events in washington, d.c., and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. the white house briefing with press secretary sarah sanders is coming up this afternoon, scheduled for 2:00 p.m. eastern, and we'll bring it to you live here on c-span3. until then, some of this morning's "washington journal." >> reporter: dinesh d'souza is an author, filmmaker and recently in the ns for receiving a pardon from president trump, joins us from houston, texas. good morning. >> good morning. >> could you remind our viewers quickly about the situation that caused you to get that pardon in the first place? >> yes. my college friend, wendy long, was running for the u.s. senate in new york. this is in 2012. we've been friends for 25 years. i gave her $10,000, which is the

campaign finance limit, but i wanted to do more for her campaign. so i convinced two of my friends to donate $10,000 apiece, and then i reimbursed them. that was my violation. i exceeded the campaign finance limit by $20,000. >> in a typical case, how would someone else have been fined or punished for doing that, and how did you end up going to correctional inst -- or a facility for that? >> well, the typical case is that i was a first-time offender. the main point is that my motive was not corrupt. in fact, the candidate, wendy long, didn't even know that i did this. i wasn't trying to curry favor or get any kind of quid pro quo. so, in cases like that, where no corruption is involved, and my motive was nothing more than what one writer called misguided affection for a friend, those cases are handled with community service and a fine. but in my case, that was not so. >> was that because of the

things you had said or the things you had written or your films about the obama administration? did that play into this atall? >> i think it did. and myeason for thinking that is two-fold. the first is that in the same year, 2012, i released my first documentary film, subtitled "obama's america". it was in 2,000 theaters. and i know the president was bad about it because he railed against it on his website, barakobama.com. literally a few weeks later, they came banging at my door. later i discovered there is no case in american history where someone has been prosecuted, let alone locked up, for doing what i did. and that seems to me prima fascia evidence of selective prosecution. >> and that's the argument that your lawyer made in this case, and even the white house describing selective prosecution. that's your contention, then, you were singled out?

>> yes. and in fact, i now know a little more about the case. this is, of course, after my trial. a congressional oversight committee has a copy of my fbi file. very interestingly, the fbi when they found out about me, assigned $100,000 at the outset to investigate this $20,000 case. that's strange. something else that's strange is that they red flag me in the file as a right-wing ama.ervative and a critic of no tt shouldn't be in my file, if this was not a political hit, if this was a routine case as my prosecutor, preet bharara has said on cnn, there is no reason to highlight my conservative politics. >> and even the judge in this case -- and you've heard this before -- he said in his judgment there waso evidence of discriminatory effect nor discriminatory purpose. he goes on from there. what do you make of that reaction? >> well, here's the problem.

we're talking about a clinton appointee judge. and we told him that the only way to show whether there has been any collusion or whether there has been any political motive, is to lk inside the fbi file and in the government's file, which is normally obtainable in the discovery process. but the judge flatly refused to let us see the file, so he was depriving us of being able to investigate the very question that he was sort of adjudicating by saying, look, there's no selective prosecution, but he wouldn't let us find out if there really was. >> dinesh d'souza with us. 202-748-8,000ordemocrats, and 202-748-8002 for independents. this is kenny from the republican line. ours with dinesh d'souza. go ahead. >> caller: yes, i'd like to know if this man understands that accepting a pardon is an

admission of guilt. so, all his little televising stuff, he's giving them away by accepting this pardon. >> mr. d'souza. >> first of all, that's logically idiotic. if someone is wrongly convicted of something or isressur or udgeoned int making a plea deal and then you're pardoned, by accepting the pardon, you're doing no more than clearing your record and rectifying the original injustice. so, the notion that just because you've accepted a pardon automatically means you're guilty is reasoning for stupid people. >> but you eventually pleaded guilty to this. >> i did, but you have to realize the process that leads to this. what the government does is they try to threaten you with all kinds of preposterous and redundant charges. we're going to get you for mail fraud. you're like, mail fraud? they're like, yeah, because you put the check in the mail. we're going to get you for bank fraud. you're like, bank fraud? they're like, yeah, because you took the money out of the bank. we're going to get you for filing a false document.

