botswana as as we introduced each other i said my name is ok and he could not stop laughing. finally he said to me, you won't believe what happened, i said, tell me. --s going to a grocery store amherst, massachusetts where i lived at the time. , ahed his cart down and i'll woman in the opposite direction atd how do you like the snow which point he said i don't like snow at all. i like it dry and warm. the woman said, you have an accent, where are you from. he said botswana. she said is that in africa and he said yes. she said are you ok and he said yes. the woman began to talk to him with great interest. must have talked for 12 or so minutes. i can't believe you're ok and he said is there anything about me that suggests are not ok?

and she said i've heard some stories about you. and he says you have. she said i heard you are in town to edit an international magazine published by chinook -- he says no i am a graduate student. the woman said you said you were okewy. there is somebody in town whose name is okey and i thought i was meeting him. after the encounter he went away thinking the woman had wanted to pick him up and he said he was willing to be picked up and he midwaye changed her mind through the game and came up with a story about somebody named okey. the next day he met me and that's why when i introduced myself he could not stop laughing. host: how many people in nigeria would be named okeyu?

guest: a lot. key in ibo, it is short for --, which means the creation of god. to give you an example, about four years ago my wife and i were in the bahamas for a french wedding. me and this guy, there were two other okey's at the party. yesterday i read in houston texas there was a professor named okey in the audience. a fairly common name in nigeria. simply because nigerian names -- ibo names have meaning.

host: let's do some background so we can get to some of the rest of the book. you live today where? guest: west hartford connecticut. host: what do you do full-time? right i pretty much full-time now. teaching.nto visiting different universities from college and so on. the last year i spent in las vegas in the university of nevada las vegas. host: the first year you came to the united states.

guest: i came to the united states december of 1988. in december i would've spent 28 years in america. to set up an international magazine called african commentary. host: what year did you become an american citizen? guest: 1996. host: why did you do it? guest: that is a question my mother asked me. i have always been a great admirer of america. a student of american history. of itslarly the history african descended people beginning in slavery and captivity. ,ulminating today where we have -- that story of tragedy and

transformation has always impressed me. i think it has something to do with it. i wanted to be part of this great social experiment called america. host: what is the view that america?have of i know this is a big general statement. the viewmore, what is that africans have of americans view of africa? guest: americans view of africa has evolved and continues to evolve. electionhat obama's put a particular spotlight on africa and has helped to reshape in a dramatic way the american conception of africa. when i came to america the dominant view of africa was that kingdomas some kind of of animals and the human population was somewhat incidental.

almost peripheral to this continent. hilariousred so many questions. people who believed there were no airports in africa. people who believed africans lived in trees and that you could come out of your compound and encounter a lion. think -- i'm guessing things have changed that. i think the internet, social media has opened every corner of the world in a significant way. downcans can actually sit in any locale in this country and say -- and see any part of africa. i think more and more american universities and colleges are establishing visiting relationships with universities

in africa. obama's election will be the third most important factor. host: nigeria. tell us something about the country. where is it first of all? guest: nigeria is going through difficult times. when you say that, it is a statement that needs some kind of contextualization. nigeria has been a difficult address since its founding by the british. i think that nigeria still exhibits all of the symptoms of some community. the british put together nigeria , collected close to 400 -- more than 400 different ethnic groups in light which is into this behemoth they named nigeria. i don't think that nigeria, that the british imagined for a moment that nigeria was going to

coalesce into a meaningful community. coulduge space where they exploit raw materials and dump the goods produced and so on. did not pay attention to what was the task of nationbuilding. a task that was urgent, as urgent now as it was in 1960 and it continues to be abdicated by the political elite. achebe said nigeria is a country that manages to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. a nation that was conceived with some hope that hasn't nurtured

into -- that has nurtured into hopelessness. the crocodile story. i kind of gave it away. back to the view that people have of africa in the united states. what was that story? guest: shortly after i came to america i became friends with a graduate student at a university where i lived at the time. one day he said to me, i would like to know how you africans are able to come to america when there are no airports in africa. i thought he was some kind of rookie comedian trying out material on me. so i said to him, we ride on the back of crocodiles across the atlantic. his face shaped in horror. he said don't they eat you. i thought he was still joking so i said if you speak in african

language, carpet as will kiss you. in anvening, he called me earnest voice and said i told the crocodile story to my roommate and they don't believe it. i would like them to meet you so they will hear the story from the horses mouth. at which point i said, i don't know the horse well. knowd the crocodile that i is far too busy ferrying other africans across the atlantic to come meet your roommates. host: where did you get your sense of humor? [laughter] guest: first of all, in my culture, humor is so integral to everything. marriage ceremonies, weddings, traditional marriage ceremonies, formal christian weddings. funerals even. wherever there is a gathering you found people who were extremely funny.

