and later, primary care grinspoon.r. peter " washington journal" is next. host: good morning on a rainy and cloudy morning. 7:00 a.m. eastern standard time as we fell back one hour marking an end to daylight savings time. the house ways and means committee begins meeting tomorrow for what will be a marathon session to get the republican tax bill through the house floor. tax cutsng called the and jobs acts. however, this headline -- raising red flags for republicans. live coverage of the debate on c-span. the president is in japan. the first of five asian nations

he visits this week. we begin with the political debate over social media. examining twitter, google and facebook. should there be more regulation? .emocrats, (202) 748-8000 republicans, (202) 748-8001. and if you are independent, (202) 748-8002. join us on twitter or facebook. good sunday morning to you. thank you for being with us. we begin with the issue of regulation and whether there should be more of it on social media sites like facebook and google. article -- what is the honest ads act and can it stop on socialical ads media? "requiring digital platforms with more than 50 million monthly viewers to create a

public database of political ads purchased by a person or group who spends more than $500." also, it would require the date and time to the ad ran, the price and contact information for the purchaser. the house and senate focused on social media and here is senator al franken with this line of questioning. political ads paid for with foreign money in the future, with rubles or the north korean want? if a political lad is paid for uan, will yourean you o pledge not to put it on? text our goal is to provide documentation and information

that they are authorized to advertise. the currency signal, it is a signal -- senator: you can't say no to that. just answer yes or no. can you do that? you are sophisticated. the chief legal counsel for facebook. please answer yes or no. >> we will not permit advertising, political advertising, by foreign actors. the reason i hesitate on foreign currency is that it is easy for bad actors to switch currency. so it is a signal but it isn't enough. senator: why would anyone use a yuan? why would they trick facebook?

>> our goal is to a dress -- is for you toel think through this stuff little bit more. at the quick look washington post, focused on politics and the president's overall approval rating. we have more with that story breazeale is our guest next week. finally, we have the reporting with "lower approval of trump endures." they have delivered a report card that is harsher than the tepid expectations when he was sworn into office. the latest from the news survey, it is available online.

on focused political ads social media, should there be regulation? we think our listeners on c-span radio. we begin with michael from minnesota on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i do agree that with the -- thatith the columns we should have more regulation on all of the ads due to the recent debacle of russia and all of these other things going on with facebook. getting too out of control? we shouldn't be going through this over and over and over again. thank you. tweet --hael with this

who will verify that the person or organization submitting the ad is who they say they are? and this -- pandora's box is open. send us a tweet. from jacksonville, florida. your take? caller: it is more fiscal skate coding. albeit, google and facebook, i know that it is hard to get over the loss of hillary. but i think they are trying to come up with something, a bogeyman, to blame. during the campaign i blogged and i was accused of being a russian blogger. accused you? i am curious. caller: online, i was accused of it. and it is just ludicrous and kind of pathetic.

i don't know how else to say it. i don't know if they think this will help in the next election. anytime you say something negative, you get accused of being a russian? host: thank you for joining us. caller: senator al franken, i have a lot of respect for him questioning was used and it doesn't get anything done. it just provides good campaign material. regulations that need to be implemented are massive research into cyber security. or cannot name a corporation most government departments that haven't been hacked. when i be going to address the the entire security of the free world can be

compromised by a north korean ,itting in a think tank producing hacking? the best andea is largest manufacturer of united states $100 bills. don't need to use north korean currency because they have all of our currency that they could possibly print. let's get to work on security, big boys. it will all fall down the matter what kind of laws if we don't get it fixed. host: jodey weighing in with tweet. share your comments on c-span and we want to share this headline from the washington post. "one scenario of a war with north korea -- the pentagon looking at the possibility of a ground invasion as key. locatethe only way to

the nuclear weapons sites with complete certainty is through u.s. ground forces and in the event of a conflict, they could use biological and chemical weapons. lawmakers give a new blunt assessment of what works and what it might look like. we mentioned that the president is in tokyo. that is the first step. also traveling to the philippines for returning at the end of this week. a 10 day, 12 nation tour. on the republican line, good morning. caller: we need approval of what ads we end up on my facebook page. i get fooled.

i don't do too much on twitter. i think a simple remedy would be a filter that will be manned by professional and volunteer staff. i would be happy to pay you. ask that i get duped. and a: as a democrat libertarian, when it comes to freedom, it opens up a slippery slope. either you are pregnant or not pregnant. this is similar to pornography. the issue when you cut to the chase is that people need to fact check.

with fake news you can print and send it out to millions of people. coming.the martians are who are the individuals to fact check this stuff? i am against having someone decide what could be published or tweeted or put on facebook. i'm not in favor of that. it is a slippery slope. as a democrat and a libertarian, in some areas i am in favor of more government regulation but in this area i have to say no. of tweets are coming in. let me show you a few of them. time tople running the impeach ads are accusing fox of pulling their ads to to pressure from trump." saying that steve they cannot sue on first amendment reasons.

"who would we trust to regulate this? .ntegrity's are in question " "i would love to see an and to political advertising. too much dark money for propaganda." good morning. caller: the proof is in the pudding when they put out the ad about abortions and they immediately took that down but put it back up because it was a congresswoman. if you are a regular joe, you can forget that. they even said on the panel that they will hire 10,000 people to look at this stuff. if they have hired 10,000 democrats, what's the point?

we are going down a dark road here. thank you. and "who should not be allowed to put ads on facebook?" hearing, the senate senator feinstein. senator: i have been very proud to represent the tech community but i have to say, i don't think you get it. i think the fact that you defend what we are, but talking about is a cataclysmic change. what we are talking about is the beginning of cyber warfare. what we are talking about is a major foreign power with the sophistication and ability to involve themselves in a and throwal election

conflict and discontent all over the country. we are not going to go away, gentlemen. and this is a very big deal. i went home last night with profound disappointment. i asked specific questions but i got fake answers. and that won't do. you have a huge problem on your hands. and the united states is going to be the first of the countries to bring this to your attention and others are going to follow, i'm sure. because you bear this responsibility. you created these platforms. and now they are being misused. and you have to be the ones to do something about it. or we will. host: that was from senator dianne feinstein. full hearing is available on our website at c-span.org.

we are talking about political ads on social media and whether or not you think there should be more regulation. here is another tweet saying "i don't vote based on ads, especially if it is on social media. " david who saysm it controls weak minds. -- writes the following that social media was once a force for good but is now a threat to democracy which is the threat he got from the flood of news and commentary about social media's the election. representatives of twitter and facebook testified before congress about how russia exploited the platform to interfere with the election. plus, while russian meddling is a serious problem, they are scapegoating. it is just a mirror, facing us.

now, this response from the national review. writing that with the new york times, emilie parker -- including never trump republicans, a message they would rather not hear. propaganda only works when there is a significant enough segment of the population that wants to believe a particular message. it is almost fun to play big and companies like twitter facebook and youtube for the election in 2016. you can read that piece on the national review. good morning to the democrats line. caller: good morning. i am an american before a democrat. and i am very confused about people who came out to vote for trump and they still stand with him. i do try to understand them as

they are my fellow americans but i am very confused about this being the deregulation president they wanted in office. just because facebook puts ads adsthere or twitter puts out there or even when your friend sends you ads, it doesn't control who you vote for. -- if, you should have -- you believe everything you read, you shouldn't be leaving your kids alone with a computer. regulatee, how do you your own household if you believe everything you read? just look at it. you don't have to act on everything you read. i don't understand but i am trying my hardest. saying, i'mr tweet sorry but i don't see political as the same as cyber warfare,

attacking apple power grid. -- the hearings revealed the .001% ofake ads cost the total spent on political ads. democrat.called in i am 27-year-old. i have been using facebook since the beginning. and then branching off into instagram and other social media sites. it has been interesting to see the developments. because before, we didn't have that much news going on. and facebook was mostly social. and further along, is continued moving toto a bigger advertising and news. i catch myself often checking facebook for the news. host: do you trust what you read on facebook?

caller: at moments. there are times when i filter through. sometimes i see things like "patriot one." and that doesn't seem as credible as the new york times or rachel maddow but my point is the thing that's interesting -- es, pictures with comments, some of them are outrageous and it is absurd. way tore has to be some filter this. up, i rememberg parents and teachers saying not to trust everything you read on the internet that what the heck happened? now i think a lot of people are dependent on the internet. and, you know, we have to find a

way to be sure that what we are .eading is credible host: thank you for the call. "social media is not just conduits, they have the data to ein in fraud." i want to share with you the other stories recovered at the top. we will have coverage on c-span radio and c-span.org as lawmakers markup the tax bill. going to the house first and then to the senate. they are hoping to sign this before the holidays. this headline. reformepublican tax package has pushed senate republicans in a tough spot from the hill newspaper. legislation is expected to pass the house which will start a tougher battle in the senate

where republicans control 52 seats but cannot pass the bill if democrats remain unified. dozenst a half republicans have raised red flags citing issues with the proposal. ron johnson is not happy with the formula the house bill used .o pass businesses count 70% ofl only the pass-through business revenue as wages. a return on capital at a new rate of 25%. more details are available online at the hill. and we have coverage beginning tomorrow of the house ways and means committee. york, good, new morning. caller: thank you, thank you, thank you. thank you for being informative.

it is not black or white, regulations or not. because we always get into this kind of thing. our country is so divided. understanding things -- i watch the whole thing and i i don't understand a lot of this stuff. i used facebook a long time ago and i really don't understand it. and i had difficulties with wanting to have privacy but there were always changes. and i can understand that for a lot of us, we try to simplify our lives by using these things and we realize that we are believing this stuff. and i really wanted to validate that i appreciate that the conversations coming up, not the

pitting each other against each other -- now i understand more of how that is being filtered in two our country. and i really appreciate having the information explained so i get a better chance to be able to understand all of this stuff and figure it out. i don't know the solution. i understand that people will wrestle with this. explained thatn in his opening. but this is really complex. and i like simple things. we all do. but pitting one another against ich other -- you know -- believe this happened even before russia. and pray,thing i hope as we learn more about it, that

we can start using our own reasoning. i don't know any solution. regulations and that kind of stuff, i am just trying to, as an american, understand and learn so i can use my reasoning. and thank you. host: you have made our morning. how long have you been watching c-span? caller: for years. host: we are glad to have you. this tweet says "if you print false information in a newspaper, you could be sued or jailed but on facebook and twitter, nothing. it is a new source." trump opens the asia campaign talking tough. it kicks off an intensive swing

through asia with a rally with american troops in japan as they look to a lengthy trip likely dominated i the continuing threat from north korea. this beach after air force one touched down, trump never mentioned it by name. withg a military tone toughness in the face of challenges. president trump: each of your bodies, your devotion and expertise make you the most fierce and fighting force in the history of our world. ,nd together with our allies america's warriors are prepared to defend our nation, using the full range of our unmatched capabilities. no one -- no dictator, regime or , should underestimate, ever, american results.

