administration. turning point charlie kirk offers his thoughts on the new conservative agenda. georgetown university talks about the normalizing of cyber warfare as a geopolitical tool. that all begins tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern. find more information on your program guide or by visiting otb.org. [inaudible conversations] [applause] [cheering and applause] >> good evening, everyone.

welcome home. my name is derek. my wife and i own midtown scholars. i'm also the mayor of harrisburg. [applause] a democratic enclave in the middle of pennsylvania. [laughter] it is a pleasure to welcome everybody here tonight for best sellingel authors. before we begin, we have some guidelines. i want to make this event go as smooth as possible. at this time, will you please take out your phones and join me ass we power off and silence our cell phones. we want to welcome c-span tonight. both tv. [cheering and applause] they will be filming. checkbook tv for the listings. they usually get them up and running real quick. we want to try to not have any interruptions. thank you. at this time, i want to introduce our speakers.

beforeak we do i want to quickly plug onepl upcoming event. grab one of our flyers. a lot of of great talks coming up. incredible best-selling authors coming. friday, march 6, you may be particularly interested in professor gretchen. driving while black. the true story of the green book. it's a fact. that will be fun. that is at 7:00 o'clock. dan pfeiffer is the number one new york times best-selling author of yes, we still can. [cheering and applause] all right. [cheering andnd applause] one of barack obama's longest advisors, white house director under president obama 2009-2013. you will clap for the whole

thing. senior advisorr from 2013-2015 currently lives in the bay area with his a wife and daughter. [cheering and applause] interviewing dan this evening. [cheering and applause] in a civil rights activists focused primarily on issues of innovation, equity and justice. born and raised in baltimore, graduated institute of college of art. the author of the new book on the other side of freedom, the case for hope. [cheering and applause] a leading voice in the black lives matter unit, connecting individuals with knowledge, tools, citizens, policymakers with commonsense policies. he has been praised by president

obama for his work as community organizer. ancontinues to provide activists organizers influence and make an impact today. the book you have in your hands this evening, the on trumping america. [cheering and applause] it is a sharp political playbook for how democrats can pick on trout and the rest of the party. a powerful call for progressives to get smarter, tougher and more aggressive in order to make america a democracy again. without further ado please join me in welcoming dan pfeiffer. [cheering and applause]

>> it is good to be here. excited to be in conversation with my fellow crooked friends. let's jump right in. how do you feel about this moment in politics? do you think we can -- >> i think there is nothing more important than winning this election in 2020. i have never been more convinced that winning this election is enough. i think too many democrats in washington and around the country think that donald trump is an aberration. he has a logical extension of the republican party over the last many, many years. particularly since barack obama was elected. all the forces that allowed him to become president will still be present.

we have to take a very aggressive effort to fix the problems in our politics and allow someone like donald trump to be president of the united states. >> a difference between voters that focus on ideology and policy. why did you make that distinction? >> i've been watching the 700 democratic debates we have had. [laughter] every one of them has been incredibly endearing subsidy of about whether we will have medicare for all, medicare for some or green new deal or whether we need to get 50% by this date or that date. that is great. substance is important. it is progress for our political conversation we are having. wednesday night's debate was a little different. [laughter] i think that that conversation is a little bit past the graveyard.

i think our politics, both the institutions of politics that have been around for a long time, plus a very ruthless strategy put in place by republicans have politics rigged against the progressive views of the majority of america. if we do not tackle political leand democratic reform first, t does not matter whether you are revolutionary it doesn't matter if you want medicare for all, medicare for some, medicare for one single person in america, if we do not deal with things like the problems with the senate, the structures around voter suppression, gerrymandering, it does not matter what policies we have. don't focus on how we get things done but what we do when we can. >> what we should do. when you talk about trump not being ann aberration, but an extension, i was interested in the way you talked about that.

racial politics has allowed trump to exist in this ways. can you talk about the importance of a racial grievance as you know in the book? >> the way to understand politicians, i think it is much more simple. you have to understand the incentives. what they want to do is stay in office. the republican party is dependent upon a shrinking, almost entirely white base. the only way they can win is to get as much support out of that base as humanly possible. what they have discovered is the best way to do that is with racial grievance. to scare white people about nonwhite people. people taking their job, terrorists, african-americans, all across the board. that has been going on since the passage of the voting rights act. you can see it from the nixon's

southernan strategy, you can see it with ronald reagan going to mississippi giving us states right speech about as subtle as a hammer to the head. you can see it in george w. bush running his campaign which was an ad so racist that all future racist ads will be referred to as that. [laughter] the reason why i think we had to do this, with every passing day, the majority of the country becomes younger, more progressive and more diverse. the republicans need more and more out of that white base. they will get worse and worse. they go and get away with that because of things they have done to reduce the political power of young people, people of color in this country. until we address that come out the world will keep doing what it's been doing. >> people should fight as hard as a trump people off.