for many years nigeria did not have professional comedians. so many funny people that you could buy someone a beer in a bar and it would hurt your really from laughing -- hurt your ribs from laughing. host: your mother is alive? okey: my mom is alive, she will be 92 next year. brian: where is she? okey: my hometown in nigeria. she is next to the neighboring town. the capital of my home state. brian: looking at the map, go down to the southwest corner. okey: southeast is where you want to be. do you see where it is? we would be very close to it. an hour from that.

biafra is the southeastern part of nigeria, including the delta wasing niger also part of biafra. brian: did you ever lived there? okey: i was born in the northeastern part of nigeria. has been most active. that is where i was born. moment, the precursor to the civil war, my father sent us home. he had to stay back. warved in biafra during the . i was a child. i have images of that war. brian: when did it happen and what was the issue?

1970 withwar ended in calamitous consequences. to 3 millionon people died. a lot of them civilians. a lot of them children and women . sharply of those dividing memories that we haven't nigeria. there is no agreement on what or who caused the war. one way of explaining the biafran war, it was a the failure of nigeria to achieve nationhood. there was a coup d'etat in which

military officers staged a coup. most of the casualties were politicians from other parts of nigeria. there was a kind of reprisal in june of 1966 when more than officers staged a counter coup in which they targeted ibo officers followed by a series of -- people froms the southeast and nigeria. these series of attacks led to a groundswell of demands for secession by the southeastern part of nigeria to become a different nation. brian: what would you find today if you want to that part of nigeria? okey: what you find today is there is a resurgence of again.nt for secession

aret of young people who disappointed in all the .ailure in nigeria toing a resurgence of biafra their hopelessness. brian: 170 million people you say live in nigeria, the largest country in africa. how many live here in the united states? okey: i'm sure somebody has put the figure together. i don't have it. nigerians constitute the highest number of africans outside of the african continent. in europe and united states , everywhere you go there is a nigerian. there is a joke that if you went to the most remote place in the world and you didn't find a

nigerian then it is not particularly habitable, you might as well move on. okey: how big -- brian: how big nigeria?o tried in okey: there are three big ones. there are the ebo. oruba.usa and the y of thestitute about 60% nigerian population. brian: what was it like when you moved here for the first couple of years? the process of transitioning to a different culture. to edit anmerica

international magazine. when i came, sadly, there was not much money. that was something i had to deal with. to be an editor of an international magazine and find out month after month the employer did not have the money to pay you. a lot of times i had to make phone calls to people to ask for money to beg for money to make rent. i was living in amherst, massachusetts. brian: let me run some video so that people who have never seen -- what year did he die? okey: 2013. he was located -- he was a professor at brown university. brian: just a bit of video so we can see what he looked and sounded like. [video clip] know, i'm sure have heard of a whole tradition of

novel writing which was based in -- in which africans were presented in which i personally .ound unacceptable a plan to deny this language. instead animalm sounds. , pick up heart of darkness and read it again. brian: your reaction to that? chinua achebe, his

a quiete mode was statement that was profoundly resonant. that is an example. -- theg to that european tent tatian by europeans, the temptation by even americans to to register africa to this space of animals. and says it way powerfully. brian: why was he so admired and popular? okey: i think part of it has to do with the fact that his novel "things fall apart" is the most read book by any african i would suggest. perhaps by a person of african descent.

