. in that same spirit, i say to the president elect what remains of the partisan rancor must bebe and put aside and may god bless his stewardship in this country. neither he nor i anticipated this long and difficult road. certainly neither of us wanted it to happen, yet it came and now it has ended. result does that must be through the honored institutions of our democracy. over at the library of one ofw our law schools is inscribed the motto not under man but under god damned wall that's the ruling principle of the source of our democratic liberties.e i've tried to make it my guide throughout this contest as it has guided america's deliberations through the complex issues in the past five weeks now the u.s. supreme court has spoken with there be no doubt why i strongly disagree

"-end-quotes decision, i finalit accepted the finality of the outcome that will be ratified in the electoral college and tonight for the sake of the unity as a people and strengthen the democracy i offer my concession's. >> guest: when you remember the moments that existed he referenced his early concession on the night of the election and what happens is fox news callsor it for george w. bush and then all the networks quickly followed but it soon becameer clear after al gore had offered a concession that it wasn't settled yet and so the

governor's brother had called this it was over and al gore said they would have to have a recount to figure out what the actual o vote was. but more broadly the speech was hard for many democrats to hear what the supreme court had done and they believed that it shoull continue to have a knowledge of who actually won the votes that al gore decided ultimately what was most important was protecting the political process. stopping the fight, sending a signal both to democrats and republicans that he was done and was going to accept the legitimacy of the decision he didn't agree with.

to think of the values and thatd patriotism rather than the. partisanship of course that won't work very well in the nexa few years but at least for the moment it's dead and back on session was enormously importanr so it had to come after the actual election day took place and it was still soon after the supreme court's decision and it was an important moment many historians will consider of leadership for the person in the end of that lost so it wasmerge. important healing some of the wounds that emerged after that fight. >> host: let's hear from sandra in massachusetts,ne. independent line. rigged el >> caller: he says because i

can. because i can take my -- because i can, i can take the money collected from insurance billing and supporbillions of millions s and say i can't. taxes, don't pay them, because i can. i am entitled to that. because i can pull apart the handicap because i can. he is an icann man and then he turns around and talks about women badly. where is the stops to him? i'm telling you right now i can take him apart. goodbye. >> guest: the fundamental critique o the many donald trump has heard and he's been criticized for many things but with the rigged election in

addition to calling into question the legitimacy of oursm political system before there's any evidence that any problemxit really exists at the time he's talking about, we have many issues where the political system can be reformed there is an ongoing discussion on whether he understands the limits of power in our political system and that's why the idea of a concession speech is so important and the idea of accepting the outcome is important ultimately as a candidate you understand if you do lose that that's it and you have to accept the results. he was part of the birth or berr movement in 2011 and 2012 which many people consider a similar kind of argument raising questions about the legitimacy of our president, the person who

is in the white house through arguments about where he was born but i think this is the danger that people fear how he handles all kinds of issues from business and personal life and now politics. >> caller: how can the citizens have a group such as yourself to say that we have fair elections when we have on the democratic side and the news media. and the day before they were calling for hillary clinton

knowing the polls don't close ts until 7 p.m. on the west coast and so that type of behavior presenting narratives that are incorrect and are being surrogates for certain parties and corporations instead of seeing the citizen as the most important piece of democracy as being a fair process because in the primary, they called -- they still haven't been counted and to this day you get the perky for your self.

to this day my vote has never been counted. >> guest: we have to distinguish between the kind of arguments we hear in thetem in a coordinated fashion being rigged against the candidate from problems that exist in the process. some of which the caller talked about and others which othersio. have mentioned we have the campaign-finance system which many people urgently feel needs to be corrected because there is too much private money flowing into campaigns and candidates are forced to constantly ask for the funding that they need to run advertisements and the organizations they need to win. we talked a lot about the allegations in the voter fraud but the problem many people think are the actual voter fraud mechanisms that have put into place which could lead to the disenfranchisement of citizens

