working class. and new york times correspondent eric lipton talks about hacking6 campaign. youill take your calls, and can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. ♪ guest: good morning. it is the start of a holiday week. the president and first family of arriving and hawaii yesterday, spending christmas there. congress remains in recess until early january. tomorrow in state capitals around the country, the final step in the 2016 road to the white house. it will take place as a letters gathered to -- electors gather to make it official. the results will make mr. khan our 45th president.

the results will be affirmed tomorrow. we will take you to a number of state capitals. on the sunday we want to ask you about some efforts still underway. the washington post is calling it a last-ditch effort to stop donald trump with the electoral college meeting tomorrow. republicans (202) 748-8001. if you are a democrat (202) 748-8000. and for independents (202) 748-8002. send us a tweet @cspanwj. good sunday morning to you. this is what the headline looks like this morning. front page of the washington post. thet ditch bid to end vote." we will get your comments and just a moment. some electors want to know more about alleged ties between donald trump, his campaign, and vladimir putin.

in a letter to the director of national intelligence, here is an excerpt of what some are asking for. whether there are ongoing investigations into ties between donald trump, his campaign, or associates and russian interference in the election, the scope of those investigations and how far does investigations have reached. we further require a briefing on all of these investigative findings as these matters directly impact the core factors in our deliberations on whether mr. trump is fit to serve as president of the united states." president obama was asked about this on friday. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> i'm not going to wait into that issue because it is the american people's job, and now my elector's job to decide successor. it is not my job to decide my

successor. i provided people with a lot of happenedon about what during the course of the election, but more importantly the candidates themselves talked and theirr beliefs vision for america. i think hast-elect been very expose about what he cares about and believes in. -- explicit about what he cares about and believes in. it is not in my hands now. it is up to them. long with respect to the the electoralege, college is a vestige that is a visioner from an earlier of how our federal government was going to work.

it used to be that the senate was not elected directly. it is the same type of thinking that gets wyoming to senators with about half a million people in california with 32 million gets the same two. the comments from the president on friday. what about this effort are many who do not want to see donald trump elected, pushed primarily through the democrats who feel that they have been wrong with the campaign showing that the clinton won the popular vote. donald trump winning the electoral college. this is the headline from politico.com. the story on the electoral college vote as the electors demand an intelligence briefing

before tomorrow. let's go to amsterdam, ohio. caller: that is not going to work. that i believe that the electoral college, the purpose when it was created was that the states elected the president, and we did not have technology. the states put somebody on horseback and send them to washington, d c i think everybody is taking this out of context. the last-ditch efforts is all fake news. i hope c-span does not go there with that. this is fake news. there is no proof of it. i think everybody is taking the context, the purpose of the electoral college and not thinking about how it was then. we did not have technology. we barely had trains at this point. i don't think they had trains. thank you for the call --

host: thank you for the call. it is foolish and vain to stop donald trump. get over it. we are going to your comments on our facebook page. you can join in on facebook. let's go back to the language in the constitution. createde amendment that the electoral college vote. of memberse number of its congressional delegation, one for each member of the house and plus two senators. there are 538 electors. wired,ity of 270 is for 303.d trump getting let's go to south carolina. good morning. caller: thank you for taking michael. i disagree completely. -- taking my call. i disagree completely.

the electoral college is a great way to translate each individual state's impact within the union for size and population. it translates that wonderfully. if we did not have that, and it was entirely population driven, we would end up with something like the hunger games where we have three or four capitals controlling how the entire country runs. of hillaryhe dispute clinton getting more popular vote, you set up the rules before the race is run. if we were going to go with the popular vote, each one of them would have conducted their campaigns differently. you don't do a baseball series and then argue back and forth about to get the most runs but on the most games. you set things up initially. host: thank you for the call. "founding fathers did not trust

the people, hence the electoral college." the washington post is calling on fellow members of -- reports foreign interference in the campaign aimed to help donald trump. recent credible intelligence reports a concerted effort i a foreign power to interfere with the outcome of the election. "i believe the electors should be given all the information relevant before they cast their vote. steve is next. good morning. caller: good morning. i think the democrats are upset. wayow i am just the everything worked out with what is going on and all the stuff going on with wikileaks and the russian hacks.

that has a lot that factors into it that has people upset. had it been a normal election, people would have been able to accept it a lot better. that definitely factors into the situation. host: thank you for the call. the associated press reporting on the electoral college 101, 538 electors meeting tomorrow. the national popular vote does not matter. electoral votes are based on a state-by-state results. the u.s. holds 50 separate popular votes to determine the left world vote counts. in today's washington post, writing about the electoral college. two points this morning. elect -- demand the direct popular election of the resident should be advised that this is what we have and 51

jurisdictions, estate and washington, d.c. imagine the 1960 election under direct popular election. john f. kennedy's popular vote er richard nixon was just under 118,000. there would have been a powerful incentive to challenge the result in many of the nations precincts. he writes the following, the 48 elections since 1824 have produced 18 presidents who received less than 50% of the popular vote. 39.9%m lincoln received in 1860. on monday, when the electors cast their votes actually making donald trump president-elect, do not blame the excellent electoral vote system that was other aspectsmany

of the american system. from california, linda, the press line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have grave concerns about donald trump. on the electoral college issue whether that is good or bad. i think the popular vote speaks for itself. my biggest fear is that in looking at the cabinet choices, they are not representative of our population. the overall diversity. my biggest concern is his rhetoric. there is no discussion of the issues. it was all about things being terrific and wonderful, which does not have any substance to it. the hacking is definitely an issue and should be given major consideration.

what i really have concerns over his i think -- i think mr. trump has some form of dementia or alzheimer's because the repetitiveness that he speaks makes no sense to anybody. whatally did not tell us his vision of the united states was or will be other than this of strangehashing little words. you just cannot -- no substance. withr for this country someone like this. it is quite scary. it is very unfortunate. it is so unpresidential. we have had such wonderful presidents in the past who had our best interests at heart. we need that, and we miss president obama so much.

i hope the best for our country. linda, thank you very much. getting up early this morning. "if donald trump is denied the presidency, there will be riots not seen since the tulsa riots of the 1920's." shouldectoral college reflect the popular vote, not nullify it." fromis the actual tweet congressman john buyer who is look into congress to what he is going and interference in our elections. eric lipton of the new york times will be joining us in the final half hour this morning. this story from politico, "electors under siege."

we spoke to one of those electors yesterday. members of the electoral college will cast their votes on monday. in the meantime they are under siege, the nation's 538 residential electors have been pressed into the political foreground like never before in history. electors areymous squarely in the spotlight targeted by death threats and mail. of -- rains of hate imparted byhas been more than 200,000 females. caller: thank you. that the electors are thinking about doing something, do you mean the whole body? all of the electors are on board? host: what is happening is that

there is an effort by what is called the hamilton electors. the vast majority are democrats trying to stop the election of donald trump. there are a few, only a few republican electors threatening not to vote for donald trump. by all accounts not enough that would prevent him from being officially elected as a 45th president. caller: ok. i was curious about that. thank you. website, yous a can get more information. we talked to one of those hamilton electors from colorado last week. tomorrow beginning at 11:00 we will have live coverage so you can watch this process unfold. we will take you to springfield, illinois, richmond, virginia, ,enver, colorado, austin, texas and on our website c-span.org. oklahoma, republican line.

good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i just called to say c-span is just another -- trying to get people riled up. host: why do you say that? caller: it is a shame that you had those people on there like that guy yesterday. you had that same woman with the same old thing. you keep it going. you know they cannot stop them. it will go to the house of representatives, and he will still be president. i don't know why people just keep on and keep on. c-span and all the rest of them

are just trying to do their job for them. host: with all due respect, we are not trying to stop anything. we are a reflection of what is happening in this country. there is a debate going on. you heard from a democratic elector who says they are trying to change the system and a republican elector who is for donald trump. during the campaign we cover donald trump extensively as we covered hillary clinton. issay that we are a hack job really offensive. caller: why don't you just report the news? host: we are reporting the news. caller: that is not news. host: sure it is news. it absolutely is news. caller: it is just news that you want. host: what are we not reporting on that you want us to talk about? bonnie? did you hang up? we must have lost her call. if you call back, we will get you back on. let's go to bob in wisconsin. good morning.

caller: the problem is the electoral college should be declared unconstitutional. in a court case, the basis would be one person, one vote in the 14th amendment. because why should a small number of swing states get all of the vote? and two thirds of the population is left out of the decision essentially. that is the way it is. why should 80,000 votes be more important than 3 million votes in california? 80,000 from three states. that is unrepresentative of the national -- and when you leave it in the hands of the states, you have the corruption of the states, the suppression of the on inhat has been going many of these states where they

knock people off the voters list based on the same name but a different middle initial from somebody in some other state. this is a corrupt practice that should be stopped and looked into. when you have a national vote rather than a state-by-state vote, you get rid of small corruptions because whatever happens in one state is not going to determine the entire vote of the entire country it has never been closer than asnedy at 300,000 votes opposed to 80,000 votes deciding the election in this election. host: thank you for the call. republicans like the electoral college, it has given them a winner with less popular votes twice in 2000 and 2016."

so far the only republican elector to say that he will not vote for donald trump. he would need 36 other republican electors to deny donald trump the presidency. he joined us yesterday. here is part of the reasoning behind was he intends to do tomorrow in texas. [video clip] >> we cannot delay the vote. on vote will take place monday in today's. .hat is ok i wanted this information so i can better understand what may have happened. i wrote against voting for mr. trump four days before. my decision was made with other information. this would have been icing on the cake but not necessary. host: a republican elector who will not vote for donald trump. he joined us yesterday in a full interview on c-span.org. a last-ditch effort to stop

donald trump with the electoral college. your take on all this? caller: good morning. happy new year and happy holiday. my concern is not that donald trump is the president-elect but that some members of our country felt that mr. trump's reflectsls, that he the pulse and personality of our citizenship. we have had previous presidents, president harding, president lincoln who was a manic-depressive, president bush his mother said he was not the brightest bowl in the lamp. -- it also gave the small states -- the largest states not allowing them to over bear the small estates. the electoral college is the way our country has been, or presidents have been elected

over the past century. we even need to change the system or live with the system as it is and make it better. thank you. host: a couple of tweets. "not voting for donald trump send a shock wave through the bond market." interesting that the electoral college discussion is here, but if denton had one -- clinton had won crickets." urging the electoral college to block from on monday. sure on the electoral college disliked someone other than donald trump has grown dramatically in recent weeks, yielding little evidence that asald trump will fall short electors convene on monday to cast their votes."

tom is next. good morning. caller: good morning. i predicted the outcome of this race prior. i had it wrong. i thought the democrats would get the electoral votes, and donald trump would get the populist vote. it turned out just the opposite. but we do need this electoral people would be voting for the best cornerback star.lete or a movie whatever happened to be popular -- whoever happened to the popular would just be voted in. i thought the democrats would get the electoral vote was because obama had been giving all of these

people driver's licenses, and they had the motor voter thing when they gave you the driver's license, they automatically registered you to vote as a democrat. they have been trying to load certain areas with democrats. it is working, but it is just not working as fast as they would like it to. it really upset the apple cart this time or certain people. we need to keep that electoral vote in place to prevent a popular person from taking the country over. "the people need to realize that 47% of the electorate did not vote." the reason i prefer the electoral college is because it gives all the states essay, not just the largest urban

populations." "keep riling them up on washington journal, that is why we watch you, rabble-rousers on c-span." thank you. this is from senator al franken, from comedian to u.s. senator. story as als the franken prepares for the next four years. video on c-span.org with senator franken. -- caller: good morning. i would like to read a letter to the editor which i wrote about the electoral college that appeared in our local newspaper. the election of donald trump has intensified the movement to elect the president for the popular vote. here are two reasons this is a bad idea.

