kate andersen brower has a look at the relationships between presidents and vice presidents. as always, we will take your calls and you can enjoy in the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning. the house and senate both back in session this week. a number of house votes on defense spending, but immigration expected to dominate the headlines t. is sunday, june 24. thanks for joining us on the "washington journal." the hill newspaper reporting that four senators, two democrats, two republicans, meeting this week to begin with what they call in-depth negotiations on a possible immigration compromise. the four, tillis and cruz, along with democratic senators feinstein and durbin, a story we will be following here on the c-span networks. we begin with a major white

house announcement this past week calling for sweeping reorganization of the federal government. the immigration story moved this off the front pages. we want to get your reaction to what the trump administration is proposing. your ideas to streamline the federal government, join in on the conversation at 202-748-8001, our line for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats f. you're an independent, 202-748-8002. join the conversation on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. send us a tweet, we will read it at cspanwj. thanks for being with us. this is the headline from "the hill," as the white house releasing a proposal that would reorganize the federal government. the plan touching on a wide range of agencies, but one of its main proposals is to move the food stamp program, officially known as snap, out of the department of agriculture and into the department of health and human services. and there's this headline from the "new york times," behind

the president's plan to overhaul the government, scaling back the safety net is the story. it's available at nytimes.com. president trump spurred on by conservatives who want to slash the safety net program, vailing a plan to overhaul the federal government that could have a profound effect on millions of poor and working class americans. produced over the last year by mr. trump's budget director, it would reshuffle social welfare programs in a way that would make them easier to cut, scale back, or restructure, according to several administration officials involved in the planning. among the most con convince shall ideas is a proposal to shift the snap program, a benefit that provides support to millions of sandoor working americans with food assistance, from the agriculture department to what's being called a new mega agency that would have welfare in its title, a term mr. trump uses as a pejorative catchall for most government benefit programs.

that would include a plan to merge the education and labor departments, to consolidate the workforce programs. more details available at nytimes.com. sheer what the budget director told the president and reporters in announcing his plan to reorganize, reshuffle, change the' pictures of the federal government. >> no one has ever tried this. president clinton tried a little bit, a couple of other president vs tried, it but no one has ever done it at this scale, and importantly, no one has ever followed through. no one has ever given the time commit these time around the table have given, and no one has come up with really big ideas like. this the stuff that president clinton came up with are peanuts compared to this. and every time someone comes to me and says, that's ok, this is never going to happen. great ideas, but this doesn't have a chance. a couple of different things. one of the biggest ideas the department of education and labor merger actually doesn't get involved in jurisdictional battles on the hill. one committee on the hill handles those things now.

congress is ahead on this, which is really difficult to say. there's a chance that we actually can get that done, but even if we don't get it done now, this is the generational kind of stuff that i think you asked us to do when you came to office. when ronald reagan said that government wasn't the solution, it was the problem, it took 15 years after that for bill clinton to go on tv and say the age of big government is dead. this is a generational thing. is this going happen overnight? no. some of the stuff we can do by ourselves on a regulatory fashion throughout administrative process. other stuff is going take longer, but this is the stuff that's worth fighting for, and it won't get done unless somebody takes those first steps, which is what we're doing today. host: the white house budget director outlining details of the plan that was announced this past thursday. you can go to whitehouse.gov to read the details. some of the tweets, steve says, merging the education and labor departments is really all about killing the federal role in education. nd this week from jim, al gore

reinvented government in the last century. this is the headline from "the washington times," draining the swamp, the white house proposes unprecedented reorganization of the federal government. what do you think, and what are your ideas to streamline the federal government? begin with daniel here in washington, d.c., republican line, good morning. caller: thank you very much. the presidency that we're struggling with right now, it should open up everybody's eyes to the need to reform the presidency itself. we're seeing a very unbalanced, mentally ill person doing things that are -- nobody schu the power to do these things. nobody should be appointing all of these destructive secretaries of departments. the story going on on the border in texas is such a racist atrocity. tell me if a white kid taken

from a white family wouldn't turn this country ballistic. and nobody, nobody in this day and age, the executive is so completely out of control, and it was only a question of time before a psychotic like mr. trump got his hands on the office and people are acting like this is like a normal thing. but he's a liar. wake up. this is insane. totally insane. this shouldn't be happening. we need a fail-safe protections. no way should this kind of power be combert by any human being, not by the emperor of japan, nobody. host: one key point, and this is in the body of the reporting of the washington "washington times," "new york times," and "the hill," congress would need to approve any of these changes in terms of reorganizing the federal government. let's go to jodie, who has this tweet, who knew immigration and healthcare could be so tough. wait for the republican response.

