wanted to avoid world war iii. rick says trump's assertion the cia are wrong e and they know nothing is more trape he always uses. go ahead.ndependents, it is very interesting that the people that are so willing to cut funding for people that have so little money are so comfortable with it. my daughter was very ill, and providers health care -- she was turning from yellow to green.

something very bad about this. i see it growing in our country. host: she referenced tom scully who was on our panel about the future of medicare and medicaid. that segment of "washington journal" should be available online. that will do it for our program today. we will be back here tomorrow morning. in the meantime, have a great monday. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ nextom one gray sky to the . we went from looking at the capital to trump tower this morning. our c-span cameras are live on

the scene here. we have a number of other cameras from media stations just outside the doorway. inside, we saw former campaign manager kellyanne conway intoing in carly fiorina the lobby just a few minutes ago. the former republican presidential candidate and was guided inside. we will take you inside in just a moment come up but first a look at the streets outside of trump tower. [inaudible] blowing] >> inside trump tower, we have been watching the lobby

elevators the past few weeks for prospective cabinet members to make their way inside to speak with president elect donald trump. most recently, the transition team announced general john kelly to head of the department of homeland security. earlier this morning, allen west was here. when asked if he was meeting with the president-elect, he said we will see when we get up. it went later asked if he was -- was later asked if he interested in a position at the white house, he jokingly said that the white house could always use a groundskeeper. a controversial media post came -- social media post came up from him over the weekend, but it was soon deleted and followed by an apology. a look today at some of the live events we are covering.

thebout 10 minutes, discussion of possible anti-poverty policies coming up in the trump administration. that is being hosted by the center for american progress. 10:15 easternt time on c-span. later, we will talk with josh earnest about the possible reports of russian interference in u.s. elections. the white house reefing is scheduled to -- briefing is scheduled to start at 12:30 eastern time. to find out more about the donald trump transition, we will speak with former first of you bush chief of staff. that will be hosted by the workings institution and the university of for genia -- virginia's miller center. >> tonight on "the communicators," craig silliman will talk about his company's changes over the recent years including the purchase of a well

in the proposed acquisition of yahoo!. he also discusses the need of a massive fiber buildout which could be a part of the infrastructure program being introduced by donald trump to congress. fiberare building the deeper and deeper into the network, so wireless signals are traveling a shorter difference. our wireless% of network is fiber. you look at what cities are trying to do that you need a massive fiber infrastructure to do all that. >> watched our wireless network the "communicators" tonight on c-span and c-span2. >> next, a look at how the affordable care act affects americans and their jobs. we took calls this morning on "washington journal." we will cover as much of this as we can before the policy talk

panel will start. host: we are talking about the affordable care act and the future of that law. doctors,o hear from nurses, and medical professionals this morning. we heard from the speaker of the house again this morning about obamacare. here is a series of tweets from speaker paul ryan. he said that obamacare is giving americans yet again another double-digit premium increase with higher deductibles and fewer choices. he goes onto say that because of obamacare americans only have really one choice for health care that is not a choice. it is a monopoly. mitch mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate, had his twitters -- had his twitter comments last week. he said that americans deserve that are than the failures of obamacare. tweets last week from senator tim kaine of virginia, hillary clinton's vice

president nominee, tweeting that the newperative that administration and congress move forward on health care and not erase the gains have been made by the aca. a on to say it has had dramatic impact on the american people and our economy. again, we want to hear this morning from doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals about how the aca is affecting your job. one medical professional commenting on it today is richard friedman, a columnist in the new york times. he is a professor of clinical thehology and leads psychology clinic at one university. he wrote a column today titled "the mental health crisis in trump's america."

aboutaks in his column the dangers that what happened it donald trump completely repealed the aca saying that it could cost many of -- millions of americans crucial health care. columns, reports that cutting the aca coverage for mental health issues could lead to higher suicide rate. again, in our first 45 minutes, we want to hear from doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. the line for doctors is 202-748-8000. the line for nurses is 202-748-8001. other medical professionals on 202-748-8002. last week, we were joined by .ongressman larry deshawn

he spoke about the burden that on aca currently puts doctors. here is a bit of what he had to say. guest: i have to hear from doctors every day. spent a lot of time looking at a computer screen and not talking with their patient. they say that is because the federal government has put in so many mandates and so many things with the affordable care act -- that includes meaningful use which requires physicians to report all this data. it is made it impossible for them to not spend so much time at the computer screen rather than talking with their patients. host: if you want to see that for interview, you can see it online at www.c-span.org. he joined us on "washington journal" last week. the christian science monitor, one of the main headlines this week is how the gop helped re-create health care. they focus on commerce minute tom price which has been --

congressman tom price which is been nominated to chair health and human services. the challenge has always been to agree on a replacement for republicans. they had said that they -- because republicans have not come to a consensus in the house, they seem to be generally settled on a point that was outlined in a document called "a better way." the document supports popular provisions of the aca including pre-existing conditions and allowing younger individuals to stay on their parents'insurance. the article notes that under the new plan, they would -- people would be able to purchase health insurance on an open market. sayr donald trump, they insurance would be available over state lines.

for those priced out of policies, health -- house republicans plan to subsidize "high risk pools." we want to hear from medical professionals. doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals with current or past medical experience. how theto hear about aca has affected you, your jobs, your patience. again, the line for doctors is 202-748-8000. for nurses 202-748-8001. for any other medical professionals 202-748-8002. , illinois.m chicago she is up first. good morning. caller: good morning. i have seen a lot of changes.

practitioner,rse and i have been a patient. i look at it both ways. as a patient, i do not think that care is getting better. i think it is getting worse. pushedff is just being to the limit. practitioner, i think more and more of the emphasis createes to be to profit. carenot think that health should be a profit sector. i think we should look at it as something that society has to provide people to maintain health and wellness. host: when you say the staff is being pushed to the limit, do you mean because of new mandates and rules being put on them by the aca?

or is it just a staffing issue in your mind? caller: it is both. the affordable care act provides -- i have to use it fairly often now in my older age . like aides something mediocre health care system. graduated, i had health care,. i did not need it. i was young. however, i was coming from a pool of people that were generally healthy. now, with the affordable care act, i feel like i am a charity case. everyone is a charity case. it is one thing to have enough money on your own to move around the health care system the way

you see it. more important, you have to self advocate which was not something that was true in the 1980's. host: rita, a nurse in chicago, illinois. thank you for joining us. elaine is also a nurse. she is up next. caller: yes, i was calling because hospitals are getting bonuses for getting patients out of the hospital early. longers that should stay in the intensive care unit are being shuffled into long-term care facilities before they are ready. this is causing the patient to suffer, because they really need the acute care but they are being pushed out early so the hospital can get the extra money. to the are readmitted hospital within 48 hours, they are penalized for that. what is happening is that

patients are suffering because they need acute care facilities to take them in for longer. it is just a big, giant circle going round and round. patients are not being cared for properly. system thats a worked differently before the affordable care act? caller: absolutely. it was never like this before the affordable care act. the hospital reimbursements now are directly tied to patients and sanction. if the patients are not happy, they get a different reimbursement. so, they are trying to juggle that along with this cut in reimbursement as far as the patients getting out of hospital. they get the bonus money, because the reimbursements are diseaset for different processes.