if the vote is close, and nationwide recount will be needed, amplifying the constitutional crisis of the 2000 bush-gore election by 50 fall. the proliferation of third parties like include -- increase possibility of the president being elected by low plurality. in 1968 and 1992, the winners only received 43% of the vote due to third-party candidates. more third-party participation could reduce this morality significantly -- plurality significantly. the electoral college was created to increase consensus in a republican form of government. ensure the president that the receive a majority vote. the alternative is a coalition government with weak political

parties. in1932, such a system germany enabled the not see party to gain power with only 37% of the vote. i just wanted to share that with everybody. host: thank you for the call. it is electoral college. going with this today and tomorrow. nbc news also reporting on one of those electors from hawaii joining that effort to get the intelligence report on russia. othersectors have joined in requesting information. in a statement last week, the democratic electors asking the president for the central intelligence agency report into those cyber attacks. those are democratic electors. in order for this to change in

any way, republican electors would have to switch. only one so far publicly. that is the one we had on yesterday from texas. good morning. caller: good morning. merry christmas. to show you how hypocritical the democrats are, if the republicans -- if we had done this and had people try to switch their electoral votes when obama first got elected, could you imagine the uproar? something -- sour grapes. they lost the election. they are grasping at straws and looking for anything to try to change the outcome. we should unite behind our new president-elect. nation.n exceptional where able to have these elections and come together. if you don't like it, regroup and try to win the next

election. that is what republicans have done. if we did this back in 2008, people would have been livid that we were trying to get people to switch their commitment to vote for obama after he won those particular states. i think it is hypocritical. host: thank you for the call. another person asking if we can dump any of the calls as soon as they say electorial instead of electoral. let's go to rick from maryland. good morning. democrat side. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: i'm fine. how are you? caller: pretty good. there are so many things i want to say. to stay on point, my thing is with the fiscal conservative republicans who every time they get power for like the past 40

years, the debt increases exponentially. poverty rate by the time they have left office has increased exponentially. this always occurs every time they have had their way and power. then you have the four points that you can probably use to clean up all the problems we have politically. quit gerrymandering districts when you have the power, be more reflective of your diverse areas. don't just pick and shoes the people you want to govern. go back to an original drawing of your district so you can actually govern for the whole instead of the people who think like you. take the money out of campaigning. the supreme court allowing all of this cast to be thrown into the electoral process is -- cash to be thrown into this process

is ridiculous. term limits for career politicians who stagnate and mess up the works because their ideas, they cannot let go and try to work with anybody. it used to be that you have the pork barrel projects. the pet projects in everybody's district where things got done. that has been illuminated is nobody can horse trade -- illuminated because nobody -- illuminated because nobody can horse trade anymore. there are so many problems. this would make things so much better. thank you. host: thank you. wendy is next on michigan. independent line. caller: hello. host: good morning, wendy. caller: i would like to point out that the supreme court has to examinerisdiction

whether or not the federal pennsylvaniang the and michigan recount was appropriate and constitutional. and also that there was hacking above republican national committee and the democratic national committee, and one wonders what they did with the republicans. it would have been useful for them to know who died since the last election. have as donaldld trump pointed out voted in that election. host: wendy from michigan. thank you for that call. piece writes, "american presidential elections are

generally orderly affairs. people vote and life goes on. yet the whole thing is controlled by a cabal of elites who actually picked the commander-in-chief and to theoretically have the power to stop donald trump from becoming america's president>" founders prefer the electoral college to the alternatives. debbie is joining us from north carolina. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. this is debbie. you need to leave donald trump alone. he won. we had to put up with presidents we did not like. you all think you are going to put hillary and. people voted for donald trump. we like donald trump. that is that. those people sitting there and fooling around is making people

who voted for trump there he upset. leave them alone. put our president in. that is to -- we wanted. they need to quit whining. host: thank you. anthony saying "unite behind our president-elect just like we did behind barack obama, two-faced republicans." [video clip] structures inome our political system as thationed by the founders sometimes are going to disadvantaged democrats, but the truth of the matter is if we have a strong message and are speaking to what the american thele care about, typically popular vote and the electoral

.ollege will align i guess part of my overall message here as i leave for the if we look for what explanation or one silver bullet or one easy fix for our politics, then we're probably going to be disappointed. there are just a lot of factors in what has happened, not just over the last few months, but over the last few decades that has made of politics and governance more challenging. raised everybody has legitimate questions and legitimate concerns. i hope we all take some time and take a breath.

that is what i'm going to advise democrats. reflect a little more about how -- how can we get to a place where people are focused on working together based on at least some common set of facts. how can we have a conversation about policy that does not demonize each other. what i thinkannel is the basic decency and goodness of the american people so it reflects itself in our politics as opposed to it being thatlarized and so nasty in some cases you have voters and elected officials who have

more confidence and faith in a foreign adversary than they had in their neighbors. host: the president on friday asked by a reporter about the electoral college votes. today's washington post looking at the obama legacy, the personalized presidency. obama constantly invoking his life story to justify his politics and policy. it only got him so far. that is the piece this morning. "republicans have a president-elect that has been brought to you by the kremlin. how can you live with yourselves?" college designed to prevent this sort of presidency because donald trump will destroy the world." state capitals around the country tomorrow. debbie, good morning.

caller: good morning. since not talked to you 2005. mexico beach is in the united states. it is in florida. host: why so long for you to call back? caller: i have been calling, but i have been getting pedro and everybody else. i have not been getting you. host: my lucky day. thank you. caller: i do not refer to u.s. squarely eyes. squa know -- you as irley eyes. so you know i have been listening to you. we need to abolish corporate funding of elections. this is why people don't trust our government. we had the best government donors can buy. bernie sanders and

donald trump took the attention of the american people. they had it not of the global trade and donors funding our campaigns. about that caller who called in and said they as soon as someone orial instead of electoral, i would not even read tweets like that. if someone calls in, you need to listen to them. our democratic party bosses are our own worst enemies just like ryan said,an tim when will democrats stop lecturing to workers who have lost millions -- over 4 million people have lost their jobs from outsourcing. democrats keep lecturing them telling them they just need retraining. that is why we lose elections. we are so arrogant. one must think is the problem we have with the popular vote.

we know for a fact that we're letting people who buy three packs, meaning counterfeit driver's license and social security cards, they are not citizens of our countries, they are able to vote. these corporations want undocumented workers who work for slave wages and our country. that is what we have to do. we have to get true public financing of our elections. the other thing i called for is the popular book. kratz need to ask for it in between. not when they lose. they defend the electoral college until they lose. that makes us look bad. we have got to stop doing that. we are americans first. we have to move on so we can get a democratic president next time. thank you. host: thank you for the call. a lot of you weighing in from our facebook page.

a couple of comments. "it is time to sit down and shut up. the american people have voted. donald trump is this country's 45th president. riots, no more death threats, no more russian lies. it is time for you to either stand with our president or leave." "the people have spoken. we want from. why should you have the final say? what is the point of voting if you idiots change it." emember that the right to petition the electoral college from keeping present barack obama, no? me neither." democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning.

i just had a couple of comments. i explained to my 16-year-old won hillary -- why hillary the popular vote. she said that she believes as most kids in her high school do that donald trump bought this election. i think we are in a scary place. importantly, the premise that these willfully ignorant people voted for john aced on his constant rhetoric -- trump based on his constant rhetoric that only he could do this, which was to disrupt the illegitimacy and horrible, horrible -- i am blanking on the word.

host:host: i am sorry. we all have those moments. caller: it is a matter of trying to break up all the money issues. yes. that if these willfully ignorant people looked at who he has put in his cabinet up to this point, they are all the worst of the worst. i hope the electoral people that will be voting will see that -- i want to use the word conspiracy. hope the electoral people this week will really consider for going toon was run for president was to break and parties in

washington, and all the people that he has put in, two people in his cabinet from goldman sachs. a man that is going to run or going to be secretary of state who runs exxon. personal friends, very good friends with vladimir putin. really need to look at what he was stating well he was running and what he has done so far. god help us because this country will never be the same again. host: thank you for the comment. i will pull up something from mitt romney. let me share you from the new york times. the look at google is the cover story. the weekly standard, credibility counts no matter what obama and his minions say. and from national review, the case for a national productivity

steady -- strategy. electoral stunt should stop. i like donald trump's team." good morning, republican line. caller: good morning. i am from mississippi. know thatlet people if not donald trump, who would it be? the same four more years of barack obama and michelle obama? they need to go and look at carryselves, their lives, on with their lives. so does hillary clinton. i am trying to understand why the electoral voters would change of vote -- a vote.

we are trying to keep america alive. we are trying to keep america together. we are trying to get jobs back in america. trump can do no better than what he has done by appointing the people that he is appointed to his office. that -- thank god that the people who have been with mr. trump have stood by him. caller: -- host: johnny from mississippi. republican caller. your comments. mitt romney writing a letter to the editor. "i was surprised but willing to serve. not astical journey was bizarre as the 2016 campaign. i was very critical of donald trump during his campaign. now he has been elected

president, and if i could have helped shape foreign policy to protect the country i love, i would have been more than willing to do so. i was more than a little surprised that the president-elect reached out to me to potentially serve as secretary of state. i see it as a welcome sign that he will be open to alternative views and even critics." that is from mitt romney. coming up will talk about the role of media and what to expect in a trap -- trump administration. david chavern will be here from the news media alliance. we will kick off a series of authors. j.d. vance is the author of the best-selling new york times and ourillbilly elegy" guest today is the chair of the house ways and means committee

talking about how the gop has a plan to lower the tax rate and how he believes that will help american businesses and jobs. one of our goals, and we have designed this to breakeven within the budget, counting on economic growth, solid economic growth going forward. that is where we're at today. lower rates, to make changes, elected trade-off. you have to pull your punches on something else. we are weighing that with the tax reform effort. having great discussions with the trump team. businessave the lowest rates in modern history so our businesses can compete anywhere in the world, but especially here at home. >> the way you are trying to do this is through what you go order adjustment.

as you know, businesses are trying to wrap their heads around this. , oilave big retailers refineries, importers who are really concerned about this proposal. how are you trying to calm them down, switch their concerns? >> i think we have made a strong case that for america, we need to change the way we tax. them the price advantage of ross in america. -- we don't,off sending our products around the world. we lose both in america and around the world. i cannot stand. this is the key part of our tax code. it is going to stay. code taxes tax

everyone differently, so we want to listen to and find solutions with those who rely on imported goods coming into america. exports areorts and important for the economy. we will insist that they be taxed equally in america. we hope you tune in for c-span's newsmakers this week. joining us is kevin brady. that airs on c-span and c-span radio and at c-span.org. we want to welcome david chavern, resident and ceo of the news media alliance. good morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: we want to begin with the story from new jersey. "dubious headline,

legislation gets the high-speed treatment." chris christie of new jersey has made no secret of his disdain for the news media. when legislation to hurt the news media, fingers pointed to the governor's office. guest: what is happening there is called public notice requirements. there are a number of things like real estate deals, bankruptcies, there is government activities that are -- various government activities that are required to be posted. the governor is not a fan. they are going to stop these public notice comments. making a lot of economic arguments about how newspapers get a windfall from this. a much bigger issue is public notice.