while in the a past, they underestimated us and it was not pleasant for them. was it? we will never yield and never waver and never falter in the defense of our people and freedom and our great american flag. the flag stands for the values of our republic. the history of our people. the sacrifice of our heroes and our loyalty to the nation we love. president, the servicemen and women who defend our nation will have the equipment, resources and funding they need to secure our homeland enemiesespond to our quickly and decisively and, when necessary, to fight and

overpower and always, always, always when. host: that was the president earlier today in tokyo, japan. the first stop of a five nation tour through asia. we have a lot more coverage of the president's trip as the week progresses. from pennsylvania on the democrats line on the issue of political ads and social media and should there be more regulation? caller: well, yes. i feel that there ought to be regulations and stuff. if you are not telling the truth with stuff like that, yes. there ought to be more regulation to shut the program down or take money from them. things will change when the money don't flow. democratso to the line. this in asee

different light. i don't think they are trying to regulate whether they are telling the truth or not, or regulating fact checking on people, they are talking about regulations of technical companies like facebook giving our adversary business. and knowing what they are doing. they are not talking about americans not being a will to say what they want say. --is giving our adversaries if isis gets a contract to put out fake stuff -- that is what they are talking about. regulating them. and what i don't understand is how, when they accused obama of stuff with the conspiracies, they believed it. they took it. and now, they have trump. with all of these people around him who have had dealings with russia and who have made even himfrom russia,

and his son and his son-in-law and his daughter. but not one eyebrow has been raised with the republicans. host: thank you for the call. one of our regular guests here on the c-span network has written an opinion piece available at the hill with the headline "john kelly's unfortunate civil war words shed light on the white house." despite thousands of historical records and analysis with the civil war, it is curious to me that we are really to gauge and what is readily available by accessing journals on the internet or library. he is responding to the interview by john kelly where you set the lack of an ability to compromise led to the civil war. michael singleton says the ignorance of the statement was surprising in part because he is a former marine corps general. and to clarify, ignorant means

lacking information and definition specified by the dictionary.er welcome to the program. did you get the extra hour of sleep? did you enjoy it? caller: i did. i did. you are giving information day in and day out. is, with social media and more regulations, i don't think so. if you want to stop these guys from doing business, they are doing business. and if you burden them with regulations, it is going to stifle their growth. what i suggest is the american getle tune in to c-span and educated on your political process.

you have problems where you can't decipher what is true and what is false. haveich point did we monopolies in this country that are global? with the global monopoly agenda, that represents their best interests and not the interests of the american people or what is under the constitution. but what is in their corporate doctrine. even up the great work. love c-span. host: thank you for the call. we go to john from silver spring, maryland. caller: thank you for taking my call. i appreciate c-span. -- we know the russians are our enemy. it will use every tool they can get. as a young man, might dad used to tell me that russia was the enemy.

and we gave them the tools to use against us. but it is about the money. we need to regulate and this will not be the first time. going tole, we are regular because these three companies are running this country and they are not only damaging the media but they are damaging every business. and this is the problem when we when we givees -- big companies what they want. host: we look at some of the newsweeklies. "why we still haven't elected a woman as president." and trump's new energy plan for old energy. a big reveal as the cia finally released files recovered from osama bin laden's compound and it is in secret why the obama

campaign wanted them locked away. and "why can't democrats turn the page?" we will have more on that new book in just a moment. program, norman solomon will be joining us as he looks into the future of the democratic party. at first, more from republican from louisiana with this line of questioning. >> you have 5 million advertisers and you are going to tell me that you are able to trace the origin of all of the advertisements? if i wanted to hire a lawyer, if i wanted to hire you when you were in private practice and say, let's go through corporations and i want to hide my identity, you're are telling me that you have the ability to

through all of these corporations and find the true identity of every one of your advertisers? you are not telling me that, are you? asking about your ability. not sure commitment. can you do that today? >> we are not able to see beyond what we have on the platform. the technical signals on an account, we do think that we can use them to help identify inauthentic behavior. >> i'm trying to get us down from la la land. the truth is that you have 5 million effort ties are's month, every minute and probably every second. you don't have the ability to know who everyone of the advertisers is, do you? today, right now? not sure commitment that your ability.

>> to seeing behind the platform to understand if there are corporations, the answer is no. we cannot see behind the activity. was google and facebook and twitter at that table. here is a tweet from another viewer. don't forget with these companies that are public companies where their number one goal is profit. from spartanburg, south carolina on the republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. i remember when al gore got chinese -- he said that the regulations were too confusing and impossible to comply with. the baseline thing is that you cannot regulate ethics. you can force ethics. and it makes honest people's jobs more miserable.

and i don't know why you are not talking about the lack of ethics withn the democratic party the donna brazile thing. regulate you can never ethics. if people don't have them then they don't have them. regarding't pass laws the usage of raw information then what good is it? people like al gore will say oh, i couldn't handle it. it was complex. so i think you either have ethics or you don't. host: you mentioned the book and this is a headline from the washington post saying it details dysfunction and deception within the democratic party. he will read and a third in just a moment. but first, to mississippi. caller: the morning.

andlations, regulations more regulations. this is what the country needs. regulations. have a blessed day. host: we go to our he in -- we go to re:. caller: you cannot regulate against being stupid. and if these platforms are going to say they are public accounts then that's fine but there's no protection against anonymous speech. host: think you for the call. from the washington post, a look at this piece of virginia politics. a controversial ad in the governor's race. that northam -- evidence automated social media accounts were used to inflame online chatter about a controversial tv ad launched by a progressive group attacking ralph northam which attacks a gillespie

supporter in a pickup truck chasing children of different ethnicities. it ran two days last week on a spanish-language station. here is the advertisement.

[advertisement] the latest polling and summary of poll shows that ralph northam has a very narrow lead of 1% over all of the polls. 5% but one has him up by that is within the margin of error. thepoll conducted by polling company, a republican firm, gave the edge to a gillespie. we will have coverage of the speeches tuesday evening when the candidates come out on the c-span network. here is one of the ads from the gillespie campaign aimed at ralph northam. >> ms 13 appears to be surging

again. for the recent murder. >> crimes have been increasing around our region. >> ms 13 is a mess but ralph northam voted in favor of sanctuary cities that left illegal immigrants back on the streets to increase the threat of ms 13. >> i am at gillespie and i sponsored this ad for a safer and stronger virginia. host: let's go to your calls. jackie on the democrats line. media andof social whether there should be more regulation. caller: good morning. how are you? i'm calling because -- i am wondering, why do they have a problem with this ad? back in the day, this is what they did. the kkk.

people. fear in and they are doing it now. i don't know why the ad is such a bad ad. and i am a republican. i just changed. the democrats have a problem just like the republicans. i vote for the best candidate. host: will you vote on tuesday? caller: i will write in my name and vote for myself. host: ok. good morning. caller: i would like to comment on the advertisement that you just ran. recently, a guy and jersey rented a truck ran down a bunch of people and killed them.

that ad ran shortly before this incident and i think these political ads are far more powerful than anything that is turning up on social media. i'm amazed that no one is connecting the dots between bad shows a specifically muslim girl being run down and at the end, her mother over her, because it is a bad dream or , but i am dumbfounded that no one is outraged about that ad. host: thank you for the call. the front page of the washington post. an advanced copy of the book titled "hack. replacing hillary clinton or thinking of doing so." here is an excerpt.

that shen the new book contemplated setting in motion a process to replace hillary clinton as the presidential nominee with then vice president joe biden in the aftermath of the fainting spell in part because clinton's campaign had taken on the odor of failure. scathing portrait of clinton as a well-intentioned historic candidate whose campaign was badly mismanaged and took constituents for granted. the campaign was lacking and passion for the candidate that headquarters felt like a sterile hospital ward where somebody had died. writing that they put the dnc on a starvation diet. the story is available today. joins us now from alabama on the independent line.

caller: good morning. thank you for your program. , being from selma, we have been regulated for all of our lives and i like that we are starting to stand up. in alabama, we have elected the wrong kind of senators through the years. -- and he stood out as being a fair representation for alabama. i feel we need regulations because jeff sessions is turning the clock around. thehe is responsible for cutting of the voters rights act. my family was very involved in that through the years. and i know that i am an independent voter because i respect all people. but when you talk about

regulating, we can't even regulate our president. and the things that he says is insulting to all of us. i wanted to make this comment because we need to vote democrat. choices,have no other we have a guy now -- the ad that -- that he ran earlier. we have fought for through many to improve this nation and make it a more perfect world and state and country. we are tired. we need to realize some things in our lifetime that we have worked so hard for. because earlier, a woman talked started from. is you remind me of one of my white friends from when i lived in milwaukee.

this town, selma, alabama, has something to share with the country. we need to vote democrat. we need to vote democrat. listen. start respecting each other, that is what the democrats are trying to go to. when -- comes on next week, i'm sure she will tell you these battles. thank you, so much. host: francis, thank you for the call. luther strange is the interim -- itr and with rory more

is on december 7, the special election is december 12 and if we are able to we will try to bring that to you live. now, this is a piece by henry .aulson how china's strong man could stumble. the president will be in china in the middle of the week. welcome to the conversation on the democrats line? the thing i have a problem with is putting money into these assets and trying to manipulate the american people, and i do not.

donald trump is sick and we have to get them out of there. if we don't impeach him, we will be in serious trouble over the next few years. host: thank you for the call. the new york times sunday review had this. sebastian gorka will be with us at the top of the hour. bob from oklahoma on the republican line. good morning. caller: the last thing we need is regulation of political ads. it would be like asking a commission to regulate the mafia. all these people on the left, particularly lady from alabama who called in, they can't win so they want somebody else to do it for them. watching the hysteria in this

country since trump has been elected is a crisis. and: we go to ray tennessee. caller: before i have my , that lady from alabama, she said that she is independent but i don't think so. the cities that are century -- look at thees state saying that. they are in trouble. financially in trouble. politically in trouble. their people are not getting the right service from their government. this is what you have to do. look at the states saying that musthe american people

wake up. there are too many liberals in this country and in the universities who are teaching our kids socialist ideas. communist crap. inple should put their kids the right kind of universities to get the good education and not be brainwashed. host: lisa, you are next from california. caller: thank you for taking my call. i get so upset when i see these ads like the one from ed gillespie's opponent. it is infuriating to me to see that we have stopped back 100 years in time in our civil rights era. and to be honest with you, i think quite a bit of it has to administration,

apologetics over being american. patriotism. --ot of what we see today and i am a republican, a capitalist -- even though our country isn't perfect. capitalism is the best thing for a civil society. let people compete. let excellence come to the top. let those who are at the top the charitable to those at the bottom. leave, actually, as far as regulation goes. in some ways i believe in no regulation. but, you know.

unfortunately, you cannot sometimes allow lunatics to run the asylum. so i don't know. it is a complex situation that we do have going on and i believe in the good of humanity. iighbor and neighbor and when see advertisements like that, it .s like -- give me a break host: we have to move on. thank you for the call. i want to share with you a couple of tweets. actually, let's get a call from san diego, california. morning.ood i haven't called in a long time and i have two things to say. this country is not a democracy as far as i'm concerned. i was 26 when i came here. and hillary clinton had 3 million more votes but my vote

never counted. the electoral college should be gotten rid of. and the second thing that i have to say is that trump products, they are not made in this country. and i don't hear enough people talking about that. we talk about jobs but his own products are not made in this country. that is all i have to say. host: robert is next. welcome to the conversation. caller: they will put anything on tv. it is all about the money. and unfortunately this is why we have donald trump who is the most unfit president that we've ever had. and it is hard to believe that people allow him to go online and put the wrong people in the wrong places. the swamp? he is the swamp.

