power of writing and how that can make a difference, writing things for like 15 minutes a day have actually significantly show ed to reduce the stress around trauma, it's pretty amazing that the interventions are out there but the key thing for us is to start talking about them and start looking for solutions together because it's a big topic, it's a big book, we cover a lot. i actually f it's okay, the last thing i would like to do in closing is just to think also maybe what you might do tomorrow morning to offer kindness to somebody in a different way that you weren't necessarily expecting, you could turn to your neighbor and thank them for coming. anything like that. thank you so much for coming. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations]

>> thank you. >> book testify continues on c-span2, television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon, everybody. welcome. welcome to heritage, thank you for joining us, we will have a fun discussion about jason chaffetz new book, power grab and introduce him senator mike lee, best friend of the constitution. >> hello. it's a pleasure to be with you. this merges several of my interests, the constitution, conservative politics, books about those things at the heritage foundation and my friends jason and julie chaffetz. i first came to know the name jason chaffetz over 30 years ago

when he became the place kicker at byu, he's really good, to this day he holds records including the most successful points after touchdown scored in a single game and i think in a single season and he was also famous for the fact that immediately after he kicked a field goal or pap, the helmet would come off and then he had this awesome slow jog to the sidelines and became famous for that, the chaffetz, something called the chaffetz rule. i actually think it played a key role in his success as a statesman in the state of utah, people came to know him and they knew who he was, i remember many years later long after he had played for byu and had a

successful career as a businessman and met him in person for the first time and i was star struck and met him while he was running governor's campaign, before he was governor huntsman, and he, jason chaffetz himself convinced me that huntsman was the next governor, we had conversation at utah county republican convention and several months after that, after getting elected called me and informed me that i was in consideration for huntsman administration. so we hit it off and we ended up working together. i ended up serving as governor hutsman general counsel at the time when jason chaffetz was the chief of staff but my most

important role during that time period was when i became jason chaffetz chauffeur. [laughter] >> he and i lived closer together than any other two members of the senior staff and at one point jason broke his foot, long story we won't get into that. sounds like the punch line to a joke and it was actually quite serious but he fell and broke his foot and had to be in cast, elevated for several months at a time. i would go and pick him up in hope in utah, seat in backseat of the car to keep his foot elevated and i asked him to get a chauffeur's hat, i didn't charge him anything, the only thing subjected to lengthy rants on constitutional issues and listened to tape-recorded supreme arguments which who wouldn't want to do that? but i digress, we are not to talk about any of that, we are

here to talk that jason chaffetz is a hero when it comes to defending individual liberty and fighting against big government, he's someone who is willing to call out the left, both, those who identify as part of the left and also who want to build big government. someone who understands the fact that there is something of a zerosome game and he understands the fact that government itself is not and never can be, never will be consistently benevolent, the government is collective force, organized force and it's run by fallible mortal individuals, consequently we have to carefully constrain its

power and we have to make sure that it's not abused. in his latest book jason chaffetz describes how powers have been orchestrated in such a way to effectively weponized the threatening power of government in a way that advances the political agenda of the left or another way to describing it might be advancing the political agenda of those who you would expand government at the expense of individual liberty. he blows a whistle on how they have weponized the use criminal investigations in order to achieve a particular political outcome, now, to be clear, as jason chaffetz makes her in power grab, this isn't question of red team versus the blue team. this is a question of liberty versus centralized government

power. we shouldn't be eager to go back to a system which government knows best and government holds all the power. we can't go back to a time where that is not the case. that's why jason chaffetz' book power grab is an important tool for those who want to live in a land where they are free. whether you call yourself a conservative, or a liberal, or libertarian, or something else, it shouldn't matter, what should matter to you is the concept of liberty, the concept that government exist for certain limited purposes, to make sure that we are secure and to make sure that we have an enterprise that uses collective force for

purpose of defending life, liberty and property. the more we deviate from that, the more we run into a real risk of power grab where we become less free and less secure in our lives, liberty and our property. there's not a day that goes by that i don't mishaving jason chaffetz serving in the house of representatives, he was one who in addition to being trusted friend and colleague when we worked in governor huntsman's office, he's someone who came to trust and -- and love working with when he was serving in the house of representatives and during my time in office in the senate. hard to remember an issue where we took opposing viewpoints.

