i don't even know if his supporters say he did no damage, they say he did enormous good. that is their view. maybe he did some good because he started a national conversation and he opened up a subject of interest. but i think where trump is certainly right is this man has not faced justice, and he deserves to face justice, whatever we decide. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on "q&a." >> next, a look at the future of political parties in the u.s. with ava brady and -- david brady and melissa mccain. they look at how issues are shipping public opinion. from the commonwealth club of california, this is just over one hour.

>> before i introduce to also announced that tonight is the ourt time that conversations are being taped by c-span. you may have noticed some cameras. they promised me that i would look at least 10 years younger. [laughter] >> which is one of the reasons i agreed to let them come. that itthey tell me will be uploaded to their website and about two weeks, three weeks at the most, if you can search under the archives for the state or one of the names of our speakers or no valley and you will find it. if you are so inspired, please watch again and also tell your friends and family all about it. let me introduce tonight's

speakers. david brady i have known for a number of years partially because my husband attended stanford business school where he is a professor of business. i actually interviewed him and number of times during my own dissertation research. you remember? i must have done ok because he is still talking to me. ok. only a verys not well respected professor at stanford, he sits on the faculties of the business school -- politicalence science institute and is at the hoover institution. ,e is very highly regarded obviously connected to the stanford community, but also appreciated nationally for his insight for commentary on political processes. we are really delighted he is with us tonight, and i am sure

you will all end this evening agreeing with me that he is one of the most insightful political commentators have with us today. cain is ang -- political journalist in san francisco. she has a very wide following of work- does a lot with the commonwealth club, and the editor of the commonwealth club said there was no one who does a better job of commentating. she comes with terrific bona fides. i think this conversation should be wonderful. i don't know it will make us all feel safer. more secure. [laughter] >> happier. but it will certainly inform us of what is happening.

you save your questions for afterwards and we will have time for them. thank you so much. [applause] ms. cain: there we go. the name of tonight's program is the future of american political parties. we have a packed house and i cannot imagine it is because you think things are going really well. there is a little uncertainty out there. is how bad ision get?ow bad can it at what point should we start porting -- hoarding canned goods? [laughter] mr. brady: i will start by quoting t.s. eliot who said the

only form of knowledge we can aspire to is humility and humility is endless. we have not had a president like does however many days it we been, we've known it -- have not had a president like this, however many days it has been. in the early days, there were certain things -- there are certain things the president can do. he can put some orders out. in the end, on the big issues, taxes, affordable care act, military policy, those sort of things, he is to go through congress.

ask,uestion people often isn't the congress an independent form of government? the founders, i'm trying to put this in an objective way. the founders knew you might have political operatives who probably were not grand. [laughter] ms. caen: good job. mr. brady: that was pretty good. they built a system that has checks and balances, and that is what they are for. i don'ttion is, but think it is the congress that will stop them. will not decide, it will be the republicans in congress. i will give you the most likely scenario, or in my view, the other scenarios could happen, but this is what i think is most likely. the republicans in the house

have been sitting on an agenda -- and years, and they in their view, they have been frustrated by president obama. they want to pass that agenda. they did not think that republicans would hold the senate or that donald trump be elected president. i think they're sitting there -- saying, ok kim we have are agreed a path we on. they are not agreed on the affordable care act. screw up and make the obamacare rollout look like silk. my opinion is they will wait and get as much as they can through, and at some point unless the president changes his behavior, they're going to say, that is enough, you cannot go anymore. go republicans are going to to consist only for secretary of education.

so they are starting. there, you can hear it occasionally from them. forink you have to watch how congressional republicans -- i don't expect them in the first 10 or 20 days, they are not going to impeach him quickly. it is not going to happen. they will start to object. the only other thing i can say about some of the appointments is, on defense, i know jim mattis, his office is three doors down from mine, very solid and a very clear thinker. he told the president he should not torture, agreed he would not have signed the iranian deal that -- but that he will keep to it. i think most of the appointments -- reasonable people, but i no, i will not go there. ms. caen: no, do.