host: we go now to cnbc. twitter will now label advertisements. how much they pay for them. we go to the republican line with lucy, good morning. caller: good morning. issue, theut the so-called journalists who work for the news outlets do not support freedom of speech. vladimir putin kills journalists. he kills political opponents. and anyone who works for him support his view. we have to remember this and we cannot forget this when we talk about the media. sayinghis is from dana that obama used social media 2012 but it was stolen from hillary clinton. good morning.

caller: you are saying, should there be more regulation? how would you regulate that? we have freedom of speech. i don't see how you can stop anybody from going on anything and saying what they want. that is the first thing. as far as hearing anything from those two guys, the bushes, they are criminals. one of them, we went to war for nothing and the other is a scandal. everybody is against trump. but we don't want to hear the truth. oh, it is hurting them or the political agenda. and that is all it is about. cash. the worsto says he is president has not seen many presidents. that is all i can tell you. host: ted from minnesota, good morning. without trying to pick a political party, i have been listening to some callers and what comes to my mind is that

everybody makes comments about trump and other politicians. we, asng that i think citizens of the country have to keep in mind is the position that our country is in right now is a direct result of the politics we came out of. and to fix that, something has to change. so those of you who want to go back to the recent past administrations, you have to understand that we just came from there and look where we are at. host: let me go back to the honest ads legislation which is something that congress is looking at. you can get more details on washington post but it requires digital platforms with more than 50 million monthly viewers to create a public database of advertisements purchased by a group that spends more than $500. and finally, it it includes advertisements and in description of the audience.

the days and times it runs. time for theon and purchaser. more details are on washington post.com. from last night, a look at the opening skit. saturday night live. >> we have a plan. it is a great plan. isn't that right? laughter] [applause] >> i am all yours. all yours. >> we are in a costume and i have some of my favorite places. look, i thought we should get used to wearing these. i am a sneaky, lying villain. if anyone comes after me, i roll over and play dead.

>> as jeff has pointed out, i cannot pardon you now because it will look to suspicious. i dropped my loofah. -- willrry, my trustee get it. >> i can't pardon you now but we will wait a few weeks and then dress you up like a turkey and that we will. >> foolproof plan. husker that was an excerpt from last night saturday night live. next, sebastian gorka will be here to talk about the future of the g ob -- the gop. will be up next. and then the senate relations

committee. congress takes up the debate over the authorization for the use of military force >> the you have any sense yet on what the timeline is going to be for trying to draft a new authorization? and how brought it should be? >> first, i want to complement secretary tillerson and theirary mattis in testimony before the senate foreign relations committee. i thought they were very direct in their answers and very helpful to us. it is clear to me that we cannot allow the 2001 authorization, that was passed by congress immediately after the attack on our country on september the 11th, aimed at terrorists in afghanistan, to be used for worldwide military campaigns against terrorists. we need to update and replace that authorization with one that makes sense, considering how much we know now about

terrorists globally. we certainly do not want to have an open-ended authorization for american ground troops to go basically anywhere in the world. it is important that congress replace the 2000 one with an authorization that makes sense. senator corker and i are going to try to work together to come to an agreement on this. it is not going to be easy. we have those who believe we should give our military open ended authorization. others who want to make it more restricted. we will do our best to try to come together with an authorization that is in the best interest of our country. america is stronger when we are united. should be with the administration, a strong message to our men and women in uniform from our country, that they have total support. passing an updated authorization for use of military force would the in our national interest. host: a reminder -- c-span's

makers" program at 10:00 eastern. and check out our free c-span radio app. we are here with sebastian gorka, warmer senior adviser to trump. what is the message? guest: the message is that we can defeat groups like al qaeda. we have done it before. this is just another totalitarian threat purely -- threat. in --eated the fascists with our of muslim allies, specially like the jordanians, defeatptians, we can them physically, as we are doing already in syria and iraq, but also ideologically. delegitimize that message of

"jihad." host: some have referred to it as a whack a mole strategy, and we are seeing it now in niger, where they are moving from one area to another. years havelast 16 been whack a mole, but what we saw with the arrival of the new commander in chief is we have seen this phrase, "new radical islam." killing terrorists is great, but at the end of the day, if you kill a terrorist and 20 people volunteer to replace him, it is an endless cycle. so we have to work with our muslim partners to build village of mise -- two delegitimize jihadism. host: is is the president's policy as well? guest: i think you will see echoes if you look at least beaches he has given. because he talked about the evil

of the enemy. in the administration, we did not look at economic or social answers. we understood this is an ideological enemy committed to our destruction. the two most important speeches is the speech he gave in riyadh and the speech in warsaw that talked about the evil ideology of our enemy. host: the president in tokyo, the first in a weeklong visit to asia. but what does you need to tell the chinese government and what does china need to tell the u.s. about north korea? guest: it is less about what china needs to tell us, it is what china needs to do. korea ascus on north north korea. north korea is not the problem. china is the problem. china has allowed north korea to create the crisis. china is in total control of the situation. if they close the forceps, whether energy or food export

into north korea, there will be a radical modification in behavior. china will give a clear message to the president behind closed doors. we will see whether beijing responds. china more worried about -- a united korea or a nuclear north korea? calculationis the they have been trying to arrive at, especially after the mar-a-lago summit. north korea has been a so-called "buffer" since 1953. but there is a point where having a buffer against the west can become its own problem. having a nuclear exchange, having a war with japan, with south korea, at that point, there is no buffer. you have created a position worse than the one you wanted to prevent. china has to draw its own internal red lines. host: you spent the first six months inside the white house. now you are outside. why did you leave? guest: because i came into

support the president's make america great again at agenda, specially when it came to national security, counterterrorism. i was on vacation when my direct boss -- i reported to steve bannon -- when steve resigned, i path to support the president was limited. i did not just want to do the odd television interview from the north lawn of the white house, i wanted to support the original agenda. and there were voices around us who were not part of the maga agenda in a sentence. so -- ascendence. the president reached out to me after i resigned. he asked for me to support him. i agreed. that is what i am doing. what happened november 8 is not a function of where i sit or where steve bannon sits. it is the function of an eight

year's agenda and then, hopefully, eight years of a president pence. host: was one of those voices general kelly? guest: not at all. i have a good relationship with general kelly. he is a fan. i am a fan of his. he is a legend in the marine corps. he has definitely brought structure to the system. host: we heard so many reports, when reince priebus was chief of staff, of dysfunction, disorder. how would you describe the first six months inside the white house? guest: like any other administration's first year. yes, you are a white house correspondent, your best you are president's association. you know every administration. the clinton measures and basically collapsed and had to be your organized -- reorganized. there is a difference between running a successful campaign and governing the most powerful

nation in the world these are natural teething problems. but the idea of chaos -- not at all. host: we are talking with sebastian gorka. from newsweek magazine, one of a number of publications reporting that george herbert walker bush are boring -- referring to trump as a "blowhard." both president bushes had choice words for trump. the elder bush calling the billionaire commander in chief a blowhard and flatly stating he did not like him. ex-presidentsoth admitted they did not vote for trump. the other bush voting for hillary clinton. you can either exploit the anger he had incited or come up with ideas to deal with it. this guy does not know what it means to be president -- said george w. bush.

guest: what else would you examplerom the absolute of the gop establishment? nothing else. donald trump is the rank outsider. china inected to break the china shop, because the establishment on both the left and right has betrayed the american people in terms of promises they made and failed to keep. the idea that a real estate mogul from new york could trounce 16 establishment candidates and then defeat a woman who spent maybe $1 billion on a campaign she thought was owed to her because of her gender and last name -- that tells you what the american people wanted. it is predictable that they said that. a republicant former president voted for hillary clinton, that tells you everything you need to know. host: this date meant from the president yesterday.

this speaks volumes about what legacy past presidents really had. this begins with the iraq war, one of the greatest foreign-policy mistakes in american history. trump remains focused on keeping his promises to the american people by bringing back jobs, promoting america first for policy and standing up for the forgotten men and women of our great country. guest: i would ask your viewers to judge this resident on achievements. do not listen to spin, do not listen to fake news. look at the economy. 24% increase, gross increase, in the stock market value. look at the fact that we have liberated raqqa. these are results that are unprecedented in this short span of time. whatever you think about the president's style, look at the results and the facts on the ground. you have to say -- impressive. host: your families from

hungary, yes? guest: yes. my parents for -- were from budapest. scistlived in the fa occupation of hungary. my father was given a life by thee at the age of 20 communist regime. waymy parents made their out to the west after they were released. i was raised speaking hungarian and then went to serve in the first free government of hungary after the fall of communism. host: how did that affect your thinking, your global views? guest: hugely view the first chapter of the book is about my father's experience under communism. i understood that freedom is as precious as it is fragile and that ronald reagan was right when he said sooner or later,

the loss of liberty is always but one generation away, whether it is nazis, communists, or the totalitarian jihadists, we have to always be ready to protect our liberty. america is the only nation created -- as the only nation created on the ideals of liberty, is an attractive target. host: at what point did you know the that donald trump would be the nominee? guest: i met him in 2015. within 60 seconds, i need two things about this man. number one, he is the kryptonite of political correctness. he did test critter -- political correctness. after eight years of obama, that was refreshing. the second thing that made me realize i needed to support this and -- he clearly understood we are at war. this is not a problem to be managed via jihadism is a war.

and he wants to win this war. his determination, forthrightness, that led me to believe this man has a chance. line,on the republican clinton from naples, florida. our guest, sebastian gorka. good morning. caller: good morning. when i was in rhodesia, we sought the terrorists and could not tell the difference because most of the terrorists were black. the way we used to get it was people used to inform. but just like nelson mandela did in south africa, they cut off their lips and got their wives to either the l -- to eat the lips in front of them. not gormants did forward. in the united states, you have the same problem. they are part of america did you cannot tell the difference between who the terrorists are. guest: fascinating. i do not think the parallel to

reduce year -- rhodesia is a one-to-one analysis. the nypd became a global counterterrorism organization with a very effective human intelligence programs and assets. unfortunately, mayor deblasio has tried to close down many of those programs. , weafter the recent attack understand the importance of having those assets. end of the day, it is a human being who is best able to tell when someone is radicalizing, before they build a bomb. host: dave in the choice, democrats line. caller: good morning. i watch c-span every morning without fail. and this is the worst -- you guys have hit rock bottom, bringing this trash idiot on tv -- host: why do you say that? caller: i watch him on cnn. he is a proliferator of lies.

