i will not raise fund, i would've had enough. i would have said bye-bye politics. and then i started raising money and we raised a lot of money. we raised a lot of money. birthday, we raised $51 million. i do things that i think a fantastic. i could do the greatest things, they don't give me headlines. i tell a woman that i love her baby.

is a baby. superior to paparazzi. he continued to cry. after about 3-4 minutes, and try to speak and it was in jacksonville, we had this massive crowd, filled up the stadium. the baby started crying. i said, i would like to, perhaps you could take the baby out. i did it so nicely. she was happy. even the baby was happy. it stopped crying. without the possible? the whole place was cracking up. the next day, donald trump throws baby out of arena. [boos] terrible. they are very dishonest. that was a tough one. i just had a reporter come up to me, backstage, a report about and said mr. trump, why did you

throw the baby out of there? i said i was having fun. everybody likes me. the baby likes it. we had a good time. i try to keep the baby in but had such a powerful voice. i went up enough the baby is delivered to sponsor the baby and that they be will sing someday and philharmonic hall. new york city. [cheers] i'm not part of the system. i ran against the system. i ran against the donors, largely my own donor. i'm running against myself. i never thought of it that way. and against the status quo in the status quo, we have to get rid of because it is not

working. the country is a mess. that is why put up a lot of money. while the democrats nominated a candidate of special interest and really a candidate of total corruption, you take a look at what she is doing. the republicans made history by choosing a nominee from outside of this very corrupt the system. it is a corrupt system. you want something done, they can do it for you. that is not necessarily and usually is in it for the country. that is why we're going to be able to deliver real change and real safety and real opportunity to all americans, we have to unite. remember that. everything i become pushed i have done but adding together a really fantastic team, including mike pence of indiana. [cheers] he has done an incredible job. my wonderful staff of people

that really love what we are doing and are working so hard. my family, friends, and its expanding all of the time. but i need a republican senate and the house to accomplish all of the changes that we have to make. we have to make them. i understand and embrace the wisdom of ronald reagan's big tent within the party. big tent. remember? great guy. he included reagan democrats and independents and republicans. a lot of people. there a lot of democrats in this room, but a lot of democrats? raise your hands?

i don't think we need to many to be honest. i embrace the wisdom that might -- my 80% friend is not my 20% enemy. ronald reagan. [cheers] we will be the big tent party. you're going to have a lot of bernie sanders people because of trade. because bernie sanders new we were being ripped off by trade. trade is a disaster with china, japan, mexico, with be a non-, -- with vietnam. so my countries. every country. we don't win at any level with anything. as a unified party, we will lead our country to unity as well. very important.

we have to win the election. [cheers] otherwise our big movement was not as big as we thought. that is not good. that is why november 8, we have to get everybody you know and all this voter id nowadays, a lot of places aren't going to have put her id, what does that mean -- voter id? what does that mean? we will have disagreements but we will disagree as friends and never stop working together toward victory. [cheers] and very importantly, toward real change. so in our shared mission to make america great again, i support and endorse our speaker of the house, paul ryan.

[cheers] paul ryan. a good man. he's a good man and a good guy. and we may disagree on a couple of things, but mostly we agree and we will get it done into a a -- and do a lot of wonderful things. [cheers] hold in the it, i highest esteem, senator john mccain. for his service to our country

in uniform and public office and i fully support and endorse his reelection. very important. [cheers] we will work together. i also fully support and endorse senator kelly ayotte of new hampshire. pasted i truly love. primarily because that was my first victory. i love new hampshire. one of the most beautiful places. she is a rising star and will continue to represent the great people of new hampshire so very well for a long, long time. senator kelly ayotte. working hand-in-hand we will grow our majority in the house

and the senate. we need that. we have to get things done. arm and arm we will rescue the nation from the obama-clinton disaster, which is exactly what it is. [boos] that has bled our country dry and spread terrorism unabated across the world. that is what is happening. you saw it just now, maps cannot -- came out yesterday. they said isis is far bigger, it is all over the place. we will get rid of it. our military is depleted. we will build up our military. we will get others with us, believe me. we will get plenty of others with us and speaking of others, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get along with russia?

[cheers] wouldn't that be nice? they talk so big and so brave and tough, they are the tough ones. hillary is real tough, give me a break. wouldn't that be great. we got together and we knocked the -- knock the hell out of isis. [cheers] together we will lead our country back to prosperity, security and peace. when you look at the world and what is happening, we have the queen of corruption. the queen of corruption. she is a disaster. i said before, if crooked hillary clinton becomes president, terrorism will destroy the innerworkings of our

country. believe me. they are loving it. she wants to have live hundred 50% more people coming in from syria and that region into a rich and -- nation. we don't know who they are and where they come from. we don't know if they are isis, some will be. and look at the damage that is done in san bernardino with a couple, probably he became radicalized by her. these were friends of theirs. these were people that gave a party in celebration of the birth of the child and they were gunned down. 14 people killed, many injured. take a look at orlando. all discussed that was. how discussing that was. -- disgusting that was. take a look at the world trade

center and some other places. go to the toughest gun laws anywhere in the world, paris and take a look at that. 130 people gunned down. if people had guns on the other side of the bullets arflying, like you sir, and you, -- [cheers] first of all, if they knew guns were in the room, they probably would not have gone there, they were just sitting ducks. 130 people. in paris, just like this, it up here, though. boom 130 people, many still in the hospital. many so greatly wounded it is horrible. if they had bullets flying in

the other direction, maybe they would not have shown up and if they did, i will tell you what, would not have that kind of carnage. you would have had people lying on the other side of the floor instead. [cheers] hillary clinton wants to do major damage, as you know to our second amendment. hillary clinton wants to put judges, she wants to put justices of the supreme court, she will make them nice and liberal, wait until you see what that does to your rights. wait to see what the test here second amendment. you will not recognize it. you will not recognized it. national, nra, they endorsed me . [cheers] they are great people. they endorsement very early. and it is really an honor. they are phenomenal people when you get to know them.

they love the country. they take a lot of heat, but they love the country. i heard mike, governor pence talking about 1.2 growth, 1.2% growth. the lowest in memory since the 1940's. a lot of differences between all of us. i thought i would mention, i have not fully clinton over the years, i've known her. she makes statements. she makes statements and they are statements coming out of the playbook. we can't get them for this, can't get them for this, i heard i have the best temperament. i have a temperament to win. [cheers] we have to win. she said not so long ago, i don't like donald trump's tone.

she is reading it off at teleprompter. i don't like donald trump's tone. and i said, we need a tough town today. we have people, we need a kind tone. we have people being beheaded all over the middle east and other places. we have crime that is rampant. we have people in the middle east being drowned in steel cages. this is like medieval times. and she is worried about my tone. they chop up heads and drowned sand and then they ask me, mr. trump, sir, how do you feel about waterboarding?

top of heads, drowned people, i'm absolutely ok with it. [cheers] can you imagine what the enemy, isis, can you imagine what they must say as they spent the day chopping off the heads of christians, come back, get together and start talking and they say waterboarding is not allowed in the united states. waterboarding is not allowed. folks, we better get smart and tough and we are playing games with hillary. she is not the right person. everybody knows it. her single greatest achievement is being caught in a crime and getting away with it.

true. 33,000 e-mails. so i wrote this before on the way over to another rally at a nice place. in iowa. we love iowa. [cheers] i thought it was accurate. unstable and she is. hillary clinton lacks the judgment that bernie sanders, bernie sanders said that. as soon as he said it, i started writing notes.