and this from mary saying they can't organize themselves, so they better leave the goth alone to another administration who is more capable. we'll go to jack, joining from us rhode island, also republican line. good morning. caller: yeah, that previous caller is definitely a fraud. ok? i'm going to make him happy. mr. trump, maybe he's jealous, is an immensely wealthy man. he does have a lot of debt, but he has properties all over the globe. and he's got a fantastic life overall, great family. so that must make him sick. ok? now, you can't be stupid, you know, to go that far, even though he did get a good start from his father, very successful, hard working man. but here's my larger point. my larger point is this -- i'm a conservative, yes, but i have a couple of things that i think liberals are going to like. i believe in a guaranteed income proposed by mark

zuckerberg for every american. you know, a base. we'll say -- i'll even go higher, 20 grand a year. because what that will do is give people, people, you know, with abilities, incentive its to try to do things. because they know they got that base. so they feel safe. so that can create greater, greater growth, greater capabilities, and a greater nation. so i agree with that. now, as far as the conservative side, we're going to abolish the department of education. my sister is a retired schoolteacher. she's very liberal. very liberal. very smart woman. but we got to do that, because you look at the department of education, they're graduating kids that can't even add 18 lus 15, which equals 33, ok? you know, this is amazing how stupid some of these people

are. host: jack from providence, rhode island. relate to this, the headline from "the washington post," the government reorganization plan embraces conservative goals for the safety net, and this is from the "new york times" sunday magazine, all the right people, how one conservative think tank backs the federal government for the trump era, a piece by, and the focus is on the heritage foundation here in washington, d.c. alan is joining us next from st. petersburg, florida, good morning. how would you streamline the ederal government? caller: i actually wanted to comment on trump's plan for doing a way with programs or rather cutting and slashing programs like the food stamp program and the snap program. i'd rather comment on that first. essentially the plans of zprump his cronies -- the plans of

trump and his cronies to essentially slash these programs is a proposal to essentially kill many of the people who voted for trump, the working class, the low-income eople who voted for him. it's not a proposal to help americans. it's a proposal to destroy americans. host: next is michael who says social promotion serves little purpose. you can send us a tweet, @cspanwj. from bill king, republicans have been trying to kill welfare since forever, so this is not new, just the first time it may actually happen. joseph is joining us on our line for independents from south carolina. good sunday morning. how would you streamline the federal government, your

reaction to what the administration is now proposing? caller: first i think we're getting off track here. streamlining the government just has to be steamlined. it's much too cumbersome, slow, wasteful, it's big, it costs a lot of money to run. i was a federal employee before i retired in 2007, and i work now for a government contractor and you would not believe what it would take --y heard of the story, 10,000, things like that, i don't know how true that is, but let mely tell you, with scommecks processes and approval levels to buy one toilet seat, i'm not surprised it wouldn't cost $5,000. i submit procurements right now, and every vendor that deals with government has something called a cage. and that's it, it's almost like a social security number to an individual. and you can go to all this trouble to submit a request for something.

and i say the name of the company, this actually happened. and to force the same, and we have one kick that back a while back, because once he got to the contract specialist, it idn't have i.n.c. behind dell, but their phone numbers are identified. their email address is identified. so that thing got cancelled and had to go back and go resubmit it and through all the approval processes once again, and that's what's wrong in a nut shell with the government. it's about the empire building, and people don't care. they don't seem to care, steve. host: this is from the call, another tweet, the department of education is not graduating a single student, so check in the mirror before accusing other people of being stupid. congressman jerry connolly represents a northern virginia district, which includes a lot of federal workers. he's a democrat, and had this

tweet, the trump reorganization lan is a wish list for anti-government idea logs. this is a blueprint for failure that would create dysfunction and chaos in the federal government and do harm to americans who rely on these services. next up is brian joining us from salt lake city, utah, republican line, good morning. caller: they're all bureaucracies, like the new one that obama started, the consumer protection agency. we don't need that stuff. they don't answer to nobody. we don't vote for them. they're the problem right there, and it's against the constitution. and people call our democracy, we're a constitutional republic, and everybody thinks there's no democracy in the declaration of independence, bill of rights. there's the constitution. we need to get back to america, get rid of choose bureaucracies, because they're just going to kill us.

we have to pay for them. let's make another one. who pays for it? we the people. we're the bank of america. you people got to straighten up and start voting. but pay attention to who the heck you're voting for. host: there's a primary on tuesday. mitt romney is facing a republican challenger. who's going to win? caller: i hope the other guy. mitt romney, he didn't stand up for us. he sat there and let obama lie on the debate and what that gal from cnn helped him, you know, nd it's just bull crap that -- we the people need to stand together. and i hope romney don't win, because he's part of the establishment. mitch mcconnell is bad. chuck schumer, next i pelosi, people, when do we wake up? those people don't care about us. it's the government for the people by the people. it is not.

it's a government for what the lobbyists, those are the people running our country, not we the people. host: thanks for the call. we're going to move on to norwood, massachusetts, and mike is next, democrats line. good morning, mike. caller: good morning. how are you? host: we're fine. how are you? caller: good. i was reorganized in the military, and what i mean by that, i would join -- i would combine the coast guard with the navy. i'll combine the army and the marines and this new program that they're talking about, the space agency. i would just put that under the air force. that way you only have three arms of the military. it would be much more effective, much more accountable, would save money, less hierarchy. host: thank you for the call. this tweet says let's get rid of the unions in the federal government, since carter

allowed federal bureaucrats to unionize, our federal bureaucracy began to grow at a geometric rate. send us a tweet, @cspanwj. this is john, republican line, north carolina, your reaction to the trump plan and how you would streamline or reorganize the federal government. john, you're on the air. caller: yes, good morning. host: good morning. caller: i called on the independent line, but i would just -- i'm a retired federal worker. and i loved the agency that i worked for. i thought it was great. i enjoyed getting up and going to work every day. for 33 years. but i tell you, i watched government grow over the years, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it's so bloated, the bureaucracy is