five minutes ago saying fake news. what is "fake news"? guest: i will tell you what fake news is. caller: you will not tell me anything, because you are a liar. guest: you sound like a tolerant liberal. i am sure that is what this nation is billed -- built upon. fake news is a problem. i would eat stories in the "new --k times," "washington post i would read stories in the "new york times," "washington post" about stories where i was in the room for. they would be literarily diametrically opposed to what happened. the fake news industrial complex -- when you have the president -- people think the president is a racist, this is outrageous. are man's grandchildren

jewish. i can guarantee you, hand on heart, there is not a racist bone, molecule in this man's body. but look at awareness -- look at what is happening to their ratings of cnn. the american people see through the fake news. i think they stick to things like c-span, to your show, and to twitter. the president cut through all the lies. host: paul manafort and his indictment -- your reaction. guest: saturn. whatever he did with regards to offshore accounts and work for the ukraine, he should be investigated if there is a tried there. he should be tried by a jury of his peers if he actually committed those crimes. at the idea that we spent millions of dollars to investigate russian collusion with the trump campaign, and all

the prosecutor has come up with is paul manafort did not register adequately to work for the ukrainian government and did not disclose funds in offshore bank accounts -- this has nothing to do with donald trump, nothing to do with collusion in the trump campaign, and nothing to do with russia. as the president told me a couple months ago, just the two of us in the oval -- he said they will find nothing, because there is nothing. i believe that man. this is a travesty. host: what about george papadopoulos? a lot of concerns that he may have worn a wire or talk to people. is that a greater threat the trump white house? guest: i do not think so. i was brought into transition early on. i was on the trump team transition from october. i worked with general flynn all through the months of to the inauguration. 1 on i started to work 12:0

the day of the inauguration. i never met this man. the most important thing is the has anemiadocument from the campaign that says this guy is a little strange, making email from the campaign that says this guy is a little strange. when they realized this was a flimflam man -- you may have worn wires, but it had nothing to do with him. host: you say no collusion. guest: no. host: did russia tried to influence the election? guest: russia has been trying to influence elections since 1917. the idea that this is a surprise to people -- that is their tradecraft. that is what they do. the fact that we have russian disinformation propaganda material put into a dodgy dossier that clinton's lawyer pays $12 million for, yes, we

have collusion, but that is on the left side. the dossier does not appear atil the dnc created relationship with fusion gps. there is a lot of this information out there. host: our guest, sebastian gorka. maria is next, our line for independents. thank you for waiting. caller: good morning. i have three things i would like him to comment on, because i know he knows his history. the first is why did we decide to take the place of written after world war ii? what was that unholy alliance about? host: stay on the line. we will follow up with you. guest: i am not sure what "taking the place of britain" really means. churchill decided the days of the empire are over and out it to consciously dismantle it,

whether in india or elsewhere. i think america realized after world war ii that they defeated one totalitarian threat in fascism, and now there was this rising specter of the soviet union. then, the truman administration said we have to be the force that pushes back with our allies. nato was created in 1949. the classified response plan was written in the early 1950's. america took a role because it understood a nation without democratic -- a world without the influence of the united states and its values would be a dangerous place, and we do not want another world war. betweenhe difference political and religious terrorism. the parallel between the ira and al qaeda and what the difference between those kinds of terrorism means for policy. host: back to your questions.

caller: i reject all of that. we have a rerun of all of the colonization we had before. the italians are in libya again to the french are in niger. we do not know what is going on in our name. we were told not to get involved. if we believe everyone is equal, let them settle their own scores. i feel that we have to get rid of the federal reserve, which he knows is a private banking system, and also taxation. we had everything paid by the import tariff before. instead of giving all of the money to these wars, we have to come home, clean house in washington. i had hopes for the reform party, but if they are going to get us in endless wars, the people will have to rise up and do it themselves. thank you. host: thank you. guest: that is rather disturbing. i do not know what "the people will rise up close what refers to. the idea that america is the new

imperial power, that is asinine. if america were an imperial force, afghanistan would be run today by an american proconsul it. it is not. we have done the most for the liberty of other individuals, the most for economic freedom, and any other nation in the world. we help nations. even -- empires do not leave. this is outrageous. this is completely fallacious. one of the reasons i agreed to help trump is because of this idea that isolationism works. it does not. it did not work in pearl harbor in 1941. it did not work on september 11 in 2001. the world is a global structure. the idea that if you pull down the shutters on each coast will keep americans safe -- it does not work. we need to be cognizant of threats and deal with it. but this president is not an

interventionist, but nor is he and isolationist. we sent a message to assad. it is a commonsense balance between isolationism of rand paul and interventionism of neo-cons of the the world. host: our guest is sebastian gorka, former senior at rise in the white house. he is out with a new look on jihad. i want to ask you about the president referring to senator bob corker as "little bob corker." does that seem petty in your mind? guest: what demeans the presidency is having a senator undermine a sitting republican president. this would be unheard -- it would be ungentlemanly and unseemly. the idea is you have an

individual who facilitates -- let's think about this. bob corker facilitated the tytting of congress' trea powers when he came up with the iran deal's: government. the idea that you did not need to have two thirds to approve the treaty, you had to have two thirds to veto it. this man of that it -- facilitated president obama, creating one of the worst nuclear deals in modern history. and he has the gall to say what he did about the president. i think the president's comments are appropriate. host: does trump not undercut his own secretary of state as he tweets when wrecks tillerson -- ,hen rex tillerson was in china saying we will see whether or not he will stay for four years. guest: nobody is guaranteed for life to have a job with the

president. the idea that i cannot make mistakes and therefore pay the penalty -- i decided to resign. , rexact is we serve tillerson and myself, serve at the pleasure of the president -- host: but he is also your represented. he is your secretary of state. as long as he is, should the president not just publicly support him or just get rid of him? the president has an interesting style of management. i think he brings it from the private sector. what i saw was an individual comfortable with unusually high levels of created chaos. he hires people who he thinks will be affected. he wants to see results. tillerson or jeff sessions, he sends messages. which are fine. it is the 21st century way of managing. you have been given a clear signal. this is what i want to have effect did -- affected.

you cannot do it, maybe you have to go. in south's go to blake carolina. caller: good morning. it is an honor, mr. gore got, to be able to speak to you and get your opinion. get my hands on your book, trying to understand what you are saying in there. but based on what i am hearing from the tv now, i am afraid maybe you do not have the whole picture. trying tond man figure out an elephant, one person getting one these, another person getting another piece. -- i amo me -- i do not trying to get my head around it, but as an ideology, it reminds me of something like communism. so you know there are more barely and dedicated communists. some are not. there may be some moderate commonest and some not so moderate.

but it is the ideology of common is him -- communism that was the problem, not was more zealous about it. that is what was discredited to win the cold war. guest: i think i know where blake is getting at. again, i cannot agree with this idea, which i think what he is pointing to, is we are at war with religion. i spent six years with the defense department before i came to the administration. an international program and masters degree. came 46% of my students from the middle east. i learned the most about islam from those muslim officers. i understood there is not a monolithic islam. travel from indonesia and then land in riyadh, you will see two

very different islam's. go to southeast asia and then go to jordan. monolithic one. while we have is a 17th century one in the form of isis, who says all infidels and muslims who disagree with us must he killed. and we have more modernist versions. i would trust my life with any of the muslim jordanian officers i trained in d.c. we have to help them win a war within islam. what we are seeing right now is a war for which version of islam will be predominant. we have to make the violent version die, ideologically, and promote our muslim allies with their version of islam. the idea that we are at war with 1.3 billion people is absurd. host: is this something we will deal with in our lifetime? guest: good counterterrorism is not about eradication.

that is the equivalent of saying we have to eradicate murder and theft. we will always have terrorism. the only country that does not have terrorism is a dictatorship. this counterterrorism is about suppression of the threat to the level where it no longer in pages on the daily running of the nation or on people's lives. with our muslim allies, we will defeat groups like isis and al qaeda in short order. and then, slightly longer, challenge to delegitimize that ideologically. host: you go to the democrats line, crystal in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. first, i want to find out, where did he get his education on islam and does he speak arabic? weeks in kind of two different languages. i do not think he understands islam at all. another thing, how can you support a president who gets up every day and lies to the american people?

i believe that is why you were thrown out of the white house, because they realized you were padding your resume. i agree with the man said that this is a bad day for c-span, cum ofe you scraped the s the earth to bring this man on media. i never liked him and never had liked him. he has no expertise in this realm. host: let me say this first of all. we invited dr. pork on because, as with all of our guests and all of our programming, our goal is to be transparent and give you the chance to ask questions and also to learn from individuals of all backgrounds. so we were the one who invited dr. workout. we appreciate you being with us. guest: i commend you for your policies in who you invite to this show. breadth of vision that we expect in this nation. i have never said i am an islamic scholar. i have a political science phd

from budapest, a masters degree from budapest. at harvard.r a year i have an undergraduate degree from london university in theology. so if those credentials are not enough, i would gladly debate this individual at any time in the future. ,ith regards to the president and his veracity, lying is something we are perhaps you in politics. benghazi. i think about the irs targeting of conservatives and how that was denied. i think about fast and furious, the death of federal agents because of programs done by a democratic white house. that is not sure of this president. he does things. i am sure this individual did not vote for the president, but that is fine. that is democracy. host: this is about -- this is

from george, asking sebastian gorka why donald trump has not instituted sanctions as ordered by congress. the russia relationship is a complicated one. i always tell people to look presso the first conference the president gave. i the last one he gave in trump tower. someone asked him about what heut relations with putin as was leaving. the president stopped and said something very clear. he said in theory, i would like to have better relations with moscow. now, -- that does not seem likely. if that is the case, so be it yet he is -- so be it. he is a pragmatist. sanctions we have a package in place. if it is not to the full liking of the caller, that is fine. host: the front page of the "washington post," military

invasion, ground forces in north korea. this is as the pentagon looks at all options. how likely is that, from your standpoint? how do we solve the problem with north korea and pyongyang and kim jong-un? guest: i remember this distinctly. i remember being in the oval one day and the question of korea came up. the president said one thing -- he said i have no interest to go to war in the korean peninsula. he is not interested in that happening. he is clear, though, as a secretary mattis that you threaten our nation, threaten our citizens, we will take action. i think secretary mattis' lang uage that we will destroy the regime in pyongyang could not be clearer. i do not want to talk future strategies. you do not signal to your enemy what you will or will not do. be aary solutions will not

positive scenario. but right now, the question of de-escalation is in the hands of north korea and, specific, beijing. there is one very clear de-escalation that can occur. stop was the -- ballistic missile launches and stop nuclear testing. if those things are done together, then we can proceed with de-escalation. the ball is clearly in their court. host: dan, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i appreciate the show. i love c-span. i have a couple of comments. one, there is no question, the fake news -- there is no question the news is slanted. when you look at how the news is slanted. michelle and barack obama versus melania and donald trump. it has been a reverse. they gave president obama a mediapath to positive coverage. and when you turn on the

mainstream media, packed full of democratic former operatives, all you get -- it is almost like who can come out with the news that can attack the president the most. on the flip side, i think there is also a sense of omission, like this george bush information. uraniumdonna brazile, one, the dossier -- that is never covered. you have haduse from these liberals that are calling you names, i think there is such an intolerance, that there is such a stifling of ideas on the media, in university campuses, it scares me where we are today. i have never seen anything like it in my life. host: thank you for the call. guest: wonderful points. imagine if melania trump had been married to barack obama. she would be on every fashion magazine. but she is married to a