i take comfort in fact that he's able to do enormous amount of good where he is in informing the american people of risk of big government and keeping them informed of what's going on in washington and he's exercising a lot of books like power grab which i highly recommend, with that please join me in welcoming jason chaffetz, the author of power grab. [applause] >> i get to tell mike lee stories when he's not here, that's even better. i first met mike, we were at the

utah county convention, literally a thousand plus people at this event and this gentleman comes up and we start talking and he introduces himself as mike and i said, do you have a card or something, what's your full name and he said mike lee, because i knew he's a spitting image of his father who was previous -- had been the president of university and any relationship to rex lee and he said, yeah, that's my dad. i could tell he was related to him, rex lee was the solicitor general for ronald reagan and he had argued some 100 plus cases i believe before the supreme court, fast-forward when i'm chief of staff and he's general counsel, one of the best things i did while i was chief of staff and it is true, i broke my right

foot. he would drive me to and from every day and what he didn't tell you is that he had a cassette tape player in his car and he would like to listen to his dad argue the supreme court cases so he would literally put the cassette tape in there, that's how much the guy loves the law and listen to oral presentations before the supreme court. i learned a lot but that's what mike does for fun, he's not listening to music or anything like that so you have to love a guy who is that committed to it. [laughter] >> mike is going to walk us through here a few things. i want to acknowledge my wife julie who is here with me. i appreciate her being here. i appreciate all of you being here. i want to thank the heritage foundation for making this all possible, the good that heritage does in terms of informing

people, being a resource while i was in congress, even after i had been in congress is such a great resource and so many good minds thinking through tough issues, so, so helpful. the quick of why i wrote the book as i say at the beginning, steven who was from our congressional district, he wrote 7 basic habits, highly effective people need to understand than to be understood. i wholeheartedly believe that. i also believe what margaret thatcher said in she said, first you need to win the argument and then you can go out and win the vote and i had always felt even before i came to congress and before i ran and more evident once i was there that republicans, conservatives, we were very pathetic in our communication, first of all, we were getting no help from the mass media, the national media was not going to be a conduit to which we could get our message out there and have the platform

and the time to be able to do that. so it was compounded by that, but i've always felt that we as conservatives have the right message, we just didn't say it very well and we didn't say it enough and i remember when i was first in congress i met with eric canter who had a senior position at the time because i had been invited to be on fox news and i had -- i couldn't believe it until i called eric canter and i said are you all right if i go on fox news and he's like, jason, are you kidding me, you need to go out there as much as you possibly can to get out our message and get on any other network and talk about why you believe what you believe and more people that can get in front of the cameras to go on all networks to talk about what it is we believe and

give that perspective. i don't buy into the idea that you just need to sit back and, oh, well, they're not going to give us a fair shake so we will not go on there, i did probable write more interviews on msnbc and cnn, you probably didn't see them, not that many people saw them, then i did even on fox news, 8 and a half years in congress and i left and bless to have contributor relationship with box, but i always felt like, gosh, i can still contribute in the public square because now more than ever i can get out and talk about issues that matter, that matter more our country and at least from a conservative standpoint and it's been very blessed to have this relationship with harper collins who did my first book, called the deep state, new york times best seller and just launched this book, literally, like 7 days ago power grab which is sort of the -- bifurcates in two

different areas, how is it that democrats use levers that they have that you all have not seen unless you have been in congress or really paying attention, you need somebody to draw your attention to them and then what are the things that they are doing outside of congress to change the dynamic and the narrative and those are the first two chapters of the book that should scare the living daylights out of you because they are doing some things on the left that will affect all of us whether you realize it or not, we as conservatives and republicans don't play often nearly enough. democrats are always playing offense and that's why i articulate here, mike will walk us through and i think we will do q&a, at least we hope we do. >> i worked for the former congressman when he was chairman of house oversight committee and a lot of stuff in the book are