do we want to notify the public of important government activities? i think this is a bad bill, and it is designed to really hurt newspapers and the public and informing the public. host: an editorial saying that tomorrow is a big day for the democratic leadership in news or -- new jersey. what is their link and all of this? guest: i am not sure i want to whateverclassifying deal they are working on other than to tell you that this bill in new jersey is designed to hurt the news media and to limit public notice. it is a bad idea. anytime this comes up, people ,ho do not like the news media

it is not a gift to news media. it is about notifying the public of important things. this is an attack on people's right to know. that these public statements that are published in newspapers that account for about $70 million a year in newspaper revenue. it is a significant economic issue for newspapers. if you take this away, you are heading local newspapers -- hitting local newspapers that people rely on in their communities. i will not shy away from the fact that it is a way to economically attack newspapers. we always forget about public notice. there is issues about whether we want the public to know about important government actions. buried on the third page of some government website is no way to notify the public. host: do you think this is

vengeance by governor christie? caller: i -- guest: i don't know. i think the way has been described to the public as it saving money to the taxpayers without there being any evidence that there is a long history of animosity between the government and the press on in the motives. host: let's talk about that is. how did this come about? -- let's talk about fake news. guest: the way people consume news, online and on facebook makes it easy for people to create and disseminate fake news. the way people get fake news stories often looks exactly like the way to get there real news stories. that has become a growing problem. in this last election we had a number of circumstances where you that people overseas, a lot

of coverage on macedonian teenagers creating fake news and paying for it to be promoted on various technology platforms, and misinforming the public. we have to understand that this is not just another point in history where there are people lying. there are people creating fake news and distributing it to the public in ways that have never been seen before. we need to address that. host: what percent of the american people who see thickness believe it -- fake news believe it? guest: 75%. seerstand that when you something come through your facebook feed, it looks just real real news. it looks like a regular news is.

piece. facebook is trying to address that. they had added tools for people to highlight fake news. the reality is it is hard for people to tell what is real and what is fake. going to have your comments on what newt gingrich said in just a moment here a lot of what has been talked about. from your vantage point, is the media there are unfair to donald unfair tofair or donald trump? guest: i think it was very fair. there are always complaints about the media. look at what the washington post it, the new york times, in terms of uncovering actual facts about both candidates. there was extraordinarily good

reporting this cycle. , on someof fairness level i'm not sure what that means except for the fact that the guy won. they could not have been that unfair. the event we covered at the heritage foundation last week here in washington. [video clip] >> because you are drawing media coverage, your rallies on television are live for free. the night of the florida primary . trump wine,g donald water, steak. he is doing two things. this is the point where mitt romney is at his nastiest, suggesting donald trump is not a real business and even though --

man even though he is worth about 50 times as much as mitt. he was also testing the networks . hillary starts to speak. i have never seen this in american history. hillary starts to speak, but not a single network covers are -- her. they understand everyone will leave. they want to see what donald trump is going to bring on. is he going to get a camel? what is he going to do next? host: your reaction? guest: it is entertaining. it highlights that donald trump was a next ordinary in different kind of candidate for the press to cover. we have new technology, 24 hour news cycles, twitter, facebook. uphave somebody who came

through the media as a celebrity. that was his background in the media as a presidential candidate. i think it was hard for the press to make choices. i think president-elect trump is extraordinary a using new media get his message out -- at using new media to get his message out. i think the media was fair to him. they tried their best to cover a very near, their difficult kind of presidential election. host: this is a statement from mark zuckerberg, the head of facebook. "we have a responsibility to make sure that facebook is the greatest positive impact on the world. this update is one of many steps forward. facebook is a new kind of platform, different him anything before. i recognize we had a greater

responsibility than just building technology that information flows ability than g technology information flows through. while we don't like the news stories you read and share, we also recognize we are more than just a distributor of news. what about the impact on people who see it? guest: facebook has made the argument they are just a neutral platform, they are just a marketplace of ideas that is not entirely true. they make a lot of ideas about what gets listed in the feed and what does not cure it we certainly do not want them censoring. i want facebook decided what should not be shared. but there is a lot of gray area in terms of ulf highlighting for people when something is clearly also not advertising

those who provide fake news to not have it uplifted in the the. i think another thing they can do is take acknowledged, reputable news organizations, and give things that come from those organizations an uplift in the feed, but i think facebook has made a good start here. critiche next tweet is a of fake news, from john, who says please ask your guest about the benghazi video or the "you can keep your doctor" for fake news. caller: guest: you know what i know is fake news? trump."dorses

let's start there. can we start with what is clearly false and identify it as such and not give it room to grow on tech platforms? they needed to areas of real debate, and we should have real debate for these issues. you cannot let these definitional problem say no, we can decide anything. you cannot get tripped up. "the media was more than fair. they gave him all the free air he could want and then some." another -- the left just cannot liart they ran a terrible, of a candidate with zero credibility and 40 closets full of skeletons. unbalanced, when you look back at it, the media -- which is a lot of things, by

the way, cable tv, newspapers. balance, they got the facts out. whatever candidate you did not like, every bad thing you know about the person you do not like came through the news media, ok? trump's treatment of women, trump in russia, clinton benghazi, clinton emails, all of that information came to you from the news media. so in balance, yeah, i think i did a pretty good job getting things out there. host: explain the economic component of fake news. the people creating these stories, what is their benefit? guest: they create the story so they can sell advertising around of your they get advertising money. they have also come in some circumstances, pay facebook to the readership. that is not a big dollar number for facebook. i do not really attribute a lot

of economic incentive to facebook to having fake news, that what i do know is that the purveyors of fake news make money, and sometimes a lot of money, through advertising. host: another tweet from jen. let's stop calling it fake news -- this is propaganda, plaintiff plain and simple. guest: propaganda has a political slant. these people are creating anything to get you to click on it because they have an economic incentive to get you to click on it. politicallthere are y-oriented fake news, but at the inn of the day, we can identify what we can expose to the public as real news and identify the lies so people know what is real news. host: president obama did say if you like your health care plan, your doctor, you can keep it.

that turned out not to be the case. that is not fake news because the president said it, your reporting what he said as opposed to "the pope endorses donald trump." yeah, the president probably believed it at the time. he was wrong. being wrong does not make it fake news, ok? we can get into this debate about president-elect trump and some of between sea has put out , --t how active they are some of the tweets he has put out about how active they are, but that is reporting with the president-elect said. host: a graduate of the university of pittsburg, he also studied at georgetown university, david chavern is the president and ceo of the news media alliance, a change in the name from the newspaper association -- guest: newspaper is a great, wonderful, historic term.

it was not enough to accomplish what the industry is, which is yes, print, but they'll do , theyl businesses, events have a range of businesses around creating wonderful, original news content. it is called "click bait," you click on the fake news, and the originator its paid every time you do it. guest: that is true. some of it may have a political end, but a lot of it is economic. host: jim from south carolina on the republican line. good morning. welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning. how are you? host: we are fine, thank you. caller: i want to go back to the point of the newspaper regulation. as complicated as it is and as hard as it is to understand it because we are not in industry, i must say overregulation is

happening in every industry, and it is written by executive orders or unnamed bureaucrats that we do not even know. it is interesting to see an backsry that typically democrats and backs them for office and everything, and now you are getting hit with the regulation that really goes against what you know is the best thing for your industry, and for freedom of the press as a whole. it is ironic, and i feel like saying, "hey, wake up to the party, pal." it is happening. it is sort of the backfire to why trump got elected. ahate to paint it with such broad strokes, but it is partially true. host: thank you for the call. guest: i would push back against the idea that we mostly support democrats. people in texas or arizona or utah, have you spoken with them about their editorial stance? regulation of business is an

issue everywhere. this is actually not a regulatory challenge. pre-existing, long-standing role not only in new jersey but in all the states that government has to require notice to the public in the media about important things, like local real estate developments, like law issuances. it changes a little bit from state to state, but these are of public importance, public interest, and there have been legislative requirements that the government post that in the media. whether they want to do new jersey and say no, you cannot post that in the media, we will put that on a local website, and that will be fine. that is not fine. that is a bad idea. host: next is dolores joining us from tennessee, democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning to both of you. guest: good morning. caller: i would like to hear more reporting on the indian situation up there with the

pipeline coming through their sacred lands. i believe that it is wrong. and another thing about the water up in flint, i want to hear news like that. the fake news, just break it down. thing, about benghazi, why don't they put out there that she asked for help from the congress? they denied the security. i want to hear more about that. i am sick and tired of them saying, "she let them people die." no, she did not. the congress is to get help when they needed. thank you. host: two i. guest: -- host: thank you. guest: there is an easy assumption that people have a short attention span, but when you ask them what they really value, what they really get out of a newspaper, it is big,

investigative reporting, investigating like what happened in flint or with the pipeline in north dakota. it is in-depth, complex telling the story of what is going on in ways the people do not get otherwise. so i will agree with you that i think the media needs to do more big, complex, investigative reporting not only because it is important to democracy but because that is what matters. host: i look at the gossip the checkout. that is the original click bait. caughtwe cannot get to up in the idea that fake news is new or that click bait is new. the medium for these things is new, right? a lot of folks have been in the for-fake news business couple of years. they are pretty good at it. but the reality is fake news is not delivered you now by your

crazy uncle -- it is delivered to you in the exact same format as your real news, and that gets confusing to people. tht: from thehell.com. -- ehill.com. the piece points out a couple of things that the president-elect briefingking the daily , and changes if any on who the white house presso w=e secretary will be. it is a small room, literally above the pool, used by president roosevelt through johnson, next and turns that room into a briefing room, ironically enough, and it was during a briefing room the reagan administration as well. some changes potentially down the road. guest: a couple of things for concern. mr. primus has announced that there will certainly be changes, but he has not said a that but what, so that is an area for concern.

also, we really don't understand why. this system developed over a lot of years for a lot of valid reasons and basically works, so why do they feel a compelling need to change how the briefings are done or where people sit is certainly confusing, and you thely wonder -- one, does public really care about where reporters sit? is it really in the public interest to be messing with a system that actually works pretty well? int: let's go to ann florida, with david chavern of the news media alliance. good morning. ander: good morning to you merry christmas. i just want to ask you, the trump campaign this year, my husband and i looked at the cost of the media of our home during we have no bundle. we pay frontier, and we have to do our dish because we do not

bundle the landline, phone, computer things together. their are now getting news on the computer, like my husband at 4:00 the morning. we are in our 60's, just about. we sat down, we added up the cost of what it caused our household to keep these things going. quite incredible. i mean, it is probably around $280 a month in our home to continue this. are looking at is, "why don't you drop that, why don't you go to this one source?" that is one thing. the second thing is, those costs are going to go up according to what i've heard. and the coverage that the white house gives to the people in the media, i am not really sure we are getting all of the fake news out or the current truths from the white house, and i think a

timeline for releasing some of his news would be better for the public. i think we have to terror down. i is just overwhelming -- think we have to tear it down. it is just overwhelming. guest: thank you. i do not think the costs are related to your news consumption. people get a lot of media, entertainment, news, but if you look at the cost of digital or print newspaper subscription or services, they are usually quite reasonable and really important. actually, i think i high value because you want to stay informed. i have to disagree with you, i am sorry, on terms of the timing of the release of things. i think we have gotten to a point where everything is immediate, right? with thatare problems in a sense that sometimes you do

not get a lot of context or , soework for understanding things will continue to speed up. sometimes you want somebody to explain what just happened. host: linda me get the reaction to michael greenbaum, you can mes.com, "ifyti trump tweets it, is it news?" host: trump hints that he might ban flag burning, all in 140 characters or less. donald trump's twitter account, a bullet hope it, -- bully pulpit, propaganda mountain all

in one. guest: yeah, i think this is an evolving issue for newsrooms. first of all, you have a presidential candidate, let alone presidential elect, actually tweeting, was probably news for a while. it very fact of the act of on some level was news and created coverage. when very rarely did they say something publicly, yes, anything a president assad was news, but -- a president said was news, but certainly all the things you talked about, relations with china could i want to know when he is tweeting about relations with china. i'm not sure all of them will be newsworthy. that is something the media needs to wrestle with and to

arermine, ok, now that we used to him doing it, which once really are news, and which ones are not. host: we want to welcome our listeners on season radio and this program carried every sunday on 124. if you are listening on radio, our conversation with david chavern, the president and ceo of the news media alliance. let's give our audience a quick summary of what you do and where your money comes from. the chair of the organization for news media, 2000 newspapers. when i say news media, that is print, digital, every other aspect of what a newspaper is these days. i am here until the story of the news business, to advocate for policies that are important for not only business but also freedom of the press and s to information and to develop research that describes how people consume news, what they value, and what

is important for the growth of the industry. host: john from nevada, republican line. thank you for waiting. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. he madeion to dave is, a comment earlier that there is good media reporting in this my age, cycle, and at i have seen quite a few election cycles. in this cycle, i could not tell the difference between fake becaused real media for are so slanted and bias the extreme left-wing progressive that i could not tell them apart. case in point, a gentleman in san francisco said that donald trump would like to see another 9/11 so that he could gain popularity. reporter is not

good reporting. our media has gotten so slanted leftias toward the extreme that it is out of control, so i do not understand that statement that you made that this is good election cycle. could you please expand on that for me? guest: sure. first of all, you're talking above the media over large, which is a lot of different things. but if you want to look at where the actual facts the people were wrestling with in this election, again, you might not agree with "newditorial stance of the york times" or the "washington post," bulk of the political reporting. it was unbelievable. from boththat came sides, look at where the fact came from. there has been incredible reporting this new cycle.