incredible. i don't think the average american realizes just how big the civilian part of government is. it's huge. and how in the world could nybody even in the digital age try to have some basic controls over the spending and all the other stuff that goes on, the hiring, and it's so hard to get rid of people. there are just all kinds of problems, and i can see the trump administration is going to have incredible, incredible problems if they try to, you know, to do any real major changes. one last thing i would remind people, and that is that the last time there was a major reorganization of the government was during the great depression in the 1930's when franklin roosevelt all those

years ago reorganized government in 1933 with a target of trying to have most of it done in a three-year period. i just don't think you could do it in three years. you wouldn't even try. but i do applaud them at least for getting the idea out there. that government is too big, it needs some reorganization, and i wish them luck. host: thank you very much for the call. this is from james, who says streamlining the swamp is a hopeless cause. a look at some of the news weeklies. election dilemma in 2018, democrats walking a fine line on immigration. from national review, what kim wants, a look at kim jong un, "washington post" sunday magazine, if these walls could talk, inside blair house, the president's v.i.p. residence, for guests of the president, directly across from the white house on pennsylvania avenue. and the controversial cover of

"time" magazine, welcome to america, a girl from honduras who was not separated by her mother, and president donald trump. ryan zincee, the secretary of the interior, had tweeted out also on the issue of reorganization, and also a video. this is what the interior secretary wrote on his twitter page, saying, "trump announcing big plans to reorganize and modernize the federal government to better serve the american people. his ideas to move the national marine fisheries to interior with usfws even had bipartisan upport back in 2011. here is a tweet that was sent last week by the interior secretary, ryan zinke. >> we live and do business in the information age, but the last major reorganization of the government happened in the age of black and white tv. there are 12 different agencies that deal with exploits.

currently five different agencies that deal with housing policies. then there's my favorite example. the interior department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the commerce department handles them when they're in saltwater. i hear it gets even more complicated once they're moked. host: that was president obama and ryan zinke, interior secretary, reacting to president trump's plan to reorganize the federal government, and those comments from the president, president obama, in 2011 during his state of the union address. the weekly standard, the last insurgent, a look at chris mcdaniel and his bid in the mississippi senate race. back to your phone calls from lafayette, louisiana, leo is next. good morning. aller: good morning.

one day i would start is to look within the house. i would start with the e.p.a. department. how come no one ever talks about that? all the money that he spent on condos, and i would look at the gentleman that's going that was over healthcare, all the money he spent, frivolous money, he spent behind foolishness and airline. that's where we need to start, within the house. you got to have a clean house. you have to clean up within, not out. you start within the house. host: alexandria, virginia, democrats line. good morning. your reaction to this proposal? caller: good morning. well, can you hear me? host: we sure can. caller: ok. i'm a civil servant. i work for the defense department. you know, change is good. but when you have so much

animosity with the way they're presenting this, it's like -- it's not positive. they're not changing with the altitude that -- we want the change to make it run better, it's just that we want to destroy, destroy, destroy. and that is what has, you know, like a pain in my gut when i hear some of the things that are going on. i'm not saying that the change that they want to make is going to be bad, i'm just saying that you can't have all this negativity and then say -- and have that in the back of your mind, and then the steps you take, it's not going to be for the good of what you're trying to create. i also think that people don't realize that for the last almost 20 years, we've been hiring people who have gotten

out of the service. that's who's been able to be government workers, especially in the defense department. but all over, really. they have priority. now, you say you're really, you know, you support the service people, and yet when they're in this situation, you just create all this negativity. i don't understand it. host: you have been a federal employee how many years? caller: since 1989. host: thank you very much for adding your voice to the conversation. if you go to the government executive website, more details on exactly what this plan means for federal employees of white house proposing a massive reorganization of federal agencies. melvin is joining us, fort lauderdale, florida, democrats line. ood morning, melvin. caller: good morning. i think it's totally ludicrous. look at what part of his administration currently is organized and running properly.

none of it. sthev more people, get rid of more people. that can't handle the job that they're allegedly doing now. he's out of control with everything he's doing. you have the figure heads they put in there. they're in there talking about cleaning the swamp. they've got more mess than the swamp has ever had. it's just automatically -- i mean, it's insane. name one agency that is under him that is operating correctly, just one. maybe we can start talking about reorganizing. just saying one. one part of this administration that is operating correctly. anybody, when they call it, just name one. that's all i have to say. host: melvin, thanks for the call. i want to share another story that broke yesterday. it is on the drudge report.

it's available online at washingtonpost.com involving white house brett secretary sarah sanders. this is 9 headline, the owner of the red hen explains why she asked sarah huckaby sanders to leave. the owner of the red hen saying that she said i'm the owner, that's from stephanie wilkinson. i'd like you to come out to the patio with me for a word. they stepped inside out of the crowded restaurant. i was babbling a little, but i got my point across in a polite and direct fashion, said stephanie wilkinson. i explained that the restaurant has certain standards that i feel it has to uphold, such as honesty and compassion and cooperation. i said i'd like to ask to you leave. sanders' response was immediate, that's fine, i'll go. you can go more to "the washington post," and sarah huckabee sanders with a tweet yesterday saying, last night i was told by the owner of the red hen in lexington, virginia, to leave because i work for the president of the united states, and i politely left.

