director john brennan speaks about his life and career in his book undaunted my fight against america's enemies at home and abroad and is interviewed by new transnational scaredy reporter julian barnes. watch book tv, this weekend on c-span2. >> you are watching to your unfiltered view of government. created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. >> former georgian republican congressman is with us now. currently serves as the ceo law enforcement education and in the first hour we asked the question today,he was are they concerned the political divisions in this country will spur violence before or after the election and

how would you answer that ioquestion? >> guest: it is a question that we should never really have to ask but the state of the country today is such that it is a relevant question to ask unfortunately and we have seen over the past r six months or so significant violence erupting in cities from coast to coast and in america's heartland so it does raise the question in people's minds how much of this violence, if any, is related to the political environment and whether it will continue after the election. none of us really have an answer to that but i worry a great deal that for example if president trump is elected those who are opposed which seem to be, many of those thatt engaged in violet acts will continue their violence but it is difficult to say and it's unfortunate that we are in a situation where the

question has to be asked. >> host: what does it say about the state of the country and how do we get here when a september poll that politico cited from you go to a nationwide story found 44% approval begins in 40% of democrats said they would be at least a little justification for violence if the other party's nominee wins the n election. >> it is something i think back to when i was in congress or college back in the 1960s and we had sniffing and violence across america and we had many bombings which thankfully we haven't seen these days but the difference, i think, today with the violence has opposed to the late 1960s there are people, public officials at the state and local and federal level that seem to not only turn a blind eye to the violence that is

occurring but implied, not if explicitly, discounted and thereby encourage it. that is a significant difference fromro the late 1960s when you had rampant violence in many cities. you had consistent and very uniform pushback by public p officials against that. the fact is nowadays we have publicbl officials who, not only will not condemn the violence but in some instances seem to encourage it. that makeses for a very dangerous situationth. >> host: which public officials would you point to is the biggest perpetrators of that? >> guest: for example, the mayor in chicagogo. her response to the violence that we have seen in chicago, for example, is to one condemn president trump as if he is out there in the streets looting and burning cars and attacking police and she calls for more

gun control which is absolutely irrelevant, particularly in chicago which has some of the strictest gun control in the country. gun control has nothing to do with the violence in the looting and the burning and the attacks on police and the constant high murder rate in chicago and yet chicago does not seem willing or able to address that. >> host: you are part of a group of about 60 republican national security leaders who have endorsed president trump in 2020. does president trump need to do anything to lower the temperature here? >> guest: it always is good for a president to say things thatt lower the temperature and i'm a little concerned that is not been something that has been happened consistently but at the same time i do think it is important for the president as he has done to be out there supporting law enforcement and talking about law and order as an important component of national leadership.

>> host: do think law and order message is getting through whery issues competing for the issue of campaign 2020? >> guest: interesting question because at the end of the day in any electionat at some level people and voters certainly are concerned about violence. as president nixon said back in 1968 when we were seeing a great deal of violence across america he said that the most fundamental or one of the most fundamental civil liberties that american citizens should be able to enjoy is to be free from domestic violence. i think this year it will play a higher degree of relevance in the campaigning then and normally would but it's certainly not the only issue out there in the issue of the economy and the issue of the health of the american public and but law and order certainly

going to play a role in the election, particularly as we have seen in recent months i a surge in the street violence and in major cities. >> host: bob barr, our guest. it served eight years in congress as a republican from georgia and currently president and ceo of the law-enforcement education foundation. phone line if you want to join the conversation is support the trump pens ticket, (202)748-8000, biden and harris, (202)748-8001, as folks continue to call and congressman what is the law-enforcement education foundation and what do you do next? >> guest: the law-enforcement foundation is law etf which i have the honor of heading up we issue articles and pull together a media and we aggregate media stories that are important for law enforcement and important for americans to know about law enforcement and we also provide

some small grants to law enforcement departments across the country. for example, if a department needs additional protective vests but does not have the funds through their local government to obtain them we are able to help out sometimes as well. >> what is most important, law and order, police said viewers should know about. >> guest: the t most important story people should know about is the continuing inability of many national or unwillingness of many national democrats to firmly supporton their police. i think it was senator harris the talk recently about reimagining the police. that is the sort of nonsensical stuff that doesn't move us anywhere even in the recent debate, both the vice presidential debate and the presidential debate betweenti