they want to get the patient out of the icu and into a lower care, long term care facility. they get extra money for that. -- patient ask you satisfaction, you say it is a key factor in the reimbursement. how is it determined? is it just a survey they fill out after leaving the hospital? caller: correct. they have a nurse liaison phone them and have them fill out a survey. rosen of the time, the patients that are admitted into the cost -- most of the time, when a patient is admitted into a hospital, they are not happy. they get shuffled out of the hospital, they are not necessarily happy. they will tell them that their number of days are up, and these are the choices to go to, and they just get shuffled out. of satisfaction

scores were never in place before the affordable care act? caller: not tied to reimbursement they were not. now, it is tied to reimbursement. it is just a mess them up because wages are -- just a mess, because wages are stagnant for nurses. they are outsourcing the dietary department. the food is different. there are all kinds of things that hospital have to do to save money. any -- unless they come up with some different way for reimbursement, as far as the affordable care act, it is just going to be hurting. host: elaine, thank you. again, the nurse line is 202-748-8001. for doctors it is 202-748-8000.

other medical professionals, we want to hear from you as well. is -- your line is 202-748-8002. daniel is on the line for other medical professionals in bloomington, indiana. good morning, daniel. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i was a direct service professional up to the end of last year. i saw a lot of the changes being in limited as i was working as a direct service professional. host: daniel, what does a direct service professional do? direct we provide services to people with mental disabilities. we do a lot of different things. we focus on counseling, on taking care of household chores, hygiene, all kinds of things. we want people to be independent, cognizant people.

so, the impact of the aca was .ore promotional i really got to see how the health care system affected patients needing services. this really happened with the parent. this person really focused on wanting a smarter, simpler project. that process. anytime the federal government is involved in anything, the process is more stringent. the affordable care act seemed to bring families closer together. peopleme 14 million receiving coverage under the aca, the staff takes on more patients and it becomes harder to focus to specific patient needs. i saw that coming from the other staff in my job. withhing i was able to do the few days i was able to work in this job each week was to put the impact into their life. this is something that got thrown at me kind of sporadically.

it has not been a very good impact. people are not happy with the outcome of the affordable care act. i saw this -- she mentioned that the state needs to be quicker, but with the federal government giving state money -- giving the state money it is not happening. that is all i have to say about the affordable care act. column.e other this one in the "washington post." the writer is an associate professor of psychology at the university of colorado. in his article, he writes that in colorado the medicaid expansion for the aca has had the number of uninsured. the number of uninsured. it has allowed physicians to

implement behavioral health into primary care. although many private petitioners refused to accept medicaid because of low reimbursement rates, these modest payments have been stretched into a network of essential services. in a state that not -- that have not been lamented medicaid, it is different. it has created a health care gap. adult account for s adult accountes for about 33% of the uninsured population. again, we want to hear from doctors and nurses and other medical professionals. the line for doctors is 202-748-8000. for nurses 202-748-8001. for other medical professionals 202-748-8002. caller fromrom --

georgia, good morning. caller: good morning. >> rather than propose real policies to crack down, he is picking his own winners and losers. he is lavishing tax giveaways to embrace that are moving jobs overseas, and he refuses to divest from his massive real estate empire. he campaigned on raising wages, but his cabinet is a who's who of wall street ceos. while he is tweeting at the cast of saturday night live, the republicans are distracted from the dirty work going on in the swamp. speaker brian and mitch mcconnell are already working on plans to take health care away from over 2 million americans. all of this while proposing to give tax giveaways to billionaires. attacks on working families are coming fast and on multiple

fronts. the progressive community is not standing by. the pleased to introduce washington post reporter that will interview subjects on what exactly is at stake for middle-class families and where progressives go from here. >> good morning, everybody. hello, greg. >> how are you doing? >> printed. >> -- pretty good. >> now what? >> is that your first question? think we have to hold donald trump accountable to the promises he made to working-class families.

we have to hold him accountable for the agenda that he is putting forward so far. he has outlined and made a lot of thomas is to be the spokesperson and advocate -- of promises to be the spokesperson and advocate or middle -- for middle-class families. so far, it seems as those promises are false. planning tax break to the wealthy. it is our job to advocate for middle-class families to make sure they do better in not worse under donald trump. >> you have to distinguish between the promises he actually did make, and the ones he did not. he told people rather silly that he would repeal obamacare and that he would give the wealthy a tax rates than any other republican candidate for president has ever promised.

where do you take that from their? -- there? point tos an important distinguish. we're now hearing about privatizing medicare. donald trump campaigned as a person that would support a safety net. medicaid, i mention have to say there was not a robust policy debate on what that would mean for people. he did talk about repealing the aca. i think one of the challenges of this election is that a lot of people who voted for him to not take his policies particularly seriously. he even highlighted some trumped voters that would lose -- trump boaters that would lose health care under the affordable care act that did not think he would actually repeal it. we wanted to get a rough estimate of how many trump

voters. when they came up with was -- they look at the drop in the uninsured rate among noncollege whites with a household income below $36,000. the uninsured rate had dropped 10 points among that demographic. we do not know if they are all trump voters. >> proportionally, at the very least they voted for him. >> i wanted to ask, this is often sort of scene -- especially medicaid expansions helping minorities. there is no question that the drop in uninsured rates has been enormous in those demographics, but also in noncollege whites with low income. republicanny

legislators that have state where many people tend to lose coverage whether the -- tend to be losing coverage. our voters going to be in a position to hold their own representatives accountable? >> one thing i focus on is that we had an instance with the grandfather clause a few years ago that only affected about 200,000 or 300,000 people. as you recall, or was a giant pair for -- there was a giant kerfuffle.-- i could use another word, but i am going to go with kerfuffle. to lay out the debate where is right now, the republicans would

like to do a repeal and then provide a replacement three years later. it is relatively unprecedented to do giant policy change in one year, and then wait for the answer to the policy change after the next election. three years, because they want to do it precisely after the midterm. in the meantime, there will be a lot of people that will lose a few days after the election,. we have seen that insurance market will move into chaos once the repeal has been issued. that, we believe those voters will be affected -- not voters, but people will be affectedfected th -- during that period. there will be billions of people that get priced out of the market.

we have been collecting stories, and we have 1100 stories of people around the country who rely on health care for life-saving medication. those people are going to be at risk. i think that goes to the broader point that this is not a policy rich debate. , a fairell covered number of trump voters voted for his agenda. we did a poll of both clinton and trump voters. were sendingvoters a message of change to washington. you had a mixture of voters that supported his agenda, and others who thought he was not serious about a lot of the things he said. i think a lot of those chickens are coming home to roost. >> a lot of the anecdotal

evidence seems to suggest -- there was a rust belt voter quoting the times that said a relative was going to lose health care with the repeal. this one woman said she did not believe he would do it. she got he was bluffing. -- thought he was bluffing. hillary clinton and democratic senate candidates -- every democrat that provide his or her voice said that this guy is a scam. he will shaft working people. why did working-class white people not hear that message? is there a flaw with the democratic agenda? you mention also that a lot of these people were sending a message of just generic change.