her actions say far more about her than about me. i always do my best to treat people, including those i disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so. joining from us mount pleasant, south carolina, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i think streamlining the government, if there's anybody that can possibly do it, it would be trump. he's got the spine of titanium, really. seems like he can't be stopped. does he try to keep up with his promises that he did on the campaign. you know, what is another republican we got in there, there's no way the type of advancement we would have had. we've advanced conservative ideals in the last year and a half that i never thought would happen. so i believe that streamlining the government is a necessity. i work for the federal government for a while, for five years, and it is a

cumbersome mess for anything. everybody pays -- everything they pay for is overpriced. it's never -- there's no intention to try to get -- to lower prices on anything. it's just -- there's no incentive to do anything. so i think it has to be done. host: how do they get to that point, streamlining, reducing costs, making it more efficient? caller: because it's not their money. host: no, no, how do they get there? what's the process it make effective? caller: i think you incentivize the people to try some things. because when we worked, when i worked for the government, we would have to spend a certain amount per quarter, and if we didn't, or per year, if we didn't spend that amount, they would cut us back.

these guys would spend more and more money they did not need to spend, because they did not want to cut back on the amount of spending. and so incentivize the people who have worked for the government on cost savings f. they can find some savings -- i know they can, there's no question about it. you incentivize people to save it by giving them a portion, because everybody wants to save money, so incentivize them by giving them some money that whatever percentage, a percentage of where they can save the government. host: thanks very much for the call. this is a headline from "the washington times," protesters descend on nielsen's home, no justice, no sleep. this is how it unfolded on friday morning in the washington, d.c., area. let's watch. >> shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! history will remember you! history will judge you!

you're a modern-day nazi! you block in the haig! shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! shame! host: those demonstrations friday morning for nielsen, and again, the headline from "the washington times," descending on her home. she is the secretary of homeland security, and earlier this week, she was asked to leave -- or she did leave a mexican restaurant with other demonstrations and protesters. this is from john smith. so much red tape in all the various branches, streamlining would make the process more efficient and save taxpayers money. william is joining us from san francisco, independent line, good morning. caller: hi there. i wanted to say, first of all, we in california, as bizarre as we may seem, have many, many solutions to streamlining the government. it can be used oddly in terms

of the way that google and yahoo and all these people have a lot of power, but i swear that the government doesn't have to be is this bad. it can be efficient. it can work for us. it doesn't have to be so wasteful. and i think that there are a lot of young people and companies for better or worse that have lots of ideas about this. but it shouldn't be this difficult. host: thank you very much for the call. coming up in just a moment, michael eric dyson, his latest book is titled "what truth sounds like: r.f.k., james baldwin, and our unfinished conversation about race in america." joining us in just a moment. andrew selee is joining us later in the program. his new book focusing on u.s.-mexico relations. he is the president of the migration policy institute. but first, c-span's "newsmakers" and our conversation with the chair of

the senate judiciary committee, chuck grassley of iowa. among the issues we discussed, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. >> the president's 2020 campaign manager made some waves this week when he called for the firing of the attorney general. separately, there's a lot of deserve active disconsent with the deputy attorney general over his response to oversights requests. you've said in the past, mr. president, i don't have time to confirm any new attorneys general, i've got a lot of nominees. you've made it clear you support the a.g. staying in his job. do you continue to have confidence in the a.g. and the deputy a.g.? senator grassley: yes. with senator sessions, or now attorney general sessions, the only real differences i have, and i kind of resent his stand as hard as i've worked on sentencing reform, that he does not support my efforts, because i told him a year ago in march, i said you can be tough on crime. i'm you have to crime. but there's also some

unfairness in it, and we got to have compassion and social justice when there's unfairness. so all we're doing in sentencing reform, we aren't opening the prison gates. we're just allowing people to have another bite at the apple with a judge and the attorney, the prosecutor, and let a judge look at this. maybe these mandatory minimums are unfair to this specific person. maybe his sentence of 20 years ought to be reduced to 15 or 10. but nobody is getting out of prison the next day as a result of our legislation. unlike what serve bragging about, the house of representatives, if that passes the senate, signed by the president, 6,000 people are going to walk the next day, i'm led to believe, see? so when law enforcement people, particularly the association of assistant attorneys general,

which are the main people against my sentencing reform bill, that's what they want you to believe. you go before a judge, you're going to get out right away. well, what about the bill that passed the house? that guts their argument against my bill. >> broadly speaking, the deputy a.g., you continue to have confidence? senator grassley: yes. host: our conversation with senator chuck grassley, chair of the senate committee, you can listen to it on c-span radio, here on c-span television, 10:00 eastern time, 7:00 for those of out west coast, and any time on our free c-span radio app. welcome back mike eric dyson. the book "what truth sounds like." good sunday morning. thanks for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: let me begin with your words. america, baldwin believes,

would split in two, not between north and south, but between the powerful and the disenfranchised. the powerful maintain the status quo by sowing discord among the disenfranchised or white folk rather than uniting with their socioeconomically opposed brothers and sisters against the rich, trained their ire on the poor black folk. they channel their anxieties into a vengeance against blackness. depoip yes, well, i think that unfortunately, in this country, the division of black against white has obscured the degree to which many white working class people have been disadvantaged by and not benefited by those in power, mostly white. so as a result of that, as lyndon baynes johnson said, if you can convince the poorest white man he's better than the best black man, then you can pick his pockets. he said, hell, if you can convince him he's superior above all, he'll pick his pockets for you. and i think what we see with this last election in 2016 is the inability of many working

