>> this week on the communicators, we take you to the consumer electronics show in las vegas and speak with industry leaders about developments in artificial , 300 60ence, robotics degree cameras and enhanced communications for self driving cars. watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> the president of the united states. >> tuesday night, president donald trump gives his first state of the union address to congress and the nation. it joined us for a preview of the evening starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern than the state of the union speech live at 9:00 p.m. the democratic response from congressman joe kennedy. we will hear your reaction and comments from embers of congress . president trump's state of the union address, tuesday night,

live on c-span. listen live on the c-span radio app and available on-demand on your desktop, phone or tablet at c-span.org. ♪ >> this week on q and a, katrina merry, the for correspondent for ireland's broadcaster -- host: what was the origin of your book "in america?" guest: i've been a correspondent for the national public broadcaster of ireland, r t e, i've seen and witnessed amazing things. ireland, we have a great

affinity to america and what goes on here. people always want to hear about what's behind the correspondent 's life experience. i had not intended to do that until i'd finished my time here but given what happened in last year's presidential election, there was massive interest. the irish-american community here and at home in ireland what had happened here. publisheroached by a to write the kind of behind the scenes but a bit of an explainer type guide as to what was unique about the 2016 election campaign , what's going on in america right now that led the campaign to be what it was and to help people understand it's not all black and white, politics are not red and blue. host: how many americans living

in the united states have irish roots? guest: estimated between 30 million and 40 million irish-americans. a massive number. i huge irish diaspora around the world. hard to find a family and ireland that does not have a cousin,nt, great uncle, that has moved to this country and never come back to ireland. greatically it was to our famine and looking for employment and when things were not great on the island, they came over here. host: close to 5 million people in the republic of ireland. 26 counties. what is the difference you've noticed between living in ireland, being an irishman, and the united states? wow.:

they are just two totally different countries. primarily starting from the point of view of scale. i'm a proud irish person, but it is a small country. very sparsely populated. we don't have the scale there would be here in the u.s. in terms of employment opportunities for people are just diversity either. in terms of climate in this country you can have one part of the country bathing and sunshine and others buried under feet of snow. we would not have that in ireland either. i suppose the people are similar and that does come from the fact that so many have irish heritage . i found americans to be welcoming and friendly and polite. very well mannered. particularly here in washington,

d.c. i arrive not knowing anyone and i was wrapped into the irish community but also the general american community. if we were to go into all the differences we would be here all day. host: you say in your book there are some 44 million immigrants in the united states, making it the largest immigrant country in the world. would we see a lot of diversity in ireland? guest: in recent times, yes. when we were booming at that point we had a lot of immigrants coming to ireland from other countries, mostly from africa and eastern europe. many have made ireland their home and stayed. we went through a recession. many would have gone back to where there were from our a third country because our employment options were not there. things are improving in ireland and our economy is back in a healthy position. we would have a narrow history

with immigration. we've traditionally been a nation of immigrants. we are only now seeing the cycling through of that where you have people who are born in ireland but parents of somewhere else. host: can you explain this to americans? the prime minister in ireland is a gay man. given the nature of the catholic church and their attitude in some cases toward homosexuals, how did that happen? what impact has it had? guest: firstly i think maybe the view people have of ireland in america particularly in some parts of the irish-american community would be more conservative than the ireland i'm from actually is. we were the first country in the world to approve same-sex marriage by a vote of the people by referendum.

that shows you something. i think the fact that he is a gay man is irrelevant. he was elected through a system through his own party, kind of not by the people. people would have elected him based on an individual. what they viewed his policies to be. it made headlines. it was in many of the newspapers , a gay man, one of his parents is an immigrant. his father is from india. ireland,n a modern that is kind of irrelevant. he's just an irishman who happened to make his way up to the top of this political party. host: who did you write this book for? guest: this book was written for a western european

audience who traditionally would probably aligned with the democratic party. many would of been hillary supporters and really struggle to understand how someone like trump, not a traditional politician, could have caught the zeitgeist in the way he did. what was going on in american life and politics to the result that we've seen. i think it is useful for people in america who may be are used to living within certain communities. the media here is polarized at the moment. people are in a self confirming media bubble. maybe a different viewpoint people had not seen before. a code of conduct. tell us the difference? isst: the public broadcaster