republican president peter that is hardly fair and balanced. the victims of communism foundation released a poll about millennials. 42% of millennials said they would prefer to live under socialism. that is incredible. bled,s a nation who has expended treasure, to create a democratic system based upon liberty.nd my parents lived under socialism. my father was tortured by secret police officers. the idea that you could have almost 50% of children today think about system is ok, it speaks to a degrading of our education system and the fact that ronald reagan was right to you the loss of liberty is always but one generation away. we have to redouble our efforts not to allow people to distort history. if you look -- if you read be black of communism, written by

left-wing social scientist, they catalog the cost of communism in the 20th century. the final tally was 100 million people killed as a result of karl marx's ideas. host: are your parents still alive? guest: they passed away 14 years ago. host: this tweet -- love the term "fake news industrial complex. [laughter] guest: i have to give credit where that is due. that was my former white house colleague. host: the former senate republican leader was in the rose garden late last month as they talked about the agenda forward. [video clip] >> the goal is to win elections in november. we nominated012,

several people -- they are not in the senate. the reason for that was they were not able to appeal to a broader electorate in the general election. my goal as leader of the republican party in the senate is to keep a majority. you have to nominate people who will win. winners make policy and looses go home. host: your response to that sentiment from the senate republican leader. guest: if you look at the press conference in total, he looks worried. i think steve bannon and myself have adequately rattled his cage. he should be worried. if you look at what happened to judge moore in alabama, the flake decision, the rhinos are jumping ship or they know what happened november 8 will not be stopped. i like to call it the most leveraged hostile takeover in

modern history, when you have someone who has never serve public office be elected as president. we have individuals, to d.c. and spend literally decades, some -- if ouris in office founding fathers knew that people will become professional politicians, they probably would not have fought the british and at own would have an accent like mine. i the winds of change will blow through the city this year. host: what does the president think of senator mcconnell? [laughter] guest: he talks to him regularly. i inc. it fluctuates. i think what he thinks of senator mcconnell fluctuates with regards to what he is doing for the agenda. host: because they are polar opposites. guest: in style, background, and history, yes. the question is if they can work

together for the needs of the republic. host: can they? guest: we will see. the tax reform issue is the next test. host: will a path the senate? guest: i think so. host: we go to our independent line. caller: thanks for taking our call. while mr. gorka was flattering donald trump, i heard him comment on his management style. i just want to comment that does not even seems like it consists -- exists, considering he does not even have half of the staff he started out with. and there were effective claims of infighting between stephen miller and bannon, multiple factions in the white house, multiple weeks. there has not been any show of clear management, especially with the firing of james comey as a clear of section of justice. host: thank you, shannon. guest: again, facts may be for

people, but look at the last eight months. look at the jobs, the economy. look at the renewal of nato. 2% of gdp dedicated by the secretary-general, something we happen waiting 30 years for. look at the crushing of isis in theater. whatever you think you are reading in the news about management style or situations inside the white house, it wore it to you look at the facts on the ground as to what the president has done for america. that is the only way you should measure a commander in chief. host: what do you think of tom stier? guest: i think he has problems with reality. host: did you see the new ad? we will show to our audience. [video clip] >> he has brought us to the brink of nuclear war, of shifted justice at fbi, indirect violation of because addition, has taken money from foreign governments, threatened to shut

down news organizations. taught -- i am tom stier. it is up to us to do something. it is why i am funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand of elected officials take a stand on a beach met. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. today, people in congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger. he is mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. and they do nothing. join us. tell your member of congress they have a moral responsibility to stop doing what is the local -- political and start doing what is right. our country depends on it. host: your response to that spot from tom spier? guest: laughable. "snl" should run that. i find it ironic that people like stier and soros drink from

the cup of overflowing liberty and market for us -- forces, become billionaires, and then they want to destroy the system that allows them to become so wealthy. it is a fantasy. of section of justice? does he even know that the president is the chief law enforcement officer of america? it is not the ag. theof those people work for president. he could fire them all. so it is entertaining. host: george, jacksonville, florida, republican line. caller: good morning, dr. gorka. i am so happy to see him on tv. comments, quickly. first is about free press. it is a must for all democracy. the one we have today is just a

bunch of lies 20 47 -- 24/7. it is not free by any means. the next point i was i to make is about islam. i was born in a muslim country and have been in the united dates the years. islamis self has -- itself has transformed due to saudi money. you cannot continue allowing the saudi's to dominate islam around the world. host: thank you. guest: fascinating. we saw the news yesterday in saudi arabia. i think the president's react beach has changed the game. when he went to the heart of the muslim world where jihadism was founded and gave them tough love. he said you, muslim leaders, have to "rid your places of worship of extremists.

rid your society of terrorists." one lady from the region told me that is the speech we happen waiting for for 16 years. what happened -- the gcc turns and says what are you doing funding terrorism? things are changing. the arrest yesterday in saudi arabia are another positive sign of leaning house. so political islam, the modern thedi movement founded by muslim brotherhood, that is our real problem today. line,from the democrats gloria from brooklyn, new york. caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to say first of all, i will agree with mr. gorka that, for 30 years, there have been a lot of senators who sat there and did nothing, even the ones decided to resign, poker and all of them. on the other hand, i want to say

racial divide has never been worse in this country, and that is because of this administration. i want to know why emphasis is on the white las vegas shooter. --aryland shoulder was soldier was shot by a white supremacy you i thought -- i wonder why there is no emphasis or talk. they are called a nice name like "shooter." the "las vegas shooter." they are not called thugs. i was five years old and saw "colored" and "white" water fountains. i thought the "color" was good because i was a kid. so it is horrible, the racial

divide that is being preached in the white house, the trump administration. it is not good. the only thing i can agree on -- some of them have been sitting there for 30 years. and there has been no change. host: thank you. guest: thank you. your call is important but also sad for me. you listed an event or series of events -- again, you, yourself, have just proven the power of the fake news media. you mentioned to people being killed to defend a muslim woman. dino killed them in oregon? that individual was a jill stein supporter. was a leftist. the facts of the case must be treated in a way that is not distorted. the mainstream media would have you wish us was a problem. i agree with you. the racial division in america has never been higher. it is not because of donald trump you there is no white supremacy in the white house. that is a smear.

do you know who created racial division? president obama. the last eight years, we divided the nation based on social income, sexual identity, sexual preference. that is un-american. this president, myself, we do not look at fellow americans in a category -- tell me, where did your parents come from, which bathroom do you use? that is not america. america is you are american, how can we help you? this president once you safe and have you and your family prosper, irrespective of your skin color and irrespective of whether you voted for him or not. he wants all americans, whether they voted for him or voted for hillary or did not vote at all to be safe and to prosper. host: the president is in tokyo today. as the president

opens the asia trip. talking tough in a campaign style rally feed you can read the whole story on nytimes.com. here is a portion of the president's beach. [video clip] >> each of you and bodies the warrior creed. your devotion and expertise make you the most here some writing force in the history of our world. together, with our allies, america's or yours are prepared to defend our nation using the full range of our unmatched capabilities. no one, no dictator, no regime, and no nation, should underestimate, ever, american resolve. every once in a while in the past, they underestimated us. it was not pleasant for them, was it? it was not pleasant. , never never yield

waver, and never falter in defense of our people, our freedom, and our great american flag. [cheers] >> that flag stands for the values of our public, the histories of our people, the sacrifice of our heroes, and our loyalty to the nation we love. as long as i am president, the servicemen and women who defend our nation will have the equipment, the resources, and the funding they need secure our homeland, to respond to our enemies thickly and decisively, ,nd, when necessary, to fight to overpower, and to always, always, always win. openinge president's message as he begins his weeklong trip through asia. how will you measure whether or not this trip is a success? things first, he

knocked it out of the park with that one. you saw the energy of the airmen of the audience. a four-star general -- i think he is a fan of the new commander in chief. wonderful recharge our batteries for all people who love this nation. the message is simple. we have an incredible asia team in the nsc. the head of the asia team -- a super individual. the message is simple. we will stand by all of our exist ring security relationships and we will strengthen them pay we will not allow china to develop its one road strategy. to the nationsat of the region, to our partners. and we are there to reassure our friends that we remain their friends. host: your new was book,

"defeating jihad: the winnable war." what is next for you? guest: i have a couple of announcements coming up this week -- host: you can announce it here. guest: i will wait until i get the contract back from legal, but thank you. we will be supporting -- i will be collaborating with steve bennett and various pacts that support the president's agenda. support people like judge moore in their race to get a senate seat to support the agenda that won america -- november 8. the make america great again coalition. host: and your media involvement, what will it be? guest: again, that is announcement -- an announcement on the cusp of being inked. host: sebastian gorka, thank you for being with us. please come back again. we will turn our attention to

progressives and what is next for the democratic party. norman solomon will be at the table. later, the opioid crisis from a former addict, a doctor at mass general. dr. peter grinspoon will join us. bookweekend on c-span 2's tv and american history tv on c-span 3, we travel to sioux falls, south dakota. [video clip] >> we are at the home of u.s. senator richard petty, who served in the u.s. senate from 1889 until 1901. he lived in the home until his death in 1926. in 1889, this was one of the most modern homes you would have found. it had steam radiators, indoor plumbing. it had gas and electric lights. it even had telephone, which is

really interesting, because just a few miles away from here, i was on the farm -- people were living without windows and doors. so this home was the top-notch for sioux falls in dakota territory at the time. host: of course, all of our cities tour available online at c-span.org/citiestour. we are back in a moment. c-span -- where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. during tuesday's "washington journal," we are live in baton rouge, louisiana.