you're like, i didn't file any documents. theye like,yeah, but the guys who sent the money in filed an fec doc. basically, they say we're going to send you to prison for years and years, it will destroy your life and your reputation, unless you plead to this thing, in which case we'll drop all the rest of it. so, the point to remember is that this kind of bludgeoning tactic pressures not just the guilty but also the innocent into pleading guilty. >> here is chris from florida, independent line.dinesh. i wanted to ask a quick question of dinesh. are you an immigrant? >> yes, i came to america at the age of 17. i did. >> caller: oh, okay. okay. that's interesting. i had a question about the intersection of like propaganda and information, especially when it comes to media. the citizen united thing came from a movie, right? and also, kind of what you went through came from a movie. and i'm just kind of interested what you thought about, i don't know, the right wing, whatever

you want to call it, taking up something that the left uses a lot, which is media? i'll sit and listen. thank you. >> well, i think that there is a greater realization, not just of the importance of popular culte, but the real emotional power of movies to reach people not just through their heads but also through their hearts. for years, i was a writer and speaker, and i don't think the obama administration would have regarded me as important enough to even go after. but in 2012, i released a movie in 2,000 theaters. it's the second highest grossing political documentary ever made. and that movie upset obama. now you know, when i speak on campus, people will say, gee, what makes you think he cares about your dumb movie? the reason i think that is because shortly after the movie came out, attacks on it began to appear on a website called barackobama.com. that's how i know that the narcissist in the white house at that time was upset about my movie. >> what kind of things did you

say about him particularly? and do you think that caused -- how do you think the white house reacted because of that? >> well, here is a small sample from that movie. obama h been traipsing around the country, basically chanting the phrase are brhes keeper." this was kind of his argument for economic redistribution and also for obamacare. well, i went down to kenya, and i found obama's actual brother living in a sort of third-world slum in the muck of nairobi, and i interviewed him. and i asked him, i said, obama says that we are our brother's keeper. what has obama done for you? and the guy says absolutely nothing. this guy has not lifted finger to helpme. so, you have to see that this kind of thing in a movie, when i'm talking to obama's actual brother, it transcends the debate about obame. i'mctually showing the president of the united states to be basically a two-talking hypocrite. and i think obama didn't like that. he's a petty, vindictive guy, and he unleashed his coppos like

holder and preet bharara to go after me. >> gwen in alabama, democrats line. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. first of all, i want to ask him a question. then i want to mak comment. were you not found guilty of campaign finance violation? were you not found guilty of that? >> i was. >> caller: okay. first of all, what is idiotic and stutyat y'r thng we, the american ople, are stupid and idiotic. what's all the stuff you said about president obama? as a black woman, you are darn right, i am offended. i am offended that you would go after the first black president to demean and malign him. and what you said about michelle obama, as a black woman, you are darned right, we are very upset! and you're talk being narcissism? wait a minute! what about this narcissistic person that's in the white house right now? that is not narcissism? and the only reason you're on tv

and c-span, i am very offended that you have this person when we have african-americans about what the president has done with the philadelphia eagles, why you don't have some of the eagles on this morning. >> okay, gwen, we'll leave it there. go ahead. >> well, i think, you know, as a black person, i would think you would realize that just because someone has been convi of a crime doesn't necessarily mean that, a, they are guilty, or b, that they've received equitable and fair treatment. our criminal justice system is far from equitable, not just in ca sense.sense, but also in a to give you a emple that comes from politics, very recently, rosie o'donnell, the comedian, admitted that she had violated campan finance law five times, in five separate jurisdictions. so in theory, five u.s. attorneys could file charges against her today, but there's no talk about her being charged. why? because there's no corruption involved in her case. rosie goes, hey, if i gave too much money, just give me the

money back, and i would have liked to have gotten that treatment, too. >> from florida, independent line, ann. hello. >> caller: hi. i'm very glad to speak to you, dinesh. we rewatched your movie with previously mentioned in one of the other callers, we watched it from the beginning to the end. and i want tohank y for making that movie. my question to you is going to be, when you spoke to his brother and when you went to the grave siteth former president, off camera, can you impart any information on how their society, their culture also felt about him? and number two, when eric holder put you in a cell, how did you feel about that? describe that day. >> well when i was in kenya at the obama family homestead, i got a window into obama.

we think of obama, oh, he's the first african-american president, he's a civil rigs guy. we might think of him in connection with selma or montgomery or the civil rights movent. the reality is that obama's obama himlf wrote a book, "dreams from my father." so, part of what i wanted to do was learn about his father. and his father was basically this african socialist who hated th west, hated america, and basically wanted to have global redistribution of wealth away from the industrialized countries and toward third-world countries, so a diminution of american wealth and power. and it was my thesis that this is what obama's son, president obama, was trying to achieve in the white house, a diminution of american wealth and power. now, turning to the other part of your question, confinement. i was locked up overnight for eight months in a confinement center with 120 hardened felons. these were basically, the whole gamete -- coyotes, drug runners,