part funded by a licensee everyone on the island has to pay. the license fee everyone on the island has to pay. that means you have to be neutral and objective. you can't favor one party or another when it's election season. literally the amount of time each candidate gets is monitored on a stopwatch to make sure everything is fair. that no one is biased. no one is taking one agenda or another. for me, that has been different notice in america. particularly the television networks are to the left or the right. whatever anyone from the other side does is almost automatically bad and whatever anyone does from their side is a most automatically good. we leave it up to the voters to decide and come to their own conclusions. that is regulated by

law and we would have the national union of journalists that you cannot have a partisan opinion on things particularly in elections. host: four years in the united states and you traveled for this book. where did you go? guest: all over the place. i was trying to hit all 50 states but i got to about 44. this book focuses mostly on the appalachian region and continuing into wisconsin, michigan. the border was such a big issue in the campaign. it mostly focuses on the states donald trump targeted, the swing states. maybe thought were going to lean democratic and did not. it is about meeting the people in those states. we are aware of the core base donald trump voter we see all

the time. this is about the middle-of-the-road independent voter and what motivated them after voting democratic for not even foritch the republican party but specifically for donald trump. host: you right near 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 others consider intolerable or scandalous is key to understanding the trump phenomenon a little better. how long did it take you to get to that conclusion? guest: lots of traveling. as a journalist you can't come to any conclusions based on two or three or five people you meet . you have to get the evidence over a long time. what struck me was, people view -- there arealmost

certain things he said or did that they really did not like but certain things he said or did they really loved and they were prepared to ignore other parts of him and what he stood for for that one bit that spoke to them. primarily that was economic improvement, feeling listened to and cared about. i think that was interesting and instructive for other politicians around the world. you ignore voters and their needs at your peril and you can't take anything for granted. host: in the early part of the book you wrote this, the one and only five in my life where i've been in sole possession of all of the facts of the story and can see how it played out across the media from that vantage point. explain that. --st: you are talking about that is me referring to my interaction in the oval

office with president trump. which happened last june when the president was making a call to congratulate him. the president called me up to the resolute desk and said a few words. host: let me interrupt. it may quite a bit of news so let's run this and you can further explain it. [video clip] from?re are you we have all of this beautiful irish press. perry.na she is a nice smile on her face. i bet she treats you well. guest: i've seen that video so many times. knowing all the facts of the story, that incident, as it happened at the time, 15, 20

seconds and i went on about my business as journalist does. in the next 24 to 48 hours it just went completely viral around the world. that was extraordinary. the moment itself, i described it as a bizarre moment. it was not in protocol that we president does things his way. five been in the oval office plenty of times, as other reporters and correspondents have. usually when a president is on a called a call at foreign leader they are engaged in the call, not involving anyone else particularly a member of the media. it was a surprise when he sort of called me over, but he's the president of the united states. if he says who are you come over

here, you sort of don't have an option but to do that. host: i think you said you had over 100 requests for interviews. from allhad requests the major networks, newspapers and news magazines in this country, in ireland, the u.k., australia, nigeria, across europe. pretty much any country could name. which was bizarre. it was interesting for me as a journalist to be inside the story like that. and to see how it feels for someone who is inside a story when you have all of these requests for interviews. you're not a very good journalist's people don't have your phone number so a lot of people have my phone number so at turn my phone off for a while which as a journalist is a remarkable thing to do.