that novel has been translated into 16 different linkages. it sold millions in english. the novel captures a powerful moment. moment of this encounter .etween africa and europe he gave the world a subject that waiting for this caution. he never became an american. brian: why not? okey: i had interviewed him. the story of how i came to america began some years back when i interviewed a young journalist. on one occasion i interviewed a chebe. wisdom god in his

planted him in nigeria. earth, if youf like, where his loyalties lie. sadly, he could never turn to nigeria because of his condition. he had an accident and became paraplegic. he could not return to nigeria. it was clear in his writing and persona that nigeria was at the heart of his being and his work as well. brian: what did he teach you? okey: he taught me that stories have to have integrity. achebe also taught me that stories were important. that there was something deeply moral about the art of storytelling. to enslave anded

oppress. stories can also be used to liberate and free people. that is one. in his motive storytelling, achebe was a writer who never wasted a word. something, you had the sense that he had such deep didect for language that he not play around with point which. what he said in the way he said it came together beautifully. brian: i think you were sitting at a bar. a couple of guys were talking-- okey: two women. brian: i'm thinking the one about communism. okey: much earlier. brian: you can tell both of those. toy: as a youngster, i loved eavesdrop on conversations. today would ask my children to

come sit and listen to me they find the first excuse to run away. young people seem indifferent sometimes to the stories of adults. i was particularly curious to eavesdrop. in my world there was a sharp division. you did not intrude on the space of adults unless you are invited. i would appear to be doing something, but that was an excuse to overhear what adults were talking about. one day i was near a bar i like , to go to such places, to hang out. a man who was bearded was talking about a system he called communism which he said was invented by a man called karl marx. he said communism meant that everything was owned in common. that the best cars -- the poorest guy could just find a mercedes and get into it.

the key would always be there so you can start the car and drive to wherever you wanted. you could get into the mansion and take the best bed and so on. and because i grew up poor, i became a communist in my mind. i wanted to come to nigeria so that i could drive the great expensive cars that only a few privileged nigerians were driving. i did go to the mansion that some nigerians were able to build and spend the night there. start of what i saw my self as a communist. the other story about my encounter with people in a bar was when i had gone to the train station to pick up my brother-in-law who was visiting from nigeria. i arrived to find his train was running late so i decided rather intogo home, i should look

a bar and have a beer or so and we trimmed to arrive. two women walked in and seemed inebriated. they struck up a conversation with me, remarked that i had an accident. one of them said, where are you from him i said nigeria. i said it's in africa. she said, what are you doing in america. i love animals, i love the jungle, if i was from africa, i would never come to america. i said to her, my mother in law is from vermont. i've seen a lot of jungle in vermont. a lot of animals in vermont. i recommend vermont for you. brian: you met your wife where? her name is sherry. okey: my wife is named sherry. i met sherry at a birthday party which i crashed. i used to be a party crasher. i tell people i crashed the

party and stole the price. -- stole the prize. brian: you used to be a party or. you talk about it in your book. okey: i used be a rascal. in some ways, i still am. in rather more innocent ways that i used to be a rascal in ways that were not particularly considerate of the interests of other people, especially women who were in relationships with me. the day i crashed sherry's party, i was surprised to see her father there. he was a very revered intellectual, a professor of education who wrote major textbooks that were used in classrooms. he was at this party.

i went to him and i said, what are you doing here. he said it was his daughter's birthday. the party was happening elsewhere. i began to talk to him and was flattered that he knew who i was. i had been a journalist in nigeria. i was talking to him for 30 or 40 minutes when his daughter said why don't you let this guy come and dance? and the father said, he's the one who sat here. i'm not holding him. do have thisill movement on the dance floor that is not quite great dancing but it is remarkable. people notice me when i'm on the dance floor. felt.was some chemistry i of aose days i was more playboy than someone who was looking for a serious relationship. there was a woman who knew of my

reputation and wanted to protect this beautiful wife of mine from me. this woman came to me and said i see you. i said what did you see? she said i wanted you to know that i see you. i said, i just danced, that's all i did. she said i want you to know that you don't play around with this one if you're not serious, just move on. years later, several years later, sherry and i got married and she has been the love of my life. brian: she was born where? okey: she was born in nigeria but her mother is american. she came here frequently. her mother is from vermont. she was born in nigeria. brian: what is the origin of your three daughter's names. okey: i have two sons and a daughter. brian: my apologies i thought

there were all daughters because they have a similarity. okey: we call my son chibu for short. chi in ibo language means god. there are three or four words for god. one is chibu, one is chi, and one is chineke. my older son's name means god is my strength. my favorite daughter, i call her that because she is my only daughter. brian: how old is your son? okey: 24. my daughter is 21. she is wonderful. the younger son's name is kitibe. my father's name. -- my father had just died before my son was born