she has bad judgment. she likes the judgment, temperament and moral character to lead this country. plus she is a weak person. we don't need a weak person. he just said, plus she is a criminal. she is a dangerous liar. who has disregarded the lives of americans and who has put all of us at great risk while what supporting economic policies that have destroyed our economy. we have a long way to go. she is unhinged, truly unhinged.

and she is unbalanced and you can see in the words of a secret service agent, just wrote a book, i bought the book, i wanted to see what he had to say, she simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve in the office. from the bottom of my soul he said, i know this to be true. he was there. leadership style, impulsive as it is, disdainful of the rules set for everyone else hasn't changed a bit. she's unqualified to become president and she really is. bernie said that also. [cheers]

great people. it is true. one in one way she is a monster. look at what happened. look at history. in another way, she is a weak person. she is actually not strong enough to be president. she has both. she is not strong enough to be president. she will be a disaster. she would be so bad for our country, and i'm not just talking about justices of the supreme court, she will be so bad for our country and we can't let it happen.

we can't let it happen. mike pence told me a story and maybe i should not say it, but it sounded interesting, but of the reasons, the primary reason he's in politics is because he watched the crookedness of the clintons when they were in the white house. and he said he ran, he ran again and he ran again. anyone and he won. you have to hand it to them. this is the guy that does not give up. he does not quit. never ever. [cheers] but he watched the clintons and i'm sure they will be thrilled to hear that, but the actually got him into politics which is interesting. then we make these horrible deals, we get $150 billion and how about $400 million. [boos]

thank you think of it. $400 million in cash, different currencies, different denominations, a lot of people say that money went toward terror. i'm nicer than that. i don't have that horrible thought process some people have in the stream. -- the room. i say some of it. but a lot of it went to the bank accounts. it went into their pockets. could you imagine these guys sitting there with 400 million cash? do you think they're giving the money to terror? they are giving that money to money them and i guess terror will got some of it.

will but most of it they cap. ketp. -- kept. the concept of paying $400 million in cash is mind-boggling. who can authorize such a thing? go to a bank teller and say give me $400 million? i want to in euros. swiss francs. wrap it up, we will come back in 10 minutes. ok. just inconceivable. a we are witnessing a horror show in this country and throughout the world. you look at what is going on throughout the world. these people funding terrorists. these people are funding terrorism. for us to have given $400 million to basically free our

hostages. obama, just like he lied about obamacare which was a tremendous lie, that was a tremendous lie, remember? you can keep your plan, he can ?- you can keep your doctor how many people have been able to keep the doctor or their plan? [boos] not working that way. it is going to be repealed and replaced 100%. [cheers] and honestly, i hope i win because we will do a great job. we will make america great again. [cheers] i actually think that regardless of who wins, obamacare is going to fold. it is so expensive. people can't afford it and the country can't afford it. other than that it is just wonderful.

in texas, they just had almost a 60% increase. now the increases are starting to come out. the big increase will be announced on november 1. the election is november 8. folks, they want to delay it because it is election changing. in it is a mess. it is election changing and they want to change it. we can't let that happen. because the numbers, and i can see some of the numbers already, the numbers are going to be will astronomical. you they will be so big, so will horrible and the health care, the plan is terrible. and we're going to take care of everybody. we're going to end up with a great plan that costs much less money for the people and much less money for the country. this plan is a total rip. will it does not work and it will full do -- fold.

will 40-60% increase. i think it will be worse than that. no we better get smart and better start thinking properly. i want to talk about what is going on at the borders. we will build it. youwe will build it. we have people coming to our country that should not be coming to our country. we have thousands and thousands of people from certain terrorist states, certain parts of the world that we are allowing to come into our country, most of the politicians, almost all of

them don't even know where they are, where they are being put, they know nothing about these people. this could be the great trojan horse of all-time. you and hillary once thousands more to come in over and above obama. will -- the wall is getting color everyday. -- taller every day. you the obama clinton foreign-policy has handed huge portions of iraq, libya and syria to crisis. -- isis. huge portions. it has undermined stability in egypt and you know they have to do over there. it empowered iran as never before. iran three years ago was dying. in fact, when they were marching in the streets, if obama would have just encouraged a little

bit, it would have been taken over by the people. but obama played ball with the thugs running it right now. think of this, making a deal in the deal is not made and they are dancing in the streets of iran saying how stupid the americans are to be making this deal. the leaders and in particular the leader of iran is calling us stupid in the deal means nothing and yesterday, i think he just said that the united states is essentially nothing. this is our great partner. when you have somebody come if i was making this deal, if the other side was bragging about it, i'm not making that deal. i'm not making it. i'm walking. but we kept it going and we should have never ever started negotiating that deal until we had our hostages back.

we should have walked. we should have doubled up the sanctions or walked. i said. before the plane reached near -- new york city or washington, will or washington, you could just turn it around. take your hostages. when you think about it, you probably read today and yesterday, one of the hostages was waiting for a very long time. obama said that it had nothing to do with the hostages. that he would not do that for kidnappers. he would not do that for kidnapping. think of that. you have to think about it. it was the same day. will we have to be exactly accurate. the money came in and one of the hostages, a good guy. will didn't he say he waited forever?

somebody said, no we are waiting for something. will obama stands up yesterday and for seven minutes is telling us one thing had nothing to do with the other. just a lie. at least be truthful. we're talking about the same day. $400 million and we could have had something that would have been a much better deal and you know what, i'm all in favor of will deals when he gets to nuclear. we could have walked. we should have walked with 150 also be we should assets are, we don't have the money. can't pay. we know almost $20 trillion. we love you, but we can't give you the money. we don't have it. they will get angry and they will be upset and two days later you'll be back negotiating.

saved yourself $150 billion. we have terrorists pouring into our country, we have people coming in. i don't know if you have seen this, may knows. -- maine knows. i think the most important issue facing civilization right now is radical islamic terrorism and we have a president that refuses to use the term and we have crooked hillary who does not want to use will it. she's been forced to use it by will me. the notice she gave me secret she said i will use it. i will use it. i will. just like transpacific partnership.

she called it the gold standard. it is all says bad or maybe worse than nafta. cleaned out many of the states in our country, cleaned them out from manufacturing. moved to mexico and other places. a total disaster. signed by bill clinton. he never suffered the ravages because he signed it and then he got out and other people did suffer. we are going to renegotiate and if they don't want to make a great deal for us, at least a lot of them come if we can't wait make a great deal, her line -- she couldn't do that if you wanted to. her donors would not let him. her special interest would not let her. her lobbyists would never let her. number three, she could not do it anyway. even if you wanted to. we will renegotiate. did you hear her the other day talk up after years of saying

how wonderful it is and if you look in new england and new york state and pennsylvania and ohio and you look at a lot of other places, one of the reasons i won indiana so big, one of the reasons with the great bobby knight. -- was the great bobby knight. one of the reasons i won was because carrier air-conditioning was moving to indiana. -- from indiana to mexico. there have to be consequences when mexico takes our companies and not only mexico, there have to be consequences when china devalues its currency so that our companies can no longer compete with china human that we make better products. i have friends were manufactured. we make better products. they can't get their product into china. when a few times arrive where

right they can, they have to pay an incredible tax. you beyond what anybody would even think. yet we open our doors and just for all the stuff. lose our jobs and it is very sad. a major destination, and has become a major destination for somalia refugees. we admit hundreds of thousands of refugees into the united states from many of the most dangerous and unstable regions in the world and you are getting them here. anybody in this room from a terror territory? this is a practice. it will continue under hillary clinton except it will expand 5-6-7 fold. i don't get it.