murderers, rapists, people who typically had served most of their sentence and were now in is confinement center before being released on to the street. it was kind of a harrowing experience, but i'm glad i went. i think i came out stronger for it. i'm very glad now to have my record fully cleared. >> what did you learn from it? does it change your tune as far as the way you produce films or the way you write opinions? did it shape anything going forward? >> i think that the whole experience taught me that human beings are not simply motivated by ideals. they are also motivated by very powerful and much baser instincts of anger, jealousy, hatred, lust, revenge. we tend to think of american politics as some type of debate. the liberals think x and conservatives think y. one group favors liberty and the other group favors equality. but this misses the deeper

engine of human disdoesn't that drive human beha. my knowledge of human nature and understanding of the political system is mucetter now as a consequence of that. >> walk through the day that you heard from president trump. >> well, it was a remarkable experience. i was working in my study. this was just a few days ago. the rang. the number said unknown. i answered it. it was the white house operator. she confirmed it was me. she said hold the line for the president of the united states. a moment later trump came on. he was in a very kind of casual mood. hello, dinesh, he goes. i'm sitting hereith john kelly. you know john, don't you? no, i don't know john, i know who he is. trump goes we both think you're a great voice for freedom and america and turning to the matter at hand, this case, i got to tell you man-to-man you got

screwed. yes, you committed a technical violation, you should have gotten a fine but those guys, meaning the obama guys went after you with everything they got. it's a terrible injustice and he goes in effect i have the power to correct it so i'm going to be giving you a full pardon in the morning. i want to give you your life back. i want to clear your record. then he closed by saying i want you to go out there and be the great voice for freedom that you have been but only with a more magnified reach. >> what does that mean to you no >> i think what it means to me is -- i mean it's ironic because the reason i'm getting a bigger voice than ever because the left is fingut bigime over my pardon. they are making a bigger, a more resounding yell over it than all the other pardons put together. as a result, it tells me that they think i'm unleashed, somehow dangerous to their ideology. so i'm going to go out and keep doing what i'm doing not just with the books. i have a big book and new movie

coming out in august. i resisted talking about it because i don't want to use my pardon as an occasion to promote my book. but i'm in the stages of edyt editing a movie. >> the theme? >> "death of a nation." two themes i'm dealing with are racism/white supremacy and the other is fascism. two labels in america dropped not only by president trump but the right. the notion that right is fascm. or racism or white supremacy is the staple of the republican party. >> from our republican line from north carolina, karen. good morning. you're on with dinesh d'souza. >> i would like to say'm very happy that president trump pardoned you.

and i'm one of the democrats who voted for barack obama twice and crossed over to vote republican for the first time in my life. and i wish that you would do something about angela merkel because it wasn't put that influenced me to vote republican, it was angela el who when she was up for a nobel peace prize made those statements. if you can get here we'll take you in to the syrian refugees. she sold europe out for a nobel peace prize that she never got. i don't know if germany is ever going to come back fro what she's done. >> thanks, karen. thank you. >> well, i'll just say that europe is facing a serious problem. and i think part of the reason the problem is so serious is because the europeans take immigrants who seem largely indy

gue -- indigestable. europe defines identity in terms of birth or blood. america has been a better solvent for acssimilation for immigrants. but people tend to attacven president trump for being a racist and this is based on the fact that trump is sposedly quote against immigrants. but, no. trump has always drawn the line between the legal andegal immigrant and it's important to realize most legal immigrants who come to america are nonwhite. they come from asia, africa, south america and president trump has never said that he wants merely white immigrants from itsland or new zealand and fewer immigrants from say barbados or bombay. he doesn't want illegal immigrants to bre the law and coming here in the wrong way. >> our independent line, washington, d.c. joe, good morning.

>> good morning. how are you doing? i want to mr. die so'souza, he's a film writer. the only thing that i see you support your base and that's okay. you know, you are designed and equipped to attack obama the way you did. you did it. now you're being supported by the present administration. it works like that. but what i want to ask you at night when you go home, do you look at yourself and you think afr all?ou're not so none o us are. we are americans and i think that sometimes when we get so partial that we can do more damage than good. yeah, you may do some things that might expose and turn the tables, but understand this. that at the end of the day look at who you are. you are still mr. dinesh.

you may be in that culture, that environment that supports you and make you feel good and successful. that's all well and good. >> okay, joe. thank you. >> mr. d'souza. >> i would like to tryo say where my politics come from. when you talk about things like my base, i don't run for office. i don't have a base. i'm a nonwhite immigrant who came to america with $500 in my pocket. i've seen the american dream as a reality in my life. i believe in ladders of opportune that enable people who start out at theotm to be able to climb up the ladder and make a better life for themselves. when i look at the two parties, it seems to me one of them is offering me a ladder. and the other is offering me a rope. what i mean by rope is you got democrats at the top of the building, okay, dinesh you don't have to try, we'll lower our rope down to you, you grab on the it and we'll pull you up.

