then british prime minister to resume takes questions from members of the british house of commons. the future of the middle east. ♪ >> this week on q&a, a former washington correspondent for iran's public service broadcaster -- for ireland's public service broadcaster, talks about her book. brian: what was the origin of your work -- your book? caitriona: i've been a correspondent here for the national public broadcasting in ireland, and i've seen amazing things in my time.

ireland, we have a great affinity for america and what goes on here, so people always and thehear about us correspondence left experience. that untiltend to do i finished my time here, but given what happened with last year's presidential election, there was such a massive interest both here and at home in ireland. gonehad happened, what had on. the question a lot of americans i think are asking themselves, last year was extraordinary, and so has this year been. i was approached by a publisher to write about behind-the-scenes but also in explaining guide about what happened in the 2016 election campaign, and what led the campaign to be what it was and helpful understand -- and help people understand that it

is not all black and white, red and blue. brian: how many americans in the u.s. have irish roots? censusna: since his -- figures between 13 and 14 million, so massive figure. to findd be doing well a family in ireland that doesn't have family who have moved to this country. fall in love with an american and never come back to ireland. historically, it was through our great famine and looking for employment that they came over here. there is a huge connection between the two countries into two peoples. peopleclose to 5 million in the republic of ireland, 26 counties. what is the big difference you have noticed between living in ireland, being an irishman in the united states?

caitriona: you need a five hour special for that one, brian. two totally different countries, you can't really compare them. primarily starting from the point of view of scale. i'm a very proud irish person, but it is a small country. very sparsely populated. we just don't have the scale that will -- scale there would be here even with just employ up -- employment opportunity or just diversity. you can have one part of the country here bathing in sunshine and others buried under a feet of snow. we would not have that in ireland. i suppose the people are quite similar in that so many have foundheritage, and i have americans to be extremely welcoming and friendly and open and polite, very well mannered.

particularly here in washington, d.c. i arrived not knowing anyone and i was wrapped into the community, the irish community but also the general american community. gosh, if we were to go into all the differences, we would be here all day. brian: you say in your books are ine 44 million immigrants the united states, making it the largest immigrant country in the world. what about in ireland? is there a lot of diversity? caitriona: in recent times. you have heard of the celtic tiger's, at that point we had a lot of people coming to ireland from other countries, mostly from africa and eastern europe. we went through a recession and many people would have gone back to where they worth -- where they were from or third country. andave turned a corner things are improving and we are

back at healthy position again. but we would have a much narrower history with immigration. we have traditionally been a nation of immigrants. we are only now sort of seeing the cycling through of that we you have people who are poor in erland -- in ireland but have parents from somewhere else, that is a fairly new phenomenon. brian: can you explain this to americans, that the prime minister in ireland is a gay man? given the nature of the catholic church and their attitude in some places toward homosexuals, how did that happen and what impact has it had? firstly, i think that maybe the view that people have of ireland in america, particularly in some parts of the irish-american community before more conservative than the ireland i am from actually is. we were the first country in the

world to approve same-sex marriage by a vote of the people, i referendum. that shows you something. i think the fact that he is a gay man is irrelevant. he was elected through a system within his own party, not by the -- as such.such it people elected him as an individual and what they viewed his policies to be within that political party. you know, it made headlines all around the world. it was in many of the newspapers and television networks, a gay man and one of his parents is also in immigrant, his father is from india. i think in a modern ireland, that is kind of irrelevant. he is just an irishman who happened to make his way to the top of his political party. brian: who did you write this book for? caitriona: this book was written

primarily for i suppose an outside of america audience, and irish audience or western european audience traditionally would probably align with the democratic party, many of whom would have been hillary clinton supporters and struggled to understand how someone like donald trump, not a traditional put thean, could have zeitgeist of the way he did and what was going on in american life and politics to end up with the result we have seen. i think it's also useful for people in america as well who maybe are used to living with concern communities. of course the media here is quite polarized at the moment, so people are in a self confirming media bubble, where this may be sets out a different viewpoint that people had not seen before. book thatis in your the united states media does not operate like it does in ireland