and yes, there are many media sites where the opinions and the news reporting get meshed up too much together, and everybody always thinks of the media is dominated by the people they disagree with, right? some people think it is to left, so they go to breitbart and other places. others say it is too easy on trump. all i will tell you is to agree disagree with, whatever candidate you did not like, figure out where the information came from, and i'm telling you, if you take it all the way back, it came from reporters at legitimate, responsible news organizations creating real news that the rest of the media cycle consumed. host: a tweets -- i can imagine what a trump press or what sound like -- presser would sound breitbart," "and

from infowars." guest: it will be new, it will be different. that could be good. it might not be good. we are all interested in finding out. but everybody has to understand, now more than ever, agree with what happened, agree with what did not happen, but what we need now more than ever are great reporters of facts. so everything that we can do collectively to make sure that there are reporters who can get access and report on facts, we should do. host: ann is next from powder springs, georgia. the morning come on the democrats line, with david chavern of the news media alliance. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: very good. caller: we are getting interesting calls. i have several topics in mind. i would like to say something about the type of news that has

been put out there, like, for example, people do not seem to recognize satire is being satire. looking lot of people at satire, and they repeated as a real story. i think the press itself needs to identify their stuff more, if you know what i mean. commentary, is it the who, real when, why, and how of news, or is it someone's opinion of real news? the other issue i was interested in was the whole issue of trump and the idea of what his presidency is going to do to the press, and you have mentioned that a little bit already. and about the tweets and this, the fact that news is so fast, i agree with you. think the media is too fast.

i think they are reporting on news before they have all the facts. and they are not giving the whole story because it is coming out so quickly. sometimes, it has to be revised. page,ws is on the front so you do not get the equivalency of the worst of something in that way. let's see, there was something else. host: ann, let me stop you because there is a lot to unpack from what you put on the table. let me give the guest a chance to respond. caller: banning some of the press members from listening to his pressers. host: thank you, ann. guest: first of all, banning press organizations is a bad idea in every way. it is bad for the public, it is ultimately really bad for the candidate, and it is totally counterproductive.

also, i very much agree that sometimes the media has to a better job of labeling. this is opinion, this is news. particularly, you see on cable tv sometimes there is not sufficient labeling. it is something newspapers tend to do pretty well, so i think that is important. the point about satire. know, one organization that is not fake news but is wonderful satire is "the onion." i am a big favor fan of "the onion." they are not presenting facts but satire on the world around us. it is labeled pretty well. you know what "the onion" is. i think labels are important, and i do try to emphasize that when i talk about the media. that sound was my ipad. i apologize. [laughter] this i want to share

tweet, "bring back the days of walter cronkite. people could trust the news back then. straightforward reporting, not bs." cronkite-era,ter i am old enough to remember all of that, but also understand there are pretty narrow places you got the news. when i was growing up in thesburgh, the news was "pittsburgh press" on the driveway, and what was on the front news day-to-day. that was "the news." my parents did not have an excess to the "wall street journal," the "new york times." need to embrace the wonder of all the information that we have. people need to consume more news than ever are multiple because

they can, and there is a wonder and tremendous value to that. what we're trying to figure out is the border between now you can consume all this information, that is great, but what happens when it is fake or or opinion parading as fact? let's figure that out. i remain excited about the fact that we have access to lots of wonderful news. host: let's go to nancy in north carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, steve, and to what for taking my call. -- thank you for taking my call. good morning, david. that lady from georgia stole my thunder because i was right along with her. i worry about donald trump suppressing the news. he does not want to take these white house interviews, etc., like other presidents in the past half because he is not a iod enough answer for them --

think that is what he is going to do it. i worked for many newspapers. i've read between the lines. i do not take everything as truth. i like to check out facts before i form my own opinion. but this is for you, steve. i have been waiting forever to get a hold of you. host: uh-oh. is it going to be good? i don't know. [laughter] caller: last year, before thanksgiving, you had the white house brothers on. -- was an in the award- emmy award-worthy show. hopefully now that the holidays are going to be overcome you can have them back on. they are north kore carolinians, and maybe mama woodhouse would be on and let us know her opinion, and that would be another. i would be laughing for at least another year. host: nothing can match that

moment. what is unique about that moment is it was totally impromptu, we did not call her in advance. she called on her own. thanksned us after giving, before christmas, and i was actually two years ago when she joined us. we have actually invited them to come back on. they have an open invitation. there have been a couple of stories written about them as well. thank you for the call. guest: we all have moms, right? we all have families, we know what it is like to be at things giving dinner with lots of points of view. guest: i hope my family is not going to call up today. [laughter] host: nancy, thank you for calling. caller: happy holidays. host: you, too. merry christmas. guest: i think we have a long-term and concerning trend

of president being remote from the press, making themselves less and less available to the press. certainly if you look at everything from the canad kenney era down, there has been a gradual decrease that presidents will make themselves available to the press. that is very concerning. host: the huffington post wrote about this last month. donald trump went to dinner on his own without the white house press corps, the press for following him. the trump campaign saying that will not happen again. why is it important for the press pool to be with the president whether he is playing golf at a beach in hawaii or having dinner? guest: because you never know. he is never off the job. the best example was -- there was a press pool with president george w. bush when he was reading stories to kids in an elementary school, you know, and got the most thrilling piece of

news content that day -- was that the most thrilling piece of news content that day? no. contactis chief whispered into his era by the fact of 9/11. you never know when some incredibly important in the world is going to happen, and the press needs to be there to be public's representative when things like this occur. david chavern is the head of the news media alliance, based here in the washington, d.c. area. thanks for stopping by. stop by anytime. guest: take care. host: when we come back, we will turn our attention to one of the "new york times's" best-selling books. jd vance is here at the table, he is the author of "hillbilly elegy," and later, eric lipton of the "new york times," talking about cyber in the clinton election. first, we travel to scott still,

arizona as they explore the history and literary life of that community, including the winter home in studios of architect frank lloyd wright. this is really an example of how to live in the desert southwest. this was used at the laboratory. to create aorking new kind of architecture for america. he was worn in 1867, died in era, so he lived in an of great development and change. when he was born, america was a very young nation. he wanted to create an architecture specific way america, open and free, reflect our democracy. so this is an open-planned

example of how we can create this new architecture for america. he uses it as an example of what american architecture can be and how it can relate to a landscape. host: our local content vehicles the,ling to discuss arizona, he can take it out on c-span3, online anytime at c-span.org/citiestour. we hope you tune in. you are watching and listening "o c-span's "washington journal this morning. we are back in a moment during t. 1, a live january discuss some of the presidency of barack obama. we're taking your phone calls and suites. and tweets. ryan, authorapril

of "presidency in black and white," and pulitzer prize winning journalist david marinus , author of "barack obama: the story." that is on c-span two. "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome jd vance, the author of "hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis." good sunday morning. thank you for being with us. guest: good morning. host: i want to start with the beginning of the book, "my name is jd vance, and i want to start with a confession. " host: let us begin at that point. why the book? guest: i thought i could add

some useful to the conversation of we are having in the country, and why poor kids were able to achieve the american dream. my idea was to not make the book just about a big abstract sociological argument but to make it personally about my life. tosome ways, is a bit absurd write a book about yourself when you're only 31 years old -- i am 32 now, but hopefully i have added something. book, youeading the say your family life was, to say the least, complicated. guest: it definitely was, and that is in some ways what the book is about. my grandparents grew up in pretty tough circumstances in eastern kentucky who immigrated in some ways to ohio where they found better work and better jobs, and of course as i write about it in the book, their life in certainmplicated

ways for her even though they achieved some financial stability early in life, that started to fade away later in life. there was a crisis, the breakdown of the family, the crisis that i write about in the book was very much a part of my life and my family for the life. host: both the "washington post" and others writing about the orphan heroin overdose crisis, especially in rural america. guest: that is right. it is astonishing that ohio leads the nation in overdose deaths. it is not california, texas, it is ohio. ohio, west in virginia, or eastern kentucky, a lot of these areas, it really is in some ways the thing that people talk about and think about. almost no one is untouched by this open your epidemic, whether it is a family member or friend. host: why do you think your book became a "new york times" bestseller? guest: that is a good question.

i think part of it is obviously this is a group of people, white working-class americans in the rust belt, ohio, michigan, pennsylvania, and so forth, they deliver the presidency to the donald trump. and because of that, folks were asking a love question about who is this group of people, what do they think, what are they like, and hopefully my book sheds a light on that. i'm hopeful the book became successful because it is compelling, because some of the arguments i make are compelling, but i know part of it is because it is timely. host: jd vance is an author here on c-span's "washington journal" as we kick off a series with some of the authors we have featured on c-span's "q&a" program and c-span's booktv. "new republic," responding to the book and its impact on the country, writing the following. rise of donald trump, it has been a rosetta stone for blue america to interpret that

most mysterious of species -- the economically precarious white voter." your reaction. guest: that is definitely how the media has reacted to the that, of i don't fight course, because i do think it is important for us to try to understand who the voters are that went for donald trump. aam a republican but not republican who voted for donald trump, so i think it is important for all of us who were wholindsided by this guy came and won the presidency, who are these people, what animates their political choices? maybe if we ask better questions about who these people are, we will have better answers . host: let's talk about middletown, ohio. "today,the following -- downtown middletown, ohio is a little more than a relic of american industrial glory, abandoned shops with broken