an argument that you addressed. an argument that they should be as aggressive as the other side. what is your take on that? >> i refer to this as -- should we be like trump? the answer to that is definitively no. just because we want to be able to look in the mirror in the morning, but also, that strategy does not work. trthe republicans are trying to get as many people, a group of people thatke are very likely to turn out. they won a few people that often do not. it works for them. we need hope and inspiration. we have to get our standard base. we also need to convince new voters to become voters to become democrats. we need to convince people that may be turned off by the process. we adopt cynical strategies.

we will lose. >> a lot of people feel that the hope train ended and the obama moment, no offense, we love you, we love obama, people worrying about it being a mobilizing strategy for people. i think we have to recognize people. the way i described it in the book is democrats will have to be what they referred to that policy. idealist without allusions. we have to be hopeful in the idea that the country can be more unified, but very clear eyed about to the republicans in washington are. it doesn't matter that the republicans will have an epiphany when trump loses, it will not happen. i think we should believe and try to aspire to something better. we have to be tough and we have to be strategic about political

power.ca we have not been strategic enough or tough enough with political power. >> what do we do about the party? during the obama years, we lost a lot of governorships. we lost a lot of people in congress. something happened to the infrastructure of the party that did not set us up well. what do we do about that? was it the obama administration, did they just drop the ball? did people not pay attention? what happened? >> i think it is all all the above. bottom of the ballot. one, a terrible economy. 2010 election was a disaster. unemployment was at 10%. coming two years after a bipartisan bail out of banks. i think people forget, which is very important, citizens united decision happened in january january 2010. the democratic ability to keep

up in campaign spending in that election went away that day. our candidates were washed awayt in a way of corporate brothers and corporate money in the end. what i think and what i argue for in the book is democrats need to be less accessible. that seems like a crazy thing to say is we sit here today. tothere was not enough from us. not enough w focus from congres. not enough from the democratic base. we have not paid enough attention to political power comes from down ballot. if you controlled the state legislature and the governorship you can make it easier for people to vote. republicans took over the state legislature. alltu of the swing states after 2010. the very first thing that they did was voter id laws. getting rid of -- very specifically getting rid of the days onon the calendar that were

the most african-american voters voted. they randomly somehow pick that one out of the hat. there is also policy. the states where they had democratic governors and legislators and people's lives were saved. raise the minimum wage. protect additional civilth righ. we have to restructure the party making it easier for the party to focus on those things. it isfo a real mentality shift. something we have really begun to see since 2016 on the successes and virginia on 2017 are product of that. >> what happened to obama in the sense he has disappeared from the public landscape. do you think there is a role he can play in this world or not? >> the role he is planning on playing, he has two roles he is planning on playing in this election.

[inaudible] >> i'm not talked with him directly about this. i feel confident in what i'm about to say. [laughter] first is he is a person who is uniquely and maybe the only person in the party with the capacity to unify the party at the end of this primary. whenever that is. that is t the reason why he is t endorsing, he is not putting us dumb onti the scale. whether the nominee is anyone from bernie sanders to joe biden or anyone in the middle, we have to unify. i think he will be able to contribute to that. second, i know he is planning to spend a lot of time on the campaign trail in the fall once we have a nominee and do everything he can to make sure that person is elected. his silence is a product, right now,w, for preserving his abiliy to unify the party at the end of this primary process. >> how does that experience and

form the way you think about messaging. mainstream media is not as important as it used to be. what is your advice to the party about how we land. >> to many in the party are still adhering to an old way of thinking about communications. a model that has been around rever. it says t something to the pres. the press' job to tell the public. the problem with that is twofold in our facebook driven disaggregated smartphone media world, it does not have the reach it used to have. it also does not have the credibility it used to have. that iss not just for conservative voters. it is also democratic voters. people generally more skeptical of things the press says.

recently played as eight or nine years ago. i think democrats have to think more holistically about how they get their message out. they have to think about, in terms of their content strategy. it is how do i get the information that i know matters. getting to a win number to get to 270 or when a governorship or a marriage ship. this is where all the perfect media comes in. we have to build up a true viable vibrant media infrastructure in the country. in the world of facebook, media is a quantity gig. everything trump says is not just trump and his 50 million or whatever it is twitter followers going to people. trump is saying it and fox news is saying it. we focus all the time and energy on what happens on fox news tv.

i wish it did not happen, but it is seen by like 3 million people too many people. what really matters is what fox puts on facebook. fox is a massive facebook presence. there is this huge information organ pumping right wing propaganda into facebook. there is nothing on the progressive side to do that. the conversation automatically tilts right. nonpolitical people that don't pay a ton of attention are more likely to be exposed to right wing often propaganda and often completely false. people in their network are sharing it. they are seeing it more often. the infrastructure on the left. that has begun, but happening way too slow. a project that will have to continue long after the 2020

election. especially if we win. there is not a progressive media ecosystem for them to supporters to their and. he or she will be governing with one hand tied behind their back. >> we were getting swamped. republicans had so much more information firepower than we did. we could run ads all the time. very hard to break through. we did not have folks who were singing from the same song she is as we were. my strong hope is that we build that to help the next democratic president. >> do you think twitter and facebook have the same impact? >> no s. incredibly impactful, but they are impacted very different. facebook is the largest media company in the world. overwhelmingly more impactful to people individually because there are so many more people on it. a primary way in which a lot of