mattis andople like other people in his cabinet who are well regarded, and he goes behind their back and issues the executive order on the refugee ban. how long do the honorable people in his cabinet stay on if he continues to do these things? mr. brady: i don't have an answer for that, but i am sure some of them are thinking, what did i sign up for? of when i think of policy, i think you have to have a strategy and then there are tactics. what bothers me about this president is that there are tactics, but i don't know what the strategy is. there is symbolism and reality. there is campaigning and then there is governing. from turned out to be a much --

trump or not to be better at campaigning than we thought, but now there is governing. a wall,he would build some now he is saying he has to build a wall. but what is the purpose? does he really believe he is going to get a better deal from mexicans on trade? already lots of businesses are objecting and are in washington talking to congressman and women saying, don't do this. musliming with banning refugees, he puts the united states more at risk, and iran and the iraqi's letter with that are with us, in my mind there is no strategy behind it. you may not like the fact that he was at exxon or something, rex tillerson, but he is a very

accomplished man and he sees the way the world is and i am sure he would not have been advising to do those things. so we have to wait and see what they do, and i don't know what the right timeframe is, they can't do it now. tillerson has been in office one day, he can't quit now. [laughter] mr. brady: i think you will be a matter of time, we will see. it is a matter of believe that the president will stop tweeting -- [laughter] ms. caen: does anyone believe that? >> no. mr. brady: there is hope. [laughter] you said we need to be focusing on republicans in congress. if you are a democrat, it seems they are a little on their is a supremehere

court nominee coming that some of their constituents are not alike, yet they are trying to figure out how to navigate the situation. mr. brady: i think that is a reasonable thing for them to do. kennedyt was 4-4 with as the deciding vote, and on a is to theotes -- he democrats on some things and not with them on others. president,was the replacing scalia, if you replace him with a liberal, that is the greatest shift in the supreme court since probably 1934 because you make it a 6-3 liberal. so if you replace scully out with a conservative, it is --

replace scalia with a conservative, it is the same as it was. if you want to pull out the nuclear clause and say we're going to with -- going to go with a filibuster, or do you hold your fire on this guy, because you may not agree with all of his opinions, but he is very smart and so on, so i think they're probably right to be thinking about the balance. ms. caen: there is pressure for them to filibuster everything over the next several years. everything that comes in front of them. mr. brady: i think that just plays into trump's hansen makes his supporters think he is right and that the system is broken and they won't even agree to my nominees. passed the rule

that said it only had to be 51 and you could not filibuster cap it appointments and at the time people said, it will come back, and it has. attend some not to of the meetings because you have m pluse a forum -- quoru one. then you couldn't actually call the meeting. what you think that looks like to a trump supporter? they show a picture and there are no democrats in the room. it seems to me that plays into their hands and allows them to justify his behavior and continue to act symbolically and set of substitute lee -- substa ntively. ms. caen: what you think it would take to separate trump supporters from drop -- trump? some of them.

what would it take in your estimation? mr. brady: that is a great question. rivers is aug we ran over the surveyof the campaign a where we interviewed the same 5000 americans at least once a month so we can trace who moved where and when. may, you were sitting around all of these smart guys, looking at the candidates, there are about 35 of them, and donald trump's name came up and everybody said, don't put him in, he is not a serious candidate. that turned out to be a good thing for analysis. from other work we had done in europe, when you people that

'income their families was down or their set -- situation was not as good as it had been a year ago, those people were much more anti-immigration. so the first choice of those people was no choice, number two was scott walker and he was at 12%. trump comes on and gives the anti-immigration speech, and you think he is out, you can say that in american politics, and suddenly he is 22%. said whatublicans happened to their financials, it didn't matter what happened, it was what they perceived good they are for trump because he is speaking their language. 50% of republicans thought immigration was important, you suddenly had 41% of them.

he has 23%, that put him twice as high as everybody else. then republicans did a couple of other things, they frontloaded the primaries, they switched to a more winner take all format, ,ll giving trump an advantage and the others were fighting over who would be the establishment candidate, rubio, bush, kasich. the others are fighting over who would be the tea party candidate. we will never know if the republican establishment had in, able to get a candidate we will never know, but that is a rather special set of circumstances in which he was able to capture the nomination. back to those voters. those of the voters who supported him all the way. made less than $50,000 a year, high school or less, anyway you

tried to cut it, they were most supportive. the question was, and we are trying to find this out now, can withntinue to hold them stuff that isn't real, or are they results-oriented? can it just be symbolism, can he hold them with symbolism, or do they have to be action oriented? i happen to believe that they are results oriented, that they will be people who want jobs. they want these things to happen and if they don't happen -- in our latest poll we asked a question of trump supporters who were democrats and trump supporters who were independents because they tipped it to him, we asked them if in the next election, what would you consider voting democrat? -- answer yes.