memories of good times he had when he ran committee. i would like to start off with your final town hall after trump got elected, things got ugly, can you tell us about that and -- >> yes, i where about this, i had won fifth term in congress, blessed to get 73% of the vote, this was roughly 4 or 5 weeks after donald trump had been sworn in, the heart of winner in utah and all of a sudden i'm having town hall meeting, i have had i don't know how many town hall meetings, i love the town hall meeting, a group of this size and people can interact, it's a good format, the quick of it is, democrats got a hold of this and they have this group

called indivisible utah which had a national presentation, they had a specific manual about how to take over a town hall meeting, this thing blossomed and blew up into a thousand plus people that were showing up and they wanted to create this allusion, it's a recurring theme, they wanted to create this allusion that a conservative republican in safe district who just happened to be the chairman of the oversight committee with the newly minted president of the united states, donald trump, was that his voters were mad, they needed to do his job and he needs to hold the president accountable and he needed to do this and do that and they had this long list of demands of things that they wanted me to do, much of which i didn't think were in the purview of the united states congress.

and so much so that it got out of control, police officers, people openly carrying weapons with masks in the parking lot, we had swat team, it was -- it turned into quite a fiasco. the highlight of which i will give you is that there were two members to have national media that had shown up. i don't remember ever having national media show up to my town hall after i won my fifth election with 73% of the vote, you know, we are weeks into the 115th congress, really? well, this one reporter she insisted that she interview me and i said, well, let me talk to her on the phone first and i said to her, why are you here, like why are you here, well, we have a source in san francisco that says there's going to be a riot and perhaps a fire and i said, really?

did you ever think that maybe you should -- did you tell law enforcement about that? did you -- did you call my office about that? you're only telling me because i asked you why you are here and she said, no. and i said, you're going to literally put a thousand plus people in danger if you think there's going to be a riot and a fire potentially you're telling me that people might die, you believe there's enough credibility, that's why you are here and these people are doing live shots from my town hall meeting and it just -- i call the last town hall because that's the last one that i ended up doing but this is how these people play, recurring theme in here that they really do you believe on the radical far left side, they throw all the labels like fascist and all these really negative terms on donald trump, but what i see them doing is exactly what they claim the

president was doing. that in order to protect our freedom they need to take it away, they need to take away our rights under the first amendment, it's just a recurring theme but i could go on and on about this particular town hall meeting but it was used as tool and prop, they paid people to come in, people from all kinds of states there, but they we wanted to create this media allusion that it was an organic utah phenomena in a conservative republican district, look how much problems donald trump is creating for everyone, which was not true. >> in your book you get to double standards and hypocrisy, the most telling is when you first came to congress republicans were referred to as the party of no. >> right. >> obstruction, but now the media and toaster like the call the left the resistance, name that can note positive

justification, what do you make of that? >> think about it, houston have you heard the republicans, the party of no because we are somehow opposed to a public policy position that barack obama and the democrats were championing that we were the party of no, but if all of a sudden now you don't wear the liberal credentials unless you are antitrump no matter what, no matter what position he possibly takes, they're going to take the opposite one. i did that when i was like in third grade. no you didn't. i'm very proud that they were part of the resistance movement. we disagree, we disagree.

let's have that debate but i do believe that the more conservative actually have the debate, we win that debate and i've been going around the country telling people and i want to show -- share this message with you, let's talk from our hearts, i'm tired of conceding the compassion card to the democrats, they are not the more compassionate caring group and what i worry about sometimes when we have the debate and the discussion we want to smoother people with statistics and numbers and the study, i think we also as conservatives, i got my campaign and also need to talk about why we believe what we believe. i think we are in part successful because we talk about the principles, my guess if you're here at the meeting this day you have a set of principles

that you believe in but i think that a lot of conservatives forget to step one, let's talk about why you believe what you believe, then we can argue about how we get there and the individual policy position. democrats want to cut down the debate and create this evil appearance that how dare you, that's why all the polling that we do day after day on television and newspapers, it's just a bunch of hogwash. people don't want to admit they will vote to donald trump as opposed hillary clinton because they don't want neighbors or somebody else to beat them over the head with it and try to embarrass, that's part of their strategy, they want to embarrass people. >> one of my favorite parts of the book when you put investigator hat on and dig through tax returns of bunch of big nonprofits from the left, what did you discover in how operations are discovered and shading accounting tricks and full disclosure as nonprofit at heritage, i'm glad i learned