did democrats not signal clearly enough that they are dissatisfied with the status quo? why did they concede that ground to donald trump? >> in any close election might this, there is a multitude of things you can look to. ,t seems relatively clear to me as pointed out in that poll, a lot of people were not voting on particular issues but more on a change message. i take that point. perhaps progressives with the whole party did not focus enough on a change message. a milliony there is reasons you could point to. we are learning some additional news over the weekend. for us going forward, i think the goal has to be -- now that democrats are a minority party,

we have an opportunity to be very clear on both economics and political reform. had a candidate who now has an incoming administration where he promised to drain the swamp. however, in all his cabinet appointments, he seems to be feeling the swamp with people that are his donors and have a record of making working peoples' lives harder. whether it was the treasury secretary that foreclosed on people during the financial crisis, or the secretary of labor who was fined by the department of labor by not -- for not paying the wages he owed his workers. i cannot think of a more start his going forward. -- stark case going forward.

i think the challenge is that people did not take seriously what donald trump was saying during the election. a lot of people thought he was just bluffing. areink a lot of americans surprised to wake up to this kind of administration. it is up to us to make a clear case on a positive agenda for economics and political reform. he has betrayed the promises he has made already. heading into the next elections, i think the midterms are looking rather tough for democrats. thever, it looks to me like --8 government oriole gubernatorial elections will be an effort to maintain this election response. how can democrats -- in the short-term, they are going to be the party getting up for

medicare and against privatization. against taking health care away from 20 million people. beyond that going into 2020, what needs improvement? how can democrats craft a stronger, more ambitious, more reform minded agenda? >> we will have some additional thoughts on this later this week. , at the center for we need toogress, claim the mantle of reform. reforming economics and our politics. in that case, i think we have to argue two things. that we have an agenda that does speak to voters and their economics and making their lives better.

we have a much stronger contrast now. a much stronger contrast between democrats and republicans. i think we have to focus on how we can improve the daily lives of people with harder and more clear arguments. i think one thing donald trump showed us is that a very clear compared to a more complicated answer about wages and costs is a challenge. that is something we are working on now. it is an answer we will have four folks going into the future. >> one of my concerns on that front is that donald trump did talk about preserving medicare and social security, but broadly speaking it was not about jobs. -- if you are going to respond to a more nuanced way

to globalization and automation in the need to transition from coal, a nuanced response is not that satisfying. it comes across as something like "sorry." >> i take the point. -- ink the reality is that and part of the work that has been done over the last several years to point out the real challenges for the middle class. that is stagnant wages and rising costs. the point that sometimes a much more clear answer to folks is better than a 10 point plan. also, i think a lot of voters voted for him because they thought he was a different type of politician. he was attacking republicans, and he was not taking money from people.

there was the whole "drain the swamp" message, which has almost immediately been proven false in the first part of this transition. if you told people ahead of time that most of his cabinet would be donors to him, that it would billionaireses and , i think that would have given people pause. real one.estion is a he exquisitely said during the election that he has milked the system. that he has ripped it off. .hat it empowers him we all laughed and thought it was a joke, but now he has one. i wonder if there is going to be a similar dynamic with some of

these cabinet picks. types of voters do not buy our argument that these corporate connections show their actual priorities. >> i think that is a fair question. saidu listen to trump, he that i think it was i know how -- i think it was i know how to milk the system, and now i am going to work for you. that is the part we need to really test. it does not seem like he is using the system to work for us, but rather using it to work for him. for him and all of his folks. so, you are absolutely right.

we need to test that proposition. that this is an economically populist election and that populism is on the rise, and then say that really what people voted for is ensuring that such a zillion billionaires are controlling our country. ratings are still very divided. i think we have to see -- i think it will be tested how much people approve of it. broadlyo not seem to be swelling in support of the cabinet he is assembling. organizations like ours have -- pointed outt what they will do in the lives of real people and their families.

the department of labor is to be a department that abdicates or working families -- advocates for working families by ensuring they get the wages they need in that they are protected in the workplace. in theput someone department whose history is entirely antithetical to that. i think it will be up to the public to see whether it makes sense or not. >> are there some perils ahead when it comes to democratic unity? in 2018, you will have a number of democratic senators up. is there going to be some kind of temptation on their part to not draw as hard of a line as the democratic leadership might want? but say he goes forward with privatizing medicare -- let us

say he goes forward with privatizing medicare and the obamacare repeal. chuck schumer said to me the other day that they would not participate in any obamacare replacement that falls significantly short in human welfare. will there be a temptation on some of these more squishy democrats to go along? agenda istructure also a real problem. you might have some democrats that want a photo op with him in a red state. here -- thehe issue affordable care act is a perfect example. sees really pleased to senator schumer talk about keeping democrats together on that. i think we will see over the

next couple of weeks and months, if they do past eight repeal and replace later, which i hope they don't as it would be utterly irresponsible to their constituents. every member of congress has constituents that cares about the affordable care act. beseems to me like it should -- it is a fundamental responsibility for congress to explain what they are doing to americans and their constituents. the reality is that if they do the repeal and replace, you will see some unraveling in the health care markets. not know if it will be in democrat best interest to say they are part of that problem. it will be up to republicans to solve it. medicare is another example, or any of these other privatization schemes.

american thought privatizing medicare was part of the debate. no one expected that to happen. they did not really take it seriously as an option. infrastructure, it depends on what the proposal is. , as he has proposed so far many democrats would say, it is an excellent alternative. my view on it is that even in the last couple of weeks donald trump has -- could have done a lot more to unify the country. instead, what we had seen in his picks and proposal to undo the beety net, he is deciding to a president for a minority of the country. it is up to democrats to provide an alternative. at the get will be more clear and easy to do in a -- i believe much more clear and

easy to do under a trump administration. if republicans do want to , i guessd replace it there is a role at that point since a lot of conservatives will not support any replacement, because it gives people money to get health care -- there might be a role for progressives to roll out some alternatives. i do not know what a real obamacare replacement would look like, but a real plan on wages -- >> absolutely. as we go through the next few months, we are going to be really focused on siding off as off as many of

the terrible things they want to do to the social safety net. again, i do not think many americans thought we would have such radical departures on the issues like medicare and medicaid. democrats will be able to offer clear alternatives. infrastructure is a good example. donald trump's place on infrastructure so far is where he gives massive tax credits to private companies. it will be done to induce these companies into a market. basically, the taxpayer will end up paying on both end. they will pay for a tax credit and then higher fees. that makes no sense. it makes much more sense to just have a direct investment. the democrats have a robust in

for structure package that will really help people around the country. one of the -- robust infrastructure package that would really help people around the country. one of the ironies is that donald trump's plan would only really help the big cities, which i am in favor of but i think we still need to do more for others around the country. it could give democrats a real opportunity to lay out a better alternative and a better chance to represent people. there is a lot more opportunity for those alternatives when you are dealing with a trump administration. >> i am wondering if there is a role for progressives if there are instances where has democrats -- for the democratic party to become more unified under a robust, alternative