, where lining downtown central avenue and main street meat. if you need a payday lender or a downtownstore, then middletown is the place to be." since the book has, come a lot of stores have reopened in downtown middletown, so it is recovering from the recession in you see ays during lot of close down shops if you go through downtown middletown, and that is one of the underappreciated things about the trump election. talk about economic and anxiety, rachel anxiety, what is a lotting the voters, but of businesses are not operating, negative the worry about the place you are living in, and that worry expresses itself. host: as christmas approaches, and you write the following, "i

grew up in a world where everyone worried about how they would pay for christmas, and now for theities abound wealthy and privileged to shower their generosity on the community's poor." guest: that is something bizarre about my life, especially around the holidays, because when we grew up, especially when we were kids, we always worried about how we would have a nice christmas, how our parents and grandparents would put nice gifts under the christmas tree. i am a so weird now is lawyer now come i work as an investor in silicon valley, there are all these programs were people divide christmas gifts for our nation's poor, and i think the programs are really good, but coming where i came from, it is an interesting juxtaposition that you have gone from worrying about how to provide for christmas to thinking about a different way that is a worry itself. host: this captures the essence, i think, of your book. "hillbilly culture at the time, and maybe now, blended a robust

sense of honor, devotion to family, and bizarre sexism into a sometimes explosive mix." one of the things i write about is that my grandma, after she moved from eastern kentucky to southern ohio, in some ways found herself in a very difficult position because she ,as a very independent woman but she was expected to live a certain lifestyle that was 1960's womano a who lived in basically middle-class circumstances. the problem is my grandma has a very acute sense of loyalty, but many of the men in her life, including unfortunately my grandfather, he was not as loyal to her as he should have been cured and i think the loyalty that mamaw expressed, that is what i called my grandma, but the loyalty with sexism was certainly a combustible mixture. host: you devoted the book to

your grandparents. how may times was your mom married? guest: she has been married five times. host: how did that affect you growing up? guest: i think it affected me in a way that life was always unstable. you always expected the next year, the next month may bring a new person into your life, it may bring a new home into your life, so our early childhood -- we moved around a fair amount, we do not more than a year, maybe two years in a home at any period in my lifetime, until i moved in with my grandparents. it was just very unstable and very chaotic. host: how did you go from almost failing out of high school to yell law school? guest: well, my grandma gets a lot of credit for that. when i was in high school, i moved in with my grandma, and i became her sort of war she saidd. -- ward. she said, "look, you are going

to shape up," and she was hard on me, my great started to improve, my confidence improved, and i started to make improvements that led to the opportunities i have today. i joined the marine corps, that allowed me to go to school, that gave me more confidence, i went to college, it is sort of built on itself. when you have little successes in life, that as i wrote about in the book, really enable you. host: before you got to that point, what were some of the bad choices? well, i started to get involved in trucks pretty early, 12 or 13 was the first time -- drugs pretty early, 12 or 13 was the first time i smoked pot. social influences a critical part of growing up well in doing the right thing. but most of all, i just did not have a lot of faith in myself that if i made the right choices, if i did the right thing, then that would ever produce any good outcome. i was pretty hopeless about

whether i would be able to control my own destiny, and because of it, i gave up on my cell, even as an adolescent. ,"st: you wrote the following --iction and roque and homes "in a part of the country slammed by the decline of manufacturing, joblessness, addiction and broke homes, churches tenant has fallen off." guest: it is a way that people self identify, so when you call people and ask them, how they identify, as religious or not, they call themselves evangelical christians, but among lower income communities, the church great has fallen off, so increasingly in these areas of the country, people still go to church, but it is increasingly the middle-class and upper-class people who are going to church services. that has pretty negative consequences. thatnow from the data church attendance actually

produces some pretty positive consequences. host: the book, "hillbilly elegy : a memoir of a family and culture in crisis," our guess is jd vance. amy is joining us from georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. recently, npr has put on a serious of the resurgence -- and they have been interviewing some men that have one suffering from it, and man said if he got better, he would go right back into the coal mine and do that job. i have been listening to you over the are talking about your i don't understand the thinking of people who do not seem to act in their own best interest. what good is a job if that job kills you? what good is voting for someone who does not truly see you but

can manipulate you? what is the thinking? how does someone get to the they where consistently will act against their own best interest? host: amy, thank you. guest: the question about why would people still be interested in working a job that is obvious the very dangerous to them -- i think to answer that question, you really have to understand the spiritual, the almost spiritual impact of coal on some of these communities. if you go to the west virginia state house else i there is a monument to a coal miner. if you talk to people who have to people who have been a coal miner, they talk about coal as something that won world war ii, that powers and energize the american economy, which of course it did back when cole was the main fuel source that america relied on. when people say they are willing

even back in the mine, when it is obviously dangerous, people are willing to do something that they feel is dignified, hard work, not just that paid a good wage but make them proud about what they are doing. i don't think we should discount that when we think about how we get the american economy working for a lot of these folks, the role of something dignified, that you are proud of, how much of a factor that is. your story is getting a lot of action and activity on our twitter page. do you tweet? i do guest: -- guest: i do. mom --nce we saying his momtweet saying, his married five times? he turned out well. another said great personal story. usmc shapedd the

him," and another, "good thing grandma did not coddle him." guest: i think she really recognize and was perceptive about what some of us needed, and what i needed was not to be coddled. host: how many brothers and sisters do you have? guest: i have my sister, l indsay. sister,y brother and corey in chelsea, who are half-sisters on my dad's side. lindsay is my half-sister on my mom's side. i have a fair number of stepsiblings, most of whom i have fallen in contact with because often when your parents divorce, that is the relationships that suffer. host: let's go to marcia in delray beach, florida. caller: marcia weissman, i

follow you on twitter, and i really enjoy it. i am concerned because people here are changing the rules for book club. usually, for book club, we read books that are old, and now they are reading books, your book, because it is brand-new and they are paying for it. we had someone in our book club who read your book went to middletown, and she said she cried, and she started crying when she was talking about it. i lived in a small town in indiana and revisited about 10 years ago, and the downtown that used to be thriving and beautiful was all ordered up, and that was really sad. my question for you after reading your book is -- how do you have such a strong belief in god? guest: well, i think i have a strong belief in god because mamaw and my dad and a lot of

other people in my life made sure i had it. for mamaw, christian faith was not abstract, it was very personal, and it motivated her to doing good in life, to taking me and my sister under her wing when she was old and sick when she did not have a lot of money to do so. but the thing about my faith in god, is if mamaw could have faith and could act in the way she acted, i carry that with me for my life. author jdguest is vance, he is a native of middletown, ohio, served in the marine corps, stationed in iraq, a graduate of ohio state university, went to yale law school. our next call is from texas. caller: good morning. how are you? i am a little bit older than the author. i grew up near where he lived. i have family from middletown.

i worked in the steel mill in ohio. i got out due to the crack epidemic. i like in the book where you say, "i really love these people, but i had to get away from them for my own good." i felt the same way. i learned a lot reading your book. best wishes to you. your grandmother is hilarious. [laughter] well, she is definitely hilarious. she had a whole lot of personality. i am actually not living in cincinnati right now, but i'm moving back in the next few months. thanks for your kind words, and nice talking to you. host: why moving home? guest: i think that those of us who have been fortunate enough to be given the opportunities that i have been given owe it to our communities to go home and do something meaningful. i do not think home has to mean middletown, maybe it means southern ohio, maybe ohio in the broader sense, but, you know, so-callednk of the

coastal elites, as folks back home call them, and i think of one of the problems that really animates a lot of the animosity between the coastal elites and middle america, part of it is that folks like me and him going to the coast and never come back home, and i never wanted to do that in my life. now that the book has been successful, i have for its ability to do it. host: when did you first come up with the idea to write the book. ? guest: i was a third-year law student, and i was encouraged by a professor who herself was a very successful author and her own right, and she said i really here,you have a book idea and when she first said it, i said no, nobody would read this book, but i followed her advice, i started to write it, one thing led to another. thanks to her connections, i had a book deal. host: and the title, "hillbilly elegy," why that? guest: it is sort of a double

meaning in some ways. "elegy" is a lament to the dead, but it can also mean a sad song poem.: -- sad "hillbilly" is pejorative innocence, but when used in my family, it is endearing. it is a sort of sad song to these people that i think have been in some ways put down but also have a certain strength to them. host: albert is next from chicago. good morning. caller: good morning to your guests. i have a question. i heard you mention the term "white working-class voters," and how they voted for mr. trump at the beginning of your segment. i have been hearing that term "white working-class voters" really since the 2008 election. as if there is something different about that class of voters than any other class of voters.

i thought working-class voters were all in the same boat. can you explain to me, other than the fact that the term "white," what makes them so different from any other working-class voters? i will take my answer off the air. host: outward, thank you for the call. let me put forward some numbers to further his point. supported voters who donald trump or from small cities or rural area. 62% said they voted for donald trump. guest: to that point, i think a lot of this has to do with the fact that white working-class is often associated with rural or at least suburban areas where the working classes also associated with the inner-city. my answer to why the white esrking class vot differently from the latino or black working-class is racial politics. i think their interests are

similar and should be aligned in our politics, but when you go back to strategic decisions made among the different parties in the 1960's and 1970's, a lot of white voters gravitated toward the republicans, and a lot of of black and latino working-class voters gravitated away from the republicans. another way of putting that point is if you think about donald trump's rhetoric during the campaign, it was appealing, i think, toward the working class of all demographics, but if you are a black or latino working class american, a lot of them said, "i am not going to vote for a guy who will be down ," "i am not going to vote for a participated in conspiracy," and i think a lot work propelled by that rhetoric, even not a lot of white working-class voters were willing to vote for trump anyway, even though a lot of them did not like that rhetoric, but were willing to look past it. i think it is more about our politics has evolved then it is

about any core economic interest or differences between these groups. host: rebecca with these tweets -- it sounds like the marine corps is what saved you and made you know you could do it. guest: that is definitely true. the marine corps was a powerful influence on my life. those who did not serve in the military and do not reshape -- it is set up with leadership promotions, exercises, and so forth, so you are given an opportunity. if you succeed, you are given more opportunity, if you fail, you're yelled at and then given more opportunities. it will build your skills that in a way that is powerful. corps, donmarine said the marine corps does for the united states is when wars and make marines. i do not think i appreciated the make marines side of it and so i served. "thanks, jd, for helping me complete my christmas list." [laughter] guest: great.

caller: good morning. unfortunately, so far, mr. trump has done nothing to help these guys. problem is he comes down south and go to areas where the sv textile and stuff like that, all of those towns are just about wiped out. the problem is that the service industry has become so strong in this country, from cnbc, 12% of its economy is in manufacturing. most of that is in service. and one of born these towns, you really have no way of getting away from it. cnbc also reported that 10% of the population owned 80% of all the stocks out there. 2% of the population owned 60% of everything. add into this automation. add into this what appears to be then taking jobs away. it is so sad, they're not going to be able to bring a lot of these jobs back, no matter what

they say. the situation is this -- you go to china, you buy for a penny, you come back to america and sell it for a dollar. that is not going to change. it is all smoke and mirrors. i feel sorry for some of these people that are here because there is no hope for them, and it is not going to come back. host: jim, thank you. you make a really important point about automation and driving some of the job losses. we have had disruption in the past in the american economy, and the choice has always been to scale up in terms of the next level of jobs that we do. myig part of the problem, in view, is not that these jobs are going overseas. a big part of the problem is that our education system is really failing to train people for the next generation of technological jobs. that is not a problem that you can fix or easily, but it is a very important problem to fix. i am hopeful that the trump administration, once they take

our, will focus on the education component, because like you said, jim, there is no way that all of these jobs are going to come back. host: our series with different authors will be featured on c-span2, and we kick it off with jd vance, the author of "hillbilly elegy." connie from new jersey, you are next. good morning. caller:. good morning. i have some questions about all of this. first of all, i want to know what christian means. evangelicals are christians. catholics are christians. the word latin, i am proud that life and people are not white. the marine corps, on and on.