or europe because of a code of conduct. what is the difference? caitriona: in ireland, we are the public broadcasters, it is funded by a license fee that everyone in ireland has to pay. if you own a television, you have to pay the fee. commercial some funding, but that is the primary income. that means you have to be neutral and objective, you cannot favor one party or another when it is an election season, literally the amount of time a candidate gets is monitored on a stopwatch to make sure everything is fair and no one is biased and taking one agenda or another. for me, that has been very different to notice here in america, particularly the television networks are so to the left or right. whatever anyone from the other side does is almost automatically bad and what ever -- and whatever anyone does on their site is automatically good. we don't do that, we leave it to

the voters to come to their own conclusion. rte is regulated by law. we would have the national union ,f journalists code of ethics you cannot have a partisan opinion on things, particularly elections. brian: four years in the united states and you obviously traveled for this book, where did you go? caitriona: all over the place. i was trying to hit all 50 states, i got to about 44. this book specifically focuses mostly on the appalachian region and continuing up into wisconsin, michigan, including texas as well because obviously the border with such a big issue in the campaign. it mostly focuses on the states that donald trump specifically targeted, the swing states that maybe people thought were going to lean democratic, and as we know didn't. it's about meeting the people in

those states. we are well aware of the sort of core donald trump photo we see all the time, that this is about more of the swing voter, middle-of-the-road, independent voter, and what affected -- what perhaps after decades voting democratic, to vote donald trump as an individual. brian: you wrote at the end of the book, meeting some of those voters, realizing they have justifiable reasons for being attracted to trump and remaining attracted to him despite actions of others consider intolerable or scandalous is key to understanding the trump phenomena a little better. how long did it take you to get that conclusion? caitriona: lots of traveling. as a journalist, you can can come -- you can't come to conclusions based on meeting for five people. it takes a long time.

what struck me was people view donald trump almost as an all carte candidate, there were certain things he said that they did not like, there were certain things he said or did that they really loved it they were prepared to focus on theand things that really matter to them. feeling listened to and cared about. i thought it was interesting, it struck other politicians not just here but around the world, you ignore voter needs at your peril and you cannot take anything for granted. brian: you wrote this, it was the one and only time in my life i have been insult position of all the facts in the story and can see how it played out across the media from that vantage point. explain that. caitriona: you're talking about

-- brian: in the preface. caitriona: that is about my interaction in the oval office with president trump, which happened last june, when the president was making the call to our new p.m. to congratulate him and he called me up to the desk and said a few words. brian: let me interrupt. let's run this and then you can further explain it. [video clip] irishhave a lot of your reporters watching us. where are you from? come here? you are the irish press. news.m from rte >> you have a nice smile and phase, i bet she treats you well. brian: what do you think? caitriona: i've seen the video

so many times. that incident as it happened at seconds, andor 20 i went on about my business as a journalist, but it was in the next 24-48 hours that it went completely viral around the world. that was extraordinary. the moment itself, i described at the time and still describe it as a bizarre moment. it was not a protocol, perhaps, but we know that this president does things his way and rips the rulebook. he did it in the campaign and the presidency, he does it his way. i have been in the oval office plenty of times, and usually when the president is on a call with a foreign leader like that, they are engaged in the call, not involving anyone else, particularly a member of the media. it was a surprise when he called me over, but he is the president

of the united states and you are in the oval office, so when he says who are you, come over here, you have no option but to do that. brian: what was it like? i think you said you had over 100 requests for interviews? caitriona: probably more. of theequests from all major networks and newspapers and magazines in this country, in ireland, in the u.k. come in australia, japan, nigeria come all across europe, pretty much any country you could name. which was bizarre. what was interesting for me as a journalist, to be inside the store like that and see what it feels like for someone inside a story when you have all of these requests for interviews and people -- you are not a very good journalist if people don't have your phone number, so i

have to turn my phone off for a while. people were reaching out through twitter, instagram, facebook, any possible way they could get hold of me. i have the time decided i was not actually doing any interviews about it because i was amazed at how polarized the event became. anti-trumpmed by people as many one thing and it was claimed by pro-trump people as meaning something else, and i thought as a working journalist, and as someone who has to be neutral and objective at all times, anything i would say tout that would be taken feed one narrative or another and ultimately i would be the loser in that situation because it is so divided in this country right now, you would say something that would upset and offend massive amounts of people. definitely one of the most