class white people to find their register with other black people who are in similar positions, struggling against the odds, oppressed by certain circumstances. i heard earlier callers talk about the government not being for the people, but by the lobbyists. there's not a far distance between the ideas of working class people, and yes, the manufacturing of bigotry creates divisions that present them from understanding that they can flourish better together than apart. host: this is on james baldwin, the assassination of robert f. kennedy, and dr. king 50 years ago. you write the following, dr. king's death, the whiteness that had been shaked suddenly lunged forward when king was killed. i felt vulnerable, all that made sense no longer held in place. 50 years later, where is dr. king's dream? guest: well, on the one hand, obviously we've had an enormous expansion of the black middle class, opportunities that had historically been prevented now

flourish. jim crow was not officially the law of the land. but at the same time, there's been enormous poverty. the resurgence of bigotry. under this trump presidency, we've seen the flourishing of many facets of racism and out right bigotry that had been suppressed or at least put to the margin that now claim center stage again. and the economic inequality that is endured by many african-american people has been documented in study after constituted we empirical evidence substantiating that claim. but beyond that, there's a kind of anti-blackness loose in the land. think about the fact that young antwon rose was killed in broad daylight, fleeing from the police, shot in the back with no reason, ever, to justify that. but many black people add starbucks, barbecues in oakland, california, trying to do the normal things that normal white folk do, and they are constantly buffeted and

assaulted by people who are american citizens thinking they're out of place, skeptical about them, suspicious of who they are. when you add all that stuff together, dr. king's dream is taking a severe hit in the trauma endured by black people, continues to make that dream an impossibility in our own day. host: based on that, 50 years after dr. king's assassination, will we get there? guest: we will, but we have to keep struggling. we have to keep insisting that this is the american compact that's realized when all people have a seat at the tabling when she the possibility of all flourishing is something that we all take seriously. so the reality is we're still relitigating that war, fighting that war. we have many southern white brothers and sisters who believe that, look, the confederacy is about our heritage. the civil war was fought to stage rights, denying the obvious case that race was the dividing factor, that owning

ownership of african people as slaves, as enslaved people, was the reason for states' rights, and the reassertion of that bigotry in our own day means that, you know, we will get there, but only if we are able to forgo the immediate payoff of whatever that bigotry brings us, a sense that at least i'm not a black person, at least i'm not a part of a race that is filled with apes. and if you think that's exaggeration, just look at some of the fox news comments after people appear there who oppose their viewpoints, or the emails i get daily. host: so what does the truth sound like? guest: well, it sounds like, if unum, about e plibus we've got to recognize all. people think when black people talk about racism, it's overdone. and when we speak about white privilege, it's mistakesed. it's really a reassertion of racism. i try to explain to white brothers and sisters, you know, white privilege doesn't mean that every white person is rich, that every white person

drives a mercedes benz and lives in a penthouse. during jim crow, it meant that only black people could be excluded and brown people as well from the larger circle of american privilege, and only the people who were white could get in. so all white people didn't go to harvard during jim crow, it meant the they had the trite compete for that job and space. white privilege is often at its height when people deny that it exists. beyond that, what we have to do is to make certain that every human is being treated not only equal and fairly, but without the impediments and obstacles of a vicious stereotype that rell gates them to nonhuman position. we see what's going on on the border with our children who from the their parents. we forget this happened to african-american people here. we forget that even today, as we are rightfully calling for the end to the separation, art officially, politically, of children from their mothers and

fathers, that we stop the practices that divide mothers and fathers who are black from their children through police brutality and ultimately through their deaths. host: you mentioned starbucks. what would your reaction to the response by the company and its training on bias among its employees to make sure that they were aware of any hidden bias that might be among its several thousand employees, tens of thousands of employees across the country? guest: it was an important start. even even before that, when starbucks attempted to have people comment on racist, which seemed hokie, but look, in an era where we have seen this vicious reassertion of bigot and had racist beliefs, that is a tremendous relief from such practices. certainly not enough. starbucks saying that, look, we have to deal with i am policity bias, a lot of people don't know what that is. to introduce that vocabulary, to talk about the lexicon of self-reflection is important. we can't have a one-day teach-in, we have to have an ongoing seminar, so to speak,

of grappling with racial difference and racial bias and how we unconsciously have reflexes against certain peoples and practices and presence of blackness and how that stimulates unconscious fear. the more we become conscious of that, the more we're able to get a hold of that. how can we teach police departments the same thing? how can we hold them accountability for their actions? starbucks may deny me access, a policeman can deny me access to my life. host: our guest is michael eric dire son. the book, "what truth sounds like." this is book number? guest: 20. yeah, been busy for the last, i guess, my first book was in 1993. 20 books in 25 years, trying to justify my existence on this earth, and maybe a reason why somebody would call me a professor. scommoip you do teach at georgetown university, professor of sociology and a contributor to espn, also a "new york times" contributing opinion writer. let's get to your phone calls. anglo is joining us from new orleans, democrats line. good morning, with professor dyson.