louisiana's secretary of state will be our guest during "washington journal," starting at 9:30 a.m. eastern. "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome norm solomon, a progressive looking at the 2016 election. i want your reaction from this headline -- "donna brazile details this option and ascension -- dysfunction and dissension in the democratic party." is betteruess candor late than never. of course, she was part of the clinton apparatus that blew a lot of smoke in the primaries and did not serve us well. , whethermocrats democrats or not, want to move the country in a positive direction going forward, we just need more leadership that has integrity. host: one of the headlines is

that she looked at the possibility of taking hillary clinton off of the ticket and putting joe biden and, perhaps, or a broker of new jersey, on the ticket. guest: that would have been a backroom deal at that point, so just as well. host: an excerpt reads as follows -- donna brazile writes that she seriously contemplating setting in motion the process to replace hillary clinton as the party's 2016 presidential nominee with then vice president biden in the aftermath of clinton's fainting spell, in part because clinton's campaign was anemic and had taken on the order of failure. she paints a scathing portrait of clinton as a well-intentioned, historic and whose campaign was badly mismanaged, took minority come to jerseys for granted, and made blunders with stiff and stupid messages. new yorks that its

headquarters but like a sterile hospital ward where someone had died. she alleges that clinton's top aides routinely to suspected her and put the dnc on a starvation diet. guest: the personalities are such that at this point we should try to put them aside. but there is an important kern el of truth. that is taking minorities for granted in terms of the democratic party outreach. in our autopsy report we just released, we go into that in great detail. there is a huge mythology that the consultant class and wall ,treet, frankly, have promoted and largely successfully in the democratic party. that is they are persuadables out there, the white suburban voters. chuck schumer claimed pennsylvania was a "wrap," because they would win server in votes. whited that we would get

votes around pennsylvania. that approach was a dead stop failure. our report goes into that in detail. --t: this from our staff dnc's donna brazile staff in which she said we are with her and we will have a party you can be proud of. we need to mobilize our base going forward. the base can win. but not is tremendous amounts of money are poured into persuadable republicans were not persuadable. host: what is -- guest: it is an action group i cofounded seven years ago. have 1.3 million active members in the united states. we are a group to take action cynically, progressives who want to contact members of congress,

contact public officials, and corporate officials who insist the corporate money should not prevail over democratic processes. host: host: you called this cannot topsy, how did two go up -- autopsy, how did you go about doing this? guest: we realized they were not going to do cannot topsy, so we put together a task force -- do y,t topsy, so we -- autops so we pulled together a task and we spent several months researching our data, empirical figures, as well as voters,wing activists, to look at, hey, what happened? counterintuitively, this autopsy is about the future. we have to understand what

happened after a train wreck, investigators would need to find to prevent itned in the future and that is what it is about. we encourage everyone to go to democraticautopsy.org and to use it, read it and use it. host: you write the mainstream democratic storyline without victimizers lacks possibility and passion. the idea the democrats can somehow convince wall street to work on behalf of main street through mild chiding, rather than acting as main street's champion against the wealthy, no longer resonates. we live in a time of unrest and justified cynicism towards those in power. democrats will not win if they continue to bring a wonk knife to a populist gunfights. guest: we have to go beyond the means that have been propagated i mass media, the corporate donors in the democratic party,

that there is no conflict between main street and wall street. duringie sanders said the primary campaign and points out, there is a direct conflict between the interest and well-being of the working people and one of the working people on one hand, and the big banks and wall street and other interest pushing for to maximize profits at the expense of the public, environmentally in terms of child care, housing, education, elderly care, preschool for children, so this is a conflict. and the longer that people at the top of the democratic party keep pretending there is not a conflict between the well-being of the larger portion of the country and those on wall street, then we continue to have these stumbling 10 cam -- campaigns to lip-synching tunes, such as we had during the clinton campaign last year. host: why is it bernie sanders a

registered democrat? guest: well, i think he is committed to the principles. let's face it, although some are demagogy from the right or fringe of the democratic party are making a big deal that he isn't a registered democrat, the fact is there are way more independents not registered democrats, like bernie sanders, so to speak, then there are registered democrats, so these are folks complaining about him in that light who are 20 years or 30 years hundred times, and there are many more independent voters than democrats and we need to reach out to everybody, particularly those who are not the solid core of the trumpist republican. host: does he run in 2020? guest: we will say. we will have to ask him. host: since presidents obama's victory in 2008, the democratic party has lost control of both houses of congress and more than 100 seats. the gop now controls the

governorship, as well as the entire legislatre and 26 -- legislature in 26 states, while democrats exercise such control six states, despite this democratic decline, bold proposals with the national parties in print scars, you write. guest: yes, it is time to look past the political graveyard and the idea there is this iconic eight years of obama presidency, when he had so many wall street corporate people in his cabinet, he was the inverse of when fdr in 1936 madison square garden said the rich, the wealthy, the privilege, the overly privileged hate me and i welcome it. said, they mayly not like me on wall street, but i want them to. that is not the tradition of the democratic hardy we need to put forward. it is essential to move ahead and say, look, we have

encouraged tremendous losses during an eight year time frame, where the democratic party was conciliatory towards corporate power. it is time to take a new direction where it will mobilize key constituencies of the democratic party, and are autopsy spells out three, one, people of color. the other, working-class people across the board. the third is working-class people. when the democratic party can reinvigorate its roots for being a progressive force in society, we will regain support we loss among constituencies. host: our guest is the cofounder do yousaction.org, who think in your mind was the last great democratic president? guest: everybody had deficits. you go to lyndon johnson, horrific war record in terms of slaughter in vietnam, yet, the great society program has

willingness to support the civil rights movement, pushing it to capitol hill. great domestic president in that way. you have to go back across the board and he was fought, as well. host: you would not put john kennedy, bill clinton, barack obama or carter in that category? guest: well, we could walk through them. john kennedy turn the page on eisenhower era, yet, very aggressive in latin america in terms of mobilizing the cia against labor activist and supported many dictatorships, as did lyndon johnson. jimmy carter pushed the agenda and tried to escalate in many respects with the mx and other missiles the nuclear arms race. afghanistan, we terms ofget, in intervention. he was a mixed picture, although, our best ex-president

in history of formidable and wonderful moral leader, you might say. overill clinton presided massive losses on capitol hill. twould say the last democratic presidents have been great at getting themselves reelected. to bonding with the base and fighting for election victories from the state houses to capitol hill, let me put it this way and political terms, our last two democratic presidents have shown the republican party at the top does not have a monopoly on narcissism. host: let's get to phone calls. norman solomon is our guest. bob from massachusetts, good morning. independent line. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: good, thank you. caller: my point would be i think in 2018, the democrats will lose seats in the house and

senate because as far as it goes, i watch all of the news cnn, and fox, msnbc, when i flip the channels, fox will carry everything. ory do not mind taking picking on trump or anything, and the democrats will not talk about it when they have done anything. hillary clinton's email stuff, they whitewashed all of it great that woman the in prison and nobody cares. the whole democratic party, like the republican party, are in the pockets of some millionaire and billionaire. for all you guys to say we will point the blame on millionaires and pay their fair share, you are in their pocket. you do not do anything without their warrant. look at what goes on in florida. you cannot have your own solar stuff because of the great not wanting it to have it. they make the rules and people

cannot be free. guest: thank you for your call although i disagree with almost everything you said. the republican party is locked up, stock and barrel, and the democratic party largely so, but not as much so. that is a high jump over a low standard. vicious,is we have a talks this sewage flowed from the white house and trump administration. the bigotry, hatred oozing out of the white house and unavoidably, every news channel has guests on from the white house who are perpetrating that hatred. we have got to push against that and organize against the. conventional wisdom of the democratic party does that i've been in be and has been -- when the -- wimpy.

we have a textbook example of how the republican party has swerved so far right to it it's hatred and embracing of confederate symbols and i think it is essential in the short term, per instance virginia on tuesday, for people to show that kind of republican hatred will and can be defeated. host: this is something the end, how about we run on financing of the campaign so congress spends time not raising money? guest: financing campaign is crucial in that would like to segue from that point to what is in the news right now and it has to do with another revelation from brazil's forthcoming -- donna brazile's forthcoming book about the cut sweetheart deal. host: this is the next. donna brazil is our guest next sunday morning and she writes -- the funding arrangement for the hillary for america and dnc fund

agreement was not illegal but it looked unethical. if the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before voters i decided which one they wanted to lead. this is not a clinical -- criminal act, but it compromised the parties integrity. guest: that came off thursday and three days before, we really start autopsy, and never mind people you can read it at psy.org and we have a section called democracy in the party. we spell out not only all of the very details but what donna brazil was talking about with the hillary victory fund, the deal cuts, that was dishonest, and that cut bernie sanders out of the flow of money or pretending they would happen. one thing i would like to add which deserves more media attention, the democratic

national committee chair issued a statement after the book excerpt was published on thursday. friday morning, he put out to members of the dnc staff and npr news to a tweet and the statement, i found, very disturbing. it tells me that the top of the democratic committee still doesn't get it. on the one hand, they said they are committed to the dnc and hearing to its charter that committed to be evenhanded in the presidential primary process and on april 25 of this year, lawyers for the dnc and the federal courts, lawyers representing in the court said explicitly the charter does not stop the dnc from choosing, if it wanted to, presidential nominee in a smoke-filled

backroom. lawyers said, we will not do that but we could. dnc, two months after his job was taken as chair, say that in open court and two days ago, mr. perez is saying, we are committed to it hearing to the charter. host: what he said is -- in the innt of death, resignation president or vice president, the national chair of the democratic committee shall confer with the democratic leadership in the u.s. congress and shall report to the democratic national committee, which is authorized to fill a vacancy. guest: that is a different statement than the one i referred to. the one i refer to is about the sweetheart deal with the hillary victory fund and d&c. he made the statement on friday that he would ensure the

charter to be evenhanded, the second paragraph went on to say the deal that was arranged was straightforward and bernie sanders and hillary clinton had equal access and a joint agreements between the dnc and campaigns. two days ago, mr. perez doubled down on the cover story that the clinton campaign and d&c used all that year. -- and the dnc used all that year. the message has not gone through. host: jim is joining us from maryland. good morning. think thedo not democrats have any problems with the elections coming up. donald trump is going to make sure that the american people fall in line. he is about to start this war in korea because the republicans

need a war to distract the american people from what they are doing, trying to pass legislation to lessen the confidence ine's this country. i was saying a collapse of the stock market within two years. willwar trump will start last until 2025. host: thank you. guest: my crystal ball is in the shop, but i would say the assumption trump will defeat himself has been a politically the phone one. -- lisa one. one.rants have -- lethal democrats have said, we have to wait how bad it gets and we see where that got us. people across the country still believe that the democratic party leadership needs to point

out how bad trump is. that is not how you mobilize and get people to the polls. we have those who are hurting and want affirmative message. in autopsy, we point out the failure of the democrat party to do largely more than trying to get so-called persuadable voters who cannot be persuaded. republicans are those repelled by donald trump. we need a progressive basis mobilized. we cannot rely on trump to defeat himself. host: here is one from a viewer -- it is how we have gotten to where we are today with centrist progressivism. there is this for mary -- real democrats are set up with republican light. finally, the dnc is dead. guest: a lot of those sentiments are similar to the ones in the autopsy report. progressivephrase

centrism, which, frankly, is an oxymoron. there is an insurance company that calls themselves progressive. anybody can but there is a strong base. for instance, there is a poll that came out about one week ago that shows 52% of registered democrats say that their party leadership needs to move leftward, is not representing their points of view. given the media barrage telling people centrism is a way to win, this is a remarkable grassroots of surgeons. i can say this autopsy we have issued, and again, please go to democraticatuopsy.org, is just a and we will be organizing around this country 1.3 active million people in the united states and we will be

messaging every democrat in the house, senate, and state legislatures say, have you read this autopsy report? if you have not, read it and get back to us. let's have a dialogue so we do not lose them in 2020. host: you can log on to rootsaction.org. we welcome our listeners coast to coast on sirius xm and the potus channel, 124. the carries this program every sunday morning. bob from springfield, virginia, republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. i am concerned about a couple of things. with the revelations from donna brazil and the fact that hillary has fatally damaged the republican party, i think you would agree, my concern is the future of progressivism is in

danger until you define what you are about. years ago, when the democratic party had leaders like john kennedy, those were democratic leaders who were hard-boiled, defenders of national security. have no doubt about the need to retain, not what we call a centrist perspective, but the belief from the united states and its preservation and advancements. what scares a lot of people, not just on the republican side, but democrats who supported kennedy and jackson, were you are losing by moving left, by affiliation with the country, the flag and principles. guest: you know, the conventional wisdom of a left and right spectrum, and that explains everything, loses what