extraordinary periods in my life, to be sitting in your office and look up at all of the tv screens, cnn, fox news, they are all playing the video on a loop and have handles of people discussing how i must have felt, what was going through my mind, you know, the laughter on the clip there is not me, it is someone else in the room. said, i should not have been wearing a red dress, i did not know how to take a compliment, i should've said thank you. other people than saying, the president's me to the media and he is being nice to this person, or he was being sexist and demeaning to this person. it seemed to bring out the full range of opinions and emotions in people around the world. brian: how often when you watch what people were saying, was in your mind that you were thinking

it is not true? caitriona: almost all of it. presidentn around the and candidates for a long time, and he makes his own rules, he does his own thing. for something out of the ordinary to happen in the oval office, i do not pass too much of it at the time, i was more concerned about my deadline , the fact that the president was on the phone with our new p.m. immigration something's on between the two countries. the phone call was a big deal in ireland, that was all i was concerned about. upon leaving the oval office with the other members of the aides, we were kind of

like, that was odd, that was bizarre, and off we went. i went to a national came that and you are engrossed in the game and not looking at your phone, and i came out into an area with a good phone signal, and my phone almost exploded. dealught, this is a bigger than i initially anticipated. that: when did you know you were going to be called back to ireland to rte to be an anchor? caitriona: just about maybe november, and of october -- and of october? we do for your terms as foreign correspondents. my term was coming to an end,

and the question was what i would do next. i hadn't considered being an anchor before, i love being in the field. i got a phone call from the boss one day saying we needed to come home and take over the main evening news in ireland, which i'll become anchoring with another woman, the first time there will be two female anchors on rte news bulletin. people can tune in online and eastern. 1:00 p.m. it will be very different from what i have been doing in the u.s. for the last four years. brian: we are recording this at the end of 2017. when is your first day as coanchor? caitriona: the eighth of january. i am leaving here and two days later i start my new job in ireland. no rest for the wicked, as they say. brian: in your book, you wrote about 11 states you went to the item know if you could do this,

but i would like to go through the list, we can come back to any of it, but if us something you remember from each of those states, starting with ohio. caitriona: wow. ok. ohio i remember being a beautiful, actually. which is not something you usually hear about ohio. stuff --stunning this stunning vista, but i remember being surprised, not unique to ohio, but at the levels of poverty in some areas of the united states, and in ohio, how drugs have run rampant in parts of the state. i really liked ohio and had great food there. if you don't travel through the united states as an outsider, if you just go to the big cities on your holidays, you

don't see what is really going on in the middle and don't fully understand the united states and you see small communities in harrowing and -- heroin has taken hold there. it is mind-boggling. people are crying out for help. when you go into the communities as an outsider, they tell you their stories frequently because they need help. there was a story on the front of the washington post one day having to bring in a shipping container that was refrigerated because of the number of bodies from drug overdoses. it is difficult to square that with the united states the one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet you have these small country -- these small communities that just need help. brian: from ohio down to texas.

i know you talked to a border agent. what did you learn from that? talking to the border agent was very insightful, actually, because you see a different view of things when you talk to those guys that are patrolling the border every day and night. there is a humanitarian story there for sure. we have a similar situation in europe with refugees coming from syria and africa. the humanitarian situation in texas is heartbreaking. closeeople walk with the on the back and small children for a month, sleeping on the side of mountains to seek a better life, and their coming across the border and the conditions they are facing in all of that ahead of them, it is heartbreaking. then you talk to the border agents who talk about the asminal element, the coyotes

they are called, smuggling in people and drugs and guns. interestingly, they said it was a two-way street, there are drugs and guns coming out of the u.s. into mexico as well. they feel overwhelmed. upped president trump has the number of fighting -- of funding and border guards this year, so it might be better than when i was there last year, but it is a scary enough situation down there at times. we were told not to be near the rio grande. , we had tournalists get a good picture about the story we were telling about border crossings, and we went to this one part of the rio grande and there were shell casings on the riverbank, there was one flip-flop in the mud, there were barefoot footprints were people