who have a legitimate right to vote and often this might fall on the disadvantaged african-a communities, african-american communities where some of these identification laws and other mechanisms might actually prohibit were dissuaded people from voting. there are problems and how the media covers elections and issues that have been raised when the contests are called. w this was part of 2000. one of the argument is fo argums shouldn't have called for george bush in the early morning hours, but it wasn't clear. they called it a very early and a network that is more conservative in its politics than the others, the other networks then followed quickly. many people said why didn't -- why did they do that, they made a mistake that framed the election as george w. bush had won and then al gore was going to contest it rather thanothing

election night when nothing had been resolved and nobody won so there arwantsthat there are mann the system and some of the mechanisms we still used in many counties to vote and we need to have a discussion and talk about reform and those are serious should issues that can't bee pushed aside in order should they be ignored because people are afraid it i of is connectedo the kind of arguments that people don't want to engage in but those are all serious questions in both parties there's a lot of interest and discussion about reform in this was a pillar of the campaign the way the campaign-finance works is fundamentally skewing and breaking the political process. >> caller: i'm going to giveas you three basic reasons why

trump has a legitimate complaint and.loretta lynch me loretta lynn met with the total corruption and brazil sent questions to hillary clinton before the debate. i am saying to you trump has had to deal with the most corrupt government that i have ever seen in my lifetime. now i am retired and i have to go all the way back to mix in to see such corruption in our federal government and it is just deplorable. >> host: thank you. >> guest: what's remarkable about the obama administration legacy at this point the issue,e the scandals, the allegation ofl

corruption are far fewer than we've had in most administrations in a long time. there's been much less evidence of corruption or scandal even with toxic partisan environmentt that we have in washington than president clinton and even under president bush, so i'm not sure the comparison with watergate is even fair and in the many instances there have been a factual corruption and obviously in the severity of what we are talking about. there's a lot we don't know in terms of how this whole e-mail issue has been handled and i think that it's too early to tell what happened on the inside but certainly, at least in the end the fbi director has, through his letter sent the

political win in favor of donald trump, not against him. so if anything in the final weeks this administration hasn't ended up working in favor of hillary clinton but actually the opposite. this isn't an administrationon where there is corruption. there's other issues people point to where they disagree and thinthe president's policies overseas or with healthcare. our guest is with us to talk o about these comparisons betweenb what happened in 2000 and potentially what could have been in the modern day election. this is part of the acceptance speech and we will play you a little bit of it and get your analysis of it.g period.

>> our country has been through a long period with the final election not finalized. vice president gore and i put our hearts and hopes into the campaign. we both gave it our all. we shared similar emotions, so i understand how difficult this moment must be for vice president al gore and his family. he has a distinguished record of service to the country as a congressman, senator and viceth president. this evening i received aesiden. gracious call. we agreed to meet early next week in washington and agreed to do our best to heal our country after this contest. t tonight i want to thank all the thousands of volunteers and campaign workers who work so hard on my behalf and i thank

him for the call that i know was difficult to make. we wish the vice president, senator lieberman and their families the very best. i have a lot to be thankful for tonight. i'm thankful for america and thankful that we are able to resolve our electoral differences in a peaceful way. >> host: professor julian zelizer, what about that portion, what do you gain from that and what can we learn froml it? >> guest: the central message is one of reconciliation. he doesn't ignore the bitterness and anger that existed, nor does he totally ignore what happened. he is at least in that speech reaching out to al gore and the

democrats and asking the nation to move beyond what it had lived through three very difficult few weeks. it was also strategic. the big question was how this president elect bush governde after what just happened. there were many democrats as we heard with the calls today who did believe the outcome was the right one and the process has been handled poorly and the supreme court with a majority of conservative justices unfairly stopped the recount process, soo that message was important to him personally but also politically because he wanted to set up the first year of his administration where he was going to govern aggressively despite not having a mandate and he does that and it's a remarkable first year in that respect with policies like no child left behind where he isn't hesitant early on to start governing and push for his

agenda even after the way the election unfolded and in that speech i think is an early effort to send a signal that he's going to move in his administration to move beyond all the controversy of the election and recount recount tht happen. >> host: gerry on the democrats whine. >> caller: good morning c-span and the guest. here's something i have to say about that outcome 16 years ago. first of all, that footage of the speech if i had been mr. al gore i'm not so sure that i would have been a good sport about it. i think stephen douglas . talk about patriotism overe supreme r partisanship and it was over