people were reaching out through twitter, instagram, facebook, anyway they thought they could get hold of me. i come at the time, decided i was not doing any interviews about it. polarizeded at how that event became. antitrustimed by people as meaning one thing and pro-trump people as meaning something else and i thought as a working journalist, someone who has to be neutral and objective at all times, anything i would say about that would be taken to feed one narrative or another and ultimately i would be the loser in that situation. it is so divided in this country. definitely, one of the most periods ofry p

my life. tv screens all playing that on loop and have panels of people discussing how i must've felt, what was going through my mind. the laughter on the clip is actually not me. that's someone else in the room. i did not knowd how to take a complement. other people than saying the president is mean to the media that he was being nice to this person. or he was being sexist and the meaning. the full range. it seemed to bring out the full range of opinions and emotions. host: how often when he watched with people were saying he saying, that was not true? guest: almost all of it. i am a journalist who's been

around the president for a long time. rules.s his own he does his own thing. for something out of the ordinary to happen in the oval task much heedot of it at the time. i was more concerned that my deadline was in our from that. ireland, the fact that the president was on this call -- a lot of hot topics between the countries. -- the mere fact that the phone call was a big deal in ireland. upon leaving the oval office with other members of the press pack and some of the white house aides, we were kind of like, that was a bit bizarre and off we went. i actually went to a national

came with some friends, playing the colts. you're not looking at your phone. i came into an area with a good phone signal and that is where my phone had almost exploded really. i thought this is a bigger deal than i initially anticipated. host: when did you know that you are going to be called back to ireland to be an anchor? about maybe -- andr, and of october nd of october. my four years were coming to an end, to face the question of what my going to do next. i had not really considered being an anchor before. one dayphone call

saying we need you to come home and take over the evening news in ireland which i will be co-anchoring with another woman. the first time there will be two female anchors in ireland on a nightly news bulletin. friday, monday to people can tune in online and watch it they want to. that is my next step. it will be very different to what i've been doing in the u.s. for the last four years. host: we recording this at the end of 2017. when is your first day as coanchor? guest: the eighth of january. i'm leaving here and two days later i started the new job in ireland. the rest for the wicked as they say. host: you wrote about 11 states that you went to. i'd like to go through the list to give us something

you remember from each of those states starting with ohio. guest: ohio, i remember being beautiful. which is not something you usually hear about ohio. vista.a stunning too remember being surprised the levels of poverty and some parts of the united states. particularly in ohio, just how drugs have run rampant through parts of that state to i really liked ohio. .reat food there i think if you don't travel through the united states, it'd you just go to the big cities on holidays, you don't see what's really going on in the middle and you don't fully understand

the united states and you see ohio.communities in fentanyl have taken a grip there. people are crying out for help are you when you go into these communities as an outsider they tell you their stories frequently because they need help. they need assistance. there was a story on the front of the washington post about a county coroner having to bring in a refrigerated shipping container, such was the number of dead bodies they were going to find over the weekend from drug overdoses. it's difficult to square that scenario with the united states being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and yet you have some small communities that are doing everything they can but they just need help. host: let me jump from ohio down to texas. i know you were in the mcallen

area and you talk to a border agent. what did you learn? guest: talking to border agents you see atful because different view of things when you talk to those guys who are patrolling the border every day and night. there's a humanitarian story there for sure. we have a similar situation in europe with refugees. when people walk with the close on their back for a month sleeping on the sides of mountains and they are coming across the border, the conditions they are facing and all of that ahead of them, it is heartbreaking. you talk to these border agents who talk about the criminal or smugglingyotes in these people who are smuggling in drugs and guns.

they said it was a two-way street as well. guns and drugs coming out of the u.s. into mexico as well. they feel overwhelmed. i know president trump has upped the numbers of funding and border guards this year so things are probably a little better than i would say last year. situationary enough down there at times area that were told not to be near the rio grande. being tv journalists we had to get the good pictures to tell the story we were telling about the border crossings and all of that and we went to this part of the rio grande and there were shell casings on the riverbank. one flip-flop sticking in the ,ud, barefoot footprints obviously some sort of gun battle.

just with what's going on, daily, nightly, it is a situation that does not need to be addressed -- is a situation that does need to be addressed. there is obviously already a the agents that i spoke to said that it would not help at all. when general kelly was doing his confirmation hearing was saying the same thing. don't do anything because people to either makeed a better life for themselves or these gangs smuggling in drugs and guns, they will tunnel under or built over, they will find a way somehow. the border agents were not in favor of that. they wanted more funding for guards, more funding for