is happening in this country, which is populism that once is to challenge the big interests countering democratic possibilities in this country. aat is why i think there was support for bernie sanders and the primary campaign. when you say that they are hard-boiled, their hard-boiled enough in the case of jackson to support the vietnam war that resulted in the deaths of 58,000 americans in vietnam and a few million be in the maze people. that is not the hard-boiled we need. we were told it was hard-boiled to invade afghanistan and we know the consequences there. he have a climate crisis that will affect not only the people around the world on islands, but everybody else on the atlantic, so if we are going to be realistic, it means redefining what it means for the future of and we should develop a progressive movement

by any description that will put people first and not let corporations rule the country. host: our guest is the cofounder of rootsaction.org. our next caller from rhode island. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i have been waiting for a fellow like you to come on c-span a long time. i was a democrat until september 2011 and then i became an independent. i was fed up with democrats of nothing more than one of be republicans. just want to be republicans. -- want to be republicans. tails off in rhode island for bernie to win the nomination in rhode island and he did. sit well with us. and then we have sheldon up for reelection next year and i

volunteered for him in 2006 and 2012, would i will not do it this year. there is a movement in rhode him tonow to draft primary sheldon to the white house. i will tell you why, he is allegedly the environmental champion of the senate. he talks about climate change, global warming, but he is willing to throw his own state under the bus. there is a gas and power plant that will distort the pristine area of rhode island and he will not talk to his constituents. he is a coward and he deserves to go. thank you. guest: addressing this a structural and then policy level, structurally, if your it needs tocratic, be democratic internally and it needs to get rid of every single vote or every single

superdelegate, just not the democratic process. because they are in some cases lobbyists or members of congress, whatever. it alludes to something going on around the country that people in political office, when the corporate support is there, when lobbyists come walking, whatever the rhetoric, it ends up being deference to power, which is decimating the environmental realities of our country and working against the well-being of those struggling to get by. let's face it, the vast majority of those in the country deal economically squeezed and they do not feel they have the future economically. that is the name of this upsurge. because of the absolutely essential nature of defeating hate-filled, rabid, republican party at the top, i am not talking about all or most

republicans registered, i'm talking about the top. the way to stop that is reinvigorate the democratic party in a way that can allow us to defeat republicans and implement a genuine people first agenda. the: ann is next on democratic line. caller: good morning. i am a democrat, but i think, this guest have put in the same category as some of the other persons complaining about your previous guest. i would like to make three points, first of all, president obama's term was raised on the racist is an paper traded against him. if you remember donald trump and the birthing movement, that was used against obama's term. secondly, there are a lot of people who think president obama

was a great president. a few in your organization turned those people off. and to disparage his presidency was awful. host: your last point? caller: and they really need to republican. the democrats needed to say that is a lie. they could have talked about all the lies republicans tell. guest: on that third points, i agree. the racism and campaign is tremendous. it needs to be announced and it is important that -- host: is he a progressive democrat? best: at this point, the choice you have got, the only way to defeat this horrible racist campaign of gillespie and that is the algorithm we came to.

we had clinton as a practical matter or trump, not being my first choice. i am speaking to the caller, racism was a big factor and a lot of hostility toward president obama. yet, he did win the election. during his eight years in office, there were more than 1000 democratic seats lost in state legislatures around this countries, as well as the house and senate. he cannot pretend because president obama had wonderful -- qualities and characteristics that, that he did not undermine the base and cut deals with wall street. i do not think we need to be all or one or the other. there are nuances. host: i want to get your response about what hillary clinton said about 2016. first, greg in miami. good morning. caller: good morning.

may, ok, hello? host: we are getting feedback. i had to move on if you cannot turn volume down. quick question. caller: i tell you what, from is coming, they hate from mr. solomon, ok? really exposing hatred as far as i'm concerned. guest: i hear your point of view when you have these huge political forces aligned with the republican party. during the kind of ads happening in virginia, promoting hostility towards people of color, implying mexicans are racist, trying to whip up white nationalism, then we need to be

honest about this. with respect to your assessments, what i am saying has nothing to do with her motive hatred. on the contrary, we need to be candid and confronting and defeating those kforce the patriot, aligned with and part of the republican party. host: from anaheim, california, ed. caller: first off, i am very last row -- ross perot in my beliefs. i am very pro-jobs, jobs, jobs. i was very pro-bernie. clinton's, reagan and obama, 95% of their funding came from wall street, so we know who their interests are for. obama, when asked about jobs overseas, obama said, does jobs are gone, let's not talk about it.

that right there, i did not want to hear from him and i lost faith in the democratic party. i was pro-bernie, but hillary was not our choice. guest: yes, well i want to invite to to not only read the autopsy subtitled the democratic party in crisis, but share it with people you know and sign up for updates. as i mentioned, there will be a launch of a nationwide campaign and organization, progressive democrats of america, have already endorsed it, and will also spread the autopsy around. it is in organizing tool because the party is up for grabs. the top strata of it is afraid of its base. that is not the way to proceed that will be constructed in the base needs to make clear to the leaders just want honest,

noncorporate political activity, that we are not taking this lying down and this regime or leadership of the dnc, has had quite a few months. it is not performing well, and we will have create major changes. host: before we let you go, i want you to listen to what hillary clinton said. [video clip] hillary clinton: what our research showed as i was writing the book is that the weaponization of wikileaks, turning it into sick news comments out of emails like i'm going out for pizza and claiming that was code at a child trafficking ring a pizza parlor in washington, which people believed -- you know, you can laugh because it is so absurd, they believed it. what we did was subtract google and the stories people were looking for and they were out of this trove of stolen emails that were weaponize to persuade

people, not to vote for me, not to vote at all, or to vote for a third party. this is a much more complicated story. without the comey letter, i believe i would have won. other stuff in the atmosphere was affected people. we now know 2000 to 3000 people were turned away from the polls in wisconsin alone. there is a lot going on here. part of the reason i wrote the book, and for all of you interested in these issues, i hope you will read it because it isn't just about what happened. it is about what will keep happening if we don't stop it. host: hillary clinton on her book, your reaction? guest: i want to talk about the voter suppression aspect. in our autopsy report, as late as middle of may of this year,

the democratic national committee had a grand total of one full-time staff person to address the reality of voter suppression. to me, that is stunning. that tells us how out of whack the national democratic ,eadership priorities have been and the nation magazine reported in mid-may of this year, with great drum rolls, the dnc announced they're going from one full-time staff person to focus on voter suppression to four. yet, that is paltry compared to the threat against democracy hillary clinton alluded to, has been aimed against people of color to try to turn them from voting. we have got a lot of work to do. host: the organization, rootsaction.org, norman solomon, you are. come back again. guest: thank you. host: you can read autopsy on our website, as all. when we come back, the opioid

crisis and we will hear from a medical doctor who had his own addiction. will ber grinspoon joining us. you are watching "washington journal" this first sunday of november as he moved back to eastern standard time. we are back in a moment. ♪ >> monday night on "the communicators," congressional hearings with attorneys from facebook, google and twitter, over russian sponsored political ads and the effect they had on the 20 16th election. we are joined by reporters. >> we have an idea of what happened. we know of a number of ads purchased. it is possible there were more. we know of fake accounts that were purchased on twitter, and we know about action on google. what we do not yet know is if

there was collusion with the trump campaign in coronation with these ads on social media. we do not really know to -- if this are swayed the election. >> i picked up on wider ranging concerns about the lack of accountability in the law for them. for example, you had john kennedy not particularly active on tech issues. consumer data privacy is not something with a huge bearing but something that worried him and i think a lot of americans worried when you look at the data, too. i think we understood while russia was the focus of the hearings and an urgent matter, there was a broader set of concerns fueling this. >> watch "the communicators and quote monday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span -- "the monday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2.

host: joining us from austin's dr. peter grinspoon -- joining us is dr. peter grinspoon. you come from the opioid problem in a unique perspective as a doctor and former addict. guest: i am a primary care doctor and work at an inner-city clinic in boston. i take care of a lot of people who suffer from opioid addiction, but i have somewhat of a unique perspective on this issue because i am also in recovery. i have been in recovery for about 10 years. when i was in medical school, i got into a lot of trouble with vicodin or hydrocodone. i started experimenting with it drugdical school and every affects people differently. the first time i took hydrocodone, it made me euphoric and, unfortunately, i spent the

next 10 years of my life trying to re-create the euphoria i experienced the first time i tried hydrocodone. this addiction to opiates worsened and played me throughout medical school and residency and that ended up doing well as a doctor, but at the same time, my addiction progressed and ended up getting into a lot of trouble. i wrote a memoir about this, but i got into a lot of trouble and ended up losing my medical license. it was a real uphill battle to regain its, but i feel i have learned a lot, a time about opioid addiction in the process and recovery from the process of falling my way back from addicted to recover it. i can say happily that i am 10 years and recovery and it has helped me as a doctor and has made me more down to earth and a better listener.

it really does, i believe, give me a fairly unique perspective on the opioid epidemic, having been witness to it from both sides. host: as you write your book, you try to use every trick in the book to get your fix. how did you do that? ofst: well, there are a lot things where people who are addicted to opioids do to get substances. when you are addicted, it can interfere with how you view reality and addiction can compromise your sense of right and wrong. you end up doing a lot of things you would not ordinarily do otherwise. a lot of very ethical people do unethical things to obtain drugs is you are sick and desperate. in short, i would lie, cheat, steal to get drugs. as a doctor, it is more complicated because i had a prescription pad and a lot of access.

that is what i call my book "free refills." doctors have limited access. if you combine those to medication, it is a perfect storm, which is like addiction is a big problem in the medical community. their higher rates in the medical community the general population because of the access and stress. i wrote some very bad prescriptions, one of which landed me in hot water. i was reported to the police by .n astute pharmacist at cvs at the time, i was angry. now, i cannot be more grateful. she probably saved my life. your changes, as you go from someone addicted, angry and withdrawing, to someone in recovery, so i am very grateful now. at the time, i was upset. host: we are talking to dr. peter grinspoon and earn his

medical degree from boston university's school of medicine. we are dividing our phone lines differently. if you have been impacted by the opioid epidemic, (202)-748-8000. if you are a medical professional, (202)-748-8001. for all others, (202)-748-8002. how did you come clean? ofst: well, i was sort railroaded into a 90 day rehab, which specialized in not only for addiction in general at some of the particular issues that affect positions, such as guilt and shame we feel because we really do feel that we have let people down as positions. part of the problem is we are afraid to get help because you get in so much trouble and that is something i would like to change.

so i went to rehab for 90 days and i was followed by a professional support society of the position help services. they followed me and handed me for about seven years, and i really believe that was a critical components. two things, one was there was a lot of leverage against me. if i flunked a drug test, i would not get to be a doctor again and that is powerful. i hold identity was being a primary care doctor, so there was a lot of pressure not to flunk it. number two is the long-term follow-up. i do not have the resources and a lot of times, all i can do is send them back out in the streets. that is not adequate. i was followed for about seven

years and i think the more we understand addiction is a chronic disease, like diabetes or heart disease, the long-term follow-up is what helps people get clean and sober or into recovery. it is kind of a stigmatizing language, but i was followed for seven years and the long-term follow-up is what helps. into athere was a way treatment for addiction for the 25 million people struggling for addiction and to do not have adequate treatment. host: let's bring in our viewers and listeners, paul on our line for caller: medical professionals, good morning. caller:-- for medical professionals. good morning. caller: good morning. i have experienced opioids from both sides, also. host: how so? i was critically injured

with many surgical procedures. year, and without the lloyds, i would not have survived. healing and my to give me reluctant the drugs that i needed. at the time that i needed them. so the nurse suggested i talk to residents and they gave me opioids, but i never used them. i know about the euphoria. it is there.