americans get their news. the news they are getting is conservative and tilting right. twitter has a different impact. twitter shapes the political conversation of this country. ion think 10% of americans are n twitter. something like that. 100% of reporters and politicians. they are having this conversation and the incentives for, the incentives are disconnected to what actual people care about. a lot of politicians and reporters down these bad rabbit holes. they get a lot of retweets, but completely disconnected or they are being counterproductive to that because they are missing the conversation. i say every day i should get off

twitter.d i cannot. it may solve a real problem. if more politicians and more reporters spent less time, is not a great place to get information. i often describe the that twitter has on media as forcing reporters to do man on the street interviews as a craziest invention in the world. people that choose to be on twitter. it is not a great sign. [laughter] >> 2020 chapter you outline these things that candidate should be doing to push back on trump. you talk about acknowledging his failures. not feeding into the way he shapes things. anybody doing these things well right now? i know you probably will not endorse a candidate tonight, but you could. [laughter]

>> yes. the answer to that is yes and no, i guess. it is actually hard to know. what works in a primary, particularly this primary, it is very different. these candidates ares going afr committed democratic voters who are very politically engaged. everything i said about talking to the media being the best way to reach people. in doing that or being on cnn, something that is actually seen by a lot of people you care about. they will have to change their behavior to get to the general. reaching a bunch of voters that i paid no attention to the primary. i do think that a couple of the candidates have, several candidates have economic

messaging and are willing to win this election. if we win the economic battle of trump. i think bernie sanders, elizabeth warren have economic messages that work very well for that. i thinkhe bernie sanders, elizabeth warren and pete have in different ways, the most sophisticated understanding of how the media works. bernie sanders and elizabeth warren have helped incubate and work with a progressive media infrastructure. mayor pete understands inherently that the person who is creating content all the time and shaping the conversation is winning which is why he is a media figure. going from the unknown mayor of a very small town to being a front runner because he knew how to be in the media, much like trump. other candidates have done other things. we are seeing pieces here.

why is the primary so hard. you have to guess based on the very small dataset who would do the besto job. a very different environment in a general election. >> to the point you made earlier about the media, bloomberg can afford it. do you think that is -- maybe not in light of the last meeting, but, what do you think about him? >> it is very hard to evaluate bloomberg. he is the only person that can do what he is doing. you have to look at two parts of his strategy. is spending half a billion dollars on advertising effective?on yes. only he can do that. an amazing statistic. he has now spent more money on ads in three months than barack obama did in the 2012 election. yes, that works.

bloomberg also, he is trying to dominate the conversation. buying the conversation. also doing things. today this campaign bought these billboards in vegas where trump wasn . they were along the route that trump would have to drive five. i think one of them said, hillary won the popular vote. [laughter] another one said trump eats burnt steak. [laughter] i don't know if that is effective or not. bloomberg has this advantage. really fierce advocates for media. i will vote for trump then. he does not have to make any decisions. a candidate who, well, we can run these ads. this outer this ad.

i run both ads. they literally are paying people. they are paying people $2500 a month to post on social media abouton them. not a strategy that will be available to democratic nominees elizabeth warren or whoever. they will not be able to afford paying people to post on facebook for them. >> you also have something about the dnc. people confuse the dnc and the party all the time. do you think it is fixable? i was on the transition team for the dnc. i saw up close and personal. in a lot of problems. >> can we fix that? >> yes. but we have to understand what it is. whenever anything goes wrong anywhere in the party, people are like why did tom perez screw that up? somebody has a good idea about an ad to run or something, why

is it he running that add. the dnc is not some sort of, you know, superhero headquarters where all the politicians get together make decisions. it is a completely underfunded party organization whose primary job is to assist the state parties and then help the democratic nominee raise money. those are the things. the reason it is underfunded is because citizens united happen. the dnc, every year, can raise the same amount of money with a little bit of an increase for 20 years. michael bloomberg can write a $100 million check to a super pack. the dnc has a very limited role. one of the suggestions i make, the dnc is a part of the problem of democrats being focused on the presidency.

the dnc chair serves four terms. that four-year term is tied to the presidential cycle. every chair comes in and says i will run a 50 state strategy. i will try to fund all all over the country. not just michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. i will also do utah and arkansas in alaska. they say that and then the presidential election year comes. now their job is to get the president elected. as soon as the democratic nominee wins, officially gets the nomination, they take over the dnc. they put all of their staff and their. obviously, who does a presidential candidate care about. the seven states they need to winne. howard dean was a dnc chair in 2008. the originator of the 50 state strategy. he ran on that. that was his goal.