i know they will vote democrat. but they will not be voting. how can anybody even think this way? the washington times reported of the somali refugees, the program in minnesota that the effort to resettle large groups of somali refugees is having the unintended consequence of creating an enclave of immigrants with high unemployment that is both stressing the state safety net, and creating a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for the islamic terror groups. aren't we smart? we are having this problem across our refugee and

immigration programs. some of the examples, this came out of the senate subcommittee just recently. the boston bombers, remember those horrible, disgusting people? the boston bombers arrived through the political asylum process. younger brother applied for citizenship and was naturalized on september 11, 2012. the older brother had it pending application for citizenship. and look what happened, we took him in. the moroccan national who came to the united states as a student was arrested for plotting to blow up a university and a federal courthouse. great.

a uzbek refugees living in idaho was arrested and charged with providing support to a terrorist organization in the form of teaching terror recruits how to build massive and very dangerous bombs. we let him in. an immigrant from syria later applied for and received u.s. citizenship was accused by federal prosecutors of planning to go to a military base in texas and kill three or four american soldiers, execution style if possible, more than that, if at all possible. a college student who immigrated from somalia who later applied and received u.s. citizenship attempted to blow up a christmas

tree lighting ceremony in oregon. an immigrant from afghanistan who later applied for and received u.s. citizenship and a legal permanent resident from the philippines were convicted for plotting to join al qaeda and the telegram -- taliban in order to kill as many americans as possible. an iraqi immigrant who later applied for and received u.s. citizenship was arrested for lying to federal agents about pledging allegiance to isis. his travels to syria and how many americans he wanted to kill. two immigrant from pakistan who later applied for and received u.s. citizenship were sentenced

to decades long as in sentences -- prison sentences for plotting to detonate a bomb in the middle of new york city. an immigrant from yemen who later applied for and received u.s. citizenship was arrested for trying to join isis. he was also charged with attempting to illegally by firearms to try to shoot as many american military personnel as possible. so, i just say, what are we doing? hillary clinton once more and more to pour in. you almost say, politics aside, whether you are democrat, whether you are a liberal, republican, conservative, what are they doing?

i don't care who you are, what the hell are they doing? [cheers] we're going to have strong borders, our southern border will be very powerful. we are going to stop the drugs from pouring into wisconsin and every place else. [cheers] the heroin epidemic is beyond belief. in new hampshire, a great place, that is where i realize the extent of what is going on. when i meet with the people of new hampshire and they tell me the biggest problem they have is heroin. i said, it can't be. with a beautiful lakes and streams, so beautiful. the biggest problems heroin.

and it was. their youth is being poisoned and then you go to massachusetts and you go to north carolina and south carolina and you come here, you come here. you go to iowa and you see the tremendous problems they have with heroin and drugs that pour in from the southern border. and look, here's the story. we go to a strong borders. we will have a wall. it will be a powerful wall. a big powerful wall. you know that hillary clinton wanted a wall. number of years ago. she wanted a wall. the primaries as we understand it, looking back, not that long ago, she went to the wall. walls do work. all you have to do is ask israel. are you to is ask some of the

nations that are in europe right now that are building walls. obama talks about, there will be no walls. but in the white house, which he just said, they wanted -- want to build a fence a lot bigger will and a lot higher and a lot stronger. it is interesting. i say don't build that fence. they say walls don't work. fences don't work. don't build that fence. when hillary doesn't want to let you have your guns, she will surrounded by people like this. that have more firepower on them than any human being honored. and i think she doesn't want to have guns, i think that all of her bodyguards and offer secret service should emulate give up their weapons -- immediately give up their weapons. [cheers]

admittedly give up those weapons will and it was somebody will comes at you with a gun, he just try to talk them out of it. got to do some quick talking. got to do some quick talking, hillary. i don't think even hillary with a phony lies and disgusting habits, i don't think she could get away with that one. i did this quickly, hillary was to raise taxes.

donald trump is going to lower taxes vary substantially. the biggest tax increase of all. on business and personal. hillary wants to significantly expand regulations. donald trump is going to get rid of many regulations which, by the way, are stopping your businesses both small and big from succeeding from expanding and from anything, starting. you can't start a business today. the regulations are so onerous and horrible. hillary wants to shut down energy production. donald trump on to expanded significantly and will start paying off our debt. hillary wants to essentially abolish the second amendment. take away your rights.

donald trump will protect it more so than any other president that has ever served. [cheers] crooked hillary once far left activist judges, forced over there by burning and by pocahontas who will destroy our constitution. i want judges will support and defend our constitution. [cheers] and justice scalia, as great as we could get. [cheers] hillary wants to open our borders, just open them up because special interest and donors want it that way. there are reasons.

will i want to totally secure our borders. i want people to come in. like they come in a process. hillary wants to invade foreign countries. do you ever see word she said donald trump with the nuclear, i did not want the world iraq. i'm on record. i do not want the war on iraq. i did not want what they done. if you read esquire magazine, and long time ago, he will see. -- you will see. everything i said was right. i, toughest group of people, the people that hate the united states of -- they will take it over. they are taking over the oil, taking over the land, taking over everything. i didn't want to.

she wants to be tough with russia. says donald trump like speaking. i don't know put in. i hope i like them. i hope he likes me. because i would love to get along with russia. he says, donald trump, once to a putin.to -- what is wrong with that. she will be the tough one. she will be the tough one. she will put nuclear weapons. they have all nukes. she will be the tough one. a tiny what. you put her in the office of president. she hates putin and put in hates her. that is what i hear putin probably does not respect her with anything else. but she's got to be tough.

we will be tough with russia. we are in a different world today. she makes it sound like i'm the tough guy that will have the temperament, you know who gave her the word doc of the people that read the speeches. trumpet temperament. she says donald trump, i have between facebook and twitter almost 21, 20 million people. it is an asset. but she made the statement during her speech, i heard it as i was falling asleep, so remember that one. hillary wants to invade foreign countries. look at libya. we did a great job there. hit on qaddafi, maybe that.

this? isis taking over the oil. we have people that don't know what they're doing. we have people that don't know what we are doing. we have people, who is your military consultants? i give them names. but they are not working. of course then not working, but what now people have gotten us. who the hell wants the people working now? [cheers] a lot of it is common sense and instinct. i was asked on the big networks about nato, they said what do think of nato, it's not like it subject.er suspect -- i've long been doing this for 12 months.

notice i was 14 months. nato, i know enough. sometimes knowing a little is better than owing to much. you understand. you can't see the forest through the trees. i said nato in my opinion is obsolete because it is not covering terrorism. obsolete for that reason. and also, the many countries that are not paying their fair share. [applause] we are protecting those countries. chris was to get into world war iii with all these countries not paying their fair share. even the commander of nato, i still respect what he did, he came out the other day and said donald trump is right. donald trump is right. i'm sure obama was thrilled. donald trump is right. countries are not paying. and he said how he goes in and talk to them.

you have to pay your bills. have budgets and after good to congress and say what is happening. they don't pay their bills. people don't ask and they probably say, we of the united states millions of dollars, we are ready to pay. have they asked for the money? come back. i will say the commander of nato said i was right. then have the people back here, stupid people. they say donald trump the said donald trump does not like they -- like nato. he is going to abandon nato. that is not what i said. i said they have to pay.