president trump and former vice president biden there seems to be a tremendous hesitancy on the part of the democrats toat come out and say the reason we've had in recent years decreases in violence crime against america is because we have strong law enforcement and we have support for law enforcement by our governments at all levels. if you take away that support any leave law enforcement without having their backs covered by local and state and the federal government you will see those assisted six over the last few years and you've seen a drop in violentyo crime and you will see those start rising dramatically. >> host: plenty of calls, terry in california to support the biden harris ticket. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i have three questions.. first, i'm constantly hearing about thefo reimagining of the

police force isst a hit against the police and currently we have put more of police than they should handle but we should not they should not be handling the homeless or mental ill they are not trained for it. when we start seeing the abundance of violence where unfortunately death it's because you have police officers that should not be called on mentally ill people. they only had ten hours to even learn about it. you need to have people there that are familiar. >> host: that's one big topic. let's let bob barr jump in on that. >> guest: the caller makes a very, very good point. on the one hand we are demanding more and more of law enforcement but we're not giving law enforcement the tools to handle or deal with those issues. your caller points out a very, very important issue. you have mentally ill people on the streets in these major

cities and yet when police try and deal with it and they are not really trained to comprehensively to do it as your caller points out but when they try and deal with it and there is a problem sometimes as we saw during the obama biden a administration the federal government will come in and criticize them for not being able to deal with mentally ill and will then bring court acts against them which then further limits how the police can operate. it's a very, very good point. >> host: hernando, florida, supports the trump pence ticket. >> caller: you asked earlier in the first segment how to stop the violence of whatever and one thing you could do is never having someone like your first guest on who just provided a lot of divisiveness and hate and did a number of lies. the second thingng i think the

correct democratic party is probably the largest divisive hate group in the u.s. what i would like for mr. barr is why doesn't the democrats condemn antifog and what can a democrat party do to stop the violence and hatred? >> host: mr. barr. >> guest: that is very much in the news these days and there is an argument over whether anti-fa exists or what it means or whether it's an organized or highly organized or poorly organized movement but the fact of the matter is it does exist and it's out there and we have seen its advocates throwing trash cans full of fires and looting buildings and so forth and helping to organize these peaceful demonstrations that have turned into riots with looting and burning and for some reason the caller poses a very

good question that it would seem to me to be a no-brainer for vice president biden and senator kamala harris and other immigrant leaders at the national level in particular to say we condemn anti-fa and we may not know everything about it and we may not know exactly how it is organized but we see it and see what it is doing and we condemn it. it would go a long way i think to helping to bridge the difference in the gulf between the democrats and the republican tickets on law and order if the democrats would simply say we condemn anti-fa short of the same thing they are demanding over and over again that president trump condemn white supremacy violence which he has. >> host: we spent time talking about political divisions in this country.ta do you see a new american civil war looming? >> guest: no, i don't.

i would hate to ever have to answer that question yes. i do see a great deal of division and our country but that is nothing new producing this building for several election cycles now but i have ultimately at the end of the day tremendous faith in the american people that they will not go down that route. we just saw, for example, yesterday in michigan both the fbi and the state attorney general's office in michigan take action against a small group of men who apparently were plotting against both the police and against the governor of michigan. that was uncovered and those people now will face our justice system. yes, while there certainly are elements of that fringe group on all sides of the political spectrum i don't see that taking

hold generally as a broad movement that would result in a civil warar. >> host: jacksonville, florida. this is frank, undecided rude good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. good morning mr. barr. there are some things that you said that i'm kind of baffled act. the recent rise of violence. i'm originally from birmingham, alabama a place that is known for bombs. i remember growing up hearing bob's every day. i want to know if there is some training, some training, since you have the education department, what training do you suggest that the police get? what can they do to make them more sensible to all elements of protecting the citizen? >> guest: here again your caller

makes for a very good point and focusing on police training. this is an area that both myself and my positions of the law enforcement education foundation and a number of other experts,em and i don't include myself as an expert but a number of experts have identified as one of the problems in modern law-enforcement and that is the lack of good comprehensive training for law enforcement officers. part of the reason we are seeing a think a decrease in proper training for law enforcementa officers is the result of budget cuts, frequently when local police department faces a budget cut one of the first, if not the first place they cut is training and that is unfortunate because not only are we then getting police officers who don't really understand how to use the powera they have such as we saw in minneapolis with george floyd earlier this year but they also