he tried to focus on it. we won the nomination. obviously what we heard about was winning the states we cared about. what i recommend is we disconnect the dnc chair for the presidential cycle and put them on six-yearle terms. another idea that i think would help, we want to build up sustainable progressive infrastructure all over the country so we can begin flipping some of these states. the dnc, it houses a voter file. the repositories of voter information all across the country. local candidates get access for that for free. presidential candidate use it in a higher volume and have to pay for it. they either write a big check to the dnc or they raise money for the dnc. they go speak at a giant fundraiser. what i think we should do and said, if a presidential candidate wants access, contingent upon adopting a state, a red state that will not

be competitive in the election and raising x amount of dollars for that. going to that state and do a fundraiser. let's make them adopt a state. also encouraged democratic donors to adopt estate. a high level or, you know, getting people to give $10 a month. someonee will take it on. who is going to take time. we haveak to start working on it right now. >> what would be that advocacy to get the dnc to do those things? citizens pushing their delegates? what would it be? >> the state party chairs. it is a 435 members, 400 plus members of the dnc. other quote unquote dnc members who are officials elected by the local party to push them to push

the chair or to push the rules committee to change the rules. the best way this will happen, the easiest way is for a democratic president to be elected to make those changes. much harder when you are out of office. there is no centralized force pushing for it. >> another thing is about the senate. we have to fundamentally change some things there. what do we do about mitch? [laughter] >> beating him when he is up for reelection in kentucky this year. [applause] it is a long shot. it isgs a long shot to beat him. the most unpopular senator in america, in his home state. he is very unpopular. he does not ever go to kentucky, basically. he got very rich rich since he got to the senate. a lot of questions about that. a great candidate running. a couple other democrats.

if we do not be mitch mcconnell, we have to understand that the senate is biased against democrats. california has the same number of senators as wyoming. more pennsylvanians than idahoans. thee demographic trends are getting much worse on that. today it is actually positive for 18% of the united states population to control 51 senate seats. we had 60 seats for a very brief period of barack obama's presidency. the only time there has been a giant raft since linen johnson was president. we will not have 60 senate seats again anytime soon. we will be barely holding onto 50 at best for a very long time.

if passing common sense legislation like background check be depends on eight to 12 republicans, saving the planet from private change depends on republicans agreeing, we are in big trouble. what i advocate for is that one we get rid of the filibuster. they will not control the senate. >> can you explain that? >> yes. thank you. >> rules that they insist you need 60 votes to do anything. we got rid of the filibuster for presidential appointments like cabinet sec secretaries back in 2013. despite obama, he should not be allowed to have a labor secretary or administrator. we got rid of it for all judges below the supreme court. when trump got elected, they got rid of it for the supreme court.

finalize the theft. it is really good for legislation. democrats should get rid of it and make it 50 votes. times in which republicans will have power in they will use it against us. i would much rather be in a world where republicans will be judged on the things they do as opposed to democrats on things they cannot get down because of republican structure. immediately after the filibuster, they should make d.c. a state. it's the right thing to do. people in puerto rico choose that they would like to be a state. that should be up to them. we should make or to rico estate it is insane that puerto ricans are american citizens. they cannot vote for president. if you are puerto rican that moves to florida, foreign incidents and you establish

residency, you can vote. it makes no sense. we have to be very clear that it does not matter what our policies are. as long as the senate stays the way it is, conservatives will control the policy agenda in america for decades to come. >> the other big bucket of changes you talk about are around voting. mandatory voting. can you talk about that. ....

>> in that would

truly define the country and change the politics dramatically if everyone felt the stake of what we were doing. i don't think it will happen anytime soon they should be willing to push for big bold ideas but to shift the window of accessible topic conversation and have a lot of

lessons from bernie sanders to push for medicare for all we can move the conversation. >> some people say they pushed it too far they are not ready to be that progressive so what do you think about that? that we should be converting trump voters going down the middle and scaring people away quietly. >> every single person on that debate stage can be trump. absolutely they may not be my first choice but three days from now or three weeks from now at the convention eventually it will happen. [laughter]

and the best way to beat trump is to be unified it may not be your fifth choice but whoever you think is the weakest of those candidates, the weakest candidate with unified democratic party could be the strongest candidate. [applause] >> i do think to persuade swing voters or get the base voters is a false choice but if we had a national election to win the popular vote by a lot but unfortunately they are not easily distributed geographically so to get 270 we need a combination of the two. but i do believe it is

possible because barack obama did it twice by seven points iowa and ohio. you can do it with the same message can work for both we have this view in our mind that every swing voter we get we polls one base voter and that's not how it works and your policy is only as good as your story and if you can explain why this policy works. >> is there a role to get out and vote with aoc? >> yes i hope whoever the nominee welcomes her out there campaigning to even have a

good sense of what she is starting to do but i would guess she wants to make sure donald trump is defeated she may want to see him lose. [laughter] >> you asked me this question backstage and i told you know. [laughter] >> i said i could possibly may be one day many years from now running for school board. [laughter] >> you write for the campaigns what is the hesitation about running? >> maybe the school board. [laughter] >> i always see myself as be the person behind the person running for office but this is

the way i would describe it i once asked obama as if you would ever serve a third term. he said the constitution is of the issue that if he could go to hawaii but beamed into the policy meetings so he meant to the work is interesting working with really smart good people on tough problems that part is interesting to me. raising money all the other stuff.