about the tricks in the book, we don't do any of that. >> so this is what i think people need to understand, if you look at the priorities that they have put forward in congress and you look through any poll that's out there about what are the most important issues, you're going to hear about the economy, you're going to hear about immigration, well, why is it that nancy pelosi has hr1, house resolution 1, what is her first bill? does it have anything to do with top 20 or top 50 issues? no, it doesn't, hr1 is how to reconfigure elections, she wants to reconstitute how we do elections in this country because it's their calculus, my theory that i have on the book, that they have to reconfigure how we do voting in this country in order for them to win long

term. so one of the weapons of war i think is something that my guess and 98% of you never heard of before and that's that they have learned weponized non-for-profits, planned parenthood, southern poverty law center, aclu and i have a laundry list of them, we have been through the 9-90, 9-90 is a form that they need to fill out essentially as top line tax return and what you'll see consistently on 990's for profit entity called grassroots campaigns, inc, a hundred different type of organizations that this douglas phelps has been involved with, he's done fundraisers for joe biden, barack obama when he first came out of college and went to work for this organization, credited this organization, not grassroots campaign, inc,

teaching him all he needed to know about how to win a campaign, believe him, believe barack obama, this is how they learned how to do this, this is the way it works, you're a 501c3 which is a non-for-profit where if you make a donation you get a tax writeoff and 501c4's which allowed to engage in more politics but have a different tax treatment on how you can write off your taxes and talk to your tax accountant if you have a question over which one is which, but 501c3 organization as non-for-profit, this gentleman here could go and make a 10 million-dollar donation, he's going to get a tax benefit from doing so, but that nonprofit organization is hiring a profit

organization who will put on t-shirts, planned parenthood and start knocking doors, planned parenthood will knock on your door, hey, we are raising money 50 bucks for planned parenthood, are you with us or against us, oh, i love planned parenthood, yeah, i will give you $100, what does that tell you about that voter? what does that tell you about that person? you think they will vote for the democrats or or republicans. >> you hate planned parenthood, awful organization, ding, ding, there's a voter that we have identified that we don't want to have voting in the next election, what they do is for profit entity has now gathered all of this information, then they go and work for the dccc, dnc in swing states and they can go out and target individuals bypassing all of the campaign finance rules, if this gentleman

we wanted to participate in the election, individual campaign contribution limit is $2,800 and there's certainly things you can and cannot do with that money but the problem here is if you look at the charts we put in there, planned parenthood for instance over 8-year period every single year they hired grassroots campaign, inc to do campaigning they lost money and they hire them again and spend more money with them, they lost something like $11 million over next years. why would they do that? why would they do that? i raise that as a question because you will have first to do an audit, this is the place they should be doing an audit because they restrictively prohibited from engaging in this type of campaign work and they are blatant about it and i wish everybody would realize it and second part and i have to move quickly here, address later not in first two chapters but later

on hr1, i can't remember which chapter it is about vote harvesting, now you may have heard about this term but basically democrats in legislation have supported the idea -- they want to make this law everywhere you go that you do not have to be present to actually vote, vote harvesting allows somebody, not to pick on this gentleman here, can go around, in fact, los angeles times story about the woman who is undocumented person, she's here illegally, she's not without, you know, going out and collecting ballots from all of you, can go knock on the doors and say, i know that you didn't get to the poll, i know that you didn't want to throw out your ballot but if you give me your ballot, you know, fill it out and i will turn it in for you. anything you think can go wrong in that sort of scenario, yeah, a lot can go wrong.