came through, and some kind of gun battle. on awhat is going on daily, nightly -- it needs to be addressed. brian: what did the agent think about the idea of building a wall? caitriona: that it was absolutely bonkers. obviously are's wall, a fence along one third of the border as it is. the agents i spoke to said it would not help at all. we sold general john kelly in hearing, he was initially saying the same thing, that walls don't do anything because people are so determined to make a better life for themselves or these gangs smuggling in drugs and guns, they will funnel over them, build over them, find a way somehow. the border agents were not necessarily in favor of that. they were more in favor of a

virtual wall, more funding for ,uards and immigration courts the speeding up of that process, more equipment to patrol the border area. very few people were in favor of actually building a wall, that they thought it would solve anything. north tot's go back up massachusetts. that is the famous irish connected state. what did you -- why did you write about that? because people.com interested in knowing how irish americans voted. -- because people back home were interested in knowing how irish americans voted. actually not true of irish-americans that they are democratic leaning, some of them

are democrats, some are republicans, many of them favored donald trump and many of them are still quite conservative voters and would favor the republican party in particular and in this instance donald trump because of his positions on certain things, family, abortion and so on. smaller government, lower taxes, these kind of things. massachusetts was important, to understand how irish americans voted. brian: you quote a man named murr --rie, -- mouis lousi murray, and irish-american. who is he? caitriona: his heritage is irish born in, he was not

ireland himself, but he has plenty of family there and he goes back to this appeared he was all in for donald trump, on the local organizing committee and all of that. he is a case study of irish-americans who were in favor of this message donald trump was selling, but also the ofer republican message conservative viewpoints. were: in the trial, they described as homegrown terrorists who came to hate the united states. who we are talking about? caitriona: the tsarnaev brothers. that was another story about about. the boston marathon bombing. boston is one of those cities that almost feels like it is part of ireland. i studied at boston university thelf back in the day, and bombing of the marathon was something that really resonated with people. brian: there is a quote on that

same chapter, you're talking about president obama, and you say he did not do anything for the irish. caitriona: so, there would be that viewpoint -- ou'sn: actually, that was l quote. caitriona: right, it was not me. brian: did anyone expect him to do anything for the irish? not thea: no, he was president of ireland. there would be some sense i think for immigration reform, that's an issue we would care reform, manyso tax multinational u.s. companies are based in ireland, creating a lot of jobs. there are a lot of irish companies in america as well, employing people here. i think his point there about obama not doing anything for the irish was to do with the

again, non situation, one is counting this, but there are estimated to be about 50,000 illegal or undocumented irish people in the u.s.. there is the hope from family members back in ireland there will be some sort of legislation to help normalize their status. so to lose points there is probably getting at that, i think. brian: in the front and back of your book you have two photographs. i want to put them both on the screen. here is the first one, wise on -- why is that on the back flap of the book? caitriona: the pictures on the book were put there by the publishing company. that is not meant to be in a particular place, it is just symbolic of donald trump's rallies, and particularly the fact there are so many women in the image, and as you can see, they are very excited to see the

president. suppose, one of them major discussion points during the candidacy of donald trump, where these attitudes that he purports to have toward women, the access hollywood tape and all of that kind of thing. i think they selected that photograph for that reason, just to illustrate one of the points in the one at the about the beginning of the book. caitriona: that was to illustrate the fact that that was quite a bleak photograph but that is a gigantic poster of mr. trump himself. to highlight that america is not cities.e wealthy

there are people in the suburbs and smaller communities that felt -- that felt they were not being listened to. they turned to him for salvation. brian: i wanted to go back to how you describe driving into cleveland. a city of many sides. ecb rust belt, -- you see the rustbelt. there is graffiti, letter, cerminats adnd other that are thankfully -- vermin that are thankfully not immediately apparent. you see that in ireland? caitriona: yes, but not to the

extent that he sought in the united states. the unitedit in states. it is noteworthy how desolate the edges of some cities are. you would not see that in ireland. one time and consulting it, -the mayor was telling me- one time thene time in pennsylvania mayor was telling me they do not have enough money to tear down derelict buildings. area,tead of a grassy you see the crumbling structures and that is not something you would see elsewhere. brian: the irish senator is o'ruden?