i don't think they are tied to the republican party. i think we will find over time they are results oriented. will haveatic party to do whatever is going to do, but they will have to rethink what they think about and how they talk to those people, wisconsin green bay, voted big for obama and then switched. my hometown. they did the same thing. is, i think they will be results oriented. but that is a great question, i don't know that i have answer. ms. caen: is it part of what the democrat's problem is, i perceive that i am worse off? it seemed that on some level, the democrat answer was, no,

statistically it is better. it seemed an analytical answer to a gut driven cry. mr. brady: yes. sometimes though statistics don't appeal. illinois andr in your children don't have jobs -- the white males over the last 20 years, they live 3.8 years less than they did before. there are drug epidemics all over. earlier, the democratic party has not spoken to them. the assumption has been pretty much that they are there. politics -- they don't care about identity politics in green bay. i don't think they care where you go to the bathroom. i think what they care about is

does anybody actually care about them and the jobs they have lost in what their situation is? and is it possible to put that together with the regular democratic stuff, sure. but they haven't talked to them. ms. caen: you have written and spoken about localization as a big part of why things are happening here and other parts of the world. forgotseem like, and i exactly who said this, but i was probably watching c-span -- mr. brady: maybe it was me. ms. caen: i think it was c-span. people are losing jobs and the democrat answer is we will retrain you. this is the answer to the massive loss of potentially good paying jobs. what should the answer have been in your estimation? i would like to talk more about

globalization and the election here and elsewhere. mr. brady: you don't ask very easy questions. [laughter] mr. brady: couldn't you just talk about the electoral college? [laughter] mr. brady: here is why don't think it is easy. -- youobalization does looked at the first period of globalization was 1850-1900 or so. 1850, the two major job categories were you worked it farms or as servants and homes. there was a huge transformation and people were better off economically, but they moved to cities and got factory jobs. problems,ed a lot of immigration was an issue, there was wealth inequality, it was called the gilded age. you can expect that anytime there is globalization.

there was any quality, you can expect that. farms, and off the what happened is that by 1950, those people had good jobs, my father was able to support six children. home, a house and so on. , thereitics of the time were labor parties and anti-labor parties. it was a multiparty system, parties to the left that were prolabor and parties to the right that were not. overtime what happened is that beginning in the 1970's, people started to automate, and 50% of and it isrce in 1950, so good in 1948 that harry truman could get reelected.

[laughter] you try that with stanford students, they don't know who bill clinton is. [laughter] mr. brady: it's true. the jobs left, some of them moved to china. theas really automation caustic. across the world, as you nationale the front in france, in germany, oliver europe you get this -- all over europe, you get these anti-immigration. jobs go, political parties are stuck because they don't have 40% labor. so the parties have to try and do stuff. they do stuff like, it is time to put blue-collar workers with stanford professors.

well, professors are like 90% democrat. to arks ok, but if you go bar and put the professors with the blue-collar workers, it doesn't work out too well. chardonnay.ave [laughter] mr. brady: no one has solved that problem. what i worry about is not jobs. i don't worry about jobs two much. farmers, people go back and read reaper, the mccormick what will happen? they all got jobs. but what i worry about is wages. it is not clear to me that the wages these jobs generate will be enough to sustain the political system. is there a crowd from berkeley

coming? ms. caen: they heard that comment about stanford. [laughter] that is greaten: point. democrats said unemployment is low, but the wages for a lot of these jobs is incredibly low. being employed at $7.50 isn't the same thing. mr. brady: that's correct. i think you have to have economic growth. and if you don't have economic growth, the market gets stripped so you can hire people. and i don't even know if growth alone would cover it. but without growth you can't do it. then you have to say, what are -- so what are the president's policies? i don't think bang your way at carrier or telling the ford motor company you can't do that.

i don't think 400,000 workers in china are suddenly going to move to the u.s. i think you have to look at the trump economic policies as you expressed so far and say are these policies likely to generate growth? i don't know. corporate tax cuts may generate growth. but they have to get through congress. trump can't do it on his own. problem. political will they be able to solve the problem? and he's got to get that through congress. ms. caen: do you think he will? mr. brady: i think the congress would like to shape what he tries to get through. take the 20% tax where impors in the united states going to be taxed at 20%.