>> i miss the people so in the campaign 2008 the people i worked with that you build these bonds that was a huge honor every single day i never once doubted the decision to question and working with supersmart people. so that part of it and to get up at four in the morning or to the office.

>> [applause] >> with the audience q&a portion we will start in this area will come to you with a microphone. >> thank you so much for being here.

i am wondering what your suggestions are for the local state house and the state senate and how to flip those. >> the recipe that has been working across the country is run someone for every office no matter how republican it seems. over january took the state senate and the state house because we had people running for office with her had been no democratic opponent in decades. you can buck the but one - - political trends so organize everywhere. and your comments on socialism

the entire childhood was spent with republicans as the automatic i win budget why we cannot have nice things. so what is your opinion when they take the i win but in a way? >> is not super effective because they call barack obama a socialist all the time and he one. it doesn't matter of the candidate because they will be called a socialist. so he also calls himself the democratic socialist.

so 100 percent bernie sanders can win and how we navigate that question will determine whether he can win. and the polls are very clear as of right now with that characteristic. so what is very important but bernie sanders gets 48 or 49 percent. so how do you square that? so 40 percent of voters identify as a socialist so the other part is and those that are not alarmed by it. and then to use that term in

presidential politics it is about identity and personalities. and to make bernie sanders try to make him see scary the best way to fight back is not spend all of your time through social means but who he is somebody who grew up in brooklyn he lived his life spending half a century fighting for or working-class people so we have to focus on telling his story to those who

don't know him yet and then to navigate that is a challenge for the campaign. >> and it is a funny thing to live in the middle of a swing state. i speak for many of us. but fears trump supporters. we haven't read the book at. and then to suggest around us.

so what are those things? if you are immersed in this world what would you be doing? >> it is always the uncle. [laughter] so it is good to be on social media platforms for those progressives to share on social media platforms. and on the policies in wisconsin there is a story about the dramatic increase of bankruptcies. and then to be very skeptical of the fake news. so how do i do with my trump uncle or dad and then don't

worry to convincing your own goal to stop beating trump just go to two of your friends who are not registered to vote. >> so to be very good at organizing the base so in any particular outlet for the media even in the obvious so to see they are doing a particularly good job.

>> there is a very vibrant organization like the intercept that does important work in the american prospect they have begun to move to donation base journalism. at progressive new sites and that is an important thing as local newspapers are guided to nothing. and that's not good in the short term because nobody has a good idea.

so that leaves the giant gap and with those pseudo- sites pushing propaganda. so this is like the daily planet. >> i'm just curious of the digital media and through the upcoming election and through social media that would be effective. >> i will give you the shorter version here but going to the

content strategy that has to be completely holistic. the new york times article from the bankruptcy problem the strategy begins one that appears so how do we get that story out that we care about we paid to put it in the facebook feeds to mobilize those supporters and here in wisconsin you know where your friends are or who to show it to. and the campaign posting but

the constant never ending strategy in someone's job on the campaign and whose job it is that the information that we don't need to see that information so the campaign sure did not shut down the next democratic president should be running digital ads all the time if they turn off their messaging operations the white house will lose their ability to communicate and get swamped. so using these advertisements to take pieces of the state of the union and show those to people that you care about.

so that is an important strategy but not the only part. >> at the end of the debate they went around to contesting the convention i see that as a problem going into that with the superdelegate with bloomberg so will that be a huge problem especially looking at bernie sanders who has the most supporters of that group? >> i was not surprised but that's because every one of those candidates right now has the most delegates in 2008 we

had this challenge were obama was a leader in delegates from those that you get in and the superdelegates that can pick anyone they want obama had a sustainable lead clinton could not catch up. they tried to get superdelegates to take the nomination from obama and then michigan and florida to move their primaries to close to new hampshire so they did not count because he did not run in those states in addition to barack obama to say that whoever had the most delegates should be the nominee.

and then to have the different position the person who has the most delegates should do it. and that would give the nomination but i find it hard to believe that the convention delegates will take the nomination away from the person with the most votes. i don't like predictions. [laughter] but that would be disastrous because of the second ballot whether bernie sanders or joe biden to take that away from that person not just hand the

presidency to trumpet permanently fracture. it would be a very bad idea. so i wouldn't worry about this too much yet because they need the expense to keep the campaign going but we should keep an eye on it. >> i miss state government employee here. i have worked in the legislature in the state agency that would surprise me but pretty much everybody state government we constantly get phone calls from constituents talking about how they have a problem with the policies are they really like

it and they want their senator to vote on a certain thing. the maybe you should call your federal senator and not your state senator. so if you have any advice in this. to have that strong competition for attention. . . . . state and local, people on podcast need to do it and

getting people through, the turnout in the elections have been incredibly high. people running for local office we have to continue to do that. is the difference between them. people were so bad barack obama for raising their taxes in 2010. that seems to be a fundamental problem that we will have to work on. >> thanks for being with us tonight. you think that reinstatement of the fcc fairness rule would be feasible? if so, what it do any good to alter the media landscape in which we find ourselves? mark i was writing the book, i wanted to explore this topic and