if you are such a person, and talented, in europe -- not south american, latin, is hispanic, in some countries, they are latin, and they are caucasian. so that is lassen -- means what -- what?t is latin, means guest: my understanding of a christian is anybody who thinks crisis the son of god, and i would certainly include catholics and evangelicals and other protestants in that category. that is my answer to that question. and the second question, i did not quite get, so i apologize. host: the difference between what we may view here in the u.s. and other parts of the world in terms of christianity and religion. guest: that is definitely true, and i think there is a history in the united states of sort of anti-catholic bias in the united

states, but i do not think that is a big problem in the united states. what i grew up in was a heavily processing, evangelical christian area, but there cap looks, too, and i did not feel like they were especially discriminated against. host: let's go to james. caller: i just have one question. i grew up around a lot of friends that got really bad with myself, drugs and alcohol, at a young age. like i said, i went down the same road. i grew up in prisons all my life, juvenile homes, and donald trump speaks about building a wall, and everybody attacks him because, you know, they want to call him racist or anything like that. well, you know, he speaks about, you know, stopping the drug flow in this country. and i've had a lot of friends since middle school all the way up that went down with drugs. how come no one is applauding him about stopping the drugs in this country, and they just want to attack him about bad

things, you know, just to try to keep him down? host: thank you, james. caller: yeah, well, this is a really important point. a lot of folks, when they hear the rhetoric about building the wall, like you said, it's a reflexively racist reaction to immigration. but a lot of folks i know, and james, you clearly would agree with him, think that the biggest advantage to building a wall is actually that you might prevent the flow of drugs across the southern border. i have a couple of responses to that. one, it definitely seems to me that it's important and valuable that trump is talking about the drug problem. he's one of the few politicians to really make it a hallmark of his campaign. i think it's not surprising that he won a specially heavily in areas where this drug problem has really taken hold. the second thing, i do worry that building a wall is actually not the best answer to the drug problem. maybe it prevents the flow of some of the narcotics coming to the country, but my real worry is that so long as there's a demand for this stuff, people are going to find a way to

bring it in, so we have to attack the drug problem, not just on the supply coming in, but also on the demand of folks who are addicted to this stuff. host: of course, the decision to use drugs, decisions that individuals make. i ask you that, because you say in the book you say we need to look ourselves in the mile an hour sandror admit that our conduct harms our children. public policy can help, but there is no government that can fix these problems for us. guest: yeah, and i think that's one of the most misunderstood lines in the book. i appreciate you talking about it. i mean, it's important to say that public policy can't help. i do think there's a role for public policy to improve some of these problems. but when we look at the broad swath of sociological and economic issues, i don't think that we would be honest with ourselves if we said the government can fix all of these problems. can it fix, truly solve the opioid crisis? i think the answer is probably not t. can probably help it, but this addiction crisis is always going to be with us. and so there is an element of tough love in my book. i'm trying to speak not just to

folks who might read the book, but folks in my own hometown, folks who grew up in areas that are like the one i grew up in to say, look, we've got to do better day-to-day in our own lives, too. host: lisa from minneapolis, good morning, with j.d. vance. caller: i haven't read your book yet, but i'm looking forward to it. i grew up in a mixed class family, though part of the family just keeps losing more and more ground, the other are doing very well. but one of my main concerns, i grew up in texas, first 30 years of my life. been in minnesota the last 30. and the whole discussion, this white working-class people are predominantly racist, as if middle class and upper middle class white people are not. i'm want going to say there isn't racism in my family. there is. i've been devoted to doing

anti-racism work in my life. i would love for you to take on racism and the white working class from your vantage point. thank you again for this book. i so lock forward to reading it. guest: well, thank you. i have a couple of responses to that. the first is that, if you look at what's really motivating some of these volingse, i think the evidence is very thin that most of them are motivated by race. there's definitely an element of racism in the white working class, but i really don't see any good evidence that that's what really drove people to donald trump. my sense is that the concerns over not just the state of the economy, but the state of the society, the opioid crisis, the family breakdown, and so forth, is really what motivated a lot of support for donald trump. and to your second point, this is a really important point. i think a lot of the discussion around the white working class and what motivated support for donald trump ignores the fact that there are racists at all classes of society and that prejudice in the united states, in this incredibly diverse

society that we've been gifted, is something that requires a sort of constant vigilance and a constant thinking about. and when we sort of say, well, look at all the donald trump supporters, they're all rays, i think it gives us an excuse to ignore the fact that there are prejudices at all levels of society we should be worried about. host: from the book, you say, we tend to overstate and understate, to glorify the good and ignore the bad in ourselves, this is why the folks in appalachia reacted strongly to an honest look at some of its most impoverished people. it's why i spent the first 18 years of my life pretending world was a problem -- that everything in the world was a problem except me. guest: yeah, there's definitely an element where it's hardest to speak truthfully about yourself, right? it's easier to look at other people's problems, to look at other people's issues and say, look, those people are messed up in some way. they suffer from serious moral problem or they're pathological

in one way or another. but one of the things i'm trying to do with the book is encourage to us really look in the mirror, to recognize that there are really great things about our families, our communities, our broader culture, but we also do have some really serious problems we've got to face up to. host: some of these stories in the book, think about it for a moment, your favorite story, the one you'd like to share most often. let's go to john, joining us from new york with j.d. vance. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. mr. vance, you're talking about white working class voters, racial motivations and everything else. essentially my question to you is, how are white working class voters being helped in what is going on currently with the state legislature in north carolina? host: with what specific issue are you talking about? caller: my issue is what's going on, you're talking about white working class voters. how are they being helped by what is going on with what is

going on with the state legislature in north carolina? host: are you talking about the transgender bathroom issue or other topics? caller: no, i'm talking about what they're currently doing, all these bills they passed in their special session, and the exiting governor is signing into law. host: ok. caller: his ability to govern. how is that helping out the working class -- the white working class voters in that respective state? host: the new incoming governor next year. guest: sure, and my sense, and i'm not especially well read on this topic, so forgive me if i'm speaking out of turn, my sense is what the folks in the republican legislature in north carolina are doing, it's ill advised simply because sometimes -- or very often in our politics, we find ourselves with the shoe on the other foot, you know, whether it's in national politics with some of these executive orders that will be unwound by the trump administration, or whether it's

passing laws that you may want a democrat to follow, but you don't necessarily want the republican that comes after him to follow. i think we'd be much better in our politics if we actually appreciated the fact that the shoe will always be on the other foot and to govern our institutions respectively. as far as as it affects the white working class, my sense is that it will have little effect one way or the other on the white working class. we'll, of course, see. host: from new orleans, joe is next. good morning. caller: good morning. i have two questions, but first i want some clarification. is this the young man that wrote the book about how people in his community had no respect for professionals, but looked up to individuals who were rich? guest: no, that's not my book. caller: ok, well, anyway, two questionsive. -- two questions i have. really am curious as to why lower economic republicans vote

against their self interests. and my second question is, why is there a need for them to feel that they are better than anyone else, better than blacks, better than latinos? i'm really curious about that. and do you think that this is the modern doctrine, where white folks convince poor people to fight against each other instead of fighting for their own economic interests? host: thank you for the call. guest: thank you. so the question about why do white folks need to feel that they're better than other groups, i think it's really important to note that i don't think most white folks do have that need to feel they're better than others. obviously some people do, and we should fight that impulse and sort of say, look, you don't need to think like that,

you don't need to feel that way to recognize that it's self-destructive is really important and something that i hope that we continue to do in our political discourse. the question about why a lot of lower income americans vote against their economic interests is a really difficult one, and i think that we should be cautious to necessarily say that they are voting against their economic interests. one of the things that -- you think about the way that the left and the right maybe has talked about working class issues for the past 10 years. so go back to the 2012 campaign, what was the president really offering working class voters, maybe some additional social welfare programs, maybe further implementation of obamacare, what was mitt romney offering these working-class voters? maybe, you know, additional tax and regulation cuts that were supposed to sort of trickle down and stimulate economic growth. for a lot of folks, both sides of that conversation don't necessarily offer a whole lot for them. they don't necessarily want lower taxes and lower

regulations, even though they think those things are good. they don't necessarily want additional handouts, even though they think those things might be good. what they really want is stable, dignified work. and so if you think about not just the obama administration, but the bush administration before it, there have been really significant problems with providing all americans, or at least most americans, with stable, well paying work, and so i'd really fight against the idea that folks are voting against their economic interests. what i think they're doing is trying to find a candidate. they're sort of swinging from republican to democratic and back to republicans, trying to find candidates who will serve those interests and they keep on being disappointed. host: the symbolism of your book cover, a dirt road in appalachia with what looks like a dilapidated barn and the remnants of an american flag. guest: yeah. guest: yeah, that's right. when we chose that coffer, i really wanted that american flag to be on the barn, because i thought it reflected something important about the

way that this is in american story and this is a very american way to think about upper mobility and opportunity and the fact that a lot of americans are struggling right now. host: we welcome our radio audience. our guest is j.d. vance, the author of the "new york times'" number one bestseller, "hillbilly elegy." julia joining us from your neck of the woods, zanesville, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i will say, mr. vance, i have not read your book, but i found this topic interesting. being from -- well, i wasn't born in southeast ohio, but i've been here for 30 years. a single d a boy as mom who went into the marines, found himself and is doing well. however, when i was raising him, one of my chief concerns is the fact that, in ohio, the suicide rate for males between

15 and 25 is astronomical compared to the rest of the nation. another concern that i have as a female is the mention you had of the disloyalty of the male to the female. in southern ohio along athens county, all along this, there's like six counties, there's not one rain crisis center. so my concern is basically, how do you address these issues when you actually look at the facts that toledo is a major hub for human trafficking? these things are just left unaddressed when males don't have the security of a future. host: julia, we'll give him a chance to respond. what do you do currently in zanesville? why are you stayed there this ong? caller: i'm a paralegal by trade. and the reason i married someone and moved here.

and the reason i stayed here was for my children. i got a government job, highly republican here. it's the major party. i've got a government job so i could be available to my children. i put them in a private school so i could overlook them, to keep them from the drugs, because it's so astronomical. the county that i live in, the town, a decade ago, was known as the cocaine capital of the country. so even though it's been, you know, on 70, it's just a major transit. so if you can just speak to these issues. and also, something that i found interesting is that obama released a lot of money to deal with the drug epidemic, and it doesn't -- even though we're, you know, 25% of our county is on food stamps, everyone wants to say we do it all on our own bootstraps, and they're christians and hard working and believe in the american flag. so if you could just kind of speak to the white male, i would appreciate that. thank you.

host: thank you for adding your voice, julia, to the conversation. j.d. vance? guest: yes, thank you. and the suicide problem in this community, and not just the direct suicide problem, but, of course, so many of these young men are killing themselves through drugs, is a really significant problem, not just in ohio, but in this broader sort of appalachian and midwestern region. it's a very significant issue, and, unfortunately, not something that has an easy solution. i think that we're now starting to talk about it and think about it, which is good progress. and you mentioned human trafficking, which is another very significant issue that folks don't realize is a serious problem in ohio. i've actually been really -- you know, i've seen that the governor kasich and the ohio legislature have actually been doing quite a bit to try to address the human trafficking issue, and i hope that they come to some solid solution. host: and this is from another viewer saying i grew up in a steel town in ohio. as long as people knew that the mill was there, the kids just felt that was their destiny.