are not receiving the type of training that is necessaryry to make them realize how important it is for them to understand the community in which they are operating and that is very, very important.t. it's important to understand the jobs and the problems police officers are facing but deeply important for the police to understand and be compassionaten with the community in which they are serving. it's a very good point that we have much more training and better quality training across the boarde in this country. >> host: if members of congress and the president's came to babar today and said we want good comprehensive police training what would you say it will cost and who should lead that training and who is doing it right?ul >> guest: there are of course at the foreman of justicece right w

a number of programs, grants, they go to police departments that they are insufficient. one of the things i would urge is for congress and the house and the senate to come together and better fund the current police grant programs through the justice assistance, for example but also to increase the scope of that training. unfortunately, the environment and this congress in both the house and the senate is so divisive that even on something like increasing police training both the funding and the scope of police training it doesn't seem like they could get together but that would be one area that i think would be very, very productive. i also think that over the prior administration the obama biden administration there was almost an adversarial relationship

between the apartment of justice and many local police departments that did not help at all. we need to see, i think, a better working relationship with tween the federal government and local police that has not and has been this sick or adversarial. >> victor is next. biden harris ticket. >> caller: yes, i was wondering, what you thought about the fbi director being criticized by president trump for not going after anti-fa and he said it was not his a problem as the white militia groups. he could get fired if trump says i don't like what you are doing and i will fire you. should the president be able to fire the fbi director? he will be the only one without any approval from congress or nonpartisan group that would say if he was acting inappropriately and he supposed to be independent from the president.

>> guest: director of the fbi has a degree ofto independence that is broader than a lot of officials that are inti the executive branch. it does not completely insulate him nor should it. the director of the fbi is serving at the pleasure of the president and there should be a good working relationship in terms of the priorities between the head of the fbi and the president and the attorney general. if you don't have that that could create problems that work their way all the way down to the local levels. if you don't have a good working relationship between the president, attorney general and the director of the fbi but a president and presidents in recent years have been, i think i'm a good about not exercising their power to relieve the head of the fbi simply over policy disputes. if a president is going to

remove the director of the fbi he must to be good reason it and that should be explained to the congress. with regard to christopher ray's comments and the dangers posed by different groups of their certainly violent white supremacist groups have always demanded and should continue to demand a high priority by the fbi as should movements like anti-fa and i don't think the director of the fbi was saying that anti-fa is not a problem but i think what he was saying is it's more difficult to deal with that because of the disorganized structure of anti-fa but it certainly is a problem and i would be concerned if the director of the fbi said it was not a problem at all but i don't think that's what he was saying or at least i hope not. >> host: 's story at a bloomberg

yesterday read this way, fbi director christopher wray had no plans to resign a bureau of officials say if not the supporters to pop demands for the relief of sensitive files they say it will show on tom's 2015 campaign. ray serving a 20 year term and doesn't plan this time to step down according to an fbi official on condition of an amenity part however, tom could fire him at any time and for any reason,, as he did with his predecessor, james comey. lily out of texas. >> caller: good morning britt good to see you mr. barr on c-span again. two things really quickly. c-span is a microcosm of how the media treats conservatives and its indicative and illustrated by the lack of guests who spout after lie after lie and did not ask follow-ups. mr. barr initially talked about how the mayors are supporting the violence and allowing these

violent protests and asked him for truth. he talked about chinatownol chicago but what about the mayor of seattle who allowed anti-fa and black lives matter to occupy a whole swath of the city and calling it the summer of love. last thing, c-span i i think you need to be the biggest law-enforcement issue right now is the premier law-enforcement intelligence agencies that conspired with the hillary clinton campaign to unseat a duly c elected president. ... . when is c-span going to do that story some justice? host: willie, appreciate the feedback. we are doing something right if we have >> host: and a guest that you don't agree with, we try to find balance and let people call in and ask their own question, but appreciate the feedback this timorning. mr. barr, if you t want to weigh in, we can go to the next caller. >> guest: i'd like to go back to what the caller just said with regard to the mayors, mayor in