well, some of those things go back and forth two or three times same product. well, that just means the american taxpayers were paying for that. it's not -- the mexicans aren't paying for it. they will in terms for jobs but not in a real way. i just don't think that's a real solution to the problem. so will the congress be able to get a tax cut? i think they will get a tax cut. i wouldn't look forward to yourselves.t back >> i don't know. this is -- mr. brady: as i understand it -- suppose you made $1 million -- don't you? >> we're in marin, totally possibilities. mr. brady: so if you made $1 million, you paid 43% plus the obama tax for medicare and then you pay state taxes.

so what they're going to do is they're going cut that right or the proposal taxes from 43 to 33 . but they're not going let you deduct state and local taxes which pretty much makes it a push. so the real emphasis is going to be on corporate tax cuts in the hope that it will bring some of the money that they have in foreign places back home and the second part is that we're just a capital gains tax, a proposal between 15 and 20. but those will be the main deductions. ms. caen: those are supposed to generate jobs? mr. brady: the capital gains and the money that apple and other companies, yes, that could generate jobs. probably will. how many? i don't know. you have to get an economist to do this. >> we are talking about political parties here. we know that california, the growing political party is

declined a state. and that seems to be -- a national trend. about 1/3 don't wish to belong to either party. what do you make of -- what does that say about our party system? do we need additional ones? you know, people are consistently especially younger people declining to join either. mr. brady: well, i'm glad you asked that. i have data on this. we've collected -- yeah, about time. [laughter] about time she asked me something i actually know. so on that -- so we collected all the gallon lup poll data back in 1937 back on party identification. the democrats had this big leeled. -- lead. but in the 1980's, with reagan there was a decline in the number of democrats. this was the time where they

were 30, 35, the democrats usually have a three to five lead and more people say they're independent. and so i think that's significant because i think that what happened with the political parties was, again, it's nice to be able to talk to people -- do you remember the days when there were liberal republican senators like senator brook from massachusetts, clark. there were rockefeller, scranton. and there were conservative democrats. sorted. arty there are a few moderates in the republican party. but the bottom line the parties are like european political parties. i think by and large that the average american is not as liberal on economics as the democrats. nd they're nowhere near as

social. i think that's a hunk of the rise of independents. my personal view is that's a good sign. that may be because i consider myself one. ms. caen: why doan you start a party for those folks? if there's enough people in the middle who are socially liberal economically conservative folks, why haven't we seen something coalesce for them? mr. brady: the trouble is there's not that many, many of us. there's only about 15%. i think the answer to why they don't take over a party is because -- well, think of it, it's a lot of work. you can't -- you can't -- you have to go out and recruit candidates in 435 districts. that's hard. so what you get is third party candidates jumping in and ross

perot and others. the real reason is because it's easy to -- it's easier to take over a political party. the united states is the only democracy in the world where we have democracy within the party and democracy between parties. we're the only ones that people run against each other in that way in each of the congressional districts. so republicans are running against republicans. this, donald t of trump. he's not free trade. he's not republican. he's not any of the things that the republican party was for. he wasn't even pro-choice until about two months ago or two years ago whenever. but the point is -- and he took over the republican party. he won. he took it over. and again -- w, so what happens in these eras of globalization there's a lot of flip flopping.

was true in the 1870's in u.s. and true now. i remember reading this piece by karl roe saying after the victory it's great. we've created kind of a mckinley era. the republicans control the house, senate. you know president bush saying, you know, i've got -- i've earned some capital. i'm going to spend it. and there it was. then 2006, oh, my god, they all got beat. they were booked. why the democrats will control american for the next generation. the generations are shorter than they used to be. [laughter] and the second thing was so that obama -- so then president obama overreached, 2010, the republicans say -- so all that flip flopping is a result of this sort of economic undercutting and you don't -- you don't have a solution. so under those times, the populous were rising as a

political pear. but then they say not a bad good. we'll take his platform and him and they'll capture the democratting party. >> right now there's sort of an internal debate or follow the bernie sanders. or do we try to, you know, stay on this other path? >> so this is strange. but i actually think the democrats have an easier time of it than the republicans. not in the short run because in the short one is as you say. the question is they lost an election. but you know, why did they lose? well, they lost because of the distribution of votes. they actually won the election by about 3 million votes. some of you need to move to green bay. so they lost. 77,000 votes in pennsylvania, wisconsin, and michigan had change. mr. clinton would be president. and then the headlines would be