spending plan. >> if you look at where we were eight years ago at this time, we had a democratic president that was elected by a strong majority of the country. people wanted the country to pull together. in this moment, you have someone that was elected by a minority of the country, it has not done -- and has not done anything to try and help the country beyond tweet. it is pretty clear every day that he is trying to govern for just half the country. and not even that with some of his policies. it is up to us to provide a strong, alternative vision. tell up to us to democratic leaders you need to hold strong on these values. >> you are potentially going to

see some very racially charged stuff happening too. donald trump tweaked the other day about millions of voters voting illegally -- you have this major wave of voter suppression, and that has been of issues on the state level. so, this is going to be an standon for democrats to strong and defend some persecuted minorities. >> yes, and i believe there has been a debate -- a little bit of an unhealthy debate in the democratic party in among progressives about -- and among progressives about identity politics. that the view is

democratic party cannot turn it back on some of these core values. this is a party that has represented the struggle for civil rights for 50 years. whether it is that you see this effort to disenfranchise you see this effort to disenfranchise minority voters, and it would just prove to people that people are merely acting as politicians. we are going to be called on to protect civil rights and articulate and affirmative -- an affirmative alternative against him on economic and political reform grounds. had seen network in the past

where you've knit together a civil rights strategy in something like the bobby kennedy strategy. you pull together members of working-class families from all colors. never turn your back on the struggles of people of color. i think he racialized is -- race, and he created a lot of anger between different groups. i think there are a lot of his voters that we can reach with a strong, alternative economic message. >> i agree that the debate has largely been a farce choice -- false choice, because on the one hand you are speaking to the economic concerns of working-class white families. then come and you also have the minority concerns -- then, you

also have the minority concerns. can't democrats do a better job of saying that advocating -- advocating for minority groups is also an economic have, -- path, too? >> we had championed higher minimum wage or some time. time.r some a lot of the policies we had championed are in childcare and paid leave. all of those policies help families of color and also white families. be truth is that we can bolder in what we are saying, and more clear in our message, absolutely. fall to think we should the charge.

that we are for have always been around helping all families. i think it is pathetic that he raceble to racialize this in so many ways. he now has the burden of the burning, and people will be able to see whether or not his policies truly help them or not. so far, it seems like much of , which heican agenda seems to be signing off on it, will hurt the very people he said he would help. that is a tragedy. >> ok. >> let's and on a happy note for those guys. -- end on a happy note for those guys. all right, come on up. [applause] stake framing what is at

for working families in a trump administration and where progressives go from here, before we go to the panel discussion, i want to introduce stephanie lam who will offer up a personal reflection. while we have all the eta in the world to underscored why the trump plan -- all the data in the world to underscored why the trump plan is a disaster for working-class families, stephanie has a real life account. the cuts to support for working-class families, the appointment of an attorney general the has repeatedly voted against the violence against women act are not abstractions for stephanie. her work has appeared in the new york times, washington post, the guardian, and many other outlets. she focuses on social and economic justice as a writing fellow for the center of change. is forthcoming

through hachette books. she holds a master degree in english with a creative writing and business. two daughters. welcome, stephanie. thank you for joining us. [applause] >> thank you to the center for american progress for this opportunity to speak in front of all of you today. with mys ago, i lived then three-year-old daughter in a studio apartment. during the day, i worked full-time as a maid cleaning the house is of the wealthy. at night, i stayed up to complete coursework for several online college classes. i worked full-time, and i was able to do that through support that helped me pay for child care. i worked full-time, in yet i had to turn to food assistance to help feed myself and my daughter.

after paying rent, gas, , i onlys most months had $50 left for things like toilet paper and so. in december, it got so cold that i had to close the french doors andhe area we both slept in for out the couch i found for free, because i could not afford to keep the whole space more. it was a winter that was too much for my honda civic to handle. snow plowswill the to come down the alley that our apartment set above. work day that i missed meant another bill i could not pay. first electric, and then rent. thiseason i was in situation is because a couple of years earlier i fled from my daughter's father went in argument we had led me to flee

for safety. i worked as a landscaper while we worked -- while we moved from transitional housing to our own apartment. we could not have made it out of the homeless shelter that help of a now elusive grant. eventually, i was able to find a full-time job that pays eight dollars an hour while going to school full-time. however, it dollars in our is not enough to provide for a family. even with a full-time job, we had to go without basics. i had a budget for when i could afford to buy a new sponge or paper towels. winter, after that cold thanks to the income tax credit in the child tax credit, i was able to buy toothbrushes, perkins, a desk to do homework do-- blankets, a desk to homework on, in a heated mattress pad.

nightghter and i slept at cozy and warm, but i still lived in a fog of hopelessness, anxiety, in doubt. i did not have a family that could financially or emotionally support me. my daughters father still tried to cut me down every chance he could. lifelines like food assistance and tax credits with the things that kept me afloat and health me get back on my feet. now, the systems that help us thrive face the biggest threat to their existence with donald trump and his cabinet coming in. the safety net has already been attacked by republican legislators such as speaker paul ryan. these politicians will likely block the programs that were our lifeblood. we cannot allow this to happen. that is why i continue to tell my story. the month after i graduated college, i did earth to a second

little girl. eventually, we were able to move into warm, safe, secure housing i could afford. admit that i could focus on my career as a writer. allowed me to focus on my career as a writer. somehow, my choice in major of out.sh word -- worked over the next few months, my bylines grew rapidly, and i started working as a writing fellow through the center for community change. i published pieces were i admitted something i was most onamed of -- of when i fell hard times and relied on food stamps. i wrote about our struggle to survive in the constant stress when the wages were not enough to provide for my family. through my position at the center for community change, i

learned how to write opinion pieces. we supported a piece of the new york times. last summer, my youngest daughter's second birthday, i accepted an offer for my memoir. it is the story of not only finding happiness in the little things, but also the great on what it takes to find resources to survive and then leap to the other side where you no longer need them. i worked my way through school all the while raising two children. i know i could not have done that without basic living standards that helped me get ahead. paul ryan might think his plan is a better way, but it is anything but. his agenda does nothing to create jobs or raise wages. instead, it cut essential resources like food stamps and medicaid. this is a population that needs good, quality food and not whatever has the most calories at the cheapest price. they need regular checkups and

access to restriction medication, because they cannot afford guidance or regular exercise. their backs ache from long hours at jobs no one else wants to do, that are vital to keeping our society running smoothly. many -- maybe donald trump and paul ryan need to work one of those jobs. maybe they need to stand out in the cold of december and ring a bell in a santa suit. they need to go home to children that will not have dinner. children that had to sit in an office during recess, because their family could not afford to give them a code for the winter. they need to spend the night on a foldout couch up next to their family for warmth only to wake up the next day and do it all over again. thank you for listening. >> [applause]