patriotism and democracy is the right outcome were achieved there might not have been a 9/ 9/11. >> guest: bears some of the sentiment that still exists and there are many democrats that were actually frustrated with aa gore first during the recount process they felt the democrats werfor not being tough enough, t the republicans handled it as a political issue and they understood the way the recount happened and the way that it was talked about in front of the media and the way that they strategically thought about the timeline and the politics that would ensue from stopping and slowing down the investigation was better than that democrats who the writers have handled this more of a legal issue rather than political. and in the end, that was a

losing way to handle this. there were some democrats who were not happy that al gore was conceding because they thought the recount should continue. they didn't think it was right with the supreme court have done but he didn't want at the moment to create a constitutional crisis and put the nation in peo this ongoing period of divisive jeopardy and he felt the last battle had been fought since he made that decision and it is worth remembering that there were many supporters and it reflected a broader problem with during thoseic strategy during those we invite think that's important coming through 2016.sc through them democrats and republicans prepare methodically for the post election challenge. they have legal teams and the money to support the teams in case recounts should have been.

they think through what the political strategy will be if there are any electoral states with the ability to contest the vote and how they will do it and the political strategy for doing that and now it's just one part of the process. it's kept the issue of the vote on the table and that's why you have all these heated battles now and there's many democrats that have been very opposed to the voter restriction mechanisms that have been put into place from the requirement of a different kind of voter identification when you go to harder vote through the states that made it harder to vote by ending same-day registration or limiting early voting there are many that are still thinking of

the west and every vote should count and we should make it easier, not harder so it shapes our conversations and pretty profound ways. >> host: the author of the book the fierce urgency of now. thanks for your time this morning. >> guest: thanks for having me.

the national race is essentially tied between hillary clinton and donald trump according to the latest tracking polls. scott has been looking at the numbers. thank you for being with us. walk us through the numbers. what are we looking at? >> guest: this is the national

preference but we were measuring and we found clinton and trump tied 46% apparently stable over the last week encompassing the news of friday's regarding the fbi, but it shrunk from it last week where we had clinton up six percentage points. a few things be asked in the survey were to engage the recent news particularly whether people have changed their minds on the answering of questions as well as the perception for their clinton and trump were being more trustworthy. >> host: some interesting numbers for donald trump. >> guest: that's right. we found he had an eight percentage point and this is different than what we found in early september when the candidates were tied on the question.

clinton sometimes has an edge on this. one thing the other polls found as the majority in the country think that each candidate is dishonest so this is a measure of relative honesty. >> host: explained the methodology and who are usurping? >> guest: this refers to the expected amount of variation we get in the random sample of the country. right now the margin of error was 2.5 percentage points so the best estimate is 2.5 above or below that. the sample came from the international cellular and landline telephones and about two thirds were conducted over cell phones. we have live interviewers are calling about 400 or 450 of those adults each night and

people are asked whether they are registered to vote and their intention to vote at which point we determine who is likely to vote. >> host: early voting already in place and the national polls opening up next tuesday. how fluid is it at this point do you think? >> guest: i think what appears to be most fluid are th those tt resisted and better resisting and early this month are what led to the surve surveys followe date. what we have seen is those groups have been coming home and we are talking about independence as well as the rank-and-file partisan. one thing that is also uncertain at this stage is how the early

voting will play out and who will show up on election day that is a big question since about half are enthusiastic even though there is a huge amount paying attention. >> host: the numbers before next tuesday do they surprise you or are they typical of the closing days of a typical campaign? >> guest: it appears to have a similarity to four years ago which is a surprise because clinton has generally had a steady lead in this trump struggled to unify so we see some similarities and ther there built-in advantages that she has going for her particularly the battleground states where they continue to show her leading as well as where she has a stronger traditionatradition ballgame in.

>> host: polling director for the "washington post." right now the national campaign that is essentially a dead heat between the democratic and republican nominees. thank you for being with us. now journalists panelists include gloria of cnn, fox news sunday anchor chris wallace, charlie cook of the cook political report and correspondent mike allen. from the economic club of washington, d.c. this is one hour. [inaudible conversations]