seattle, the summer of love pronouncement, which was pretty ridiculous, to say the least, and very unsupportive of the law enforcement in her own city. and then we have wheeler, the mayor wheeler out in portland that through his tepid reaction to the violence in portlandvi wound up seeing week after week after week of incessant violence. so, you know, some of these mayors in addition to the one i mentioned in chicago have really not only done nothing to stop the violence, but through their ridiculous policies, encouraged it. and that isco unfortunate. so i appreciate your caller pointing that out. >> host: ahmed in morgantown, west virginia, undecided. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. mr. barr, id had a question for the scenario that you and your

foundation do think that lethal force was not appropriate in a shooting, in a killing. how would you counsel that police department in that kind of a scenario? >> guest: training police officers on the use of force, in particular the use of deadly force, is the most important tpect of police training. and it's also the most difficult for outsiders such as juries to deal with. whether or not a jury believes atat if they were in that situation they would react the same as a police officer is not noally the appropriate perspective. it's very difficult, because what you have to do is you have to give the police officer sufficient flexibility so that if they reasonably believe that rthe circumstances that they're facing place them or another

person in the immediate vicinity in fear of bodily, severe bodily harm, serious bodily harm or death, then that allows them to use deadly force in return. but, of course, you know, there are many situations where this becomes a very complex, after the fact analysis, and it's very important to train police and to set a proper standard for the police. i know there was a bill earlier this year that was introduced, i think, by the democrats in the house, if i'm not mistaken, that purported to ban chokeholds. yet the language of it was so broad that it would not allow almost any way for a police officer to properly detain a violent suspect if in anything that they did it might impede

the person's breathing even momentarily. so it's very difficult to set very specific standards. what is most important is to make sure that your police officers understand the basic role of an officer and that they ven use force and particularly deadly force only if they true wily and reasonably -- truly and reasonably believe in the circumstances that they face serious bodily harm or death. and it has to be from their perspective, not o from an outsider's after the fact perspective. >> host: speaking of bills that have been proposed that could alter police actions, can you explain what qualified immunity is and what you think aboutofd qualified immunity reform efforts. >> guest: generally speaking -- and this is something that we have inherited centuries ago from british common law, and that is that there is sovereign immunity; that is, immunity that applies to the sovereign. in the british system, it was

the crown, and the crown was absolutely immune from actions by the citizenry. yo you could bring suit against -- you couldn't bring suit against the crown. in the united states, we took that not exactly the same, but there is, for example, in my state of georgia there is immunity that state officials have that immunizes them or r otects them against being sued unless by statute the state has agreed to be sued. that, i think, is unqualified immunity that goes too far. with police, it's important to realize that if you say, okay, police are going to be liable for anything and everything they do, then you're not going to have police. nobody's going to want to serve if they're going to be second guessed and liable for everything that that they do and every mistake that they make. but by the same token, if police

go beyond what they are supposed to do, if they, in fact, use unreasonable force, force that is not called for, particularly deadly force, then they should be held to account. they should not have blanket immunity. we saw this, for example, in the breonna taylor case in tennessee recently -- i'm sorry, kentucky. louisville. in which the police executed a warrant. there's dispute over whether or not they announced themselves or didn't. they say they did. breonna taylor's boyfriend said that he didn't hear that. that's a fact issue. but it raised, that case raised a very specific question about whether or not since the police used violence, deadly violence and breonna taylor, unfortunately, was killed as a result, whether they should be liable. and the grand jury in that case looked at all the facts and circumstances and said that,

unfortunately, there was not liability because the police, when they broke into the apartment pursuant to the warrant, her boyfriend shot at them. so they were, they were permitted to use deadly force in return. these questions reinvolve around sometimes -- revolve around sometimes some very complex fact issues, evidentiary as well as, again, what is the standard for the police. you have to look at the police atat that time, not after the ft from an outside observer. >> host: just about 10 or 15 minutes left withst bob barr ths morning, former republican congressman serving from 1995-2003, current president and ceo of the law enforcement education foundation. it's law eef.org if you want to check out their work. if you want to call in and talk to hum, you can do so as john did out of tampa, florida, in support of the biden/harris ticket. good morning. >> caller: good morning, c-span.