a member of the labour party, what does that mean? caitriona: we have several political parties and ireland. -- in ireland. we do not have republicans and he majority of our parties are mostly centrist. the labour party is tying itself into the working man and woman. brian: in november 2016, he made a speech and said strong things on the senate floor. a land of the ;e callsts and we need to them up and ask them if it is a good idea to bring the shamrock on st. patrick's day i want to

ask him how we are supposed to feel with this monster who has just been elected president of america. i do not think any of us should look back at this period and not say we did everything in our power to call it out for what it is. brian: how reflective is that of what the irish people think? caitriona: i have not lived in ireland in four years. i am probably not the best person to ask. there are probably a lot of people who are not favor of president trump and a lot of people who are in favor of president trump as well. senator riordain has been vocal in his dislike for president shareand others would that same opinion as they would

in the united states. the division of opinion would be the same as here in ireland. brian: what did you think about other media people here, covering the campaign, they would talk to you about their feelings. there is a different image about the media in this country than in years past. what were they saying privately? if someone says something to me privately, i will not discuss it. brian: i do not mean their names. i mean what did they think of donald trump? again, the range of opinion on president trump here is extraordinary. there are people who are for him and people who do not like him and everything in between. members of the media are human beings as well and are voters.

i am not a voter in this country. they would have their own private opinions and it would run the range. where i am from, as journalists, you cannot have an opinion like that. you cannot be a member of a political party and work for rt e. coffee,ho tells me over that is their own opinion. brian: you went to wisconsin. what did you learn about the butter? caitriona: i found it extraordinary that some people in wisconsin put butter in their tea. that is not something we would do in ireland even though we drink a lot of tea and eat a lot of butter. it was quite an odd situation whereby irish butter was banned in wisconsin because it is america's dairyland and they

have very strict regulation in terms of regulating where things are processed. butter had met the rigorous high standards in ireland and because of eu regulations -- it still was not allowed in wisconsin. irish products are so popular but it is another example of how states differ so much in this country and there are so many regulations to have to get around in each place. brian: where do you see more regulation, ireland or here? caitriona: i'm not the regulation expert but it depends on the sector and on the industry. when it comes to food products and that kind of thing, we have very different standards there

in terms of the use of antibiotics and hormones. those regulations are a lot higher in the european union. i do not think i am the best person to answer that one. brian: in wisconsin you met a man named professor mordechai. -- caitriona: i had a very interesting chat with him. donald trump won wisconsin. it was one of three states that gave him the white house, including michigan and pennsylvania. hillary never campaigned in wisconsin at all. she did not go there once. i thought that was interesting given that --if you are asking the people of a state to vote for you, you probably go there

at least once. mordecai, he disagrees with that theory. he was an interesting guy in ugh a of charting thro different election swing in wisconsin. the people there had not voted for a republican since the 1980's in the a presidential election and yet they did this time. brian: in the wisconsin chapter you talk about how farmers view washington, d.c. as totally disconnected from their lives. for them they have to actually work to make a living -- work as an hard, physical and manual labor and second, referring to them as fancy people. washington dc, the average wages $25.13 an hour and it is a majority black city. here in wisconsin, the average

wages $17.43. the disconnect was already there and draining the swamp made it more real. caitriona: this is an argument i heard everywhere i went. tale unique to the united states. say reland, people would those people over in dublin or if the european union, you say those people over in brussels. it is common to think that legislators are disconnected with the people they represent. the president was effective in that campaign messaging and it seemed to strike with the people who saw their representatives and senators going off on the train to washington dc in a fa ncy suit and whatever they were

doing was not helping them get jobs. brian: specifically you write that statement reflects another part of donald trump's messaging that was borderline genius. if cartoonish in content, during the f -- drain the swamp. caitriona: he is a marketing guru, reality tv's star and he knows how to use the media and get messages across. mp, three words that are incredibly evocative. you get immediately what he is talking about. playing on that notion that washington dc was built on a swamp and draining it means putting better people there.