walk, you may have to walk. but they have to pay. we are going to get into world war iii for all these countries that are laughing at the stupidity of the united states. they have to pay. and they probably will. but hillary said about japan, we are defending japan. in all fairness, before i came along, it yourself back three years ago. does anyone know week defended japan -- we defend japan? about 12%. not bad. i think some of your line. . think some of you are lying i think some of you are related to hillary clinton. we defend japan. i met comes up, a general or something remember so vividly , and he said, at a news conference, they were embarrassed and if they don't

pay, yesterday prepared to walk. you have to be prepared to walk. i understand the reason. this is 40 years ago. we of $20 trillion. we are defending all of these, we defend japan. we defend germany. we defend saudi arabia. do you think they have money to pay? how about the military bases we rent. we pay rent to protect them. think of it? think of the stupidity. think of the stupidity. this general comes up, has a news conference and he said, mr. trump does not understand that japan is paying 50% of the cost to defend them. reporter calls up who i think is there and said to me, mr. trump, we would like your comment. they say japan is paying 50%. and i say, why aren't they pain -- paying 100%?

not about question. here's the problem of hillary rotten clinton. that's why she changed the name. everybody was saying that. i've been saying it. here is why does that work for hillary. she saw that i said we have to get reimbursed for the cost. japan, economic behemoth. germany, economic behemoth. saudi arabia, nothing but money. there were making a billion dollars a day with high oil prices. now making a fortune. economic team it. why we defending them? that, the budget is starting to look good.

have an $800t, we billion trade deficit a year. we trade with other countries. we have a deficit with other countries. $800 billion a year. trade deficit. do we make good deals? no. with china, $505 billion trade deficit. they cheat us because they devalue the currency. whenever gets tough, they devalue. we can't compete with that. here's the thing, hillary says about japan, how dare he not say with our allies how did he not , do that. i will never abandon our allies, ever. how did negotiate when you tell somebody will never leave them? we may have to leave. japan has problems because you have the maniac in north korea making missiles.

south korea, it is an economic behemoth. you can't buy a television that is not made from south korea except for sony which is japan. which has sort of lost its way. whether it is lg or samsung. i ordered thousands of television. you can't buy them in the united states. i would love to. one of the pundits said they do make them. there's a company. and he showed me this little company. all the parts come in from all over the world and they put them together. and they give you a television that doesn't work and nobody ever heard of it. then i put it into a luxury hotel and everyone complains. you can't say to people when you are negotiating we're talking , about tremendous billions and billions of dollars. say to people, when

you are negotiating, we will never leave you. we will never leave you, we love you. we never are going to leave you, could you pay more? no. there's a chance we will have to leave. there is a chance japan will have to take over this monster and figure it out. we are very far away. it is very expensive. we have a treaty with japan and if the united states is attacked, they do not have to do anything. but if japan is attacked, we to go in there and who knows what will happen. world war iii, who knows? if we are attacked, they don't have to do anything. you tell me, who makes these deals? it is like sergeant bergdahl. we trade a dirty traitor for five or six people -- when five or six people were killed when he deserted and we knew they

were killed and we knew he was a traitor. we trade for five of the greatest killers, the greatest killers in the middle east, five people that they wanted the most. that is the deal. we get a traitor and they get five people that are right now, most of them, already back on the battlefields try to kill everybody including us. no more folks. that is called the five for one president. that is the same guy that made the deal for $400 million. the other guys cannot leave the airport. then all of a sudden, -- you watch him yesterday saying that, can you believe it. g

this had nothing to do with this. just a coincidence. she is unfit to serve as president for a lot of reasons. he is unfit also. he has done so bad. he has been so incompetent. we have doubled our debt. over the years of our country he gets in and in eight years by the time his term is up we will have doubled our national debt. think of it. we have to win this election. this is a very important election. i did not need to do this, folks. i could be elsewhere. i could be elsewhere. i might be in wisconsin, just a different location. i felt i had to do it.

i want to give back. [cheers] because our country does not win anymore. our country does not win anymore. and it is not going to win with crooked hillary clinton. she does not know how to win. our country will not win with her. we will be worse than we are with obama. if you want four more years of what is going on, isis, isis expanding. by the way, our policeman are great, great people. [cheers] [applause]

mr. trump: and we are not going to allow our policeman to be shot down anymore. anymore. no more. no more. so, november 8, you have a big election. i promise you this, if i win, we're going to start winning again. we are going to win on trade. we're going to win with our military. we will take out isis. we are going to win for veterans who have been totally mistreated. our veterans are great. we have a great plan for our veterans. we are going to win for veterans, for the first time maybe ever. , we are going to win on trade deals. we will make the finest, bring our jobs back.

we're not going to make it easy for these companies to leave and fire everybody. it will be very expensive when they do it. believe me. it will be very expensive. they will say, you know what, maybe we will stay in wisconsin. maybe we will stay. it is going to be very hard. we're going to have strong borders. we will have the wall. mexico is going to pay for the wall 100%. 100%. [cheers] mr. trump: we are going to get rid of obamacare. we're going to get rid of common core and we will bring our education local. we will have local education. we're going to appoint great supreme court justices. [cheers] mr. trump: and folks, we will start winning again. we are going to win at every level. we are going to win so much you will get tired of winning. i'm telling you. you're going to be begging me, mr. president, you will send

your great quarterback, right? he will come to the white house. everybody respects them. he will come to the white house . mr. president, the people of wisconsin can't stand winning so much. could you turn it down just a little bit? i will say i just can't do that. we are going to win more and more. we are going to win at every level. we are going to win. we are going to make america great again. we're going to make america safe again. thank you very much, everybody. thank you. [cheers] [applause] ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]

♪ announcer: the donald trump campaign just released a campaign ad. here is a look. >> extremely careless. >> e-mail system was breached by hostile actors. >> gross negligence.

>> hillary clinton is still lying. >> that is not true. even the washington post says hillary clinton lied comparing , her to pinocchio. >> i may have short-circuited and for that -- >> careless, reckless, crooked. putting her interests ahead of national security. don't let hillary clinton do it again. announcer: coming up on c-span, and interview about his atlantic article. urban leagueonal conference, a discussion about criminal justice reform. from the heritage foundation, at look at the history of educational vouchers and school choice. this weekend, i'll rode to the white house coverage takes you to the green party convention in houston. need a different politics

that is not controlled by the big banks and the fuel giants and the war profiteers, and the green party is the only party that is the only national party that is not poisoned by the corporate money, lobbyist money, super pac's. >> on sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, see the acceptance speeches by the green party nominee for vice president and president. watch commercial free coverage on c-span. listen on your desktop or mobile device using the c-span mobile app or watch any time at c-span.org. announcer: a recent cover story in the atlantic titled how american politics when insane analyzes this year's presidential campaign. on washington journal, we talked to the author. this one hour. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now jonathan the contributing editor at the atlantic as well as the senior fellow at the brookings institution here to talk about his piece, the cover piece in

the atlantic entitled how american politics went insane. good morning. thank you for joining us. guest: thanks so much for having me. host: so american politics going insane. what do you mean by insane? guest: we basically spent so many years attacking the political establishment and stripping away the tools that it needs to organize politics that we're seeing politics in a state of chaos and meltdown. one major party couldn't really even choose a nominee who was in fact a member of that party. we're seeing congress, it's almost incapable of doing basic things like keeping the government open. and i'm arguing all this is related. it goes back to stripping away the tools that politicians and leaders need in order to get their jobs done stuff like vetting candidates and rewarding people loyal and getting builds passed. stuff like that. host: where did this insanity, as you put it, start? did it start here in