mr. barr, i believe you're part of the reason why there is this problem of violence. you started off this show by regularly pointed out -- [inaudible] without reference for the reasons why -- [inaudible] you also mentioned that police need more training. let me ask you this, what kind of training does somebody need to know not to kneel on somebody's neck for nine and a half minutes and suffocate them? there is no training in the community for that. a white supremacist was captured after killing nine black people -- [inaudible] that means police know what they want to do.o. they just choose to do what they want to do in certain cases. you mentioned that the decision should be based on what the eclice determines in his own mind. well, who is going to be. [inaudible] but the police himself? and if the police determines that -- [inaudible] hamburger but kneel on the other person's neck, how are we ever going to have justice in this

country? >> guest: i'm not sure what a hamburger has to do with the george floyd case, but the caller points out very appropriately that in the george floyd case two issues have come up. one is the fact that the police officer by every account and looking at the video of that acted 'em properly -- improperly in maintaining the pressure of his knee on george floyd's neck for such a long period of time. that seems very, very clear. we don't know everything that happened before that, but from that point on, in other words, from the point that the police officer put his knee on george floyd's neck and exerted force, that went on for far too long. secondly, though -- and this is important -- anyway, so that shows lack of proper training on the police officer. so if the caller is criticizing that, the caller is very well justified in criticizing the apparent lack of proper training on the police officer's part or

failure to use the training that he might have received. secondly though, those police officers -- including the one who exerted the pressure on george floyd's neck and killed him -- that police officer and the others that were there are being prosecuted. they were indicted, they're being prosecuted and, apparently, they should be. so, you know, the fact that they might have thought one thing doesn't really play a role here. they were indicted, and they will be held to account. so by all accounts thus far, our system is working very, very well ins that instant in terms f accountability. >> host: do you thinkth they wod have been indicted and held to account if not for the video of the public that went viral is and made this such a moment that the whole country focused on? >> guest: oh, i think that the fact that it went viral and caused riots is irrelevant. i have great faith in the grand

jury system whether it's in minneapolis or my hometown of atlanta. i presume that the grand jury was presented the evidence of that case can including the -- case, including at least some of the footage of the video, the officer's body cam and made its decision based on that because this happened very quickly before the wave of violence swept the country. >> host: bob is out of tyler, texas, supporting the trump/pence ticket. good morning. >> caller: yes. as far as law enforcement education, it seems like we're webmerged in the quagmire of the present. and until we get back to the education of our towning, specifically -- founding, specifically the first sentence of our first law in the entirety of u.s. code, the laws of nature and the laws of nature's guide, until we understand what that means, the laws of nature's guide is the bible, and then the

document that was written to protect those laws which is the constitution, it seems like we've just appointed our education one the reason for or founding. and until wed get back to a moral, virtuous, religious nountry, there's no amount of laws that that's going to save our current situation. so i'd'd just like some comments on the first sentence of u.s. law. >> host: congressman barr. >> guest: our founding fathers were, by every measure, i believe, very brilliant men. not because -- not simply because they were very intelligent, but because also they understood the sweep of history. as i believe mark halperin wrote in an editorial many years ago, these were men who studied history, who understood the rise and the fall of civilizations and who understood that one of the important elements of a free

society, of a representative democracy in our case is to have the a well educated population, citizenry. and that meansul having a citizenry that understands not only the laws of the day, but the foundation of our laws and the importance of understanding that at our core we need to remember that we are a moral societye based on fundamental human moral principles. and that needs to be a part not only of our education system, but also the education of police. it goes back to one of your earlier callers talking about the need for police to be trained consciously in the eopulace of their community and the values of the community. so understanding the moral component of our government both nationally and locally is extremely important.