whether voters believed that he could fulfill that are not, they were repaired to take a chance on it. that was something that came up time and time again. his message was extremely powerful and resonated with people. you go to a donald trump rally and he might talk for 45 minutes --voters it did not remember everything he said that they remembered those chants and that struck a chord with them to something they wanted to hear and take a chance on. maybe if that was true, things would be better. brian: what is your reaction to the actual vote talley on election night? 0 caitriona: i was working through the night. in ireland, there is a five hour time difference. you are broadcasting nonstop and we have to stop and say hillary

clinton did win the popular vote by 3 million people and donald trump won the electoral college based on 70 voters in three states. i remember broadcasting back home and i can hear the panelists saying hillary clinton might have a chance and i was like no. and hea hill to run up ran up the hill. the elect world map was stacked maoinst him -- the electoral stacked against him. brian: were you surprised? caitriona: i was not remotely surprised. i had been saying do not discount donald trump winning.

it is not a clear-cut victory for clinton. even the polling -- it was all trending in her favor but by the time you got to a few days out from polling day, the margin of error in certain places listed 3rcent and 4% on -- was percent and 3 percent. sizes inthe sample the polling is 1000 people. poll of 1000is a people in a country this large? and then you get into this idea of is polling being done on landlines and what native language they speak with me poo lster calls. the polling industry got a bit

of a lag last year. not remotely surprised. brian: let me ask you about being an anchor in ireland. katie couric, she was safe $75 million-- she was paid $75 million reportedly. is that the kind of money they pay in ireland? caitriona: no. there is no one working in the irish media that is even paid $1 million. brian: what else is not comparable about being an anchor in ireland? are you a star in ireland? caitriona: you would be very high profile. you are beaming into people's homes every evening while they're having their dinner. we are a much smaller country and have far fewer tv stations than you have here, . brian: two anchors make speeches

for money? caitriona: they can but you have to get permission from your bosses. brian: do you vote? caitriona: as a private individual, yes. brian: do you vote? caitriona: you cannot vote from a broad so i was not able to count my vote from -- for the current parliament. i was out of the country. that is that. brian: where did you grow up in ireland? caitriona: i grew up in dublin on the capital city. the foothills of the dublin mountains which are the suburbs on the age of the city. brian: what kind of a family did you come from? caitriona: i'm the eldest of three girls and both parents

did not work in the media. i'm the first one to go into that sphere. nothing comes easy in this life. you have to work very hard if you want to get into journalism in ireland. yet you do on your apprenticeships. i always wanted to be a journalist as far back as i can remember. i was writing poetry and novels and did little mock radio shows in my bedroom and all that kind of stuff. then i went to university and did my undergraduate in journalism. then after i guess seven or eight years after graduation went back while working full-time to a masters in international relations part-time as well. i've always been fascinated by world affairs and geopolitics and that is why i wanted to come to washington as a foreign correspondent. if you're into international affairs and how the world works, this is the center point of

that. brian: where did you go to school in ireland? caitriona: i went to a sisters of mercy all-girls school. in ireland, it is different, most people go to public schools and it is changing a little but they would be same-sex schools traditionally run by various religious organizations. mine was at the end of my road and despite that i was late a lot even though my house was only three minutes. brian: when did the journalism chicken? -- kick in? caitriona: as far back as i can remember. i was a young kid writing stories and being fascinated with how the world works. why is it like that and he makes those rules and regulations and what happens in other countries. aeland is very small and has

immigrant history. we are very outward looking on the world. we are looking to what is going on elsewhere and maybe relations in australia or europe or america. i was a ferocious reader as well as a child and a teenager and broadcasty wrote journalism because of the immediacy of it. when i was growing up, it was not as immediate as it is now with the 24-hour news cycle. there was just one broadcast a day. i love that you get to see so much happened in the world. you get a front seat to history and that is an incredible privilege to have as your job. brian: where did you meet your husband? caitriona: he is a friend of a friend but he is an incredibly private person.

he does not work in the media and he does not like me talking about him in the media. you have to keep some things personal. brian: is he here with you? caitriona: yes. brian: and he is irish? 0 caitriona: yes. brian: back to the book. the other states she went to like kentucky, virginia, north carolina, which one do you remember the most? caitriona: that is a hard question. state often ask me which you like the best and you cannot answer that really because they are so different and they -- virginia is not too far from washington dc and you can drive for half an hour and your honest in a different world. which is true for all of the united states. i love how diverse everywhere is in terms of the architecture is different. the suit is different. the population is different. -- the food is different.