although america rejects racism and misogyny, etc., etc., the population didn't change at all. you just get these different headlines. so the democrats have their problem. they lost an intersection. . we lost the election by 77,000 votes. so there is going to be the fight. and i'm looking at the less. and the governor of monday and other people in the democratic party who ano, no, we've got to be more sen crist sm were that's a normal fight. that's not going to be particularly easy but think of the -- think of what happens when donald trump's gone from the republicans. what are they as a party. they don't know. they're sitting there. they're a whole bunch of people. lower taxes, more freedom, blah, blah, blah. and they're thinking donald

trump. they're waiting because they want to pass the agenda. but he's not a republican in and ordinary sense. does he redefine the republican party? or does the traditional parts of the republican party comport. and i think that's a much more difficult question. >> just one last question. get to thinking. need to rethink their view on -- their views on immigration? since that seems to be the thing that galvanized so many people in certain places that had voted for obama once and now they switched was this issue. should they at least have that conversation? >> yeah, well -- in principle no. but in data. the data has shown for a long yme democrats were closer --

long time democrats were closer independents. so where are the independents? there were fractions of the democratic -- democrats were in general on the side of more immigration. republicans wish there were some of them. . esident george w. bush i think it's the way you talk about immigration. and i think that not talking about it didn't talk about it or disparaged trump. it didn't work. i think they have to think about and probably talk about it in a different way. tion? >> yeah. well, in principle but in reality, probably yes. the data on that disparaged trump. it didn't work. so i think they have to think about it and probably talk about different way. but i don't see -- i think they win -- they can have a position close to where their

now and they can still win the next election, to be easier than republicans thinking about what means now.can party >> okay. >> twhaent much of an answer, by way. >> i think democrats would love to hear about how they have an go.er >> let me just jump in with audience questions at this that's okay. and, let me take a prerogative the first question. which is, a few years ago, a out called why nations that i thought was particularly pressient and they argue in that book that when institutions in a country no work, the country no longer works. and our institutions, i.e. congress, the media, parties, are broken. work, the think that our institutions are going to

fail us?nder if you us or >> you're talking about robinson book? >> yeah. ph.d..got a >> but i can't pronounce his name so i didn't say it. that's not -- that's not a ph. >> but i can't pronounce his name big seller. so their argument is, if you try to look -- if you're looking for why the economies don't work better, their argument is, book. institutions make a difference and institutions are weighed in a particular way and some people some n advantage and people don't, and if you don't get the institutions right, you right.et the economy so they went on some broken institutions. are american institutions broken? no, i don't think they are broken. i think they are in a situation where like the institutions

australia, e, everywhere, where -- this time the alism and transformation of the economy is enough harder than it was before. 80% of the world. before it was just europe and the u.s., essentially. and you have ld the problem of, is anything you sustainable? so you see china has 7% to 8% growth. you 't know how large of have been in beijing when it wasn't windy but it's not great question is can we do this in a sustainable fashion? i think, you know, our institution may be damaged but -- ou actually look at how look at the big crisis, 2007-2008-2009. that was a horrendous recession. at how if you look we've done relative to europe, australia, and japan, the united pretty good shape. but -- 2.3%, not great,

not -- i'm just saying relative o everybody else, with the possible exception of germany, jobs, incomes more are up some. so i think we've done better, so -- ink our institutions are i don't think we should turn to parliamentary government or anything. but they are damaged. the question is about electoral college. do you see the electoral college what possible alternative scenarios, whichsen anyway owe do you see as being do best one and which one as being the most probable? the never think of what's -- i don't ause --- think it's possible. so what die think?

he electoral college, is it going away? no. here were in the 1950s several bipartisan attempts to reform it. and they were democrat and republican, and basically, there ere going to do it like congressional districts, like nebraska and maine do it. got beat in the congress because the big states didn't like it and the little states didn't like it. it states didn't like because they like the fact that candidates pay more attention because if you win california by vote you get all of those and little states like it because otherwise, no one knows there.re wyoming, like nothing. so this way they get three. but now there is some chance for change because states like california and new and illinois, candidates, hillary clinton, democrats don't unless they go -- the democrats come here, they come to silicon valley and hollywood money. they don't campaign here. you may have noticed they didn't have much trouble winning the

state. so they don't campaign here, and that california no longer gets the juice that it candidates the coming. so there is more of a chance for it has to but i think come from the states and the problem with the states, best way to do it is break it down by congressional democrats are not going to like that i'll give you an example why. 2012, president obama won by five million votes. -- over five million and romney carried 226 congressional districts. had gone to that system, romney would have been elected. so the alternative is not -- i do believe as states come along will start to do things like nebraska, and there but it will changes take a while.