. as an honor to my father whom i really revered, i named him. site they friends chi's. the youngest is 19. brian: what do they do today? okey: they are in college now. brian: where do they go? toy: my older son goes central connecticut state university which is where my wife teaches. college at connecticut and then trinity college. he is finishing his education. he took couple of years to travel in peru. he went to peru to learn spanish language and fell in love with

the country and i suspect with a young woman. it took two years to do that. my daughter is finishing at uconn. the baby of my family, is an eastern connecticut university. brian: what is the difference between a nigerian born person and your children who are of nigerian descent but they were born and raised in the united states? do you see a difference in their approach to people? their interests? okey: nigerian born children? brian: between you, nigerian born person and your kids. okey: definitely. in america, children are encouraged to have a voice. in nigeria, children are encouraged but you have a voice within the world of children.

in nigeria, i wasn't allowed to speak to my parents unless i was invited to speak when they asked me questions. my children have a much more free relationship with made in -- relationship with me than my parents did. my parents used corporal punishment quite a bit. i received it at school as well. that was part of the mechanics of my shaping. it's not something that i remember with any regret at all. brian: explain what corporal punishment would've been. bit. i was caned quite a at home and at school. i was a difficult child growing up. mccain was not spared -- the

cane was not spared. i will tell you a very interesting story. i never gave a reading in my home state. so my mother, when i travel to south africa, britain or italy and say i'm going there for readings, my mom kept saying to me, what do you do it these readings and i said i talked to the audience. i read a bit from the book. i respond to questions and assign books. 2014,y, in december of happened to be visiting nigeria. presentation was arranged which was broadcast live on state radio. because theyd invited my mother to introduce me. on air, my mother starts telling people, you love my son, he is

popular in the country because i write a weekly column that takes an unsparing view of corruption in nigeria. she says this son of mine was so difficult and such -- my late husband and i used the cane to cane sensitive him. when it came time for me to speak, i jokingly said to my mother, you just confessed that you abused me as a child. american language. so i'm going to sue you. she says to me, the bible says if you spare the rod you spoil the child. i said i will file a lawsuit in america and american judges don't read the bible. and then i wrote the column, why i'm going to sue my mother and some people thought i was serious. why would you want to sue your mother? of course i was fooling around. brian: did you use corporal punishment with your children?

okey: i was stern. more stern than american parents, but no. brian: i read that you did not sleep in a bed for a long time. you said you were poor. explain what the world was like for you when you were growing up. when did you start sleeping in a bed? okey: i didn't sleep in a bed until high school. i went to a boarding school. throughout the period i was at home, and when i came home on holiday i slept on a mat. awareually were not growing up. in a lot of ways, my sense of from a comes retrospective. casting a glance backward. my life was magical and a lot of ways. i became an early lover of books.

my parents encouraged us to read. they demanded that we read. my mother was a schoolteacher. brian: you read in english? okey: yes, we read in english. they were like rice. like today, you can go anywhere in the world and get rice. there is very little regard for rice. i look forward to sunday as a child because that was the day our parents would make rice. rice was a rarity. on christmas, easter or some other traditional feast i would feastsrward to those precisely because there would be a lot of rice to be eaten with chicken and good meat. for me it was the magic. the lack we had made every little gift become even more

pronounced, more resonant. daysok forward to bad because in our bad days perhaps two or three of us would share a bottle of soda. we would drink it all day. you sit it and put it down because it was so rare. it was magical for you. i did not see my stuff is poor, even though when i went to school i then met classmates or schoolmates whose parents were wealthy. they could have a soda every day. that was the definition of wealth for me. this kid can drink one soda a day while i could treat one every few months. if i was lucky. usually two or three of us were sharing a bottle. brian: your parents did what for living? was a postal man

and my mother was a schoolteacher. brian: how much money did they make? okey: very little. i came to america and i learned that some elementary school teachers get paid better than professors actually. in nigeria, it was not the case. my parents did not have a car. until just before my mother retired. loan.t a that was the entirety of their omance with the automobile owning class. for most of my years we had to take public transportation wherever you went or you jog or walk to wherever you went. brian: the story of your arrest,

when did it happen and what were the circumstances? okey: do you mean the arrest by the nigerian government or the arrest in this country? 13 days after i came to this stop,y i was at a bus headed to umass amhearst. to meet with a nigerian professor who was the president of the magazine that i had come to edit. the title of the book, never look an american in the eye, was from a council that an uncle had given to me. don't look americans in the eye because they will shoot you if you look them in the eye. here, i was at the bus stop. i was aware that traficant stopped. somehow i looked right direct in