kentucky is very like ireland. i really loved that. the rolling green hills. countyton is twins with a which is as force mad as lexington is. as lexington is. love the irish people in lexington. north carolina, the beaches are incredible. i spent time in the outer banks, which is a stunning part of the country. brian: who is jason meister in new york? caitriona: jason is a guy who was a local organizer for the trump campaign locally in new york state for the primaries and general as well. allas --he would say he was

in for donald trump. very much of that wealthy, manhattan background where he was in the real estate industry. he and his father knew truck for a long time and -- knew trump for a long time and he was up supportth drumming for donald trump in manhattan. but then we see how he fared in the primaries in manhattan. he is a good example of someone who was the wealth. of this country -- wealtheir end of this country and were big supporters of donald trump in terms of what he would do to deregulate the financial industry. pro-business and decreasing taxes and all that. brian: what is the american dream? caitriona: the american dream -- i do not know what it is for americans but for non-americans

there is this insatiable hope and optimism and positivity to your kids nd that and grandkids will do better than you. when you travel to america, this is the american dream. one person i met said she was the first person in her family to finish high school and she was going to make sure her son was the first person who finished university and she would do everything he could to make sure he could be a doctor or lawyer or whatever he wanted to be. i think people are striving for that and it is not happening in the united states. that three atw five people are the same level of income and wealth that they were in 2008. that is a long time to not make slight improvement on your life.

en democratichad be voters and were siding with donald trump because they felt they were left behind. that they were not going to retire or going to die better off than their parents were and they were not going to be able to get a better life to their children. that goes against that thinking that is in the spirit and soul of americans. brian: what is your reaction when you hear our politicians say america is the greatest country in the world? caitriona: i think many people in their own country say that. in ireland, we say it is the greatest country in the world. in many ways, america is great. why else to do so many people go through so much to come here and make a better life for themselves? you know, i think and there have

been surveyed to back this up in the last few months that maybe that reputation and that viewpoint is diminishing now by virtue of recent policies here. things like not going along with every other country in terms of the paris climate accord and policies toward the middle east perhaps. you know, i think americans are entitled to say they are the greatest country on earth but so can every other nation. brian: looking back on your experience of four years and your work on this book, it is -- when you go home and someone said it described to me very briefly why the people that voted for donald trump voted for him, what would you say? caitriona: i would say there are a couple of reasons. one, he said he would bring back the american dream and make life better for them. he said he would change things in washington.

again, drain the swamp and improve things. he did not stand for anything in particular. he could stand for anything that you wanted him to stand for and ultimately a lot of people are single issue voters. he was listening to them. he said he would fix the economy and bring that jobs and that is what everyone wants. they want to be able to provide for themselves and their families as best they can. if you feel beaten down, you will take a chance on someone offering you something new. brian: if you ever had to come esck to the united stat and live again, which state would you live in? caitriona: i would love to come back to washington dc but with the job i have, if you can get out of the bubble, if i was going to check out of life, the beaches in california are pretty

amazing. they kentucky also, a fabulous place -- also kentucky, a fabulous place. i really loved texas. i got to live in the city that lives on politics but i got to travel around every week and visit every other state in this country and to meet the great people and experience what there is to offer. brian: the name of the book is "in america: tales from truck country." our guest was caitriona perry. thank you very much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

announcer: if you like this q&a with caitriona perry, here is another you might enjoy. on hisnce's men more on hisnce -- memoir experience growing up with a poor white trash family. and robert costa talks about the and presidential campaign how that compared to the 1992 campaign run by businessman ross perot. you can find those on c-span.org. at the british house of commons this past week,

theresa may responded to concerns raised by labor party leader jeremy corbyn about the health service. she was also asked about infrastructure needs, brexit and funding for cancer treatment. this is 45 minutes. social care and my honorable friend coming. >> questions to the prime minister? stephen metcalf. >> the prime minister. >> thank you, mister speaker. i am sure members will join me in marking holocaust memorial day this saturday and remembering all those who endured such appalling suffering in holocaust. i had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others in addition to my duties in this house, i should have further such meeting later today and later traveled to switzerland to attend the world economic forum. i might even bump into the shadow chancellor while i am