caller: good morning, and thank you for c-span. mr. dyson, bless you for your work. i was born and raised in new orleans, louisiana, where i was segregated in a white community . d brought up a certain way i suppose luckily i got into working with musicians. i had a black percussionist, i can tell you the name of the brothers, come up and tell me i was the reason he wasn't chasing lions and tigers in a loin cloth. and later, after thinking about it, i said, wait, wait, wait. i can't buy that, because all four of my grandparents were from cicely. my scommore father's marriage was arranged. my people weren't even here for

that. but needless to say, i went to work for the band, and we had a job in mississippi. after the band played, two cowboys at the bar with cowboy hats, making conversation that these must her wife be the n words for the n words, because they play music so. these guys are thinking that they packing their stuff up. it's in louisiana. i'm lucky enough to live in the french quarter. host: thanks for the call. this is not an unusual story. guest: yeah, you know, the great rabbi said not all are guilty, but all are responsible. so when we talk about the inherent of a certain privilege, white skin, white buy in to larger practices of democracy that are given to some and not others, that

doesn't mean that you have to have been here at the scene of the crime to benefit from the crime itself, the crime being white supremacy, the crime being the original sin of america, which is enslavement and demonization of blackness. there are many immigrants who come to this country who inherent a vocabulary of demonizing blackness, who are scared of, suspicious of, skeptical about black people, so they extend and glorify. the same way we call rappers who amplify sexism, they're not the originalism, but they amplify it and deepen it in many ways, so many people who come to this country or who are here, who were not here when it come, certainly can benefit from practices and privilege that is they had nothing to do with, but at the same time, if they're not conscious of them, they extend the practice ject a and tradition of that. but at the same time, the n word calling and so on and so forth, it's interesting that black people are still not seen as fully americans.

many white americans look at black people, you keep this going, you, dyson, you are a perpetuater of racism because i call it out. it's like going to the physician saying you are the creator of cancer because you diagnose t. the diagnosis of the illness that besieging the body positively tick in america, they are not the -- the body politic in america, we are not the ones at fault. it lies that all of us must eradicate. host: based on your previous book, what is your sermon, using your words, to white america? guest: well, i want white americans to come to grips with their own privilege, their own understanding of the world. and loorks i remember that david foster wallace story, the late, great writer, telling the story about two fish in an ocean going along, and they are met by an older fish coming at him. and then the older fish says, good morning, boys, how's the water? they go for a few more leagues, what the hell is water? when you're in it, you don't know, it you benefit from it,

you take advantage of it, you live it every day, but you don't know what it's called. you don't know what it's named. you take it for granted. it's like breathing. whiteness operates in the same way. when white people hear the word, they're thinking latino, african-american, native american, they're thinking black and everybody else. they don't think white. white is a specific formation of identity. in other words, james baldwin said, race is a political projection, fiction. it's not something we're born with, it's not in your genes or in your genetic code. it's not in your d.n.a. it's in american and other society as cross this world that have created an artificial conception of difference to justify and validate their own superiority and the inferiority of others. so i wanted to say to white americans, please, let's together join in the conversation to really confront the racial bigotry and bias that prevails, to understand the privileges you get from that, even if you don't want to, and to doesn't from that

larger architecture of white privilege by helping us build a counter veiling building of democracy, the he had physician of our social conscious and radical american imagination that people from thomas jefferson down to martin luther king invested in. host: you quote james baldwin, it's not the social or economic divide, but the racial divide that is the biggest root problem in this country. guest: there's no combe that. inequal le say, hey, sit real, that's true, there are many more poor white people than there are black or l.a. afternoon owe people. that's true. but all poverties are not created equal. there's not concentrated poverty to the same degree in white america that there is in black america. for instance, if you're poor in&white in this country, the likelihood is that you don't live in an entirely poor community. and if you do, you don't live in an entirely poor neighborhood where the skills themselves are depressed, where people who have jobs are

limited in their economic upward mobility, but whereas in many scomblack brown communities, the poverty is so concentrated that neighborhoods are poor, the families are poor, they don't have jobs to get them out, they don't have family members who are able to lend money to them or pull them along. so when you look at it that way, even inequality is equal distributed. host: the book is titled "what truth sounds like." our guest is michael eric dyson. our caller from north carolina, democrats line. thanks for being with us. caller: mr. dyson, it's all well and true what you say, but when president obama was in time you said all your -- spent all your time bashing now. now, we buy groceries. we don't own no grocery store. we own nothing. we run and bag somebody else. we drink coffee.

still going to star scombucks drinking that nasty coffee? start our own coffee shop. we contribute 1.7 trillion dollars to the economy of this country, 95% is spent with someone else. and nothing is spent with us. we own nothing. so if we send our kids, our boys, our sons can play football anywhere they want to play. but when our daughters, a plus daughters get ready to go to college, they have to get affirmative action. we got all these black schools, stop sending our boys playing in big white schools and keep them our neighborhood, and we won't have this problem. host: thank you. guest: well, i'm glad you joined me with those great figures. but i notably dissented, sir. if you read my latest book, "what truth sounds like," you'll discover my very vigorous criticism of elements of professor west and his demonization of other figures who are in league with him thinking about these issues.