i say yeah you'll pull me up but then i'm dependent on you. what if you let go of the rope. i'll go crashing down. i rather see a ladder propped up against the wall and climb up on my own and have earned achiemt else giving it to me. so this is the reason i lean to the republican side politically is to protect ladders of opportunity. >> also you heard from the president once. have you heard from him since you received your pardon or anyone from the white house? >> no. it was the kind of call that was talking about something that was a done deal, and essentially trump said i'll bennouncing this by tweet tomorrow morning, and he did. and since then i've been out there talking about it. in fact my prosecutor has been on c talking about it, oh, dinesh voluntarily pleaded guilty. what he doesn't say is the strong arm tactics that the government uses to get you to do

that. they basically bludgeon you into it and then put on a pompous role he voluntarily did it. this debate i'm glad we're having it in this country because political justice is a terrible thing. he want lady justice to be blind d notsective. >> so then you did respond in a very blunt way via tweet. what did you say and why did you say it? >> well, twitter is a little bit of a rough medium and we tend to fire back and forth. sometimes inhe heat of the moment. i literally did what i call my karma is a bitch tweet. what i said is hey, in effect, you thought that you could advance your career by being a little water carrier for obama and getng me, but now you got fired and i got pardoned. so what goes around comes around. >> jessica in virginia, hi. >> yes, two quick questions for mr. d'souza.

first question is, you've claimed that in your act of committing election fraud that there was no corrupt intent. however, you used straw donors which would be indicative of premeditation and from premeditation would conclude there was corrupt intent. how would you go about explaining that? the second question is you believe you were coerced into pleading guilty from which you were charged what have you done, if anything, to advocate criminal justice reform? >> your first question had to do with corrupt intent. and i think you're right i had intent. i obviously used straw donors. in that sense i was clearly trying to get around, you might say the campaign finance limit. i never denied it. i was on meghan kelly's show long before the trial talking

about it. the question is, was it corrupt intent? corrupt intent means you're trying to get something out of it. there's lots of cases which the government has prosecuted where someone says listen i'll get all this money for you and i want to be appointed a judge. or i want my business to get a tax break. that's the essential defending of corruption. when there's no corrupt intent at all and when there's a first time offense, as in my case, and when the amount involved is e small, $20,000, there's no case in the entire history of the united states where somebody was indicted, prosecuted, locked up for eight months, sentenced to mandatory psychiatric counselling, given probation for five years for this kind of an offense it's unheard of, and so it suggests that these guys were trying to, in some way, carry out a vendetta for what i had publicly said about president obama. >> how did -- >> for criminal justice reform

it's badly needed. >> how did psychiatric come in to play? >> the judge said i was not a very self-reflective man and he was going to help me by ordering me to undergoing mandatory psychiatric counselling. this is strange. first of think of my offense. i didn't commit a perverted whacked out deal. i didn't put bodies in the refrigerator like jeffrey dahmer. i gave money to a friends of 25 years who was running for the senate. my motives was obvious. one writer characterized it as misguided loyalty to a friend. i go to a shrink for this? the judge thought i did. i characterize this as a re-education program. that guy was trying to get me to kowtow obama and to the left the if i made regular appearances on msnbc he would have pronounced

me cured. >> let's go to michigan, republican line. >> dinesh, i'm so very happy that president trumpdone you. you're fantastic. i've seen your movies. and guess what? i'm an african-american female, black female, and all these people calling in angry. you really got the imprisonment because of what you did against obama. people are so much in denial, he my own race. they are going to call in and dog this call. but i want you to be comforted. there's a large majority of us, black people and i'm a black woman, educated black woman with two masters degrees, and i want to let you know i'm very proud of the films you've put out. they are eye-opening. even the host when he asked you what did obama have to be mad at. go look at the movie. the movie. it's the truth about a whole

bunch o st >> got u, andrea. mr. d'souza. >> well, a lot of my recent work -- i mean if i singled out was obama, obsessed with obama, attacking obama it would be one ing. my recent movie was called "hillary's america." it's more critical o the sub title of that movie is "the secret history of the democratic party." in that movie i show that many of these things that are now blamed on the right or on america, were actually perpetrated by the democrats. the democratic party is the party of slavery and segregation and jim crow and the ku klux klan and opposition to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and those are simple facts. >> bristol, virginia, democrats line, ali. >> yes, mr. d'souza i want to ask you a few questions. do you believe president obama is an american raised by an