>> in all of this, talked about, back at the beginning of this talk, talked about, would they on and to results and so so forth. >> i'm sorry? >> would the electorate respond to results. in the next election, and -- i think we i think we just watched a situation where that happen. where people had more healthcare. the list y was up -- is long. and fox news told them that case.t the obama -- everybody said obama had a good message but didn't get it across but the people to to get it across were listening to fox news, they were never going to hear it there. it doesn't seem to me that any of that is going to change. -- ink that those people it's not going to matter whether for theseides results people and that they have better paying jobs, because they are

do, and be told they they are going to be told that everything is fine and they are going to continue listening to goingws, and they are not to know that it's not. me, and w it feels to it's happening already in this first 10 days. big difference -- he's president and they are responsible now. that's one. two, the areas, it turns out, here mrs. clinton didn't do as well were not the areas where they had been growth. -- so, we oversampled six midwestern states that it turns out that the areas where population went down those were t down, the areas -- population and jobs were down, trumps vote was up 2.9% over obamas and in areas where there was growth. so the question was, areas voted were areas where jobs weren't.

and i guess the third point i make, i don't think these yeah, you fox news, know the max, bill o'reilly 3.2 million. that's it. watches him. that's you know the -- cnn, i mean, they but, of everybody else, okay, three million, you know dancing people watch stars?e 24 million. so i do think there is a problem sources, because now people can just listen to there is no -- here is no -- there is no walter cronkite to interpret events. i think there is a little bit of probableelem, and we're looking that now and i -- and we are looking at that now. i think the biggest problem, i think the biggest problem may be facebook, where most people

under 40, that is where they get their news. >> and youtube actually. my husband and i volunteered at a middle school. we were teaching a journalism class. we would say, we're going to research -- they wanted to write about video games, of course. ok, they would just go to youtube and type in video games. or if we were going to research wales, they would go to youtube and type in wales. cnnnews is positively compared to some of the nutty stuff on youtube. there is whole flat earth movement. google it. [laughter] >> or youtube it. it is kind of interesting. i think there was a lot of silo-ing in this election, but if in reality their places were

losing jobs and population and life expectancy was going down, that wasn't just something fake that fox was telling them. i just want to point out that rick perry was on both. [laughter] >> what are the prospects for healthy democracy in an era of really powerful gerrymandering? , i thinkrrymandering gerrymandering is overestimated. if you actually look at it, there are between 65 and 75 -- andhat are majority they are from these districts that are set so they will have the majority with minority representative. once you sort those in, then

republicans have a great game. they say you can have another one. just put some more democrats in that district. if you look at the distribution of the democrat and republican votes in house seats, the democrats have a fat end of the tale, 50%. the democrats have a lot of districts where the winner gets 75%, 80% of the vote. the republican tail looks nowhere near that fat on the end. is, if you want to draw the district differently, you could get that, but part of theserrymandering is districts. once they are there, our best estimate of this is that, of the districts that are left, the republicans got about a 53%, 53 %, 54% tendency to windows.

the way things are set up now, i think the democrats are going to have a hard time taking the house. it will take some event like the disaffection with bush in 2006 for the democrats to get the house again, unless they change the way those districts are drawn. somewhat heartened by your observation about general as as and rex tillerson guy with perspective and a worldview. what do you make of the fact that secretary manus was standing right behind president trump when he announced the immigration order on friday? >> what could he do? then what happens? is, if you are jim

mattis, you may disagree with that, but there are many things that mrs. clinton, when she was secretary of state, and obama didn't agree on. i think he would be thinking something like this. the immigration issue, relative to what damage he could do, is pretty miniscule. you, and you are thinking, what could he do? it seems to me that you might well have stayed there and say, i don't agree with this, but that is what i've got to do. i don't know. he didn't call me. he didn't ask me anything. but that would be my view. you take those jobs in washington, you sign on and you are in. unless you are willing to resign. i take the point that the secretary of homeland security has not been confirmed, but he's