>> host: with a few minutes left here this morning, i did want to pick your brain about peach state politics. you're a man who knows georgia politics. georgia now falling into, according to the cook political suport, toes-up category when it comes to the -- toss-up category when it comes to the presidential race this year. i wonder what you think president trump needs to do to stay in his column? >> guest: georgia is changing somewhat. states go from, you know, so-called blue to red to purple, so it doesn't really surprise f. there have been a lot of people that have moved into georgia in f cent years, and that has a tendency to change the political complexion. we're seeing that in places like texas as well where a lot of people from california are moving in. but i think president trump needs to do in georgia what he needs to do everywhere, particularly in battleground states, and that is to remind the voters of what he has accomplished from a positive standpoint during the nearly

four years that he has been in office. not to deal with petty issues, but to talk about the accomplishments in law enforcement, for example, the need for law enforcement support, also on the economic front and the international arena. the president and the republicans traditionally don't do as good a job as the democrats do of really putting before the voters those things that they have done well and consistently remind the voters of that. so president trump needs to do that in georgia as well as in other states that are perhaps closer than they should be for the republicans. >> host: what are the petty issues that you refer to? >> guest: oh, i think in the debates we'vees seen that talkig about, you know, joe biden, joe biden's son. yes, that's an issue, hunter biden is an issue, but that's being dealt with, hopefully, by the justice department and by

u.s. attorney durham. you know, criticizing biden for trump -- i mean, for bernie icsanders or something. you know, stick to the big issues, the important issues to the american people, and that is the safety of their person, the safety of their job and the safety of their health. that is what is of concern to the voters, and i would like to see the trump administration talk about its positive record as it has in those areas. >> host: time for just a couple morere calls. this is betty, wheeling, illinois. biden/harris ticket, good morning. >> caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. my biggest thing, and nobody is talking about this, is the cover-ups that the police departments do. we don't hear about these things like the breonna taylor thing, or the only reason we saw george floyd is because it was filmed and went viral.

but the cover-ups, it's months, sometimes years before we find out. and that's my biggest problem police departments. it's systemic in that. thank you. >> guest: here again, as always with c-span, your caller makes a very, very good point. when there is a problem with a police officer and a shooting, for example, it's important for the public to know that the authorities -- the police chief and the other authorities in the police department -- take that seriously and are conducting a true, legitimate investigation as opposed to just rallying and circling the wagons around the officers and saying we support them no matter what. that does not generate confidence in the police, and it's not the way the police leadership should operate. they should not be too quick to condemn a police officer after a shooting, nor should they be too quick to simply jump to the

police officer's defense. so having a transparent process that is fair to the police officer but also fair to the public so that they see there is a legitimate inquiry being -- very, verye is important. and your caller is correct, too often we don't see that. >> host: simi valley, california, maggie on that line for those who support president trump, vice president pence. go ahead. >> caller: hi. my father wases. lapd during the watts riots, and i just find that the reporting on this is very irresponsible. for everybody to jump to conclusions with regards to george floyd. i -- after my father passed away in the '90s, i ended up with addiction issues, so i have a lot of information and, experience with the police. i got in trouble.

i'm clean now, but, you know, the bottom line is that if everybody put that video together and waited to jump to conclusions like they have, you ouuld see that the bottom line is george floyd was saying he could not breathe in the backseat of the car. athe insisted on getting out. there's a video that hasn't been circulated. he insisted on getting out of the car because he couldn't breathe. he was acting very i rat ig. erratic. he was very erratic before he got out of the car. i found his autopsy report. it shows he's got over three times a lethal dose of fentanyl, the same fentanyl that that's been killingsa people all over america. >> host: congressman barr, i'll give you the final minute and a half. first, though, that's all we have this morning. >> guest: it is very important to look at the entirety of an

incident like we saw with george floyd. if, in fact, we conclude that simply based on the shot of the police officer with his knee on george floyd's neck and we say that's the beginning and the end of the matter, we're doing a disservice to the country and the community, to the police and to george floyd. what we need to do is we need to look at the whole thing. your caller is very correct, quite a bit of time after the initial camera shots of the f lice officer with his knee on george floyd's neck came out, there was additional footage, body cam footage of the when george floyd was in the car complaining about not being able to breathe, he couldn't breathe. and,ot apparently, the reason tt he couldn't breathe was because of drugs that he was under, drugs that he had been taking. as the caller correctly indicates, the autopsy report indicates that he had

excessively high levels of various controlled illegal substances in his body that probably contributed to his death. now, to what extent those drugs did, to what extent the police officer's action did, those are all issues that, hopefully, and should come out through a comprehensive, transparent public trial. but your caller is correct, it's far easier to jump to a conclusion based on just one snippet of a film as opposed to looking at the entire picture; what led up to it and what happened afterwards. >> host: we'll have to end it there. congressman bob barr is currently president and ceo of the law enforcement education foundation, it's laweef.org if you want to check them out. appreciate your time. >> guest: always a pleasure to be with you. thank you. ♪ >> who will control congress in january? stay informed on all the competitive congressional races leading up to election day with