if you look at -- i believe it's 8 seats in california that the republicans lost in the last election, there were thousands and thousands of votes that showed up after the deadline that came many, oh, my gosh miraculously in favor of the democrats. in proportions they were totally different. why are we having the special election in north carolina? it's illegal to do vote harvesting, ironically joe kennedy, congressman from massachusetts complained about it, see the republicans are cheating, you just voted on legislation to make this legal everywhere in the country, this is but one thing out of a list of 30 that the democrats are trying to do to grab back more power, change the way we do things and if we don't open up our eyes and be cognizant of it they will blow through this, i don't know how you win an election in california when

democrats play by different rules than republicans and engage in this type of vote harvesting. i think there's evidence that it happened in arizona against martha mcsally, evidence that it's happened in other places too, even in utah there's allegations that thousands of votes showed up after the deadline, democrats elected as county clerk, democrats -- what are you going to do? who is going to be the eyeballs to watch on that? it's a scary scenario. >> congressional oversight has changed quite a bit since you left congress and unfortunately not for the better, certain things are out of bounds when you were there but now it seems that the more personal, the more vicious, the more likely the left will call hearings and investigations into these topics, how do you think it's changed and what damage has it done? >> so i guess the thing that make the biggest mark on you, the biggest kind of philosophical change, the oversight committee was founded

in 1814, it was there to oversee any and all expenditures, it had different committee names, abraham lincoln when he came on the committee, this was his committee assignment when he was in the united states congress and he was challenging the president and origin to have méxico-american war, what's interesting what i changed when i left the foreign committee changed and now nancy pelosi and elijah cummings changed the name of the committee, the committee on oversight. democrats don't belief that government is the problem, they think it's the solution to everything. government is all good, what you're hearing is a press to go

after individuals and individual corporations, that is not necessarily the purview of the united states congress. again, the committee is why, probably the widest birth of any jurisdiction, there are two supreme court case that is we lay out here where oversight was -- wings were clipped back to get it on the straight narrow which is look after government, we had hearings, for instance, mylan pharmaceuticals and the epipen situation, you know, arma boy where we did call it into individual corporations, but what we also did call in the fda and health and human services to say how does this happen, what elija cummings is doing is now demanding and sending out subpoenas and directives to go in letters, record amount to

look under the books without any evidence of wrongdoing by the way. presupposing the outcomes on fishing expeditions to go look into the lives of individuals and if you have proximity to donald trump, look out, because that is a prime time target. this operating agreement which nobody has seen the light of day between elijah cummings, nadler, maxine watters, adam schiff, i want to say there's a fifth one in there about how they are going to do investigations and how they were going to do impeachment, these people layed this all out before the 116th congress even started, it's all premised on the idea that they were going to be essentially, i believe, the campaign researching arm for the democrats. i think that's what they are doing right here right now, there is no justification or evidence to justify a lot of this, they are just literally

want to find out what -- what -- let's go figure out and then we will figure out what the crime is but it all start with the idea and the premise that we don't need government, with we need to look at people, we need to look at individuals and kind of scary that the congressional, the branch of government that they would engage in this kind of witch hunt is kind of power grab, this sort of diving deep, it is scary the abuses of power that's going on there. >> one of the most high-profile examples obviously is the confirmation process of justice kavanaugh, you talked about how choreographed from the opening scene. >> we go through -- there's whole books that you can write on the kavanaugh situation but the prework, what we tried to focus on is the work that they were doing and the outlines that they had no matter who it was, this is going to be, this was going to be a narrative about a

frat boy who was out control, it's not brand-spanking new in my book, but we remind people about the press release that was already written with x, x, x, they just need today fill -- needed to fill in the name, when you see that in retrospect put together like the way we did in the chapter, it reminds you how evil and how bad it was and i do think it's almost humorous that the democratic senators, every single one of them had pledged to vote no and then complained about the lack of openness and transparency. you still have senator schumer and the others say, this is a trick they always do, right, they always do this, they ask for things that they know cannot be given to them.

there's executive privilege that president has with senior most advisers, what jerry nadler does time and time again and they did it in the kavanaugh situation is they asked for information that the president has executive privilege on, it's the same claim that barack obama claimed, believe me, i wanted to get ben rhodes on committee to talk about the iran deal and i invited ben rhodes to testify before the oversight committee, he was in the new yorker, he was doing public speeches, well, certainly he has time to do media and public speeches, he can come talk to congress about this, oh, no, no, they claimed executive privilege, there's a separation of powers issue and i dropped it. i didn't issue a subpoena, the difference now is cummings and nadler will issue a subpoena, see, they don't comply, but they know if it goes to court they will never win, but they don't care because that court date is going to come after the next