washington? did it start on the campaign trail? what's the origin of this? guest: i traced it back actually to 40 or 50 years ago when a lot of well-intentioned reformers, me included, thought politics is too sleezey. there's too much horse trading and bathroom deals. and people should be able to choose nominees directly. so we have decade after decade of reforms, which reduced the power of parties and professionals, pac, political machines smoke-filled rooms to make decisions, deals, horse trades. give me a vote on the debt limit bill so we can keep that from failing and i give you a runway for that airport in your district. and then we turn around and you strip away enough of the stuff that politicians need to do their job and they can't do their job. and here we are. host: so you argue in this

piece that the political class is a good thing. guest: it's a good thing. and a necessary thing. host: talk about what is the political class and why is it such a good thing? guest: political class are intermediaries, people in the business of politics. and they're different from most of us because unlike an activist or a protester or a purist reformer, they have to be there year after year. they have to worry about not just protesting but winning this election, winning the one after, making sure the brand of the party remains strong. they have to recruit people to run for office. they have to vet them make sure they're ok. then they've got to do the daily business of keeping the government open, counting the votes. so we need these people, and we need them to be a healthy group. host: we are talking to jonathan roush of the atlantic about his piece about how american politics went insane. our callers can join us.

the numbers are on your screen. you write, what did you mean?

guest: i started thinking about this problem way back in 2013. do you remember speaker john boehner, paul ryan's predecessor? he went on the leno show. the u.s. government shut down even though republicans didn't want it to shut down and democrats didn't want it to shut down. they coop keep it open because the republican party in congress couldn't even keep itself organized itself to organize a small faction within itself. so there's boehner. and leno asked him why the government shut down when boehner didn't want it to. and he said a leader without followers is just a man taking a walk. so that's the position that he and paul ryan are in now. they have very little ability to influence their own members with all these people directly elected, they're individual entrepreneurs and we've taken away so many of the tools that they use, like pork barrel spending, for example, and

secret negotiations. so they're left with very little ability to organize and lead. host: it seems especially in the presidential election as we've seen it played out there's this big appetite for outsiders. there's a distaste for the political establishment. is that part of what -- guest: yeah. it's a vicious sigele, so as the establishment gets weaker and even simple things like farm bills through congress, the public gets angier. they vote for outsiders. more independent, less governable, more willing to challenge the leadership. your ship gets even weaker the cycle continues. host: ok. how american politics went insane. on the line laura from pennsylvania. you're on.

good morning. caller: good morning. i want to agree with you about the insanity part. but a lot of it is issue by issue and a lot of people would say the debt is insane. you can't even comprehend what we owe in interest every day and it continues to pile up. and how will we ever get it paid off. but the biggest thing for me is i just heard that hillary and her running mate mr. cain, who is a catholic, is going to overturn the hide amendment and they've already said they're going to do it. and that was the amendment that prevented taxpayer dollars to be used to kill unborn babies and abortion. i can't believe that we're not talking about it. we hear all these other issues. but to me, rush limbaugh, shawn hannity especially because he is catholic, should be having these topics up front and center. these are the positions of the candidates. this is what they're going to

be doing on this issue and this especially abortion. i have a charity called save life where i pay women not to abort. we've saved 80 babies by offering them help. so why would i want my tax dollars used to have mothers kill their unborn babies? host: let's let him answer. guest: i want to try to focus you on a slightly different issue because abortion is important. but the question now isn't whether congress can do what you want it to do which might be pro choice or pro life. it's can congress do anything? and can it even keep the government open, for example? can it pass a debt limit bill and not default on the national debt? these things were once routine, taken for granted. passing authorizing bills. it can't even do that any more. i don't think you've got to worry about a democratic president and congress if it's

a republican congress repealing the hide amendment because with a republican congress it wont happen. i agree with you it's important we should be talking about it. it's in the platform. i don't think president clinton will do it because she's elected because there's lots of things in platforms that presidents don't do. with that said, let's all try to step back a minute and focus on the capacity of the system just to do its basic job, whatever you think that job ought to be. host: next, lydia from illinois on our independent line. caller: thank you. sadly, we had a lot of history these us exactly why things happen. i want to reference two studies. one a study of history. the abbridgement. president obama. because one of

the reasons we have this breakdown is because nuth gingrich, our current leader, was also part of the process that set in place the current time of troubles, the crises that we now are experiencing when he helped orchestrate the obstruction that took place and that was orchestrated when president obama was being inaugurated. the other example is lord of the flies. lord of the flies is a very important study of how these things happen. they happen internally. with the young boys who came to an island totally civilized and t the very end it devolved and became bar barrens. and unless we refer to past studies on these situations and we address crises and move into

e field of challenge and cooperation, we will also demonstrate that like these other civilizations that chose to fail, we will have that situation happen to us. guest: there are a couple interesting thoughts there. i agree with you actually that newt gingrich played a seminal role, a very pivotal role in the kind of breakdown i'm talking about. when he became speaker of the house in the 90s he decided to consolidate and centralize power in the house of representatives. and in the process of doing that, he began a process of dismantling a lot of the traditional seniority systems. well, that system it turned out was very good at vetting people, discovering whether they were loyal, putting experienced team players in the house and getting lots of committees and congressional middle management involved in

decisionmaking. you had a lot more people involved. they had their fingerprints on legislation. they were participating. a lot of that machine has been abandoned or weakened by the tendency to move power up to the very top in congress, which gingrich started, and down to the very bottom. every individual doing whatever he or she wants. and that i think is what we have to reverse. lord of the flies is a novel, it's not a study. it's basically about the internal darkness of human beings and the fragility of civilizaon. it has a message tor if conservatives. never tarke your government for granted. when politics doesn't work, war and chaos is what happens. and although we are not at the brink of war in the u.s., we are at the brink of chaos politically. host: let's talk about how this is playing out on the campaign trail right now in this presidential year. in today's washington times talking about the unfavorability ratings that

both secretary clinton and donald trump have that is forcing candidates to turn on each other, according to analysts. is this fueling the insanity that you're talking about? guest: well, i suppose. it's kind of my view i'm not a political professional but in my view it's a shame that

secretary clinton hasn't done a better job of articulating what she's for. she's had a very long career in public service. she's done a whole lot. by this point in the campaign she should have given people a better reason to vote for her. and so, yeah, that's a problem. but it's not the problem. when you're running against a guy like donald trumple who at least in my view your republican callers will disagree but in my view he shouldn't be within 100 miles of a nuclear code. it is impossible to run a campaign when you don't point that out. and when you're dealing with trump he's incapable of running any kind of campaign that's not going to go after people. so i think people are kind of disgusted by that. host: up next, ben from indiana. you are on. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i just wanted to comment on hillary clinton's lack of