.mmigration more equipment for them to have to help patrol the border area. very few people were in favor of actually building a wall. they thought that would save -- solve anything. host: let's go to the most northern state. massachusetts. famous irish state. why did you write about that? guest: i wrote about that because people were interested in hearing about how irish-americans had voted. there be a traditional viewpoint that irish people, and many people in the western part of europe, would align themselves with democrats. parking back to the jfk era. that is actually not true. you learn that very quickly upon living here that irish-americans are voting like any other voters. some of them are democrats some are republicans.

mamie fagan -- many favored donald trump. many are still quite conservative. so they would favor the republican party in particular. smaller government, lower taxes, these kinds of things. that is why massachusetts is in there. it did not help him in the overall election, but it is just by way -- my way of understanding how american voters think. host: you talked about immigrants, and then you quote a man called lewis murray. a proud irish-american. who is he? guest: he is a guy i met at the convention. we stayed in touch. who -- his heritage is irish american so he was not born in ireland himself. he has plenty of family members he goes back to visit.

he was all in for donald trump. for the local organizing committee and all of that. he is a case study of irish-americans who were in favor of this message that donald trump was selling. but also the wider republican lower taxationf and more conservative family viewpoint. -- who are you talking about their? guest: that was another story that i reported on during my time here. the boston marathon bombings. boston is one of those cities that almost feels like it is part of island. i studied in boston university myself. the boston -- the bombing of that marathon was something that designated with people. -- that resonated with people. host: there is a quote in that

chapter where you say president obama did not do anything for you irish. -- there would be would be that viewpoint in terms of -- host: actually that was his quote. did people expect him to do something for the irish? he is the president of america, not of island. i suppose there are be a sense among some irish-americans that there would be movement to immigration reform. information that we are care about. also in terms of tax reform. many multinational u.s. companies are based in ireland, creating a lot of jobs there. there are a lot of irish companies in america as well. -- his point there about obama not doing anything for the irish was to do with the immigration situation. , no one isany

counting this, but there are estimated to be 60,000 undocumented irish people in the u.s.. there's always that hope from their parents and family members back in ireland that there will be some sort of legislation to help normalize their status. the point there is probably getting at that. host: in the front in the back of your book you have two photographs. why put both of them up on the screen, here is the first one, why is that in the back of the flap of the book? guest: the pictures that are in the book were put in there by the publishing company in terms of the production design of it. meant to be any particular place. it is just symbolic of trump rallies. particularly the fact that there are some a women in that image. you can see that they are all very excited to see the president. one of the major

discussion points during the candidacy of donald trump. attitudes that he was reported to have two women. all of that kind of thing. i think they selected that photograph for that reason to illustrate one of the point in the book that there is a whole chapter about female voters. host: what about the one in the beginning of the book which is a much different kind of picture. illustrate is one to the fact that there is quite a bleak photograph. it is a gigantic poster of minster trump. -- of mr. trump. it is to highlight the fact that america is not all these wealthy cities. there are vast swathes of the country where people really felt they were not being listened to.

plummetingies were -- their economies were plummeting. they turned to him for salvation. about cleveland, i want to read about how you describe driving into cleveland. you said it is a city of many sites. you see the literal rust belt cap. buildings falling down. the scene throughout this part of the country, graffiti, letter. feral cats. mangy dogs. probably many more vermin that are thankfully not immediately apparent. how often did you see that in the u.s.? guest: frequently. host: do you see that in ireland? guest: yes, you do. not to the extent that i saw it in parts of the u.s.. noteworthy how desolate

certain parts of the edge of the cities are. you would not see that in ireland. what was insightful for me on that point was one town in pennsylvania where the mayor was telling me that he can't afford to pull down crumbling buildings. so they remain as eyesores because they just simply don't have enough money in the coffers to take care of those buildings. instead of it being a level grassy area, it is crumbling structures. that is not something that i would have seen elsewhere. senator riordan, the irish a member of the labour party. what does that mean? guest: we have the multiparty