i think one of the problems for progressivism is the media and balance, despite a lot of liberals in turn of media outlets, the conversation is toward conservative. in my research on this, i eventually was so confused, no one seemed to know the real answer to it. i couldn't find a way to draw a conclusion from it. it's too far and trying to get them there as well. does this to get around the media, so i just don't know the

answer yet but i will explore that. >> thank you for being here. i'm a captain for our county democrats and november -- [applause] last election, we came with 4% of flipping our township blue except for three precincts. we have tried to figure out how to get these three precincts to turnout. if there's any i guess you can share, my area is pretty wealthy and people are very engaged politically but we have three areas where it's mostly young professional, it's apartment and the three precincts are what's keeping us from flipping blue. if there are any ideas on how we

can move that needle. >> without knowing a lot more about those precincts, it would be hard but i think it is on organizing, which is constantly having a presence there, finding ways to not just knock doors but host a gathering where you can get people to come, i think local parties do clever things with street festivals and things like that, or you can get people to come source not just the political part, there's also music or games for kids and things like that. you just need that, be able to break through for that person or action and build some idea of community within that group. if you work on some of the stuff that swing left has done from a particular regina and in california, there's interest think there ideas there on breaking through their.

>> trump has done for child care credit -- [laughter] is not what i think the solution to the problem is and i couldn't watch the whole debate on whatever day but i've only heard universal childcare mansion for the once by elizabeth warren. whether it's universal or whatever, why isn't something democrats continue to talk about and every one of them has a plan of some sort. it has the support of most democrats. i think on the debate stage, you areat some what dictated by the questions. there were three or four where they had a good conversation about this. the moderates were interested in

it. talking about it more. the numbers on it and pulling are incredibly high. as important as a healthcare conversation is, it has sort of blotted out the sun on other important issues. i dold think it would be an important part. one of the reasons we are not talking about it is little to no difference between the positions of various democrats on that. once you are contracting with trump on the ivanka plane you seem to not love does not work as well. >> thank you so much for both being here. i am a librarian at a local community college. [applause] thank you. i just want to give a shout out. i read timothy snyder's book on tyranny. one of the institutions i'm really supporting our authors,

libraries, books. i think you both for being here. i work where trump holds his rallies. i was one of about 100 protesters that went to the most recent one. thank you. it was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. one of the things, and i'm just doing this as a shout out because i went back to work and had a couple of my coworkers who articulated a need to do something. i told them if you are a caregiver, a single parent, responsible for anyone, don't go to one of these rallies. i really felt like something could've happened. i'm just giving that as a shout out. i will segue into your pod. you saved my sanity. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you. >> both of you. both of you. i listen to you on my way to work. my husband will attest.

what do you see coming down the pipe? it will just get a little bit more intense, a little bit more rapid. every day or challenge myself as to what i can do. do you plan each pod or are you going to be more proactive and less reactive? that is what i'm asking. whatat do you see coming down te pike for both of your pods. >> sure. >> weot reserve trump. [laughter] owning the trump conversations. we cover four pieces of news that you don't know happened during the week which is interesting and fun. i think we can win. the question is, can we organize? can we tell a story that emotivates people. it is not just about beating trump, it is about having a vision that is bigger than him. can we offer that? i don't know. ian think some of the candidates have figured it out a little bit

better than not. we will see if i become a surrogate or something. i tried to get dan to do it. he said i no. we will see. race and injustice, most people are bloomberg notwithstanding. most people are in a good place. biden a little shaky. i am interested in that. i'm going to plug the book. it is a reminder, 40%, the democratic base is only 40% white. majority black and brown. you would not know that if you watched tv. you would not know that if you look at the way we cover news and stuff like that. i don't know if anybody -- they are leaning on me. that stresses me out a little bit. people that listen to our part, they will come. they will vote. just not, what i think about when i'm excited, try to figure

out that 60% that is a nonwhite community to believe what republicans have done really well. they have never won before. my phone got hacked. band from raising money for trying to get me killed. it was not because i did not vote. voting like a tool in the toolkit. [applause] gmac we have been having an ongoing conversation about what is the most constructive thing we can do in this campaign.

i think, you know, you see us straining toin do it and sometis it's awkward you'd we have tried to be as neutral as possible on the primary. try to be honest when they do the right thing and when they do the wrong thing. not trying to put our thumb on the scale. sometimes we've done a good job, other times we have supported candidates that think we have fallen short on that. one of the reasons we want to do that, typical democratic voters. we cannot figure out who the best person to beat trump's. we cannot make a decision. we alsoan want to be able to hep convince people to get behind the nominee. obama with our much smaller platform and influence. the second thing is we want to get people to get involved. how can we get them to volunteer, knock on doors, make phone calls. whatever they can do. we also want to highlight, it

will not be hard to get people to focus on the presidential race. how do we remind people we have to take the senate. what can we do to direct our listeners in colorado and north carolina and arizona and iowa and all the other states. maine. to get involved there. we will also think about what we can do where we can draw attention to the candidates. last week's yesterday interview, a very progressive, very impressiveve candidate supported by aoc. running against a very conservative democrat in texas in the primaries. we can draw attention to people and expose them to our network of listeners and give them an opportunity to make a case. make their case for support. volunteer. etn cetera. our main goal is to do everything we can to channel the anger and angst, mostly angst,

our listeners are joyous, but nervous. channel their angst into activism in this lesson. >> getting back to what was mentioned earlier about civic education. i'm a government teacher at a high school nearby here. [applause] i was j just wondering, the coue of your career where you kind of thought, man, i wish people would have just learned this in high school. anything you would recommend we be focused on is a government teacher? >> that is a great question. [laughter] i think, i would really be explaining if we treat the president like a king and hopefully a queen one day, that is not where political power is in this country.