. ticulation ost: up next, we have dan from montana. you are on. caller: good morning. i wanted to kind of reiterate feelings from years back. political feelings. and that is that we kind of prayed for gridlock. we hoped for it. we hoped that agendas would be kind of normally neutralized and ended that we didn't care for that we thought were extremist. i started to feel that way in the 1990s. that gridlock helped to stop presidential agendas that i felt were off base. by the time we got into the

obama administration all i saw ming along really is a marxist with a heavy socialist agenda. that's when i started to see we really need to stop this guy. we need to stop these things. because they're way out from the normal. host: let's let jonathan respond to that. guest: the founders intended for the system to be slow and hard to move. they were very worried about populism and passions driving policy all over the place in crazy directions which was what was going on in the states before the constitution was adopted. but keeping the government open, for example, or being able to pass budgets from year to year, that is like not radical reform. whether you're left wing or right wing, that's the bread and butter of government. and when organizations and politics and on capitol hill is

broken down to the extent that you can't even get that stuff done without a whole lot of friction and back and forth, then you've got a different kind of problem. it's not a problem of socialism or right wing radicalism or any of those izzms. it's a problem about can yeah just get yourself organized enough to run a government. host: we were talking a little bit about the outsider sentiment from some voters that have pushed the candacies of donald trump and bernie sanders, for example. in your piece in the atlantic you write that insurgencies in presidential races and on capitol hill are nothing new and they're not necessarily bad as long as the governing process can accommodate them. what do you mean by that? guest: we've had insurgent candidates who beat the parties in their own game. 1964, goldwater, 1972 mcgovern. we've had insurgents on capitol hill like senator jesse helms

who was ted cruz long before ted cruz came along. but the difference is that those insirges brought those new passions, those ideas, those voices into politics without bringing paralysis and dysfunction with them. the system was able to absorb those ideas because you had enough infrastructure of professionals and people would say, ok, how can we adopt elements of these agendas that make sense for us and move forward? when you don't have that level of organization, then insurgencies just become disruptive and you wind up not being able to pass the bill. you end up with a republican nominee who is not a republican. you end up with a second place for the democratic nomination whose not a democrat. that's unheard of. host: up next, bill from florida on our independent line. aller: good morning. thank you for being there. i was just going to bring up

one thing that i noticed over the years, and maybe tell me where you think this might lead. you're talking about dysfunction in washington where i still believe if we were to maybe -- i'll just throw this out they're just doing way too much. and i know that we put people in place. you can call it lobbying, whatever it is, where people's for tunes that are tied to industry and need things passed by washington has really taken over. but i would think a big part of this solution would be to move more and more responsibility back to the states. i know that's the classical conservative view. but i think that would alleviate a lot of problems within congress, where they could just concentrate more in a area that would be more of national scope as opposed to thing that is could be handled more at the state level. as far as donald trump having his fingers on the keys of the nuclear weapon, i would just

tend to think that it's more along my opinion that i think a trump administration would be more in tune with the congress in the way of probably upholding the constitution and doing things that would be more on a constitutional basis. host: that's a lot to unpack. guest: first, i don't think donald trump knows what's in the constitution. he clearly doesn't know how many articles are in it. if you ask him what article one is about he would have no idea. he would probably say i'll hire people who know about that. so i would have to disagree with anybody who sees him as a constitutional scholar. i think he behaved -- if the campaign is any indication at all he would behave wildly unpredictably in the most important office in the world. your other point though i agree with. i'm a long stappeding advocate of devolution to the states. there's a lot of them so they can trive different things. they can experiment and compete. but you can't do that without

changing laws. and the problem is it doesn't matter what your agenda is it's probably not going anywhere. and also remember, i told this to my libertarian friends. what's wrong with gridlock? when congress does stuff and makes government bigger. the answer is nowadays when government doesn't do stuff it makes government bigger. but in a completely mindless bloated fashion. what government does now is automatic spending. if we're going to get our fiscal how in order if you would to shrink government to make it work better or reduce scope, you need to pass laws. you need a functional congress. host: in your piece you write about some of the outsigh groups influencing what's happening. what did you mean by that? guest: one of the ideas that we've been pursuing for the

last 40 or 50 years is to get money out of politics. the idea would be that money was tainted. it would make it less corrupt, work better reflect the people's will. it turns out that money is mother's milk in politics. in the old days money was to a large extent, not exclusively, it was raised and spent by parties and they used it to oil the machine of government. if you voted with me on a difficult bill i would make sure and drop some money on your campaign. that still goes on, but as a result of clamping down on the money that can go inside the system, gobs more money are going outside the system to completely unaccountable actors. in fact we don't even know who they are in many cases because they can hide their identities. so that has a few bad effects. one is it weakens people in government who are trying to get stuff done. host: jonathan, the contributing editor at atlantic and senior fellow at the

brookings institution. also, the author of six books and recipient of the 2005 national magazine award, the equivalent to a pulitzer prize. up next, claire from nevada on our democratic line. caller: good morning. i just want to go back a little bit to the lady with all them, the republican lady. i am very worried about the republicans coming in and overturning laws like row v. wade. i've been angry for a long time. i raised four children, worked two jobs for 20 years raising those kids. my pet peeve is they don't

believe in abortion, they don't want abortion, they call it baby killers. but when i turn the television on and see children in different cities in our country rocks and ool with lead and yet in beverly hills they go to school in beautiful places. and i just can't understand how when i ask these people about the baby killing issue, i ask them how many children they're feeding. host: ok. guest: i don't think we're going to solve the abortion problem here today. it's a very contentious issue. if i could just get people to focus a little bit more though on problems that we can do something about, which is reducing some of the imbalances

and changes that have made it so difficult for parties and political leaders to function, then i think callers who are worried about this kind of issue might be able to get somewhere with it. host: next, martin from wisconsin on our republican line. caller: good morning. i think we all can agree that congress, especially the last seven years, has been polarizing and divided and hasn't done too much. in my opinion, you've done a nice job of explaining some of the republican problems on this. i would like to hear your comments on harry reid, who i think has been a major road bloc for anything to happen in this country. guest: thank you. we've seen a bunch more polarization in congress. if you ask the current majority leader, senator mitch mcconnell, he will tell you that the senate his view is that the senate has been substantially more productive and more open to amendments and

more open to regular order since the republicans took over. and part of what's interesting is going on there -- i'm not enough of an expert on congress to know specifically which leader did more filling of the amendment tree and that kind of thing. both parties have had a strategy of blocking the other party whenever they possibly could. that's natural in politics. that's what opposition parties have always tried to do since at least the time of henry clay. but what's interesting right now about the senate i think is that the majority leader mcconnell is working very hard and it looked like pretty effectively to sort of begin to rally the forces of a political establishment to be able to defend itself. n 2014, the mcconnell -- the republicans did not lose a single republican incumbent to an outside challenger. and it looks like they will

repeat that in 2016. that's senator mcconnell organizing forces to say, look, if you're on my team. if you vote with me i'll protect you. that's how politics works when it works. so it's interesting to watch. it's not a hopeless situation. there are these horses trying to reassert themselves and having some success. host: let's talk more about the effect of the rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail. let's take a look at what republican nominee donald trump said on a bill o'reilly about president obama and as well as hillary clinton. >> i think he's one of the worst presidents, maybe the worst, that we've ever had in the history of our country. i think that hillary clinton maybe has the potential to be even worse. she will be terrible. look at the lie. look at the lies. look at the lie over the weekend that she told about the f.b.i. directer. i mean, such a lie.

i was listening to it and i said how can anybody even say that after what was said about her. so i think she has the potential to be even worse. host: how do you see this sort of messaging coming from the republican nominee as affecting both the election season as well as the overall sense of decorium in american politics right now? guest: well, it's -- in a way, it's kind of the wrong question . that's kind of the horse race question, how does this affect decorium. we're so far beyond decorium with donald trump. we're talking about someone who appears to be an unbalanced sociopath, incapable of regulating his mouth, incapable of telling the truth or being consistent from one moment to the next. this is no longer just a problem with decorium, this is a problem with is the united states considering entrusting the most powerful office in the history of the world to a guy who seems to be unbalanced.