system in ireland. several political parties. the labour party is one of those parties. we don't have republican and democrat, two sides like this. the vast majority of our parties are mostly centrist falling slightly left or right. the labour party would be more tying itself into the working man and woman. host: this is back in november of 2016 where he makes a speech saying some very strong things on the senate floor. i want you to put this in context. the best thing that could -- good people in ireland could do is to ask them if it is ok to still bring the shamrock on st. patrick's day. reactionrrassed by the of the re--- of irish government to what has happened in america. ask the minister for foreign affairs into this house, and ask him how we are supposed to deal

with this monster who has just been elected president of america. i don't think any of us in years to come should look back at this. and not say that we did everything in our power to call it for what it is. host: how does that reflect what you know of the irish people to think? guest: i haven't lived in ireland for the last four years so i am not the best person to ask. but there would be split opinion. there would be a lot of people favor of not be in president trump. they were be people who are in favor of president trump as well. been a riordan has dislike for in his president trump. others would share that same opinion. there is a division of opinion here, it will be the same in

ireland. host: what did you notice when you're out in the states about other media people who would talk to you about their own feelings, as there is -- as you know there is a different image in the media as the has been in the past? guest: what would i take from other members of the media? host: what were they saying to you privately? guest: if they said it to me privately at not lead to discuss it. host: what kinds of things did they say to you? a range ofn, it is opinion on president trump. who are veryple firm supporters of his, and there are people who really don't like him. and there is everything in between. members of the media are human beings as well. i am not a voter in this country, so they would have their own private opinions as

well. it would run the range there. as a journalist, you can't have an opinion like that. you cannot be a member of the political party. i am not, i wouldn't be getting into anyone who tells me over coffee, that is out opinion. the cheese, the butter. what did you learn about the butter? guest: found it extraordinary that some people in those counts and put butter in their tea. it is not something that we would do in ireland. we drink a lot of tea and we did a lot of butter. -- we eat a lot of butter. -- irish butter was banned in wisconsin because america's creamery, they have very strict regulations there in terms of

regulating for things that are processed. if irish butter had met the rigorous high standards that there are in ireland in mind that you regulations, it wasn't allowed in wisconsin. you would meet these people who had to travel over the border to illinois to buy their butter and smuggle it back into the boot or the trunk of their car. hows another example of states differed so much in this country. tore are some a regulations try to get around age place. host: where do you see more regulation, ireland or here? guest: i'm not a regulations expert. i think 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 hormones and all of that kind of thing.

those regulations would probably be a lot higher in the european union. think, i don't think i am the best one to answer that one. host: back to wisconsin, you met someone named professor mordechai lee. who is he? guest: he is a professor at the university of milwaukee. i had a very interesting chat .ith him about donald trump wisconsin was one of the three states that gave him the white house. was noteworthy was that hillary clinton never campaigned in wisconsin at all. she did not go there once. i thought that was interesting. if you are asking people of the state to vote for you you should probably go there at least once. professor,dly, the

disagrees with that. but he was interesting in terms of charting through different elections swing in wisconsin. the people there had not voted for a republican since the 1980's. and yet they did this time. in thean you explain wisconsin chapter you talk about the view of washington, d.c. is totally disconnected from their lives. from them you have to work for a living. and second, referring to them as city people. the average wage in d.c. is $25 an hour. it is a majority black city. just 44% of the population is white. iswisconsin the average wage $17, 87% of the population is white. there may indeed be some fancy people in d.c., most are not. but it does not matter, the

disconnect was already there and draining the swamp made it more real. guest: this is an argument that i heard, not just in wisconsin but everywhere. the slogan of drain the swamp really resonated with people. it is not particular to the united states. i think in ireland people would people over in brussels or whatever. there is that is connect with the people that they represent. the was something that president was very effective in that campaign messaging. it really seemed to strike with people that they would see their representative or senator's going off in the train or plane to washington, d.c. in a fancy suit and they felt whatever they were doing there wasn't helping them. it wasn't helping them to get jobs and that they weren't in

touch with what was happening to their lives. --t: specifically, you write borderline genius, if cartoonish and content. train the swap. borderline genus. how often did you see that? , we know he is a marketing guru. reality tv star. he knows how to use the media and get messages across. he has done that throughout his entire career. drain the swamp is three words, incredibly and talkative. it does what it says on this pen. -- pin. the notion that d.c. was built on a swamp. by draining it, taking out the horrible people that live there and replacing it with better people. that was something that voters believed -- and whether voters believed he could fulfill it,