guest: yeah, that's absolutely right. d you still see some of that or at least i saw some of that growing up in my hometown, even though it was very clear that the steel jobs weren't necessarily going to keep on coming. they weren't always going to be there. a lot of us just assumed when we graduated from high school, we sort of had that job waiter for us. it's really unfortunate because it doesn't force a lot of kids to think about their other options, and there has object other options, because so many of these mills aren't able to provide the high quality, high wage work they used to. host: let's go to ron from tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. i really like what he just said on television. i was born and raised in merion, ohio, and i worked at merion power shovel. i actually helped work on the crawler that carries the

shuttle out to the launch pad. we were bought out and it was moved to mexico. and my question is to him, when you lose all your industry, what else are they to do? the people? host: thanks for the call. guest: yeah, that's such an important -- that's such an important question. and, unfortunately, there has to be a combination of answers. so when these jobs leave, one hopefully folks are coming in and creating new jobs, and if they're not, i think that we have to think about ways to encourage them to do so. two, a lot of those who lost their jobs unfortunately may have to go somewhere else temporarily, or at least go back to school and sort of scale up and figure out how they're going to get jobs that do exist, and, of course, some folks are just going to struggle. i mean, i'm sure the caller has seen it, i've certainly seen it in my own life -- there isn't an easy answer when these jobs go overseas. i think the way that we have to

think about it is to get as many people as possible in newer and better jobs and to try to take care of the folks who just can't adjust. host: you have a lot of fans on twitter. this one says the discussion on c-span's "washington journal" with j.d. vance is phenomenal. great and important topic. keep those tweets coming. mark, fort lauderdale, florida, did you want to respond? go ahead, mark. caller: hello, good morning, and thank you for c-span as usual. i grew up in cincinnati, ohio. my father was born and raised in middletown. all his cousins were, too. he came from a family of eastern european jewish immigrants that ended up in middletown. they all raised their families there. none of them ever looked at this steel mills and factories being a future, they all ended up getting college educated and mostly migrated down to incinnati.

but the main thing i wanted to follow up with, there was a lady that called back -- that called a few calls back, her premise was that the white working class people had to feel superior to others and that by playing to that, that may well have been how trump got elected or how hate groups ton wield influence. and the author disagreed with that. while i like most of what your author has to say, i think he was wrong there. in fact, it goes back to even the civil rights legislation of the 1960e's, when people asked president johnson why he was having so much trouble with people accepting the civil rights movement, even though it might well help them, their own economic interests, he has a very famous quote to say, if you could convince the lowest white man that he's better than

the best colored man, he won't notice you picking his pocket. he will even give you money to keep him down. i paraphrase there slightly. but i think that applies today, and it applies to a lot of trump's followers and a lot of the working class whites in ohio, i hate to say. host: mark, i'm going jump in. we'll get a response. thank you for your call. guest: thank you, mark. i'll continue to push back against this, because while i definitely agree that we have to respect and recognize the fact that there are racists out there and that there is driving at least some of the animosity and some of the really divisive rhetoric that we see in our country today, i think it's a mistake to sort of oversimplify and to say that just because these folks are feeling that they're going to get passed by minorities, that's why they're voting for donald trump. at the end of the day, there are probably any single person probably has 40 or 50 reasons all jumbled up together for why they're voting for barack obama or donald trump or hillary

clinton. i think if we ignore the real complexity that informs and motivated their choices, we're going to ignore the things that we can deal with. you know, one thing we obviously have to deal with is the fact that there are and continue to be racists in the united states. but another thing that we have to deal with is the opioid crisis. another thing we have to deal with is the family breakdown in these communts. another thing we have to deal with is the fact that wages have stagnated for the bottom half of the country for a very long time. and i think that while we need to focus and understand the racism in the south there, if we focus exclusively on that, or even primarily on that, i think we're miss ago lot else that's going on. host: the subtitle of the book, "a memoir of a zpeam a couple newer crisis," as we continue our conversation, our remaining minutes with j.d. vance. he is joining us from mountainberg, arkansas. good morning. caller: yes, good morning, sir. guest: good morning. caller: good morning, young fella. not you, sir, but the boy.

i hope you feel good right now. but i'm 60 years old, and i broke my back twice, and my wrist is broke, and, you know, you don't feel as good when you get older as you do right now. i preach the gospel for year -- i don't know, 5 1/2 years or something, but i was a marine, sir. i loved the marine corps, and i love you. but i'm just trying to tell you, when you're young, you feel real stout and everything. but when you get older, you can't do nothing, and that gets sad. but i love you, son, and good luck to you. guest: well, thank you, sir, i really appreciate that, and hope you feel better. good bless you. host: our next call is from valparaiso, florida. tim, good morning. caller: hi, i enjoyed the book. in the book, you mentioned the

demons of the life we left behind continue to chase us. what are some of the life skills that you had to develop through the years to be even today still defeat those demons? thanks a lot. guest: sure, well, thank you for that. the life skill that i think is most important and that i had in mind when i was writing that particular line is the life skill to disagree without rain corps, to be able to have an argument or disagree with somebody, but not turn it into yelling or fighting or screaming match. that's really how i learned in my household, in my home, in my community to deal with conflict. and, of course, when i thought of the american dream when i was a kid, i didn't think of going to a nice law school or having a nice job, i thought of having a successful family, having a nice marriage. and to do that, unfortunately, you have to learn how to agree and disagree without rancor, and that's the life skill that i had to cultivate and i ton cultivate today, and i think

it's ant important lesson to try to do the same. host: this tweet from a viewer, the book is not justed occasional, you will fall in love with j.d. vance and his mama. guest: well, i appreciate that. and one of the reasons that i did write the book is because i felt this is mawmaw who is this incrediblely powerful and funny figure that i didn't want people to not know. i wanted people to get to know her, and i thought that they would like her if they did. obviously they have. so i appreciate that. host: diane from iowa. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you very much. i love your program. thank you, mr. vance. i've not read your book, but i will. i think that something is getting overlooked here. and i think that we just overlook the republicans who voted the hard working americans have always been so giving and so understanding, and because they have good,

solid jobs, they can afford to give. so we don't have the jobs anymore, and now people want to be able to give, but we find that we're giving to lost causes. so much for welfare and all the programs. and we just can't give anymore, and i don't think that -- it's not racism or class or whatever, but we just can't do that financially anymore. so i think you're missing a whole boat of the financial issues that are playinging the working class of america. we just can't do this anymore. guest: yeah, thank you for that, and i appreciate that. one of the things i write about in the book that i do think is really important is the way that the economy, the way that manufacturing has declined in these areas, and so i do think the jobs crisis, the wage yice in these areas is a really important part of what's motivating some of the other problems that i write about in the book. you mentioned a point that i think is very interesting,

which is that, you know, it's sort of difficult to feel especially giving towards other people when you feel strapped yourself. i think it's much easier to be magnanimous and to be charitable when you yourself feel financially secure. i think that's an important lesson to think about how our political conversation unfolds when so many people feel like they're falling behind. host: from ohio, chris, you're next. good morning. caller: good morning. i was thinking that the declines in unions and union membership in the private sector has contributed greatly to the economic disparity for the middle class. i was wondering what your thoughts were. guest: sure, yeah, so i'm one of these people who definitely worries about the decline of unions, and there's some really economic studies that suggest that people who are in unions, even controlling for income and wages and so forth, actually are more likely to start a family and more likely to stay married, more likely to raise their kids successfully.

so the decline of unions is something that worries me. i will say that the evidence that i've seen suggests that the problem sort of goes in the other way, that the unions have declined because a lot of these jobs have been automated. so, really, the big problem here is it goes back to automation and technological change that we really have to deal with. host: our last call is from kentucky. andy, we have a meant or two left. quick question. caller: ok, yes. ok, i feel like why the democrats like lost and everything, and i want to get your opinion, because i feel like the democrats is like values and everything, because they used to be conservative. and i feel like if we would get back to being conservative, then we can start winning again. and then also, like the lady with the unions, i'm for the unions. in fact, i ran for city commission, and i did you not make it the first time out. i got 1,050 votes. i'm still going to try again later. to me, i feel like we need

union jobs again. we need to be pushing for the unions. and i know kentucky went all republican, and i know they want to try to push for this right to work, and this right to work, while it's good, it's going to be hurting the unions more than -- and so we need to try to stop that right to work, because it's not good for us. host: thank you, andy. guest: yeah, thank you. it's a really interesting point about the decline of democrats and some of these local political environments. there's this really fascinating piece i suggest you read in the "new york times," and the author actually suggests a big problem democrats have declined in these areas is because democrats don't even live in these areas anymore. they don't relate to the people on the ground. they don't really share a lot of their concerns. and so i think, you know, frankly, you can make the same argument about republicans and some of these coastal enclaves, where there are very few elected republicans. but it gets back to an issue i write about in the book that really concerns me, is that whether it's about class or religion or race or political ideology, we don't spend a

whole lot of time with people who are different from us, and i think that should change, and i hope it does. host: and finally, i didn't forget, your number one story. guest: my number one story, so i forget -- i forgot you asked me, but i'll throw this out, and it's, you know, my grandma, when she found out that i was involved with a kid who was doing drugs and that i was smoking pot, mamaw told me if i didn't stop hanging out with that kid, she would run him over with her car and no one would ever find out. and i don't think mamaw would have actually hurt a child, but the fact that i thought she might motivated me to do something that i needed to do, and i think that's the genius of my mamaw. host: j.d. vance, the author of "hillbilly elegy." you have another book in you? guest: maybe. we'll see. host: thank you very much for stopping by. we appreciate it. guest: thank you. host: by the way, our other interview with j.d. vance is on our c-span video library. he joined us for a q&a program that airs every sunday at 8:00 eastern and pacific time.

all of our programming online any time at c-span.org. this headline from the "new york times," the perfect weapon, how russian cyberpower invade he will be with us next to talk about what's next in the investigation in the russian cyber attack issue. you are watching and listening on thisington journal" sunday morning, december 18. we are back in a moment. >> i think you can learn from failure. if the next president wants to aspire to be like somebody, they probably want to aspire to be washington or linkedin. you cannot re-create the country and have the civil war so you inspire to be james munro?

you can aspire not to be james buchanan. robertght, historian strauss talks about the james buchanan presidency and his latest book. i think the differentiation of good and bad presidents, washington, lincoln, and fdr are at the top of surveys. they were decisive men. you cannot get to the top of the letter and not be decisive. a waffler and james polk hated him for being a waffler. he went back and forth on decisions. that's how he was as president. >> tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on"q&a>" sunday, january 1, a live

discussion on the presidency of barack obama. responses andour we will have a panel. watch in-depth live from noon-3:00 p.m. sunday on booktv on c-span two. >> eric lipton of "the new york times," thank you for being with us. this headline from your newspaper -- let me get to the essence of what you wrote about.

guest: it had an impact on this year's election cycle. we cannot say it didn't have a determinant factor as to who won and who lust but it played a role in how the story of this year's election campaign rolled out. the newsminated because look at what happened with the democratic national committee convention, the resignation of the chairwoman, the stories that emerged because of the john podesta emails, the specifics of the speeches hillary clinton had given, even -- even incancel

consequential things, this was because of an active espionage and we're only starting to fully appreciate the significance of it. host: you and your colleagues broke ground investigating this. what surprised you the most question mark >> the most controversial thing we got details on was the fact that the fbi had first approach the democratic national committee in september of 2015. an agent called the switchboard and was transferred to the help desk. they handed this fbi agent to a low level i.t. consultant at the dnc. the agent told the dnc that there was evidence that someone had infiltrated their computer system and this player was someone they associated with a name called the duke and that is a known russian cyber actor that infiltrates american government systems for espionage purposes. that was september of 2015 and it was not until april of 2016

that the dnc confirmed their computer system had been compromised. than seven months of the presence of these russian actors on their computer system and they are taking this data. much of the most damaging stuff came out way past september of 2015. host: the analogy you have is and atergate break-in laptop computer. it's the difference between what happened in the break and where that led and the campaign of 1972 and what we saw this year. guest: i was doing interviews with my colleagues. we were talking to dnc officials and one of them mentioned that it's like watergate. there are some parallels. they said we have the watergate file cabinet in the basement. what an incredible historic relic.

it should be in the museum of american history at the smithsonian. i wanted to see it so you go down the elevator at the dnc and it sitting right there when you get out of the elevator. it's not behind a glass partition. the only reason you know is above it there is a little slack that has the story of woodward and bernstein on the day they wrote a story about a break-in at the watergate. it's just the file cabinet sitting there. you think it's an open piece of office furniture. with them about this. it was incredible it was sitting there. the server that was hacked as the modern-day equivalent of that file cabinet and they agreed. it's a break-in of a different kind of the consequences -- the president resigned after watergate. was one of the greatest moments in american politics. you can argue the consequences of this break-in and the material that was stolen -- who knows what was stolen and watergate?