american family, and is culturally american that doesn't have any cultural background as a kenyan? yet, you went to kenya and interviewed his brother that said he wast takinge of them because he's t his brother's keeper. how do you tie that together -- i'm an african and i know what our people do. they are dependent on america, and i don't know your background, but you are indian or something. i'm sure you're familiar to what i'm talking about. so, don't you think that's not right to go out and interview somebody in kenya because of somebody who was born here and an american. so can you answer that for me, please? >> certainly. do i think that obama is an american? yes. he had a white mom, and a kenyan dad. people sometimes describe his dad as an immigrant but his dad

was never an immigrant. his dad was a foreign student who came to america, studied and went right back to kenya. lived his whole life over there. now who influenced obama more the mom or the dad? the answer is the dad. the source is obama himself. he wrote a book titled "dreams from my father." this was autobiography. when he was young he went to europe to learn about his mother and his trip to kenya to learn about his father. his trip to kenya is described in over 100 pages. his trip to europe is described in four paragraphs. he identified with his father. he talked about weeping at his father's grave and a moment where his father's dam became s dreams. this is out of the mouth of obama. in the movie i play obama's own voice taken from his audio book

describing all this. so in a sense people say where your getting it all from? i'm getting it all from obama himsf. >> gary in miami, florida, republicanline. >> yeah. hi. thanks dinesh. i was wondering, did you cover in the movie which i'm sorry to say i didn't see, the fact that obama says he attended the church for more than 20 years and he did not know what reverend wright was saying even though reverend wright married him and his wife, blessed his home, baptized his children and the fact that reverend wright prior to that had been a black muslim and often accompanied lewis farrakhan to libya to visit moammar gadhafi who was suorting of islam. and can you comment on this

picture that just surfaced about obama with farrakhan that the photographer says he was pressured not to release. >> well i think the essence of the matter is obama moved in very radical circles in chicago. he was close to bill ayers the former domestic terrorist. he was in reverend wright's church. he knew what those men represented and he knew what they believed. there was a powerful design not just by obama but by the media too to camouflage obama's background, to present him as a very centrist, mnstream guy and so all of this waswe under the rug. and a lot of obama to this day is not known. he's never released his college transcripts. and so it's very odd that there are aspects of obama's life that even remain even for people like me who studied him intensively

black holes. it's because of the extraordinary degree of media protection. even in my case i would sit down with reporters and say dinesh you got shafted, i'm sorry this is happening to you. i would say well, you know, you're on the left. it would be thoehelpful if you something pu no i can't do that. all these people were in a sense protecting obama in a huddle around obama and the ger idea was that bamako doo wrong. it was imperative to them that the first black president succeed that in a sense it didn't matter what he did or ate believed. >> one more call and this is from oklahoma, independent line. we're running short on time. so go right ahead. >> yes, good morning. good morning mr. dinesh d'souza. i really would love to know your origin of your country that you come from, for i am a proud austrian-american and i never

deny my heritage. so please by all mea said. also i would love for you, i've never seen your movie so i can't judge it. i don't wish to judge it. sometimes you sound very arrogant, sir. what makes you so arront>> w ll leave it there. mr. d'souza. >> well, i don't know if i can answer that. i'm not arrogant. sometimes i'm combative because i'm in a combative situation and i try to sometimes give as much as i get. i'm very proud to say i was born mumbai india, middle class parents. i grew up speaking hindi and establish. i went to school in bombay. i came as first generation immigrant at the age of . yes, america has been a land of opportunity for me. yes, i've seen the american dream. but in my case i've also seen the american nightmare. imagine being a immigrant and edtates words in the courtroom

dinesh d'souza. imagine having the fbi going througheverything. so i've seen the upside and down side of america. havingwn-u in one culture and familiar with another i think there are a lot of wonderful and unique things about americaer and what makes my work controversial is i'm bold enough to say so. >> author, filmmaker and recipient of a pardon, dinesh d'souza on washington journal. later today here on c-span 3, former u.s. gymnast president and former michigan state university president testify before congress about how they handled allegations of sexual assault b larry nassar, the former usa gymnastics team doctor and former physician at michigan state university. he's now in prison for possession of child pornography and sexual t. that heang of the senate commerce subcommittee on consumer protection is at 3:00 p.m. eastern.

you can see it live here on c-span 3. and tomorrow, health and human services secretary alex azar was the before the house education and workforce committee. that's live starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span 3. lds daily., where history in 1979 c-span creed as a public service by america's cable television companies. oday wenue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress. the white house. the supreme court. and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite id. next on c-span 3 the state department's coordinator for counterterrorism on the department's strategy to counter violent extremism. from the hudson