they were prepared to take a chance on it. that was something that came up time and time again. his messaging was extremely powerful and resonated with people. you could go to a donald trump rally, he might talk for 45 -- they wouldu not remember everything that he said, but they would remember those mantras. that struck a chord with them. something they really wanted to hear. something that they wanted to take a chance on. maybe if that comes true, things will be better. host: what was your reaction to the vote tally on election night? guest: i was working through the night. fivein ireland there is a hour time difference, so you are broadcasting nonstop. say thato stop and hillary won the popular vote by

3 million people. i remember broadcasting back home and a was waiting to do my live shot, i could hear the panelists in the studio and they were saying that hillary clinton might still have a chance. a hill to run up, and he .un up that hill the electoral mass was stacked against him. the polls were all trending in one direction. there was a challenge there. he seemed to grab it and succeeded. host: based on your own coverage were you surprised? guest: no, not remotely surprised. i have been saying for a couple of weeks before that don't discount donald trump winning. it is not a clear-cut victory for clinton. even the polling, it was all

trending in her favor, but actually by the time it got to a few days out from polling day, the margin of era in certain places -- error in certain places was three to 4% and her victory percent was not much more than that. so that render to polls really not reliable. a lot of the sample sizes in the .olling is only 1000 people in ireland, a much smaller country, it is 1000 people. how reliable is a poll of a thousand people in the country this large? then you get into the other sub sects of that in terms of his polling being done on land lines, who has land lines versus mobile phones? what native language they speak when the polar calls? i think the polling industry probably got a bit of a whack last year. just based on the people i spoke with i was not remotely surprised.

host: let me ask you about being an anchor in ireland. one of the more recent figures we were aware of in this country , when katie couric is five years, is that the kind of money they pay in ireland? guest: no. not remotely. there would not be anyone working in the irish media that is even paid a million. not comparable. comparedt else is not -- not comparable about being an anchor in ireland and the united states? are you a star in ireland? guest: you would be very high-profile, yeah. you are beaming into people's homes in every evening. we are a much smaller country and we have far fewer tv stations then you have here. host: do actors go out and make speeches for money? they can do, yeah.

you have to get permission from your bosses. host: do you vote when you're in irish media? guest: as a private individual, yeah. host: do you vote yourself? host: yes. you can't vote from abroad, so i was not able to cast a vote for the current dollar and the current parliament. i was out of the country. that's that. host: where did you grow up in ireland? guest: i grew up in dublin on the south side. the hills of the dublin mountains. one of the suburbs just on the edge of the city. host: what kind of family did you come from? guest: i am the eldest of three girls. both parents worked. i am the first one to work -- to break through into the media sphere. through a lot of hard --

if you want to get into journalism in ireland, you have to work very hard. and do all your apprenticeships and that kind of thing. i always wanted to be a .ournalist as far back as i can remember i was writing poetry and novels. i did a little mock radio show in my bedroom. all of that kind of stuff. i went to the university ended my undergraduate injured was him -- undergraduate and journalism. back graduation i went while working full-time to a masters in international relations. it has been -- i have always been fascinated by geopolitics. -- into international affairs and how the world works, this is the really the center point of that. host: where did you go to school in maryland? i went to century

college. schoolsple go to public in ireland. it is changing a little bit, but mostly they would be same-sex couples -- same-sex schools. mine was just at the end of my road. i was late a lot. even though my journey was only three minutes. host: went to journalism taken? -- kick in? a small kid writing stories and all that. really fascinated with how the world worked. rule anding was the the regulation, why was the rule like that and who makes the rules and what happens in other countries? ireland is a very small island nation with an immigrant history so we are very outward looking

rather than inward looking. we are always looking to what is going on elsewhere. relations in america or australia or europe or whatever. ferocious reader as well. as a child and as a teenager. i really loved broadcasting. when i was growing up it wasn't thatmediate as it was now, was very much the year of the -- to see soat you get much happen in the world. you get to have front seats to history. an incredible privilege to have as your job. host: where did you meet your husband? he is a friend of a friend. he is an incredibly private person who does not work in the media and does not like me talking about him in the media.