the consequences of what they took in this break-in was greater in terms of the content. put that server to the file cabinet. materialso targeted of the two break-ins of the dnc are sitting next to each other and it's in a credible historic parallel of different modes of attack. the political consequences were an enormous. this dominated the presidential news conference. there is not a major organization, there is not a financial institution, branch of our government or somebody will not be fishing for something or trying to penetrate or put in a virus or malware. this is why for the last eight years, i have been upset with how we continually upgrade our cyber security systems.

this particular concern around russian hacking is part of a broader set of concerns about how we deal with cyber issues in ways that can affect their infrastructure, affect the stability of our financial systems, and affect the integrity of our institutions like our election process. host: the president said he told vladimir putin to cut it out back in september. questions of the big which we addressed is what was the appropriate response by the united states? one critical thing is attribution which says this was done by russian actors and it was an active for espionage. that was important because there were other people who were suggesting this included donald

trump and maybe some guy from new jersey was sitting on his couch. ,he consequences of this act the american public was not sure what to make of it. the second thing beyond attribution was restitution, some type of response from russia or other parties like china or iran or north korea, this is something you cannot do with the united states. you cannot interfere in our presidential elections. choices, theree was a long delay from the white house. said on friday that he first learned about this in the summer. the dnc new on april 29 that it and thatinfiltrated the systems were infected by russian actors. the president said friday he did not know until the summer but the dnc and the fbi knew in april. it was not until october 7 that the intelligence agencies put

out a statement attributing it formally to russia. that is a long time during a presidential campaign. that affected the way newspapers handle the information because they were using it for the gossip content without thinking about the fact that they were playing into the hands of the foreign espionage campaign. as far as retribution, there has been no public sign of an action by the united states government to say to the cyber world that this is something we will not stand for. it seems as if the president has that they were reluctant to act because they did not want to be perceived as tipping the scale in the election. the president was quite concerned about his role in history and his role in toocracy that if he spoke up

strongly that people would say we are trying to help someone when the election. part of the calculus with that they presumed hillary would win so they thought they did not need to take that step so therefore they were waiting to see how this would play out. host: his work is available our times.he day steve from new york city, republican line, good morning. caller: good morning, i wanted to ask you -- obama on the left did no complaining about hacking when it was first disclosed in 2015. vladimir putin is behind it but the hacking of john podesta and the dnc -- what evidence is there? you remember the pentagon

papers. the new york times must've been against that. guest: those questions are important. the united states has been concerned about the threat from hacking for quite a number of years. president obama said that friday. serious concern is about the potential for infrastructure attacks on the electricity system or water systems or other major assets. obama, in the presidential election of obama and john came -- john mccain, there had been a warning that the presidential candidates and the cycle would be targeted. in 2015 so they had good warning this was something that could happen. the thing that changed in this both united states

and russia have been spying on each other and their elections for decades. the united states is watching russian elections to collect intelligence and have an idea of where things will go and whoever will take over and what decisions they will likely make. ist happened in this case they took the espionage and put it into the public to impact the process. that is a radical step that distinguishes this cycle from the history of intelligence services. -- second question you asked why and should we have used this information? there have things that have gone on this week as to the weaponize are's of russian espionage. did we have an obligation because of the public interest in the material to write the stories and not get into the gossip. position is times

if there is a news value to the material, the public has an obligation and a right to know and we should write about it. bringg as it does not some fatal consequences to parties, we don't want to take actions that would hurt somebody. we still have to write the story. states government did not want the new york times to publish stories during the vietnam war. we went to the supreme court to do that. the new york times is taken the position in this case that material of news value, even if it's given to us as a result of russian espionage, we have an obligation to write about it and presumably will look continue to do so. host: you're the recipient of two pulitzer prizes. cliff is joining us from sykesville, maryland, democrats line. caller: real quick, i have not

owned a tv in 40 years i've never seen you but i listen to you all the time on the app. i really appreciate your program. i have a question -- i'm sorry, but i -- maybe i'm wrong -- is there any evidence whatsoever that the russians hacked any voting machines? all thatanything at they got into voting machines whatsoever? any evidence? far is thatnswer so they did not get into voting machines. they got into some voting registration databases in like three states. there is also a federal election the fbi ish investigating the possibility that there was hacking done there. the voting machines themselves are not connected to the internet. to have aesigned

defense against the a defense against the possibility of someone using the internet to hack into them. there is no evidence at all that i have seen that suggests that voting machines were compromised. host: do you want to follow up? caller: i have been reading the new york times for the past week and its article after article. i'm speaking as a democrat. i did not see you upset about them leaking donald trump's tax returns. you had no problem with that. the election was rigged? guys getting you hyperbolic and bent out of shape over that. but this ist see it

an attack. you don't like trump and i am not thrilled with him either. pretend to have a little objectivity. guest: i don't mind the question. to me, the thing that is most historic and worthy of real contemplation and reflection -- the evidence is pretty overwhelming that russian actors were involved in this. we were essentially the target of a propaganda campaign to try to influence the presidential and congressional elections of the united states. it determiney that the outcome of the election but it happened. what more consequential thing is there than the democratic process of electing a president and congress and to think that a foreign actor conducted a to disruptcampaign that process successfully and became amedia

participant essentially by taking the material and and we diding it -- not focus enough perhaps on that during the election itself. that is something of huge consequence in american history and the fact that we are now coming to terms with it more is the right thing. to some extent, we were so focused on the election itself and it was all-consuming that we did not have enough of an opportunity to step back and think about it. i think we are doing that now. host: this past week, you write the following --

guest: i think there is an open question there. there has been disagreement. there is disagreement between the fbi and the cia whether this was not specifically intended to try to elect donald trump and defeat clinton. i don't know that that matters that much. what matters is that this was an ofort to disrupt the process elections and show that the united states system of democracy is something that we should not be so proud of. a you believe this was russian targeted attack, russia wants to show its neighbors in georgia and ukraine and it's part of the world that the united states is not this noble, democratic institution it pretends to be. it wants to undermine the way

that others look at the united states. westerngenerally at democracy. they are doing the same thing in germany now. they want to say why are you critical of our system but look at these democratic systems that are flawed. to that extent, they were successful. questioning ofnd the integrity of the democratic process that occurred as a --ult of the emails when you saw the sniping and the suggestion that perhaps the democrats are trying to undermine bernie sanders the dnc, that's the reason that debbie wasserman schultz resigned. whether the males showed a serious plot, it suggested the democratic process has been compromised in a way that undermined the integrity of the democratic process in the united states. the fact that russian players organize this is troubling and historic. yorktown, new york, independent line. think: good morning, i

this is just one little thing. our system has been taken over but this is one part of it. you have saudi arabia, israel that can put all kinds of money into our politics the way the system is set up to determine how he elections are not just for the presidency but many other things. the way the system is set up with the electoral college, it's completely false. the democrats get in power but they don't know how to stay in power. they had control when obama first came in. they could have gotten rid of the electoral college and made it simple. different topic. tomorrow is the electoral college vote. guest: congress could not have

change the electoral college set up by themselves. as far as foreign governments influencing the elections, it's illegal for a foreign actor to make a contribution to a federal candidate. maybe they can do so through nonprofit groups. for the most part, i don't think i agree with those assertions. host: let's go to dave in northport, new york, good morning. i am a good morning, left-wing democrat. with this hack of the emails and the exposure of john podesta and what does emails said in the corporate lobbying that was going on, i don't feel bad that this information came out. hillary clinton was like a wolf in sheep's clothing. she was not a true left-wing candidate and i think she was exposed.

all these supposedly sources couldn't do that so we had to have someone else. host: you like the information but do you like the fact that russia might have been behind it? caller: i'm not saying that. -- i can'tunate believe that our own media cannot bring this up. it has to be leaked by someone. you say it's the russians and hillary clinton comes up with fake news. i think it's unfortunate that our own media could not expose this themselves. guest: we wrote countless stories about the clinton foundation and about associations between the clinton foundation and corporate donors that had interests before the united states government. we wrote about speeches she gave to wall street. it's true that we did not have the text of the speech as she gave so they came out in the john podesta emails.

i wish we had copies of those speeches. the new york times wrote editorials that said hillary clinton should release those speeches because they should not have been secret. newspapers do not have subpoena power. we cannot force politicians to release information. we can use our investigative powers to try to collect information from sources. there is debate over whether we should have use this information. there was a conclusion that this material had news value and we should write the story. case is did in this this bring greater truth to the hillary campaign and what the dnc was doing? it certainly did and we would have preferred to have had that information. do you want to be telling the stories at the same time you are helping someone else's agenda and not getting material from the republican side of equal value and equal damage.

we were only writing the damaging stuff about one side. that was consequential. host: in this article, you wrote the -- good morning, republican line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. my question relates to the obvious spying and unmitigated intrusions of everybody everywhere. the gentleman use the word"can't." unless i'm mistaken, there are a book of rules having to do with attrition.

clintonthe hillary problem. they lost and now we are trying to attribute her loss to something like the russians which is attribution. the gentleman used that word. such action is criminal and instead of using the word extortion for the criminal act, we are using the word hack. guest: it's true, this is a criminal act. the fbi is investigating. the likelihood of them being able to hold anyone accountable is very small because these are foreign actors who will not come into the united states. could issue an arrest warrant but they will not be able to arrest someone. they could put them on an individual sanctions list and they could not and of the united states but there is an investigation. if it was a domestic player that did this, it would be if

investigation and they would charge the person. the justice department is conducting such an investigation. i'm not saying that i think this determined the outcome of the election. there were many things the clinton campaign that brought about their undefeated. i think this was a factor and there were many factors. when i say the obama administration needs attribution, it needed to point the finger as to who was who wonble, not to say and lost the election. that was something they needed to do. host: let me ask you about the investigation moving forward. senator mccain said he is calling for a select committee to lead the investigation along with lindsey graham to find out what happened. what will it look like? reporter, i don't have too many opinions but i think it needs to be an independent committee, not a congressional committee.

it needs to be some type of select committee or a pointer that has subpoena power and an independent staff that will investigate. it cannot be a partisan investigation. that needs to be a thorough understanding of what happened and to prevent it from happening again. host: thank you very much for being with us on this sunday. tomorrow morning, it is a kickoff to electoral college coverage in state capitals around the country. towill have a roundtable explain the process on the role of the electoral college will get underway at 7:45 a.m. the offer ofy is in our hands, plan to replace the welfare state and as a scholar with the american enterprise institute as we continue our christmas week series of leading authors on "washington journal." we hope you have a great weekend and we have electoral college coverage tomorrow so enjoy the rest of your weekend. have a very merry christmas week. host [captions copyright nationl cable satellite corp. 2016]

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> next, newsmakers. then president obama's year-end news conference. after that, president-elect donald trump speaks at a victory rally in mobile, alabama. congressman kevin grady of he is the chairman of the house ways and means committee which taxes policies in congress and he is just returned from washington where he has met with members to talk about strategy ,or the new session that begins

a special focus on tax reform and on the health care act. thank you for being with us. rep. brady: thank you. >> let me introduce the two reporters. rachel is returning to newsmakers this week. and also, from the wall street journal, making a return. richard, you are up first. >> you are meeting with the house ways and means republicans after the rest of congress had gone home. what did you accomplish? what did you come out of that you didn't have going in? we had several very good days. america voted for change. we have a new president to wants to make america competitive again. tax reform is key to that. so we focused a whole day on the bill to promote the tax code. focusing on how to create more