c-span's campaign 2020 coverage. watch the candidates debate and election results on c-span. watch online at c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. ♪ >> booktv on c-span2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. saturday at 9:15 p.m. eastern, donald trump jr. on his book, "liberal privilege." then at 11, in her book "the virginia dynasty," former second lady lynne cheney chronicles the leadership of four of the first five presidents from virginia; george washington, thomas jefferson, james madison and james monroe. and on sunday at 9 p.m. eastern on "after words" with, former cia director john brennan speakes about his life and career in his book, "undaunted: my fight against america's enemies at home and abroad."

he's interviewed by new york times national security reporter julian barnes. watch booktv this weekend on c-span 2. ♪ ♪ >> the competition is on. be a part of this year's c-span student cam video competition. middle and high school students, be the start of a national conversation by making a 5-6 minute documentary exploring the issues we you want the president and congress to address in 2021. be bold. show supporting and opposing points of view and include c-span video. be a winner. there's $100,000 in total cash prizes including the grand prize of $5,000. the deadline to submit videos is january 20, 2021. be informed. you'll find rules, tips and information on how to get started on our web site, studentcam.org.

♪ ♪ >> sunday night on "q&a," author isabelle wilkerson talks about her new book. >> what i am doing is shedding a light on holding up an x-ray of the country so that we can see what is underneath these divisions, what is underneath what we call racism that there is this infrastructure of division that predates, actually, you know, race as a concept, race as a concept is a fairly new one in human history dating back only four or five hundred years. >> isabel wilkerson and her book, "caste," sunday night at 8 eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> next, senators tim kaine and josh hawley as well as

representative katie porter give their reaction to the vice presidential debate. they also share their thoughts on the supreme court, the 2020 election and the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. [silence] [no audio] e

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[no audio] e. >> unfortunately, we were unable to resolve the issue from our feed for this event. we hope to have the entire event later in our program schedule. you can check back at c-span.org. >> host: on the phonehi now by paul egan, detroit free press, l a ansing bureau chief. his byline is on most of the stories yesterday coming out about this plot to kidnap the governor. take us through what we know at this point about this kidnapping plot so far, how far it got edfore it was foiled. >> guest: okay. well, what we know is there were a number of conversations that were going on both in person and in some cases encrypted over

oprivate facebook groups discussing a number of plots including one to kidnap the governor possibly from her summer vacation home. that was the one that seemed to advance furthest, to the point where a high voltage taserrer was purchased, night goggles. there was supposed to have been a purchase of explosives this week taking place. there was discussion about detonating a bridge near her summer cottage to divert police, and theree was actually evening surveillance that was, that had occurred on two occasions of her summer home. so that's, that's about what we have. there was, you know, there was a lot of talk which, you know, can sometimes -- you can always ask the question were they just talking, or was there going to be action. but there were certainly some elements of action taking place including purchases ofem weapons

and surveillance of the governor's home. >> host: and now 20 individuals have been charged in this case. the group, the militia group the name, the wolverine watchmen, what do we know about that and how widespread the militia movement is in michigan? >> guest: the wolverine watchmen was founded by two of the individuals that have been charged in this case. there's some association with, you know, with what's come to be known as the bugaloo movement, apparently a code word for a second civil war, you know, there's anarchy associated with some of the groups associated with these movements, talk of, you know, sparking a, some kind of a war that would allow, you know, people that believed only in thew, bill of rights then to sort of, you know, create a new society among themselves.

you know, a lot of this stuff is pretty far out there, but michigan has long been a hotbed of militia activity. i mean, we can go back to there were ties to the oklahoma city bombing in michigan, a number of years ago the feds brought a major indictment against a militia group that apparently were plotting to blow up police funerals. you know, that case ended up going completely south even though a number of people spent a considerable amount of time in custody. no convictions really ended up resulting from that case, and that was a case where, you know, it gets difficult at times to say, well, or you know, this was just crazy talk -- ..