so you have to keep some things personal in this business. host: is he here with you? guest: yes. ? host: and he is irish? guest: yes. the other states he went to, which of those do you remember and why? guest: that is a hard one. you can't answer that, really, because they are so different. virginia, obviously, is not too far from washington, d.c.. what amazes me is you can drive for half an hour and you are in almost a different world. which is true of all of the united states. i love how diverse everywhere is in terms of the architecture, the food, the populations, the accents.

kentucky is very like ireland. i really loved that. host: beauty? guest: yeah, the rolling green hills. lexington is and with county .old air that is the center of our horse industry. forh carolina is beautiful different reasons. the beaches there are incredible. it is -- i was lucky enough to spend time in the outer banks as well. -- a stunning part of the country. host: -- guest: jason is a guy who was a local organizer for the trump campaign. primary -- primaries and for the general as well. all in for donald trump. very much of that wealthy

manhattan background. working in the real estate industry. he and his father would -- they knew the trumps for a very long time. he was really charged with drumming up support for donald trump in manhattan, which was not an easy thing to do. we can see how he fared in the primaries and the general in manhattan. he was a good example of someone wealthier and of this country who were very big supporters of donald trump in terms of what he would do to deregulate financial industry. pro-business. reducing taxes all of that. we have seen some of that coming in all ready with the new tax law. host: what is the american dream? guest: i don't know for americans, but for a non-americans, there is this insatiable hope and optimism and

positivity to do better. and that your kids will do better than your kids -- then you did, and your grandkids will do better than they did. this is what you hear people describing to you. one person i met had said how she was the first person in her family to finish high school. she was going to make her that her song was the first person -- her son was the first person to finish university. she would do everything she had to do to make sure that he could be a doctor or a lawyer. i think people are always striving for that. it is not happening right now in the u.s.. the census statistics show that three out of five people are the same level of income and wealth as they were in 2008. that is a substantial. of time to not be making slight improvements in your life. i felt that people i met,

particularly those who have been to pokertek voters and are now siding with donald trump, was they felt that they had been somehow left behind. that they weren't going to retire or die better off than their parents were. they weren't going to be able to give a better life to their children. that thinkingnst that i think is in the spirit and soul of americans. host: what is your reaction when you hear our politicians say america is the greatest country in the world? many people in their own countries say that. in ireland we say it is the greatest country in the world. in many ways, america is great. why else do so many people go through so much to go here and try to make a better life for themselves? i think, and there has been up, thato back this

reputation and viewpoint is diminishing now. by virtue of recent policies here. things like not going along with pre-much every other country in -- on earth in terms of the paris climate accord. policies toward middle east. a -- aremericans are entitled to say it is the greatest country in the world, that so can every other nation. host: looking back on your experiences and looking back on your work on this book, when you go home and somebody says to you described to me very briefly why the people that voted for donald trump voted for him, what would you say, what are the main reasons? guest: there are a couple of reasons. one is he said he would bring back that american and make life better for them. and that he would change things up in washington. the drain the swamp, improve things there.

he kind of, hese did not stand for anything in particular, he could stand for anything. ultimately, a lot of people are single issue voters. he was listening to them, he said he would fix the economy and bring back jobs and ultimately, that is what everyone wants in life. they wants to be able to provide for themselves and their families as best they can, and if you feel beaten down, you will take a chance on someone that is offering you something new. last question, if you ever had to come back to the united states and live again, and had a choice, which state would you live in? guest: that's that hard question again. i would love to come back to d.c. again. with a job that i have effected out of the rubble and travel -- get out of the bubble and travel around, kentucky is a fabulous place, i really liked

texas. -- i haveink i could had the best of both worlds. i've gone to live in a city that lives on politics, but i have gone to travel around every week and visit almost every other state in this country and meet the great people and experienced weather is tougher. host: the name of the book is in trumpa, tales from country. our guest is katrina perry. thank you very much. guest: thanks. ♪ ♪ visit us at q and a.org. q and day programs are also