>> i am the managing director of the poverty prosperity program here at the center for american progress. it is my privilege to introduce them into moderated discussion in a distinguished panel of experts. bob greenstein is the president of the center on budget and policy priorities he founded in 1981 and formerly served as administrator at the u.s. to apartment of agriculture where he signed the food stamp act of 1977 and is also a recipient of the macarthur funnest rent -- the macarthur. , three decades in

various roles as a professional staff person. duane is the director of which stands for people improving communities through organizing. it works across 150 cities and 17 states and is also senior pastor and founder of the living water united church of christ in philadelphia. one of my favorite cities, personally. michelle taylor is the manager of witnesses to hunger. it partners with the real experts on hunger, mothers and caregivers of young children who have experienced hunger and poverty. they frame the issues just important to them. least,, last but not

steve is the director of public policy at the center for community change, which sponsors the writing fellow program that stephanie participated in. it is a national organization focused on improving the capacity of low income workers to change their communities and public policies for the better and he has a long career of fighting for working families including at the center for law and social policy. that was a mouthful. take you for bearing with me but this panel deserves to be brought in the little bit. aboute heard a lot so far the importance of policies that are critical to working families as well as programs that support them. stephanie, we heard a little bit from her conversation with greg sargent about the comments trump made when he was campaigning to many of those workers and steve, i want to start with you by asking, do you think he is going

to keep those promises to save jobs and make life better for working families? >> no. the thing about mr. trump is we probably shouldn't listen as much to him as watch him. they spoke about his cabinet appointees and the direction that process has taken us but i think we can step back a little bit from trump. of a actually much more theuct, or consistent with modern republican party more generally. mean, the republicans have a vision of government which is that they believe the purpose of government is to facilitate commerce and the making of money with the believe that the more money -- the more money we make, the more will trickle down.

i believe that is a fair characterization. the democratic party is a much more muddled message. what it ought to be is that government ought to be used to deal with what economists call externalities. we ought to mitigate the adverse effects of our system so all can be lifted up. we ought to have child labor laws and clean water and clean air. we want to deal with climate change. those are democratic principles because we recognize that if we continue to search for commercial developments and extra profits we address societal problems. we bring that to the working class. a laborwe have secretary nominee who doesn't believe in labor regulation. we have somebody at the epa that doesn't believe environmental regulation. we've got a dilettante who destroyed the school system in

detroit. we can go on and on through these appointees but it means that those of us in society who don't have independent means and wealth are not going to have the opportunities to succeed and get ahead. i firmly believe that this administration is part of a broader republican agenda that is essentially a blind eye for the just society that considers economic justice, human rights complicit in this in a capitalist system. >> i want to continue this discussion of what we expect to come and what is at stake for working families. you have done a number of public appearances over the past few weeks where you have spoken very yeary about your 30-40 career, you have never seen a greater threat to safety net programs which are really there

for people when wages are not enough. characterized what we are seeing as the greatest threat to these programs? following the election of a man who promise he wasn't going to cut social security or medicaid. >> i'm not sure he ever promised he was not going to cut medicaid but he seems to be doing just that. if you look at the whole picture, let's start with last year's house republican budget and some of the budget proposals that trump issued during the campaign that are on his website. we know that a significant part the termdget has "nondefense discretionary program." it means everything outside the fence that isn't an entitlement program. , it hasental assistance

education, job training, the enforcement of labor standards, the enforcement of environmental standards, child care, all of these are part of the budget. is, ate are now heading best, towards the budget cuts takingequestration effect for the first time, starting in october. that will take total funding for this important part of the -- lowest level on record dating back to 1962. however, the house republican budget of last year and the trump campaign proposal proposed to cut this part of the budget way below the sequestration more by thet 30% end of the decade.

we are talking about massive cuts in areas like education and childcare, low income housing assistance and a variety of other things. then, you come to some of the core assistance for people who work for low rages -- low wages or lose their jobs during recessions. things like health care coverage under medicaid, food assistance for snap. these programs are set up in a way that there are minimum national eligibility standards. anyone eligible if you fall on hard times, you lose your job in a recession, you are not put on a waiting list to get the assistance. the programs respond automatically. would have budget gutted the structure of those programs. this goes beyond repealing the affordable care act.

when there is a fixed amount of money every year, it does not keep pace with need. it doesn't keep race with health care costs and it doesn't respond to recession. last year's budget took about a trillion dollars in cuts out of health care and food assistance for low income families by block granting these programs on top of repealing the affordable care act. expansions were primarily for working people. endorsed, essentially, locke granting -- block granting the program. if you put these pieces together -- i have been working in this area since the early 70's -- i don't remember any time that there was a simultaneous assault

on so many of these key supports for people who are unemployed or work for low rages or have hard times making ends meet. , it addse same time insult to injury that alongside this, proposals for some of the biggest tax cuts for people at the top that we have seen in modern memory. proposals have huge cuts for people who work for low rages -- low wages and struggle to make ends meet. >> i think you have terrified everyone in this room efficiently, but steve, i want to turn to you to help us understand a little bit something that is often framed in a dichotomy term. there is often a discussion that happens about workers and then a

discussion that happens about the so-called poor as though they are different conversations or should be and often the two questions i just asked of steve and bob are rarely actually -- they are happening in the same room. is there a dichotomy between so-called workers and so-called the poor. relation?ctually a >> i think that largely, there is no distinction between people who are in the working class or working poor and people who are poor. most people who receive public assistance, whether it is food stamps or snap or medicaid -- medicaid is health insurance -- but most of the people to receive that are in and out of the labor market in low-wage it is a false distinction to be making. there is a set of people in deep

poverty who have very limited opportunities, in communities that have been disproportionately invested. african-americans and immigrants. the broad characterization, i think feeds into a story that poverty is really a function of personal responsibility and failure of people to act appropriately and that is just not true. we know that that's not true. we know that people who get much of the public assistance that they want to cut are in and out of the labor market so we are not talking about two distinct sets of people. mass ofalking about a people who are struggling to find stability in a market that is changing dramatically and which doesn't provide stability for most workers. it is not the way to be looking at this. i think the tragedy -- we have that thereore -- is

is a conscious effort to blame people of color and poor people for the insecurities and fear that working people frequently have because the economy is changing. and because their security is threatened by what is going on in the labor market and we all know this story and it is difficult to combat. we saw it most explicitly in the campaign. it is part of the coalition of people and voters who voted for trump. >> as we start to look forward, i want to direct this question to you. as we start to look forward at how progressives can't effectively defend working-class voters, many of whom did lace their bets on donald trump to save their jobs and make their lives better. how do we start to build a coalition that bridges that an us so that it isn't

and them where the level of resentment has been fueled by folks on the other side of the aisle trying to divide and conquer. >> thank you for the question and the invitation. people on the largest faith-based organizing network in the country, we have federations in 22 states, we ithresent multiple fa traditions, we have a vast diversity of people, black, white, native american, latino, asian and white folks that are part of our coalition. we represent 2 million families from across the nation. one of the things that is critical in this moment -- and i think as we talk about this, we have to not run from race but run into race. part of the challenges we talked about this earlier. trump has racialized this moment using dog whistle language to be able to really get working-class

white folks to be afraid and part of the challenge of progressives is we have to be able to help working-class white folks understand that they have more in common with working-class black folks and anding-class latino folks working-class native folks and working-class asian folks than they do the oligarchs, or whatever term you want to use to and working-class native folks and inking-class asiandefine thingy the trump camp right now. i think it is critical that we understand we don't have to do flavor of the month activities in terms of working policies and int we can't abandon race terms of a civil rights agenda. pursue racial justice and economic justice at the same time and we have to begin to disabuse america of this motion -- this notion that undocumented immigrants are really tearing up the fabric of this nation.