front of me and the police officer happened to look at the same time and our eyes met. i remembered my uncle's advice so i made a dramatic gesture of looking away so that this officer would not shoot me. even though i looked away i was watching him from the corner of my eye as he turned into a side street. . aboutht i had lost him a minute or two later i got a tap on the shoulder and i turned around to see somebody in uniform. he says to me, do you mind coming to the back of the bus stop. , december 23,op 1988. for a moment -- because in nigeria no police officer would say to you, sir. topolice officer would say

you mind. they would pull or push or shove you where they want you. is differential to me. on second thought i said he is genial let me meet him immediately. i came to the back of the bus stop. everybody turned around. people turning to look. this officer folded his arms looking down at me he says, sir, you know this is about. i said no i don't know. we went back and forth. finally, the officer said to me -- i was avoiding eye contact because i did not want to compound my problems. he said to me there has been a bank robbery and you fit the description. now my heart again to crank up. i did not know whether this was -- i did not know what the legal system was, what law enforcement

modus operandi was. whether they were going to frame me and so on. i told the officer i had just arrived in america. that i had not been inside a bank or opened a bank account. he said to me, do you have identification. i said no. he said why not. i said the only form of id was my passport and i thought it was risky to carry it around and i might lose it. and he said do you mind if i frisk you. i did not know what frisk meant at the time that somehow i figured out at this point whatever frisk meant, even though the officer said do you mind that i had little choice in the matter is that i don't mind. he said to put my hands up. he patted me down. since i had no weapons of mass or single destruction, he said do you mind if i take you to your residence, i would like to

see your passport. so he drove me to the residents. 's two younger children were students in umass spending their christmas holiday with me. i walked in and spoke to them, i've been arrested for bank robbery. then i went to my room and brought my passport and gave it to the officer and he kept -- and he checked and kept talking on his walkie-talkie. sufficed toe it show that i was not the man they were looking for. he handed me back my passport and said thank you for being a gentleman. at which point i said to him to you mind helping me back at the bus stop. i was aware that a lot of people had seen him pick me up. i knew that the narrative in town would be this guy is from -- this guy is some kind of criminal. we saw a police officer arrested him. i wanted other people to see the officer drop me up the bus stop

so that there would be accountability for the narrative in town. we saw an officer drop them off at the bus stop as well so maybe the officer is his friend who picked them up. brian: another writer that you -- hereut in your book here is what the man looks like and sounds like. >> one of the things that we are very good at in nigeria is names. the most fascinating names. the traditional languages. when you see names like god's will, godspell, good luck, blessing, there is one relation

i have whose name i actually refuse to call. his name is sweetheart. i say give me your traditional name. i will never call anyone sweetheart. brian: have you ever heard anyone called sweetheart? okey: no but there are so many other names. there is friday. there is promise. blessing is huge these days. brian: did you ever have another name besides okey? okey: i have a lot of names. brian: like? in the was born southeastern part of nigeria. i was born on a sunday. usa name means someone born on a sunday. i am roman catholic. at confirmation i got the name

of peter. i took the name peter. my baptismal name is anthony. my praise name, which my family means someone who clears the bush. brian: what happened to your nigerian personality since you have been in the united states? okey: in a lot of ways it has been enhanced. i'm not sure there's something called nigerian personality to begin with. brian: i don't either by the way. [laughter] okey: whatever i was when i came to this country it has been enhanced in some way. , in my cuisine i stick -- most of my meals are nigerian meals. brian: which means? soup, which is not

the same as the american conception of soup which is something you eat with a spoon. soup in nigeria is what you eat with a grain. grainy some kind of a that has consistency and hardness and you scoop up the soup and actually swallow the grain. i make okra soup -- different nigerian soups. tomato stews. what we call stews in nigeria. tomatovery flavorful sauce with red peppers and tomatoes. i love spice. i like to sweat when i eat. i call it the moral equivalent of going to the gym. i eat a meal that nigerians

would identify with. even though the nigerians have changed on me since i came to america. something told me he went home to nigeria and a friend wanted to give him a treat and took into a kfc. i avoid such things. when americans invite me to a meal and they say is going to be pizza i eat at home so that i can eat politely. eat a slice of pizza. pizza does not interest me nor do hamburgers or sandwiches and so on. i like to eat nigerian as it were. -- io cherish very much like to hear the language. i look to hear the politics and the lang which of a place.