the secretary of defense. it seems, i don't know -- >> he probably -- he was the guy that said, i wouldn't have signed the iran deal, but i wouldn't get out of it now. don't torture anybody. frankly, i'm glad he didn't resign. there's principle and there's getting stuff done. that is the trade-off. it is true that in a washington job, you take that job, and you argue like hell inside for, this is what i think we should do, and when you lose, you go along with the president because that is the game. if you don't do that, which has happened a few times, you are not back in the game ever again. >> it does seem like our democratic party, well i'm an independent too, but anyway, that we have a tendency to sort

of put our heads in the sand when it comes to jobs. we seem to think that everybody when they really are not. maybe employment is up, but the people that worked in the factory are now working at walmart and are not so happy. this is what we experience. i've been in manufacturing, running a company for 20 years, and we didn't lose the jobs because of automation. we lost jobs because attacks havens, zero income tax in malaysia, zero income tax in ireland. i'm just wondering, how do we combat that? globalizationl, is really hard to combat. first of all it is global. donald trump can do what he

wants, but the chinese can do what they want and the europeans are going to do what they want. the second thing is, inequality is just going to increase. robert downing, isn't he the guy [indiscernible] head?uy or iron robert downing, right, actor. >> robert downey junior, ironman. i will translate. >> thank god for that. so on the last ironman movie, he made $80 million. how did he make that? 320 million people around the world, he got a quarter for everyone that came in. suppose you are the best carpenter or plumber. how much can you make? the question is, how do you redistribute it? can it be done?

it is a very tough issue. -- by theink anybody way, inequality, what happens is, in the old days -- so my daughter, well-educated, she is an investment banker, making pretty good money -- i don't know, $300,000, and her husband is a lawyer, and they get married. in the old days, there would have been one salary, his. now they are making $600,000. that also increases inequality. what are we going to do? are we going to say to people, don't do that, you your job -- you say that to my daughter. i'm not. the final thing is, you can help inequality if you say, no more google, no more facebook. that will bring about a quality in facebook. >> that will bring about a

revolution. at least they are going to unlike it. the democrats to talk about jobs. the problem is if you went to hillary clinton's website, it was a 28-point plan for job creation that no one really understood. you had to go to the right tab under the right menu to find the thing. was,istic as the message at least you knew what he was going to do. hillary clinton made it clear she cared, but the practical steps were just sort of more than the attention span of a lot of people. >> on the subject of immigration and institutions, i'm an immigration lawyer and i can tell you that the tow executive orders that were issued last week, they read like statutes.

they are plainly unconstitutional, both in violation of separation of powers and individual rights. they are major overhauls of immigration. what has been called the refugee ban is a lot more than a refugee ban it also affects iranian americans. it also affects a host of other visas. i can tell you from my own practice that there's a stream of about 25 emails from clients i'm getting every hour that it has totally upended immigration law. there have been four federal court issues in the last 12 days. all the reports from my colleagues are that the administration is in violation with these executive orders. it is a total meltdown of rule of law. >> why is that a meltdown of the rule of law? the president puts together a

not very well drafted -- four judges, it is going to go through the courts, and i'm happy to have it solved in the courts. that is what the constitution is about. it is a check. >> i agree with that, but that he's in violation with the court orders, to me, this is troubling. the department of state -- order theges can trump administration to appear. there's plenty of mechanisms. any party who refuses to appear, refuses to abide by a court order, is subject to a series of other court actions. presumably, the administration would be subject to those same -- >> i'm pretty sure the republican caucus is not happy with that order. inside, they are saying, this is crazy. we should back off and come down.

>> from the perspective of looking at the future of the parties, what is your take on the growth of republican control of state houses? good question. it has grown. but you knew that. was, president obama, who was such a great campaigner in 2008 and 2012, the 2010 election decimated the republican party. they lost all those house seats. they lost 675 legislative seats. in 2014, they lost another 400 legislative seats.

decimation,nd of and states tend to choose , sornors that kind of flip i think democrats should not be unhappy. 2018. i think democrats in 2018 are going to pick up five to seven governorships, and those are governors that are going to be there potential candidates for the presidency in 2020. it is going to reestablish some of that. the next thing -- that is one thing that is going to happen that is good. i think the other thing is the clintons, however good they've been, they are gone. since -- that is a long time. they are out now. the democratic party is going to pick up some governorships. they are going to rebuild that

way. we will see what happens. the main thing was the decimation of the 2010 election, followed by 2014. >> even party operatives will tell you they did not do a good job building their bench. it o house, we don't need to worry. there was some neglect in the party to build these grassroots organizations that need to be there. so i think that one of the lessons of this election, one of the things they need to do, is to focus better on that, to use the republican playbook to some degree. quick question. as far as dealing with the current administration, this is a very biased question, but all the papers that have come out, the marches and so forth, in your view, what is the best