families whose very backs have been beaten in building this out to are somehow all destroy communities, or various native communities. these are all families with dignity and worth and value and they bring a lot to the american table. it is not just white folks that do that. we have to find the way to bridge the gap to have a conversation and talk about policies like raising the minimum wage and making sure everyone has health care and talking about childcare for all families that can pack all communities together and not run from race or become race neutral or colorblind. and have a conversation about the impact of race in this country. everybody has got pain and we need to react -- need to be able to validate everybody's pain but we need to be clear that part of

the trauma we are dealing with is an issue of the racialized sin of racial oppression that has existed in this country since its founding. >> michelle, a big part of what your organization does, witnesses to hunger, is bring people policies and lifeline programs like nutrition assistance together and elevate their voices as the real experts. what can we learn from witnesses and how can your organization and others serving that same goal and working in that same way be part of building a movement that fights back against this onslaught? >> absolutely. thank you for having us. so much of this is about the stigmatizing poverty and the language we use. everybody in this room is on welfare and everybody has experienced it.

some form ofs social welfare and if anybody study policy for a few minutes they would know that but for someone receiving $160 a month over one year gets way less than taxone taking a mortgage credit which is welfare. remind yourselves of that. your student loan tax credit is welfare. these things you get for having a child is welfare. when we start to change the conversation and making it about all of us, how we all benefit from the government wanting to provide social welfare benefits, then we can start to think about this in a more humane way. we can say in philadelphia, there is a 26% poverty rate, but what does that look like? have you ever spoken to someone who actually lived the effects of that on a daily basis?

i think one of the things that we have to do in this conversation is separate poor from working. stop with the language of, nobody who works 40 hours a week should live in poverty. no one should live in poverty. . . we are are having is forcing this idea that work is a solution to everyone's problems. what if you are disabled? what if you are unable to leave your home? what is that supposed to do? if we talk about the wages we pay people is it's because america has never recovered from including labor costs. hundreds we rebound of of years of building an economic system based on free labor? andre struggling to do that i would mention, you have a country founded on genocide and enslavement. you reap what you so and here we are, finally seeing what centuries of perpetrating this

kind of approach to human beings is starting to look like. look at who is about to be president. every day he tells another lie. lockheed martin just cannot because of a tweet. -- came out because of a tweet. we have organizations doing the work to support them. my biggest fear is funding for our organization. how do we get the funding to continue to elevate and amplify the voices of the experts? we have poverty panels with experts who are valued for their intelligence, but why don't we value the experiences and the narrative of people who actually live in poverty? theeally have to get into communities, talk to people, see what they need and stop rejecting our own, do-gooder, this is what we think they need

to let's give them this. suggested somee issues with the book that lunch program. there are children's you can take a look back home that is -- filled with food. that is the way of the future. but some of the witnesses are saying, what is the psychological impact of giving a child a bag of food to take home that they will have to share with their family? and they become responsible for feeding their families? what happens if they live in a violent neighborhood where they can have that bag stolen? they have to walk home and say "my family can't eat this weekend." have these conversations so we can pick up on these nuanced things and understand there is more to poverty than the fact and figures. these are real people. threads throughout

this postelection analysis period we have been living through, it has been around how do we communicate more effectively? how do we communicate in different ways than maybe we have been to have a better chance at reaching people that didn't hear the progressive message and say that is the answer to my problems? we are simultaneously realizing that we are also living in a post-truth world which was miriam webster's word of the year, aptly. in a world where fake news is beating out real news and real facts and figures, -- i am going to be self-aware as i ask this -- at a think tank, how do regressive's and folks and organizations like the center for american progress, where we are so accustomed to saying facts and figures are going to win the day because they are

true, how do we live in this new world in a way that is going to reach people who haven't been won over with facts and figures? steve? >> that is a great question. we have to live our values. it is about commitment. this is a very diverse union. we are a majority women, we have all different races, different immigration status, none of that matters. we united around specific goals and we worked together well. and iw what unites us think, more generally speaking, people who are workers in this country understand what it is that they are seeking on a broad societal basis. they are seeking a better life for themselves and their , whaten and often times we found on the progressive side, is our economic message gets awfully confusing and

muddled. it would be wrong for us to dismiss president obama's of session with the transpacific partnership as not having an impact on the selection and i say that not as criticism of president obama or the tpp but what it did is undermined the economic message that most working people were hearing. we have to understand people are looking for a commit and, somebody willing to fight for their values. it is not always about a nuance in a political system. we often answer simple questions with five paragraphs because it is so nuanced and it is so difficult. but we need to figure out a much more straight-line way of communicating with people. we do that in the labor movement. but how do you transfer that kind of communication in a closed system to a more open type of debate?

think it is about living our values and having a clear set and understanding of what those are. make sure we have a consensus around them. most people want what we claim , a fair and want just society where people are not exploited, which is nurturing. we want that and we have a number of federal policies in place to get us there. some of them have been undermined. we are about to embark on a journey where 80 years of consensus and policy in the new deal is at stake. and communicating that with facts and figures and charts is not only the best way to do it. it is more visceral for a lot of folks and when we communicate with our members in our union we try to make it as real and accessible for them as possible so they understand how it their neighbors and the services that

we provide. we have a tremendous equipment -- tremendous commitment. people are working in fast food and working for nasa but people take pride in their work and we have to listen to them and give them that pride and often times, we are dismissive of many of these concerns in search of a bigger agenda and we have to get more basic in our communications. we have to have credibility with the economic message because we don't have it and we need to get it. >> turning back to you, bob. i don't think anybody has sign, get your government hands off my medicare, that has come to serve as symbols of the state, where people are unaware of the kinds of programs that they benefit from and not even just in the sense of the home mortgage interest did option but also

receiving health insurance from the federal government. >> or public schools. >> how do we accomplish the goals that we just laid out of helping people to understand that the safety net, as it is often called, is actually for them and that an attack on the safety net like we are expecting to see under a trump/ryan regime will affect workers. marryhink we have to improved ways of communicating, something steve was talking about, with a variety of facts and figures. we absolutely can't give up on those. -- if you look at the ,ampaign we just had, trump has particularly in the domestic arena, very few specific policies.

it was just a lot of buzz and rhetoric. begins to actess and the president puts proposals forward there are specific proposals that will get voted on on the hill. part of our job is to analyze them, to look at what they do, and communicate them effectively. let me give you an analogy. in 2015, there was a successful effort to make congress make permanent improvements for low and moderate income working families through the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. began early inwe 2015, we talked to various republican members particularly in the house. generally, they and their staff were under the impression of this is a low income program primarily for the city's. in fact, a larger share of

households earned the low income credit in rural areas than in urban areas because wage rates tend to be lower in rural areas. we found a lot of these offices were stunned when we showed them the figures. ahead, in the period whatever policy or program is under attack, which serves working families, we need to put the information together. what does it do locality by locality? rural,es it do in these challenged areas where there were big votes for president-elect trump but areas in which people often rely on these programs to a greater degree than people in urban areas. i am nott succeeded -- sure we have tried hard enough