host: up next, joe fro on our democrat yig line. caller: good morning. first, i would like to make reference to an article i read in the "washington post". about three years ago, actually. i believe the author is mitch miller. the title of the article was, it's the filibuster, stupid. and he does a very good history i thought of is the history of the filibuster and in particular pointing out how the republicans especially now during the obama administration has -- he makes -- abuse the filibuster, i think that's fair to say. and i support a nonpartisan group called common cause. you may have -- i'm sure you've heard of it. they're actually in the process of trying to sue the senate, claiming that the filibuster is

actually unconstitutional. now, the grounds for that real quickly are the constitution does not mention the word filibuster and it in fact says the only time you need a super majority to vote anything is like for declaring war or reaty et cetera. i would hope that attention could be brought to this, maybe c-span could interview senator you'd al or the retired senator tom harkin. host: let's let jonathan respond. guest: so filibuster's controversial. it's been used much more often in recent years than it has in the past and it basically does impose a 60-vote super majority rule in the senate and that does slow everything down. i'm agnostic on whether the filibuster is a big part of the problem or part of the solution. there's some people who would say it slows things in a

productive way. my view is try to look at what's going on underneath the filibuster which is a political problem, which is that the kind of deal making and horse trading -- which is already more difficult because of polarization -- gets even harder when you don't have the tools any more to try to attract that extra vote. whatever the majority level is, whether the threshhold is 51 or 60, it's going to be hard to get over if you don't have the tools to bring people on to your side. host: next, arkansas on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. i'm curious and forgive me if someone's already asked, to get the speaker's thoughts on the media's complacency and role in , as the topic said, american politics going insane, especially with this regard for the insessnt need for balance over evidence. guest: a lot of people asking

hard questions. i was on the phone with another journalist. has donald trump changed the rules? has he lied so consistently and so frequently and so shamelessly that the media are just -- can't keep up? is it time to stop pretending that he is not in fact lying and we use you'venism. we say four pin oak yos. stuff like that. so there's a lot of soul searching going on in the media about this kind of asymmetric warfare that trump is using. it's a very, very hard question. tradition yalists, the way i was brought up in the media you do your absolute best to be fair to all sides of the question and you keep yourself out of it. you don't pass judgment. you let readers decide. well, people are kind of wondering is that playing into the hands of a dema gog who will say absolutely anything. and that's an ongoing debate

right now. host: it's not just the media talking about candidates. trump, president obama made statements that seem pretty unprecedented for a sitting president to say about a candidate. let's take a look. >> there have been republican presidents with whom i disagreed with. but i didn't have a doubt that they could function as president. i think i was right in mitt romney and john mccain were wrong on certain policy issues but i never thought that they couldn't do the job. and had they won, i would have been disappointed but i would have said to all americans they are -- this is our president and i know they're going to abide by certain norms and common sense. we'll observe basic decency.

well, have enough knowledge about economic policy and foreign policy and our constitutional traditions and government that our will work and then we'll compete four years from now to try to win an election. but that's not the situation here. and that's not just my opinion. that is the opinion of many prominent republicans. there has to come a point in which you say enough. host: and in addition to that, hillary clinton said in a tweet a similar sentiment saying donald trump is unfit to be president and commander in chief. now, for hillary clinton she is donald trump's opponent so it's not unusual to see that happen between opponents t. but for a president to speak

that much at the white house with another foreign leader by his side about the presidential race, talk a little bit about that and does that add to this insanity that you write about in your cover piece? guest: it's an unprecedented thing in an unprecedented situation. we had a system which for many, many years was good at screening out what i call political sociopaths. a political sociopath is not a crazy person. it's a politician who doesn't care what other politicians think of them and don't need to care. they can do whatever they want because maybe they're independently wealthy or maybe they survive with -- they need very little money or very little help. they come from completely outside the system, no loyalty, no roots. well, those people in politics are loose canons. they turn to turn renegade. if they are elected they can't

really govern because they don't owe anybody anything, no one owes them anything. one of the things american politics has done well for 200 years is screen those people out. well, 1e6 was the first year when the system began screening them in. of the final -- the big four at the end 069 nomination process -- clinton, sanders, cruz, and trump -- three i would argue are political sociopaths in the sense that they're outsiders who owe -- don't owe anything to anyone and campaign against the system in which they're running. trump is in some ways the most extreme in terms of his personal unsuitability for office. but three out of the four are people who are running against the system they're trying to govern. this is new. this is worrisome. and this is what we have got to start thinking about. host: up next, joe from iowa on our republican line.

good morning. caller: good morning. it's beautiful here in iowa. beautiful sunny day. i just want to say term limits. this is probably the only thing that will correct the situation that we have today. there needs to be limits even -- any political office, should not be more than four years. we have so many intelligent people in america. we need to keep it rotating, keep it fresh, and that's what i think should happen. any employer would want to have a new employee that would have more skills and if the other employee doesn't want to work, doesn't want to cooperate, then they need to be replaced. and people can do that every four years. host: let's get you to comment on that. guest: i take the opposite view. part of my burden in writing about political chaos is trying to push back against the overwhelming sentiment of a lot of people, which is politics is better when it's run by

amateurs because they're going to be less corrupt or whatever. well, why would someone imagine that politics is the only profession in the world where experience and knowledge don't mattered? what you do with term limits is get rid of people who have a long-term view and have to worry about getting elected year after year. so if i pass the budget this year what are its effects five years, ten years from now. they have to worry about that. you replace those with people horizon, rt-term time vote and move on to the next office, you empower staff members and lobbyists who are there and do know the ropes. so while the term limited members of congress are still trying to figure out where the bathroom is the lobbyists are writing the bills. so no i don't think this is part of the -- i don't think term limits are part of the solution. i think the mentality behind them, that amateurs should run

politics is what got us into this mess. host: but is the seniority system working? doesn't that provide too much centralized power? guest: the seniority system as we know it has been gone now. committee chairman are appointed on whether they toe the line of leadership and raise money. it used to be if you sat there for a long time, if you worked your way up through the committee system, you were pretty much guaranteed a senate chair. that's gone. one result is that it's in fact harder for people to be expecting to be promoted if they're loyal. that's another form of disorganization. host: next katherine on our democratic line. caller: good morning. i would say that you're a breath of fresh air. you have -- you are saying what most sane americans whole heartedly believe. that in government you have to

have civility. when president obama was elected and the republican party chose to say like they did, we're going to make you a one-term president, a former vice president refused to stand at his inauguration, and at his first speech he made in congress a republican man from south carolina stood up sand yelled you lied. when none of those people were rebuked or censored in any way y their party, it is a snowball effect. there is great resentment and hatred now for both parties toward each other. we have to get back to saneness. and i don't think -- i know -- donald trump will not take us there because i feel like he is a psycho path. i would hate to think that he

has his finger on a nuclear eapon. guest: there's no question that polarization is higher than it has been for decades and animosity is higher than it has been for decades. and that all by itself makes it harder to do the routine business of government. it also makes it harder to compromise. and that is a self-fulfilling prophesy because the less people compromise the less they're in practice of sort of working together and say i may not like this person but we can do business. we can figure it out. you've got a lot going on. to me the tragedy is there are still instances where people do want to work together and when they have incentive to work together. stuff like we've been talking about, just the routine business of government, for example. but they often can't even do