strategy, speaking of strategies, for trying to preserve some of the values that were in the obama administration? >> moved to green bay. [laughter] >> good answer. >> thank you. as a wise man once said, move to green bay. it is hard. because we are in the bay area and our congresspeople, it is not like we can go out and root for a more liberal member of congress or senate, so there is some limitation to the grassroots things we can do. to some degree the best thing you can do is donate to organizations you feel are under threat, planned parenthood, the aclu, etc. in the bay area, there's not a lot of doorknocking to get any further left. off and going to sauce send us into the ocean.

marching of course. it seems that trump does respond and he is interested in numbers and bigness of crowds. i think it really hurt his feelings, frankly, to see the women'sturnout for the march and march is elsewhere. [laughter] >> i know, but if that is what you want to do, get out there. it does matter, the size and the number of women's march and march is elsewhere. [laughter] people who show up. those would be the things i would advise. >> i agree with all that. the republican party. watch what they start to do. if there are people doing the thing you want, right them, encourage them. they should do something about that. are under some pressure. one last thing, all of this

about trump's way or the republican party, let's be realistic. he's starting with the lowest, ever since we did gallup polls, he starts with the lowest approval rating. the lowest. up in our poll, and over the weekend, when all this went on, he fell to 38% on the refugee thing. , 51%ll to 38% approval disapproval. and among republicans who voted for him, and democrats who voted for him, and i think we kept independents out, but 48% thought he handled it very badly. that that is what you've got to look for. you've got to contribute to the causes you believe in.

ain'ter, politics beanbag. it is hard. it takes time to do it but the great thing is we have elections every two years. and the filibuster. >> at least for now. >> this is a two-part question. df hillary's motto ha been rebuild america, would that have strengthened the hand of democrats? and if the democrats got behind true infrastructure redevelopment, would that compensate in part for the loss of jobs in things like coal mining, energy, globalization, and modernization? pathway for the democrats? the stronger together, you

know, in retrospect, may not have appealed to everyone. not everyone wants to be together. sometimes they just want to buy a house. should the democrats focus more on infrastructure? now, the democrats are in an enviable position. i interviewed nancy pelosi about this. she said, we want to get behind an infrastructure bill. there's this great new deal idea of putting people to work, kind of an fdr recipe for bringing america back. but she said, the republicans, the only thing they want to do is build toll roads and put yunis abilities and the federal government further in debt and benefit large financial institutions. then the democrats are going to be in a position of saying no to an infrastructure bill for a lot of working people.

jobs, andwe want the the democrats say, no, it is a municipal bond. even if they are for an infrastructure bill, not just any one will do. that could get them back into a corner. republicans are pushing for more of a public-private partnership, emphasis on private. >> i think that is right. >> smart man. [laughter] >> then i would like to ask each of you, do you want to make a closing comment or thought? >> i don't, particularly. [laughter] >> i think the people in this room could use some good news. you are the professor. i'm just lame stream media over here. i think they could use some happy news. have we gone through worse in history? >> come on.

we had presidents who kept lists meanemies, watergate, i this country has been through quite a few things. -- why do i have to do this? aboutlatively optimistic how our institutions will handle this situation. quitek the probability is high that there's going to be a break in the republican party. there will be a sorting. that will stop a good deal of what might have happened. that's it. my job is to be an analyst. i'm not a preacher. latin]ng go in peace, children. >> on that note, melissa kane,

david brady, thank you so much. [applause] >> this weekend on "newsmakers" our quest is rand paul. he talks about republican efforts including his own proposal. he's asked about other issues related to foreign policy and surveillance. watch the interview sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> sunday night on "after words" melissa fleming chief sporks american for the united mission for refugees will talk about her book "a hope more powerful than

the sea." she's interviewed by michelle dabudon president of refugee international. >> this is 2011 and the arab spring is happening all around them and they're turning on to tell vision, all kinds of, you know, average families. they're living under an oppressive regime. they all have homes, livelihood, healthcare just going about their day-to-day life. this family in particular was not politically active. it wasn't -- they caught up in this excitement about actually the other countries around us are changing. maybe things could change here and demonstrations are starring the street -- starts in the streets. and doah is inspired to see what is happening. she witnesses them that peaceful protestors are actually shot