one thing to disagree and to gently or even aggressively dissent into the remarks, the assault on president obama launched by cornel west is radically dissimilar to what i d. in fact, we clashed over his vicious assault upon obama and the personalization of them. having said that, you would agree with white people who are uncritical of president trump, who see nothing wrong with him, who have complete trust with his resurgery incident bigotry. you would find that problematic. in the same way, black people who found nothing of worth to dissent with president obama or didn't find that some of the ings he said president obama i think unprincipled denigration of some people, speaking for the 50th anniversary of the march on washington and making questionable comments about the history of the use of poverty by black people to justify crime, this is as it were

emerging from the lips of a radical right wing conservative, and yet, at the same time, i appreciated his historic embodiment of truths in american society that needed to be test and had talked about, that needed to be put forth. i was a surrogate for him twice in both elections. i spoke on his behalf and defended him on television every day against a white argument against his very humanity, and that of his wife and children. sir, you have the wrong person when you speak about the assault upon obama, and yet, the things you talk about obama may not agree with you, about sending our kids to schools and presuming a kind of black nationalist orientation in a world where opportunities prevail in other broader schools, opportunities, and so on. he might disagree with you on that. but having said that, i agree with you whole heartedly. that's why i love going to uncle bobby's in philadelphia, owned by dr. hill, a remarkable public intellectual who's taken

his serious wares to the community and provided opportunity for that poor community in philadelphia to be able to engage in getting coffee and getting books at the same time, getting serious literacy along with their lattes. mahogany books here in washington, d.c., another incredible place where the distribution of knowledge through books is had has a cultural right, a privilege. and then finally, you're absolutely right. i think we have to build up black institutions. i think we have to reinforce them, and we have to come together to make sure that apart from whatever schools we send our children, that we give them an inculcated knowledge of their communities and culture, that we pass along to them, we transmit along to them, to them, rights and understandings of what blackness means. it's not an either/or. you don't got to stop going to howard to love howard. you don't have to stop loving tailing to go to tulane. you can love both. all of my children went to the

historically black colleges. morehouse, spelman, and hampton, we invested wisely, and i think supportedively in those historically black colleges and universities. i got a ph.d. from princeton. i began as a historically black college, knoxville college. so it's not an either/or. it's a both/and as we proceed in this world. host: with regard to athletes, criticism reserve for the black athlete, their wealth and fame mean they have little to complain about. they are being ungrateful for the privileges they enjoy. americans who are angry with colin kaepernick often forget how they have used their fame to break down barriers of discrimination. all in the book, "what truth sounds like." you're also a minister, correct? guest: ordained baptist minister for nearly 40 years. host: a pastor from ithaca, new york, go ahead with your question. guest: good morning, steve, and good morning, dr. tyson. it's pastor michael vincent.

my human rights ministry pro bono for 208 years, one world, life system, serving one love and developing humanity. before i begin, if i may, please, thank everyone behind the scenes that every day puts everyone on, guests and us callers, because if it wasn't for all the people behind the scenes, we wouldn't be seen, heard or even experience the egalitarianness of c-span, so thank you. dr. tyson, and steve, if i may just give two historical points, and then two solutions. and a preparatory note, what do they call it, disclosure. dr. tyson, you called me in a face to face meeting about 20 years ago when you preached at the riverside church. and i guess in the interim tween william -- leaving and

then the new leadership. but it's so great to see you. here are the two historical points that i like bring it all together. 50 years ago today, i was crossing the border into occupied ireland, 13 years old, holding my 4-year-old sister's hand. my mother holding my 2-year-old sister's hand with a british automatic rifle upon us. and another one on the head of my cousin to show there was nothing in the trunk, a stop and search. and then in the want ads, -- and then out of 10,000 catholics, only eight people could vote. you couldn't vote unless you own property. now, this is 1968, three weeks after bobby kennedy was assassinated, three months after dr. king was assassinated, and a time when james baldwin would say, i don't believe what you say, because i see what you do.

and that's one historical note. the other historical note is one year ago today, i went to a memorial service at a local ithaca, new york, which is supposed to be very progressive, memorial service for a transgender woman who was murdered two weeks earlier, and celebration, with my service dog. i was there an hour, and then asked to leave. and i said, well, new york state attorney general service animals can go into an establishment like this, and i was forced down, thrown on to the commons, punched in the head, but was worse how the owners treated us was that there was no response from the police and even the elected leaders. here's the solution that i see, and dr. tyson brought it up our e with e plrubis, from penny, every single piece of

currency, it has that quote, out of many, one. but it doesn't many how many is in your many, but what happened in 1659 is that when there was more africans and inden toured eye sandrish whatnot, the land owners then went to black and white. guest: there's no question. first of all, thank you for being that amen corner 20 some years ago at riverside. i appreciate those amens. they echo through the decades, and i appreciate you. in regard to the situation in ireland, we know that forms of bigotry are not quarantines to color. we know that religion has been a major inspiration for some of the most devastating differences among us and have been motive for human beings to take assault upon each other seriously and to ravage communities based upon religious difference, which is insane. as an ordained baptist minister, i sometimes wonder if god is an atheist. it's not whether we believe in

god, it's whether god believes in our practices. in the name of god says i'm tired of all your feasts and your celebrations and your rights when you don't do the right thing. let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. i think god just believes in so many of the things dwee in god's name. i think god should be an atheist and not believe in the kind of creations of god that we put forth, and then not only in terms of religion, but in terms of sexual orientation. it is a travelesty and a tragedy that people of different sexual orientations, lgbtg, queer people in this country, trans people in this country, gay, lesbian people in this country, are continually subject to vicious acrimony by people who claim to be alive with the almighty. and at the end of the day, we are all human beings, regardless of our race, sex, class, orientation and the like, and what we have to do is reassert this, even on a send morning like this, that if we