-- the language of a place. i have become more intensely interested in nigeria the longer i have lived in america. brian: do you still write a column? i still white okey: -- i still write a weekly column. it is widely circulated online. it gets me into trouble with the nigerian government. brian: you say in your book that you do not like american tv, talk shows and news. why? okey: i came to this country and encountered the talkshow programs where it was shocking to find people come out on television to tell their best friend that they slept with boyfriend or girlfriend. i come from a culture where that confessional mode is frowned upon. at any rate, the very idea of

doing something wrong and choosing to have some kind of fame or infamy out of it, some kind of mileage out of it, i'm going to be on the jerry springer show. i'm going to call out my sister --my brother and say i slept seems to me baffling. it still does seem baffling. brian: i want to show some video which is out of context with everything we have been talking about, and ask you why you like this stuff. okey: i know where you are going. brian: here we go. [laughter] brian: are those some of your friends?

this? you like okey: this is part of what got me started in america. look at their size and look at what they could do. that man could lift their legs and hit somebody with both legs at a time and could jump from the top rope and land on another man without smashing them into bits. when i first encountered american wrestling on nigerian television i was simply fascinated. still one of my guilty pleasures . the few occasions when i watch television, i spent some time on it. -- mye kit under c wife can't understand it, my children can understand it. i wanted to go to a live wrestling show. i had it colleague who lived in

boston who said this is choreographed and i said what do you mean. nobody could jump from so high and smash his body against another man if it is choreographed. i was worried that nobody was really killed right there in the ring. my cousin took me to boston garden and i saw when they hit you in the face it was synchronized. acting think it is great . the name of your book is "never look an american in the eye," that is what you were told when you first came here. do you still think that? okey: of course not, i'm looking you in the eye. dissipate? did that okey: very quickly.

parents invited uncles aunts and friends to bless me and pray for me and send me on my way. i got all kinds of advice. one aunt said i don't want you to marry a white woman and i said is there anything wrong with white women and she said, i want someone who's language we can understand and who would understand our language. , don't lookd to me americans in the eye because every american carries a gun and they will shoot you if you did. it turned out later i found out that my uncle formed this impression from watching cinema. western specifically. cowboys would gather together in a bar and exchange a few words and we never understood what they were saying but then at one point they would stare each .ther down and start shooting my uncle formed an impression that that is what americans would do to you, shoot you if you look them in the eye. ,oon after i came here

especially after the encounter with the police officer i told , people what happened. said, the fact that you did contact must have made him really suspicious of you. i said really? they said yes, you're supposed to look americans in the eye because they will think you look shifty. so i began to look americans and the eye and nobody has shot me yet. brian: you have written two novels. okey: the first is arrows of rain. the second one was foreign gods incorporated. brian: which you like best? okey: i like all of them for different reasons. brian: which was easier to write? okey: this one by far.

that came up recently at a book reading. somebody said you have written two novels, memoir, which is easier. this one is easier. recollection of events that happened. obviously in the process of recollection there is still shaping that goes on. you have to decide what details are important. to sort of downplay and so on. when you're writing a novel, typically the way i write novels is that something strikes me about a novel. sometimes it's an idea. my first novel, part of the -- he was imprisoned in the biafran war for coming to the united states and traveling elsewhere in the world trying to

persuade the government's not to sell weapons to the nigerian government or the biafran secessionist group. governmentn imprisoned him for 24 months brian:. where does he live now? okey: mostly in nigeria. shares -- 82 he now. travels constantly. odds are that as we speak, he is somewhere in the air, going to australia, china, israel, or france. he's constantly on the road. brian: we are out of time. this is a memoir and it is called "never look at american in the eye. ."- in the ip o eye

our guest is okey ndibe. thank you very much. okey: thank you very much for having me. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q and a.org. programs are available at c-span podcasts. >> if you enjoyed this week's q and a interview, here are some other programs you might like. keith richburg talking about china and other countries he has reported from over the past 35 years. mbisa moyo and ishmael beah

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hope to achieve next year in fiscal and regulatory policy. we will take your calls. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: before leaving the apex , there was au possibility of him responding to thepolicies and experts of trumpet administration even after his term ends. he told reporters that he would be vocal against core questions about our values and ideas. think it isf i necessary for me to help defend those ideals, i will examine that when the time comes." we want to ask you about president-elect trump and if his victory gave him a mandate for