-- to really communicate that. as specific cuts come on the table, we need everything from human stories of what they would do to actual information and data that bring it home to in urban rural areas, areas, in areas where people work for low wages to counter this false impression that it doesn't affect them at all. that it affects other people that don't look like them that they don't want to help, not even understanding the degree to which so many of these kinds of support are fundamental for them. doings going to entail us not only the normal kind of analysis that since many of the eithere likely to come inappropriate programs that are effectively grants on state and local governments then deliver

the services, or if a program like medicaid is block granted with inadequate funding the states that have to live within the inadequate funds are the ones that make the specific cuts. we have to communicate where this is coming from. which of these decisions out of washington and how they should be made. we need to debate on tax policy starting next month. the bill that is expected to come before congress next month to repeal the affordable care act that the urban institute said would likely raise the number of uninsured by 30 million people, this bill includes a provision to repeal the application of the medicare tax that goes right into the medicare hospital insurance trust fund on the investment income of very wealthy people.

this provision will mean that a worker making 30-40-50 $60,000 a year has to pay the tax on their wages while some of you making $5 million a year doesn't pay any tax on any of that. i don't think that would be particularly popular alongside paul ryan's false claims that medicare is in trouble and going bankrupt. advance that to message out of one side of your mouth but on the other side, and people are of dissolved you do that while refusing to raise the minimum wage which makes more working people eligible for and in need of programs like food assistance. at the same time you cut food assistance. you have to localize it. >> steve, i am going to ask you what i do as the million-dollar

question now. a lot of progressives have been reluctant to normalize trump because there is a view that by legitimizing his presidency, that carries risks and consequences that we don't want to be responsible for. or part of. at the same time, i will confess great fear that if we continue to spend a lot of time paying attention to the sideshow of ,hat did he tweet this morning it is going to leave a lot of space for, say, republicans to push through a major piece of legislation that would slash social security benefits. such a piece was introduced last week by the chairman of the meansmittee of ways and to impact americans of all stripes in very serious ways. which side do you land on? do we normalize or do we not? >> it is up to us as to whether

or not he becomes normalize. he is going to be the president and he is going to have incredible power and i think we have to deal with that and i think that the way we deal with that is to call him out on both the lies that he told in the things that he says he supports which are really not in the interests of working people. it is both things that he said he wasn't honest about it things that are simply not good for people, especially people he claims to be supporting. i completely agree that we can't immediately get caught up in every tweet that he sends out but we have to recognize that is now.rent i think on the communications question, i think part of the problem that we have is that in we need to be

connected with people based on shared values and that is the starting point. we need facts and figures and an analysis of how proposals will benefit and hurt there is people. it is about family and community and fairness an opportunity. all of those things are things that most americans can connect thatd once you make connection, then you can start telling a story about what is going on and help them think about it clearly. part of the other thing, bob said this in an implicit way, or maybe explicit, is that the benefits of policies that republicans and front are talking about are not going to go to the working poor. they are going to go to rich people and corporations. so they want their tax cuts and they want backgrounds -- they

want block grounds to save money and pay for the tax cuts. there is a story we need to tell that has appeal across the board and as we saw from the sanders campaign, there are corporate interests and wall street interests who want tax cuts and want more money and less regulation because that benefit them and does not benefit working people so we need to be able to tell that story. i think the most challenging is that we cannot shy away from race. we have to talk about how that has harmed and continues to harm african americans in this country, african-americans in poor communities, and we need to have a frank conversation and deal with folks who don't share those views in a direct way. and again, talk about shared values. history thatrs of

is not going to get overcome we justor easily but can't have this be about the 1% and the 99%. it also has to be about who has been harmed by the structures of this country since its founding and the prejudice that is now whipped up against both blacks and immigrants and people of color. >> before i turn it over to audience q&a, i can feel you have questions for this panel, i want to turn one last question over to bishop duane and to michelle. where economic power is now controlled by an ever smaller number of incredibly powerful and incredibly rich corporations, how do we build up power bases in our communities and in a movement? youh is a huge part of what are involved in. in a way that can counterbalance where the powers held currently and who is pulling the strings.

and, how can it establishment structures and national organizations connect with folks who are on the ground building those power bases? >> it goes back to working closely together, so we have to get the think tank folks in conversation with the people on the ground and they need to be listening to each other. it is not an issue -- i think you talked about this and we have often said this in our own words, the best policy makers are not the people sitting in towers but people sitting in the project and in the row homes. if you want to ask about what it would take to get out of poverty, you ask somebody living in poverty what it would take. we think there has to be a closer relationship with those that are the intellectual elite listening more and doing less talking and really hearing deeply from the people who are struggling and understanding what their issues and structural

issues are. i find it interesting that we are talking about social security and talking about medicare and talking about medicaid. election,ter the stocks in private prisons went up 300% in this country. african-americans and immigrants building the economy in some communities because we are going to increase the use of private prisons. the president-elect said he was going to deport 3 million families who came the ear -- came here for the very reason that majority white families came, to get a better life. but we are going to throw them in private prisons and make a lot of money off of it in use national stock and first policies. where weom the city fought to get rid of stop and frisk, there are a lot of folks

that are making a lot of money off of people getting stopped and frisk. we cannot allow donald trump to be normalized by any means because the very things that he is trying to do will destroy this country and those communities struggling the deepest and those experiencing some level of pain. it is absolutely critical that we are figuring out how to listen to one another and be able to inform one another that we are out fighting together and marching together and wrestling together. we have to help our progressive leadership in the house and the moment and even sometimes when it appears that they want to cut deals but the minute you cut a deal you are normalizing what is going to be destructive for people all across this country and they have to hold the line and continue to lift up a moral

message that really challenges the decisions being made that are only benefiting a few instead of the majority. >> ivory with everything you just said. -- i agree with everything you just said. and education is so important and i understand it because of my own educational background. we have to make sure that we are communicating with people the way they are but we need the facts and the figures because that is where the proof is but if people can't reach us they won't understand what any of it means so how do we translate that in a way that makes sense for people? yes, we have to talk about racism. it is why a poor white person will believe that they deserve food stamps and a poor black person is a moocher. it is how trump gets elected. i know they say you not supposed to talk about relation -- talk about racism but you absolutely have to. why did white women vote for

trump? racism. it is not necessarily about the economic insecurity as they were economically insecure and have been forever. the rust belt vote, the poverty in the struggle -- this is not just an obama thing. this is generations of their family ever since they were competing with slave labor. they know what this is and they want to put it in frame it in this way because they lack the education that teaches them how this came to be and how they and their families and up being in the situations that they are. they listened to the rhetoric and the fake news because they are susceptible to it and they lack the knowledge they need to combat it. we have to prioritize, on both this, education about process of participating in america as a citizen because when you have progressives voting for hillary and voting down ballot and not hearing the names, people on that down