that is both at the state level and congressional level. we mythologized our presidents. they are these great men of history who can by saying the right thing or having a drink with the right senator can get things done. that is not how the system works helping people understand that progress can happen, but it takes work and it can be slow. that is an important thing to understand. you have to do the work to get things done. ultimately, it is on you. giving, helping students understand, if there's something you care about, you want to get it done, you have to participate to do it. making them feel like they are part is really important. >> david may have a question on the balcony.

>> we have one hand over here first. >> my name is andrew. i am a campaign manager for tom breyer. [applause] my question for you, do you have any thoughts on rachel's negative portage and theory? you think t it explains any dysfunction of the 76ers this year? [laughter] >> i find rachel, who i have never met, but i follow her on twitter, to be a very interesting follow. most of our views on political data come from white guys named nate.

ii think that, as i understand her theory, it does not matter who the candidate is, it is all about big turnout. i think that there is a lot of truth to that in the national election. i want to dig more into her data, but how you make that work in a state like wisconsin. you have two challenges. a very white state. also, has very aggressive voter suppression laws. the important thing to remember wisconsin, all things equal, where we made it for everyone to vote. that is just hard. when i think about voter suppression. barack obama won mitt romney by seven points in wisconsin. donald trump beat hillary clinton by less than 12%.

stopping that many democrats from turning out. others were stopped from voter id and other things. i want to look more at rachel's theory. i don't think that it explains the problems with the 76ers this year. [laughter] very important to have people that can dribble and shoot on the court at the same time. [laughter] >> two more questions. >> in 2018 we saw the voters of maine elect their first member of congress through rank choice voting. i just wanted to know your thoughts on that and whether you think that is something the rest of the country should follow suitit with. >> i amd very interested in the idea s. tei was in iowa during the cauc. just like two weeks ago. i was w there.

[laughter] it was funny because, i sort of came to the conclusion, i almost included this in the book, but decided not to, the idea that we should just get rid of caucuses. i wantt democrats to be the democracy party. it cannot be a democracy party if you use these methods to pick your president. not to mention you should probably fix states. we went to this caucus site and i spent a lot of time with barack obama. we have a lot of affection for the iowa caucus. our site was perfectly run. the guy that ran our site should be governor by now. all ofre the supporters were so great. the bernie people politely asking the biden people to come over. i was just like, this is great. hithis is actually cool and nic. by the time we got back to des

moines, the world/app had collapsed. the next morning i got up and we had to fix it. one of the things i recommend the democrats do in the primary process at least is adopt rank choice voting. the reason was not to make iowa nice, because being someone's second choice matters, right, you do not want to attack someone because you think you may need some of their voters. if we adopt rank choice voting, you could get the benefits of forcing you to appeal to other primary candidates without the crazy idea of making people stand in a high school gym for two hours. i think it is interesting. i need to understand more about how itor would work nationally d perhaps to that may benefit.

i think it is a very interesting idea. i hope to try to volunteer myself to help the democrats think about how to redo the process. that would be one idea i push. >> that will have to be our last question. >> hi. my name is emily. i work in the state legislature here. i am from pennsylvania, originally. there was a study and they spoke about how voters in vetting or not focused on not focused on voting. they havee a lot of other things to voting. they are not inspired. anything we can do now to build up ways to engage joe's voters but also more social justice structures to help them in the future? if there's a way to inspire them, but also if candidates can inspire them. also asking the question about term limits. if you believe in term limits in

all that inspire as well? it will inspire them to trust candidates who they sometimes view as just entrenched in the process. >> do you have thoughts on the first part of that question? inspiring people? >> i did not meet you in the white house,et did i? >> you did. i was less noticeable. >> they did these middle of the night meetings off the record before the state of the union with the speechwriters. i was out like a 7:00 p.m. meeting on words we wanted obama to use. either way,. >> you are very famous. the first was he called the professor's thugs. you cannot do that.

you said things on tv you should not say. i said the police were engaged in genocide. he thought the white house would flip out about it. i am not the president. you are right. [laughter] i know. >> he always thought he could plug to get the guy. our guy, too. if you care about the country, you vote. a lot of people voted forever in the world did not change. do you think this idea as voting is only way to build the house with the whole toolkit? i think that works for a lot of people. they participated for a long time and it literally did not change for them. the second thing is, warren does a little bit better. i think bernie opened up the space for it. nancy does it well. we should talk about the things we deserve relay plainly. not a radical idea.