election, they want to create a narrative, i guaranty you will hear nadler and cummings, we issued 250 subpoenas and never responded, most of them bogus and court would laugh them out of there. the reason nadler was chair of judiciary committee, he went before colleagues and said i'm better suited to pursue impeachment, come with me, i will do impeachment and he beat out lockran, this is what he's doing, abusing power. >> we will end on positive note like you do on your book, what should conservatives be looking for to rein this in? >> i try to do this in deep state and paragraph of purpose, i don't want to just lay out all the bad and you come and listen in the meeting, bummed out, it's

not the feel-good meeting of the year, try to end on positive note that this is the greatest country on the face of the planet, somehow, some way the american people figure things out, they sniff out authenticity and understand these issues but wife to be aware of them, the fact that you're reading the book is good news and people want to dive deeper on these issues but i also think it's incumbent that we engage in federalism that we push back on tenth amendment, we push -- government has too many things, too many people, so much of this shouldn't be done at all or the purview of the states, somehow we have to neuter the the powero have federal government and just get them out of this business and i think a lot of those answers will be pushing towards state rights an doing those types of things but also takes making sure that we are engaged

as the people and people individually get and decide that they will be part of the solution and not part of the problem and so with that i can't thank you enough for being here and being here and i hope you enjoy the book, i really do, but if we have a few minutes for questions, if you have to go, but if you have a few minutes for questions. [applause] >> you mentioned the conspiracy behind the town halls and creating discorruption and we know during too t rallies, the trump rallies that they had the tape showing democrat operatives paying people to incite violence, those are felonies what they did to you and what they did to them and i went to the party to say to prosecute, great way to get discovery on the democrats, but nothing ever happened, i mean, i think we really have to pursue things

like these that are inciting violence and we know that last count was like close to a thousand attacks on trump supporters and republicans, we've got to do some things to lay down the hammer. >> yeah, i -- i don't know, i think there was one person that was arrested and they basically took her out and then just released her, they didn't charge with anything. you can go anywhere in the country and get a hundred thousand people, i look at democrats, joe biden rally, they couldn't pay enough people to show up to fill a high school, auditorium with those folks.

what attorney general durham is dealing at the fbi, a huge slew of americans, it's one-sided and it's unfortunate and i think -- my grandfather was a career fbi agent and if he locked at the fbi today he would cringe. i think it happened across the board, you can take legal immigration cases an simple town hall, people yelling, screaming, disrupting, threatening, carrying weapons on school grounds, body camera of police officers, i trusted their judgment in the town hall to make the right decision to keep the calm and i think they made all the right calls, they

learned from some of the others where the escalation happened and then i look at portland and i see antifa and others and nobody has arrested and let alone prosecuted, i think that's wrong and i think conservatives are right to point that out because i think we've been on the receiving end and it's gone on too long and doesn't seem to be any consequence to truly threatening or address this behavior where there's an actual assault, thank you. touched on something that's much bigger and broader than my town hall. yeah. >> what -- >> i think they are broadcasting part of this -- >> will trump win 2020? >> well trump win, yeah, i think so, i think so. i think he will lose some states like california with vote harvesting, it will come down to -- [inaudible]

>> i mean, i want to be optimistic, house races are hard to predict because it's a local issue and at tend of the day it's one person versus another person, you know, and it's really hard to tell who the personalities are on both sides. i think in part it's a referendum on donald trump but it's going pretty well. you can complain about the tweets and if you're complaining about the tweets, then you are looking for an excuse not to vote for him. if donald trump gets a trade deal done with china, i don't -- i that it's going to play so well, right into the democratic base, blue-collar workers but into the farming community. >> it's true that the chinese are playing dirty -- [inaudible] >> what is your girlfriend hanging out with carter --

[inaudible] >> i see. [inaudible] >> we gave them everything and now -- >> yeah. look, i think donald trump earns credit on both sides of the aisle no matter how much you get people attacking on television, we finally have a president that's standing up to make it right, so let me get this gentleman right here. >> george soros and all the guys that are funding the activist groups, can something be done with those guys? >> the point on my book what i think needs to happen the non-for-profits that are openly engaging in these types of campaign tactics, they need to be add -- audited by the irs, the irs spent a lot of time making sure 300 plus conservative organizations never got authorization to exercise first amendment right.