[indiscernible] host: thank you, paul. doctor can spoon? -- doctor? guest: different people respond to these in different ways. in terms of euphoria. it is interesting. when i was giving one look talk, a woman raised her hand and said, i had a c-section and took my percocet and i didn't get euphoric at all, so i don't understand what you are talking about. euphoric topletely the point it derailed my life for 10 years. and i remember being in a support group meeting and a position said when i was 14 years old, i had my first drink of alcohol and started drinking from that point on. personally, i am not a drinker and do not

like alcohol and it does nothing for me. i do think it is person specific . for some people, it makes them euphoric, you get addicted and cannot stop drinking. her other people, when the get exposed to opiates, it makes them euphoric and you cannot stop using it. that is part of the problem and that is part of the problem with prescribing way too many opiates. of thes why part response of the opioid epidemic is for doctors to prescribe fewer opiates because we prescribe something like 250 million prescriptions and 2014, enough for each american. we prescribed way more opiates than any other country and we are exposing the population to so many and a certain percentage will be like me, when they get exposed to it, they look at

addicted. specifick it is person and that some people are absolutely at risk in some are not at risk, but you are playing russian roulette. you have to be very careful. host: i read that you would increase the prescription amount to patients in exchange for getting some back for your use, correct? guest: yeah, that is not my proudest moments. again, when you are addicted, it can corrupt your sense of right and wrong and if you change your calculus of sort of long-term versus short-term, you can get so sick, you are just trying to get through the next 24 hours and you end up doing things you never do in a million years. i can never imagine myself doing something as an ethical as that right now, bowing you are addicted, it is not my responsibility and i'm saying it

is very hard to imagine myself doing that and it goes to show how completely addiction can change your whole behavior and personality. it is scary to think about that understandt have to when somebody is addicted, they are still there underneath and you cannot give up on them. you have to treat them with love and support. at the same time, you have to understand something powerful is going on, which they are not in control of and they are not trying to do these things on purpose. host: we are talking about the opioid and heroin epidemic. marianne is our next caller from bayside, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. my question is, what do they teach medical students in school? super heard about super,

powerful opioids, 10 years or 15 years ago, that people i knew would say, as far as a recreational drug, they would not touch you with a 10 foot realbecause it was a cannot understand 15 years down the road, it is like we have been blindsided and patience have no recourse when they find themselves addicted and the doctor will not write them anymore prescriptions, so the go to heroin on the streets. guest: that is an excellent question, what do they teach medical students in school? let me break that down into two questions, what did they teach

them in what today now teach them? what did they teach medical students in school is nothing. we did not receive any instruction on how to treat chronic pain or on the dangers of opiates, which is part of why we were so susceptible to the pharmaceutical advertising list by producing pharmaceuticals and other pharmaceutical companies, just part of how we started prescribing way too many opiates in the mid-1990's, which is part of why we ended up in this mess in the first place. the opioid to epidemic, in medical school, they are starting to focus more on educating young physicians on how to treat chronic pain and how to treat the dangers of addiction and alternatives to opiates for chronic pain and a lot more on how to treat people with addiction. on the one hand, we have done an

awful job educating the current generation on treating and the addiction and the dangers of opiates, and that is part of how and partto this mess of the responsibility for this epidemic. on the other hand, the medical community is doing a good job of responding. they are doing a phenomenal job of incorporating about chronic pain, alternatives for treating and on howm opiates, to treat and identify addiction and how to treat people who need opiates in a safe way because some people do need opiates, absolutely. fewer people need opiates then they are currently getting them, but some people to and will need them and doctors have to know how to use them in a safe way.

we have not done a good job training doctors that we are doing a better job now. host: our guest is joining us from boston. our next caller is from massachusetts. how have you been impacted? caller: unfortunately, i am a heartbroken mother with two sons were heroine users. like the doctor said, they become somebody you do not recognize. i'm wondering if he has suggestions for how to help and if he believes in the tough love? host: tell us about your two sons. how old are they, when did they begin using the drugs and how long have they used it? caller: one is in his mid-30's and he began after being prescribed oxycodone for athletic injury and has progressed to heroin, and the other one is younger and also anda football injury progressed to heroine, as well and is in his mid-20's.

host: how they doing today? caller: i am still heartbroken. not very well. host: are they getting any treatment or rehab? caller: no. my oldest one had in in and out of detox and rehab a minimum of i times, and my youngest one, had him section here in massachusetts, and unfortunately, none of that has worked thus far. host: good luck to you, by the way. we will get a response. guest: thank you for sharing your story. i am heartbroken at how common your heart broke -- a heartbreaking is. we hear stories about this every day. it is awful. i think you ask a critically important question about this tough love approach. this comes from aa, a collects anonymous, that there was a

philosophy that if you have someone addicted to drugs and your family, you let them find their bottom, you let them seek out their own natural consequences of their addiction to drugs or alcohol. and then when they have fallen as far as they can or in recovery talks, the elevator goes to the bottom floor they will get to, then you help them pick up the pieces and get to recovery. by finding out how miserable their life can get, as the theory, then they will be motivated to put the full resources they had into recovering from their addiction to drugs or alcohol. that is the tough love approach, you do not help the person addicted because you do not want to enable it. you let them find the consequences of their addiction on their own and eventually they will be motivated to pick themselves up and you can start helping them. i am completely opposed to the

tough love approach. i think it is old-fashioned, inhumane. i know it is really difficult when you have addicted people in your family, and i think family members of addicted people are among the most miserable, unhappy people on the face of the planet, and i think whole lot more support has to be dedicated to family members or people who are addicted, such as our caller. it is almost impossible and it is hard to know what to do and it is heartbreaking, it is an understatement, it can devastate your life. much more than al-anon needs to be done because it can devastate your life but this tough love approach can kill people, especially with fentanyl on the street. that if someone injected and you said, go and find your bottom, find the national consequence of your

addiction, they would go out and use heroine and that would be that, but now, that is -- with dangers that no on the streets, which has supplanted a lot of the care when supplied in the streets, if you go out and inject once, you could die. finding your bottom, this tough love can kill you, it is imperative we give up the tough love approach because people are literally dying of overdoses. the overdose rate is skyrocketing despite resources we put into the opioid epidemic and efforts we are making. again, it is contaminated with fentanyl, so the tough love approach is way too dangerous. thatmuch more philosophy you have to keep loving and supporting the added in your .ife -- the addict in your life i can tell you from having been addicted, there is still, in there, the thing that -- they

are still in there. what helped me is my family, friends and colleagues did not give up on me. they were still there. if anybody used a tough love approach on me, i would have died. it would have been the end. you will find a lot of different people with different philosophies about this. i do not pretend to have the answers but personally, i am very much against a tough love approach, to whom he in the midst of this -- particularly in the midst of this opioid endemic with a contaminated supply of heroin that has been no and carfentanil -- that has fentanyl and carfentanil, and elephant tranquilizer, that can kill people in the second. i think the tough love approach is way too dangerous. at the same time, i think a lot more thought and effort and compassion has to go into understanding how to help family

members of people who are addicted to heroin because they are in such a painful and awful situation. i really feel for your situation. host: i will ask about your father in a moment, a noted harvard psychologist, but we are talking to dr. peter grinspoon. his work is available online at and the newon.com book is called "free refills." we are joined from idaho, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i was wondering what the doctor thought about -- it seems we are kind of throwing everybody into the same box. have ane people that addicted brain, and i always thought i used to be on opiates because of a bad accident and i had never taken them before and i did not feel euphoria.

i just felt the pain. that street drug users, the heroine, that thereer, from the people have to take it and someone like you, that did not have any pain, and decided to just feel good. moreems like if we did mental evaluation before you even prescribe someone because i had a sister who has been addicted brain. stuff,o to therapy and that i went off and on, and you would have a physical withdrawal that was like having the flu for three days or something. host: we will get a quick response. guest: it is hard to tell.

at the hospital where i work at, mass general, we have pain psychologist we work with than they were card with patients to see patients we are worried about. there are patients we are worried about for that, what are the risks of getting "addicted" for opiates for pain control. and they were card with the patients because they have a family history, and they have risk factors? it is very hard, if not impossible to tell or predict two is or who was not going to get into trouble with opiates when you prescribe them and that is part of the problem. if we knew who would get into trouble beforehand, we would not have a problem with an opiate epidemic. so you are actually right, if we could tell who was going to get

in trouble, we would not have a problem, and maybe in the future with the studies of genetics, we will be able to find out who and who is not at risk. unfortunately, we are not at that point yet. host: i want to ask about your dad, who taught at harvard and supported the legalization of medical marijuana, just curious if that impacted your treatment, recovery and thoughts about this drug and drugs in general? .uest: absolutely i would have to say my dad is 89 years old and he is still chugging away, continuing to try to legalize marijuana in the united states. i think he is somewhat of a visionary. i really respect his commitment to his ideals. i know he is a little bit of a controversial figure. it certainly impacted my thinking on the issue because he is a deep thinker and he was not afraid to take controversial

positions or think for himself. it is interesting he has been pushing the legalization of marijuana and now i am involved in the opiate epidemic as an advocate for recovering for treatments, and it has been found in the states where they have legalized medical marijuana, the opiate overdoses had gone down, and a lot of people think that the replacement for opiates for chronic pain patients is going to be some sort of medical marijuana, so there is actually a link between the book he wrote in 1972 on marijuana called "marijuana reconsidered" and the facedt opiate epidemic we 35 years later, so it is interesting you ask that. i think it is linked together and in some ways, he really sort of force all what would be happening. host: how you doing today question mark guest: i'm doing

great -- today? guest: i'm doing great. thanks. the new recovery gives you a lot of peace and helps to live in the moment. there's a lot more than recovering from addiction than just being off drugs. you can connect to a lot of people. recovery is about connecting to other people as much as it is about not taking drugs and it has been a positive experience. host: dr. peter grinspoon, a position that mass general, -- a physician that mass general, a recovering addict and out with a book called "free refills," thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: we are back tomorrow with two former members of congress at 7:00 a.m. eastern time, 4:00 on the west coast. gibson,t includes chris his book "rally point: five task to unite the country and revitalize the american dream,"

and jason on meyer with his book e with hisn altmir book "dead center." we look at your money and the chip program with alex ruoff,, a health column -- a health policy reporter. "newsmakers" is up next. be sure to check out in-depth this week. this month's with michael lewis at noon eastern time on c-span2. thank you for joining us. enjoy the rest of your weekend. have a great week ahead. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] >>