that because the system's become so disorganized it's impossible to contain vocal minorities who want to obstruct things. so we have problems at every layer. what i'm trying to get people to focus on are problems that we're more immediately able to address. like restoring some of the tools that leaders use in order to govern. we could talk for a minute about how to do that. host: next tina from north carolina on our independent line. caller: my question is you say that donald trump is a psycho path and i am an independent. but i have a lot of problems with hillary clinton because everything that you say about donald trump i feel that hillary has those problems and more, and what i fear is that donald trump at least is out there and honest about what he is saying while hillary is kind of like the wolf in sheep's clothing where she has lied to congress, she has lied to the

american people, the f.b.i. has said she's lied. then she went on the sunday morning talk shows and lied again saying the same thing but yet you sit up there and you're ok with that as a journalist. but yet you have problems with donald trump. and the last lady that called in said we need civility but the person who said no you lied, he was right. we didn't get to keep our doctor. and the thing that is obama said as an independent i voted for him. and they aren't coming true. i don't get to keep my own doctor. and these things that i thought the democrats were going to do for us didn't happen. host: let's let jonathan respond. hillary clinton the same kind of thing as donald trump? well, without getting into specifics about what she said on particular instances this is someone who has been in public life for 30 years. this is someone who was first

lady of the united states and then a senator and then a secretary of state. this is someone who does fact chect her speeches. this is someone who according to the independent monitors who actually counts this stuff comes off as not only more truthful than donald trump by a long shot but the person who stretches things least compared to all the other candidates. i'm not making a partisan point about one candidate or another. but for me, when you're dealing with a figure like trump who is capable of saying absolutely anything, like russians aren't in ukraine, you're talking about something, a very different kind of animal than a conventional politics. host: in your piece, your cover piece in the atlantic, how american politics went insane, you talked about some possible solutions. you write.

how might these changes specifically bring an end to this insanity? guest: well, nothing brings an end to it. it took years to get where we got to. it's going to take years to begin moving back. so no magic bullets. but with that said, we didn't just -- political caste didn't just happen. this is partly the result of years of making these policies and they can be unmade. a lot of them mechanically are not hard to do. you can restore, for example, earmarking which gives more incentives for people to cooperate in congress. you can reduce or i would say

remove on the restrictions on the fund raising that political parties can do so that more of the money will flow in through the parties which will strengthen them and then their ability to regulate political behavior. something very important is to give party professionals and insiders more influence. not sole influence but more influence over the nominating process. so if you take a tough vote for me in the house and senate i can help protect you from a challenge in your district in a primary. that also is very important. we can rethink some of the transparency rules that have made it hard tore negotiate. all kinds of things like this. and none of them are technically difficult but they involve changing some of these attitudes that these politics is always evil. host: next, oak harbor, washington on our republican line. caller: good morning. been enjoying your conversation, sir. i had a couple of questions for

you. first, how is it that we have allowed so much of the rule and lawmaking function to be transferred to bureaucrats who issue bundles and books and tons afrules that have the force of law? is that because congress is unable or unwilling? guest: what a great question. thank you. it's both. it's unable and unwilling. the same period we've been talking about, the last 50 years or so congress has transferred voluntarily a lot of power to bureaucracy. partly on the notion that bureaucracies will make merit-based, not politically-based decisions. they thought that was like cleaner politics. in my view, actually congress' role in the constitution is to make political decisions politically. but some of it has not been

voluntarily. article 1 of the constitution is about the u.s. congress. the congress is meant to be the preimminent policy making branch. but when congress is no longer able to organize and do its job in a reliable fashion, the way the constitution is set up is the power doesn't disappear, it flows other places to actors that can move unilaterally. actually three places. it's the president, it's the bureaucracy, and it's the court and that's where power has gone. part of my agenda when i'm trying to get people to focus on is by helping politicians organize their world, do what they need to do, you can strengthen congress. host: next, mary from ndianapolis. caller: i think the american political system went awry when the public namely the tea party has let fair trump good judgment.

they thought it was funny when the tea party was attacking president obama and the democrats saying obama is going to kill grandma. the traditional republicans stood back and laughed. i think this lays squarely on the g.o.p. and i think they need to vote out all tea party members. guest: i've spent a lot of time looking at the tea party back in 2011 when it first arose and it's an interesting movement. it's a principled movement. it's for smaller government, it is against immigration. but it was ideological. what's happened now to the republican party is different. partly introduced by factors the tea party did. they targeted anyone who compromised and they targeted professional politicians. but then along comes donald trump and he blows away the tea party. he is not a small government person. he is anti-immigration. but there's an article just today in the papers about how

the tea party has been basically thrown off the bus by trump. beyond trump, as i say in the article, donald trump did not cause political chaos. political chaos caused donl trumped. we -- caused donald trump. we created a system where the party can no longer protect itself from wildcatting. trump may be the beginning of the series. that's what we have to worry about. host: thomas from maryland. caller: thank you. ice to speak with you. i wanted to get your opinion and find out if we could find some common ground. i think -- and i think you would be hard-pressed to disagree -- that sometimes in the course of human events it's simply natural that a group of eople will find themselves

refining into i guess a pure expression of how they want to live and how they want to be governed. an analogy might be the horse and wagon. they were perfect together until it was time to split. the horse went its way, the wagon got its own engine and they did fine on their own. my thinking is this. we've gotten to a point where it seems like about half the population is fine with having creeded the power that was with we the people. they ceded that to bureaucratic leaders and politicians and judges. and they're fine with that. they agree with statutory law. they like it. they want more regulation. and then you have the purists like me who really would like to see just common law, the way our founders and framers wanted things to be with less governance. wouldn't it make sense if we split, like a civilized society would do and not fight that any

more? host: what's your thought? guest: i guess if you're proposing is he session and the division of the country into two pieces, we settled that in 1865. and i don't think we're going back there. i wish i could, when people come up with all these ideas like we need to have a big new third party or we need to have some kind of direct popular representation system based on town halls or we need to split the country into entirely new regions, i try and get them to stay on planet earth, where right now we have an all-out political crisis. we have only two major political parties and one of them is in a state of catastrophic meltdown. that's a very dangerous situation. and we need to try to stay focused on fixing the situation we've got in the real world. ost: next, gary from duncan,

south carolina. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. my concern i have is that hillary is stating that the student loans are going to be forgiven and we're going to get free college education for everybody else. but one of my concerns is that under the obama administration between all the government guidelines and all of the loans that have been pretty much i guess run over by the obama administration, there's actually guidelines that say if you defaulted on a student loan you can't get a mortgage. i've been in that business for 37 years. in addition to that, where they talked about the medical that you can keep your doctor and everything else, i haven't been able to even get medical at all . it would be so astronomcal it would be 60% of my income.

host: ok. guest: generic answer. if you want any of this stuff to get fixed, you've got to have a government and politics organized enough to fix it. so let's start figuring out how to get politics and government reorganized. student loans are an area like a few others, like criminal justice where there's emerging bipartisan consensus that fixes need to happen. and where i think it will be possible over the next four years. if people are able to work together to form these compromises to do something. tax reform is another area. there's a lot of desire on both sides to do that. so we've got to create the structure so they can go into the room and come out with a compromise, do the horse trading and the leaders can get enough votes to get it to the president's desk for signature. it's what you read about in civics class. it's the old-fashioned process of compromise. but it requires having politicians who are empowered to do that. host: michael from michigan on our democratic line.