the size and gravity of the irs, why are they not looking at these major players and how they are doing it? it's simple, you can look at it in 2 minutes, line after line, year after year they lose money. what's the answer to that question? maybe congressional committee should ask that question, but i think more importantly the irs should -- should do that, i think that's so, so wrong. we point out how planned parenthood, they park millions overseas and what they do in africa to insist on allowing abortions, we point out and i want to make sure i get statistic here specifically on camera and i want to refer on book, i believe they spend more on abortions in some of the countries than they do food, water and aid, it's kind of disgusting what they do there. >> thanks for what you're doing and for the book. i think that -- i don't know if you would agree with me but don't you think that an

uneducated electorate is why we have the blatant power grab? >> that's a big part of why -- the whole premise of my book, the whole idea is that you have, again, seek, first, understood then to be understood and make sure you win the argument before you go out and try the win the vote, if you don't make this argument and inform people and say, do you think it's right that a non-for-profit charity is engaging in politics, i think most people say no, no, they shouldn't be doing that but you have to engage in that, totally. >> we have one of the largest, as millennials come to age to vote, excuse me, and the generation behind them, i taught school for ten years and you probably know where i'm going with, this i would love to see us make a case for return to have the school systems to local entities, not national, not the u.s. department of education. >> look, i signed onto bill that there shouldn't be a u.s. department of education, let the

money follow the kids, we should do this at a local level. as i look back at our kids, public school system, we had a good education system, pretty good, i think, in utah but history, civics -- >> that's what i taught. >> financial education, how to do a checkbook was almost nonexisting and really pretty pathetic. >> you have situations where teachers like me who are conservatives and never stood in front of my classroom, i'm a republican and vote republican, before you leave this classroom you will be registered to vote, that's all i care about that you regular store to vote and that you go vote, the union rep came and talked to me, you will not be covered by the liability insurance if you say things like that because you're not doing the talking point. >> the whole education system, we need a couple of hours to go

through that. [laughter] >> thank you. >> just a quick question, many people think that we are losing fox and for those of us who have been watching it for a long time it's changing dramatically and that's a big, big deal for us going forward. what can you say and what can you smile at -- >> i'm glad that you asked the question, when i showed up at fox and i had an offer from another network as well and went with fox and fox, i said, what do you want from me, what do you need from me, you be you, we want authenticity, however you see it you call it, don't think that you have to support the president, if you do great, if you don't, that's great too, whatever you want. i think fox is finding a niche in a place and what i appreciate fox is that it is the only place that i know that truly opens up the debate to both sides and i would tell you as a conservative

we should never, ever be worried about hearing from the other side as well because, you know what, it makes my argument stronger, if i can't win that debate, shame on me. so i love the fact that they're giving time and opportunity for democrats and liberals to state their point. i look at it and say, are you kidding me, all right, bring my on, let me debate that ridiculous position that you just took on and win the argument. and i wouldn't worry about that at all, i hear some people say, fox -- even the president, they're not there to be political arm of just one voice and one political side, i like the fact that they -- they allow and give opportunities to both sides. it's something i think america is striving for and given the chance to have that argument conservatives win. 99 out of 100 times, so -- >> time for one or two more.

>> sure. >> going back to the ngo issue, has the irs shown any interest in looking into these because this sounds like a huge, huge negative impact on the country? has there been any interest or -- >> well, the book is 6 to 7 days old and i'm hoping on y'all and fox and others,i proop-ed on fox news, they let me on air to talk about it, i'm doing all i can to draw attention to it and hopefully there's some numbers in the house and the senate that, you know, will also do something along with it as well. but i think it's for most people it's brand-new information, so we will see, we will see. one more real quick. yes, sir. the microphone. there you go. >> you've -- you've noted the nexus the liberal camp, the ngo's and the media obviously but there's the emerging power of the social media giants, the

googles, twitters, obtain enormous amount of information but control flow of information and influence the actual discussion -- >> you highlight something that we all have to deal with. we created a subcommittee on information technologies, $90 billion on 250,000 employees on technology, that's how much we are spending as taxpayers but also to look at dilemmas out there. i think it was more than 40, i think it's a bipartisan group of

state attorneys general are filing suit against the the behemoths and if consumers don't want to go that direction, they can go another direction. a couple of years ago dropped it, he said it's a pool of negativity, waste of my time and i think he didn't like that parents also got on and tried to friend him. that didn't help as well. [laughter] >> but i think the court ruling is that the president -- the rule was that they can't delete followers and i tweeted back saying, well, does the same hold true in twitters and googles of the world, can they hold back from allowing people to see the president's account and other people's account.