ballot are just as bad as someone going and voting for trump indirectly. we have to make sure that when we are sending people to vote, is oneon jury duty, that of the scariest things that we have, people judging other people's lives and they don't know anything about the law. all they are doing is going with their gut. and we to work on that are not going to communicate with each other until we start talking seriously about racism, sexism, queer phobia and everything that fuels both sides because it is about preservation of resources so when progressives act like there is not racism, there is absolutely racism that is disgusting and in my opinion that is worse than what we see from the gop because we hide it. they act like they are not racist. when we educate people in those ways we are not going anywhere and that is how trump happens and that is how this continues to happen, calling someone a

white nationalist is redundant. the only people who have access to nationalism in this country are white people. aboutould be remiss steve kreisberg, talking about unions were they exist today. it is indicated before as one of the few institutions that is diverse in all senses. we have a special obligation. thefact of the matter is republican party has long appreciated us more than the democratic party. we have been the target of republican attacks because they recognize the power of working people coming together and yet there has been a new progressive -- the new democrats who don't see the value of collective bargaining and don't see the value of labor. it is the only institution where

workers can exercise power on their own by joining together. everything else is filtered through a political system and the political system doesn't always work well for us. the judicial system even works worse. the institution of collective bargaining's preserved and strengthened, we are now facing 50-year-oldod of a supreme court precedent being reversed. not just row versus wade. we might see it throughout the private sector. these are intentional mechanisms to undermine the power of labor. when you have the governor of a state, nikki haley now being our you and ambassador, using the power of her state to defeat unions in a private corporation, that boeing plan, when you see the state of tennessee, u.s. senators as well as the government undermining

the right of workers to organize , we have a serious problem. we have a law in this country that says the policy of the federal government is to promote collective bargaining but we have a party that is antagonistic to it and we oftentimes have a democratic party that is complicit in silence and a lack of value for collective bargaining. it has proven to be a bulwark in the defense of democracy and it will prove to be so here and the republicans recognize that and we need the democrats to recognize it with greater vigor >>. the moment has arrived. we are running a few minutes over because we started late, so thank you for bearing with me but audience questions, raise your hand if you've got one and a mic will come over to you. >> my name is jim webster, i used to publish newsletters

about agriculture in rural america but my biggest claim to fame is working with bob grinstead. my question is when does buyers remorse set in in small-town enroll america? america?town and rural >> when they realize what is happening and that goes back to education. name thesegins to people a lot of those folks don't know who those people are and they don't know the impact that these folks have had in their individual places so when we get these articles out, here are five things you need to know about this person, maybe people will hear more and become more familiar and start realizing, wait a minute, these people are exactly who we didn't want but now, folks are just saying, who? add-ons?her >> it is already starting.

even though he has yet to take office, because of what he is doing, some of this is -- the decisions he is making, people are saying, what do we do across alterable communities that did not vote for him or did vote for him, it is already beginning to kick in. it could also be affected by the state of the economy. it will come more quickly if a recession come sooner. trumpl be difficult for a administration to blame the next recession on obama but i'm sure they will try. but i do think what happens to the overall economy will have an impact on this and we have to see there are a series of policies that trump talked about during the campaign that many economists believe would accelerate recession. >> i got a hand here in the front.

>> good morning. i would have considered myself a hubert humphrey liberal to put me politically in perspective, and i have the following questions. it is about thinking of corporate america as monolithic. i am wondering if the need to finddon't more alliances within various business and corporate communities? the affordable care act was supposed to hurt small business. i don't know if it did or it didn't. if it did you need to find a way in to make it better when they are trying to dismantle it and have small business people petition to the new small business chairman. then, as an, example, that needs to be touted by small business.

in north carolina we have a democratic governor because corporate america weight in so strongly on some of what hb two had. in communities like philadelphia , you have universities and corporations. not all of whom are averse to a human hump -- a hubert humphrey agenda. a fantastic question and a very apt one for this conversation, particularly with the assault on the affordable care act and food stamps, which walmart doesn't want to see cut any more than folks on the stage. all, the folks who for theo build support afford will care act relied very strongly on small business and they were very outspoken.

many of them were outspoken. i do think that there are specific corporations, businesses, small businesses who will speak up on a number of these issues either because it is in their self-interest -- like agricultural interests supporting food stamps because it expands demand for the goods -- but i don't think we are living in a bubble to recognize that groups like the chamber of and the and the nfib national retailers association have incredible power and are working every day against workers rights and workers well-being and security. we should look for corporate and small business allies but ultimately, i think the main alliances that we need to build our among working-class people, multiracial organizing efforts, to build political

power for people who don't have power. >> i saw a hand over here. thank you so much. thank you all for coming out here and chatting with us. i have a quick question to you backing on the previous question. it is about how, as progressives, we all have our individual bases. we work for climate change, to protect the safety net, we work in support of lack lives matter. we have support of immigration. how do we, as progressives, come together despite our very passionate focus on our individual issues, particularly as we probably suspect that the trump administration is going to --t to start taking off picking off different groups.

how do we maneuver through that particular landscape? >> how do we break down silos? >> we are a broad-based organization so we work on multiple issues, we don't do siloed work. one of the things we have been challenging our colleagues is we are all fighting the same people. every fight that you have, whether it is around mass incarceration or undocumented immigrants or childcare issues and voteruppression id laws, it is the exact same folks. we have to think in a way that -- we don't like to use military terms -- but we have to build an army. essentially, learning how to attack and maintain vigilance against the opponents of the very issues that we work against. and not allow ourselves to be

picked off one by one. as long as we stay in silos, it is easy to crush a silo. if you are big enough, you crush it. what we ultimately have to become is a wheel, which is i might not be working on your issue today, that we are working together on the same issue with the same people and we will begin to turn the tide when we keep rolling. it is very difficult to stop a wheel and you can have multiple issues in that wheel simultaneously. get out of our silos and understand that what we are fighting against is not necessarily policies and issues but we are fighting against a narrative about what this country ought to look like and we need a collective mindset to talk about what this country looks like where every family narrative in this nationy and not just barely survive. i think what is also really

important is self reflection and confronting our own biases. a lot of times we work for one issue but we might have biases against other people. we have to confront issues of anti-immigration and islamophobia, views that happen within the social justice work. the other part is understanding that every single issue has multilayers. about are talking environmental activists and you have to talk about poverty, racism, sexism, we talk about poverty and mental health and it is all these things so if we recognize that they are so multilayered we can come together on those and connect on those points. we cannot have those conversations until we confront the things getting in the way of us being able to communicate. >> fantastic words to end on. thank you for joining me.

>> [applause]

>> if you missed this conversation you can find it online at c-span.org. we take you live to new york city. a look outside trump tower and this is the fifth avenue sign. people have to pass through metal detectors on the sidewalk. photos andple taking tourists are passing by. we see two of his rivals for the presidential nomination arrived here this morning. carly fiorina took the elevator up with kellyanne conway and we also saw dr. ben carson who arrived 30 minutes after. we just heard from carly fiorina as she was leaving.

the scene outside trump tower.