it is not like radical that everybody should have a home. we should not feed terms like socialism or things like that that may be outputting. they should be simple. everybody can read and write. a simple notion. and we can talk about it simply not feed into the hysteria that the right wants. [laughter] talking about this idea then when you get people afraid they will concede, to anything. we sometimes participate in the fear equation by mistake. we talk about the difference of accountability and justice. people confuse the terms. justice is the idea that people don't experience trauma in the first place. we have to tell a story about a world. it is, we should stop yelling about that at some radical thing.th we should normalize that. i believe people will come along

i think that people have been promised a lot and delivered not as much. how do we start to talk about candidates i can tell us all the things that we want and can also help us get there. this is sort of our frustrations with ernie in 2015. freeing 1 million people from jail. everyone was like there is not 1 million people in federal prison. my bad. not good. [laughter] that is like a you telling me that what but not having a clear understanding about the how. a lot of people smart enough now, the pods help with that. people know much more about what they want. they also know that you should haveea an idea of how we should get there. it is in a crazy notion. people will be more willing to participate if they are convinced of the what which is easy today. we are not helping people understand the how. >> the other thing that i think when we think about voters like

this, last year before the election i interviewed a woman named natasha brown. she works particularly in the south. she saidd something to me that stuck with me. nonvoters, their decision not to vote is not laziness. it's not that they don't care. it is a thoughtful well reasoned decision. we have to think about why they made that decision and try to work with them on an emotional and intellectual level. too often, and i've been guilty of this, they are two types of people. there are voters and people too dslazy to care. that is not right. that is not the right way to think about it. we put this on the voter for not voting and not on the politician for not giving the boater a reason to vote. having the right message in the

right rhetoric. there is this huge thing that will matter a lot in 2020. delivering on your promises. he is right. a lot of problems is because they did not get fixed. understanding that i think is very important. justice thing, this happens every election. some pole comes out. they show the african-american latino community. everybody yells at them. why aren't they voting. what have we done? what ifo we failed to do to convince them that this election matters. on the term limits question, i very much agree they are too many old people and politics. [laughter] that is a problem. [applause] when i am old i will revise that

position. [laughter] i worryit about term limits because where it is happening at the state level, what it often does is, it gives extra power to lobbyists. this is been very true in california where i live. people show up. they will only be there for a couple of terms. they don't get to learn how everything works. they're not senior members that have been there while that know how everything works. lobbyists are handing members pre-populated bills and they are putting them on their letterhead and passing them. i think that is a dangerous part of it. i think it is something we should thinkhi about. not be concerned, you could serve three terms of the senate. eighteen years seems plenty. or being more aggressive on term

limits around committee chairmanships, which we have some of, but, also, making it less about senior status. the longer you visit congress the more power you have as opposed to the leadership of the congress and the more talented you are, the more power you should have. simply being there should not be have lots of power. being really good on issues or being a very powerful messenger. if we operate the standard way, i believe that afc is one of the most healthy politicians we have had in a generation. [applause] thees best messenger really in e democratic party. she will have to serve for like two more decades before she gets to ask questions in a judiciary hearing in the first hour. that is how long it will take. especially now that the country is so far on the right, people

are just there. a handful of 20 people. everyone else is just there until they retire. i do think if we could find ways that would give the younger more talented members a higher profile, that will also cause them to stay longer. one of the reasons they run for senate right away is because they know there is nowhere to go. the entire congressional leadership is over the age of 70. right? i mean, also, leading presidential candidates. we have some larger problems there. a little skeptical on term limits. i do think we have to think about how we push power down to some of the younger members that are more representative of the base of d the democratic party. [applause]

>> can i just say one thing? i have been on this book to her for five days now. i have talked with a lot of people. i have sensed a growing depression among democrats. it is also true in the polls. two months ago most democrats thought that we would win. now two thirds think we will lose thiss election. i would just say to everyone, two things. one.th the worst part of the process. we have been in this primary forever. the people, a bunch of people we love are now fighting with each other. it may be the candidate we love most is not winning. maybe the candidate we love least is winning. all of them are better than trump.

while trump has a lot of advantages, this iss a very winnable election. we know exactly how to do it. what we did in 2018. i just want people to keep the faith. we can do this. don't let the last few weeks get us down. we will have another debate next tuesday. i don't even think you have to watch it. [laughter] tuesday night, i think. south carolina. michael bloomberg will prep for this one. [laughter] i would just say, everyone, keep the faith. we can do this. we will get through the process. we can win. we can beat donald trump. [cheering and applause] >> you are watching book tv 48

hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. here are some programs to watch out for. new york city deputy chief electronic officer talks about the power dynamics between big tech companies and governments around the world. turning point charlie kirk offers his points on the new conservative agenda. georgetown university reports on the normalizing of cyber warfare as a geopolitical tool and on our weekly author program afterwards katie mcfarland reflects on her time in the trump administration did find out more administration on the program guide or by visiting booktv.org. >> book tv asked representative buddy carter what are you reading. >> two things. first of all, i just finished a book i enjoyed very much. it is written by thomas carlisle. it is a book, actuay