i can tell you, if i put up a 2 conservative post barely goes to anybody and i've got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of followers and maybe goes to 1500 people, really, are you kidding me? why do you think 250,000 people on facebook signed up as like and i put up and only went to 1500, really? i will test it and put something else, 40 to 50,000 people, really? something in those algorithms is not being done in a straightforward manner. long-winded way of saying i think people need to have a exposure in terms of content. i think it's fascinating what europe is doing in terms of the right to be forgotten. i think there are child issues that have not been dealt with, previously the law allowed a 13-year-old to sign up, what other instance do we allow 13-year-olds to engage in a

contractual obligation and if they decided the 15-year-olds that they no longer want their content in europe now, they have to delete it. it has to be gone to the point that they can be sued for that, lots of issue, i'm passionate about this stuff. you highlighted something that's imperative but at the same time let's just be honest, as conservatives the national media and the social media they will be fighting against us, you know what, at the end of the day there's a reason why donald trump won 30 of the 50 states because i believe as i go around the country and talk to the american people we are still a conservative nation, we still believe in the basic tenants of conservatism and that will win the day, but we do have to educate and get out there and talk about these things and i thank you for being involved and being engaged and i hope you like power grab and i appreciate heritage for having me here, 1:01, i'm 2 minutes late.

appreciate. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> today on book tv at 7:45 eastern, the black books matter book party in washington, d.c. featuring publisher audrey and history of black dollar and white house correspondent april ryan author of under fire. >> but at the end of the day those founding fathers, they never realized that they'll be an april ryan questioning bill clinton, bush and first black president barack obama and donald trump and i stand on the pillars that our founders put in place, my story is your story. >> at 11:00 eastern, offers his

thoughts on school safety and guns in his book why meadow died. refer i was going to find out why and how my daughter got killed and it was all the programs of these kids like, they had the first kim before school, it was so dangerous that i found out, they frisked him and he wasn't allowed in with a backpack, that's how dangerous he was. he threatened students lives and never arrested. >> sunday at 9:00 eastern on after words, the book that years that mattered most, challenges and costs of a college education, he's interviewed by senator, author and founding director of hope center for hope and justice. >> we are still debating whether a 12th grade education is enough, it's obviously not enough and labor market, i bet it's not enough but now i'm like

predecessors who were able to respond to that basic -- the basic economic signs by saying, okay, let's educate our young people, we are fighting about it and turning it into questions of identity and snobbery and politics and partisanship when clearly there's just a sign that we are young people who need our support and need our help, need more education, need more credentials and need more skills in order to survive in the current economy. >> watch book tv every weekend on c-span2. >> book tv was on hand at politics and pros bookstore in washington, d.c. where cbsn luís legal analyst came waley discussed her book how to read the constitution and why. here is a portion of her talk. >> a monarchy traditionally the power comes from god, the idea

is god decided you would be king or queen and so the power comes from god, the people are separate. in our government the power ultimately always comes from the people and that document is designed to basically hand out, i call it job description, there's a job description for congress, there's a job description for the executive branch and there's a job description for judges, all of us who have had jobs if there aren't consequences for violating cob didn't job description, the constitution can't function with bad action, you'll get fired, so our constitution is a piece of paper to the extent to which we enforce it. it's like a contract.

.. .. >> constitution is the same way. >> to watch the rest of this program, visit our web site, booktv.org, and search the author's name, kim whaling, using the box at the top of the page. >> okay. greetings, everyone. my name's ted hamm, i'm the editor of frederick douglass in brooklyn and a professor of journalism, excuse me, at st. josephs college in clinton hill here in brooklyn. i want to welcome you to brooklyn book festival channel and assure you that books for ale are available -- for sale are available in the courtyard after the panel.