believe in god and the presence of god, that ultimately the best expression of love is justice, as i often say, justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public. if you're not about that, you're not in the religions that love god and that loves your fellow human being. host: our guest, we welcome our viewers on the bbc parliament channel, also listening on c-span radio and sirius x.m. potus channel 124 carries this program every sunday morning. more from the book, as bigotry resurfaces, symbolized in the neents charlottesville, virginia, the lies to put to belief that this is not america, this is not us. when indeed, it truly is. we do not want to acknowledge how true is because it makes us look complicit and prejudice that we thought we had gotten over. yet donald trump is far more representative of the nation than many whites would like to admit. guest: i think that's true. i hear many people white say, oh, my god, he's insane, crazy,

belligerent, indifferent to whatever claims remake. welcome to the world of black and brown people and other people of color who have endured the plague of white supremacy. this is what whiteness looks like. many white people didn't understand what we meant when we complained about the trauma, the lunacy put forth in the name of supposedly rational humans and that race could invoke this kind of outrageous behavior. now people get a sense of it. reduced onald trump is to compact form. it's not an aberration of whiteness, it's the logical summation of whiteness. it's the height of what white supremacy has meant. narcissistic, self-imposed, belittling others, belligerent to the touch, thin-skinned, incense tough, and intending on asserting its way as the only way. this is what black people have

tried to warn america against, and in one body, this is what it looks like. host: as an aside, before we get back to call, this is the headline from "the washington post." what does this tell you about america? guest: we're deeply and profoundly divided. i don't believe that what happened to sara sanders is nearly equal to the harm and trauma that her administration, that the president's administration is wielding against people, deploying against people. hurting people with. and sara sanders is a voice that. or as a minister and human being and christian, as much as i would oppose sara sanders' politics and what she stands for, as a human being with her family there, i find it unfortunate.

i understand the that. as a owner. i side with that owner. that woman was brave and courageous and wanting to make a stand as what she saw as complicity in a government and an administration that has done harm and wrong. but i wouldn't want to reduce that arbitrarily or individually to sara sanders. she becomes the representative. gets the blessings she ought to take the burden but i wouldn't want to deny her that. i think about black people being put out. the validation was my restaurant. if i am a private citizen i can keep you out. sara sanders should understand the difficulty of gay and lesbian people who want to kick me -- keep me from their wedding ceremonies. so i stand with her. even though she left quietly but complained about it talked about what it meant and how horrible it was. imagine how horrible it is to be denied access in a far graver sense, in a far more structurally powerful sense of people of color and gay lesbian

transgender bi sexual and queer people. they're both unfortunate. the former her case is far less doneion than ra the ladder. those denied because of their skin color, religion, or sexual orientation. >> and her father with this don the ladder. response. host: mary you're next. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to ask you a question and first of all i want to say that i am caucasian . my daughter is married to a black man. he's a wonderful, wonderful man. good father, good husband.

my question to you is as a could you tell me who owner in st slave america? guest: no. you have somebody in mind? caller: yes, i do. something that's not told to people. the first slave owner happened to have been a black man. host: and your point? guest: owner in america? guest: no. you have somebody that point be? kimplingtsdz my point being everyone thinks it was just white people and it wasn't. guest: could i say this very quickly. do you know that in the history of this world a woman has raped a man? but do you think that the majority of rapes are of women against men? do you think laws have been created that would satisfy the desire of women in their vengeance against men? do you think laws have been created that allow women unlimited access to the property of sexual identity and

sexual properties of men? so the fact that black people -- if you read larry coburn's book, an interesting book about the ownership of black people by other black people. but that is a distinct minority. the majority of people who owned slaves or owned human beings called slaves are white. and beyond that the laws were created the supreme court didn't say that black people have no rights, that they are bound to be respected by white people. they did not say that white people who are owned by black people should not be respected. the reason they said that, the reason they said what they said is black people are not bound to be respected by white people is because the overwhelming were white. the civil war remembrances are not predicated upon black people of being the owner of other black people. so while your point is interesting for a trivial

pursuit game and in mockery of the notion that only white people owned slaves we can find first nation people who own them as well. the overwhelming majority of white people and history supports the the notion that people who were owned were africans and african americans and otherings and the the people who did the owning were majority whites. so for your black -- let me even go a little deeper here. i hope your black son in-law helps you understand the problem with an approach that would suggest an exemption from guilt or sometimes your participation in a white premsist logic that would blind you to the balance of those issues i hope that would come around the thanksgiving table for you to understand just how difficult it is to be black in an american society where the approach of even enlightnd whike folk like yourself denies the overwhelming reality that

black people confront on a daily basis. host: if you visit thomas jefferson's home a display on sally. what does that tell you? guest: we've come a long way. i remember initially when the notion of sally hemming in any way had a relationship with thomas jefferson, many white people were agast. well it was the case for most white men who were slave owners during the time of slavery in this country that they had sexual relations with black women, hence a person who is black who looks like me with yellow skin. the reality is that was an many elming practice of people. race culture did not begin in modern era. it began on the slave mantation. at least it has its most extensive expression. there was no me-too movement to save black women many

from the ravages of white men. and complicity of white women. but sally hemmings stands as a monumental testimony to the hue manty of black people produced in that union. the children of sally hemming have a rightful place that the labor that built monticello, the intelligence was not thomas jefferson as i lone. he create add family that is part of the american compact. barack obama is the product of a white woman and a black man, an african man coming together and producing this wonderful and splendid child. the offspring of sally hemmings and thomas jefferson are testimony to what happens when white men who have laid with nd partners with black women have produced a culture not only children but an entire culture. that culture is not recognized the ways in which black contributions through black labor, black bodies, black intelligence have infused

american society have been denied. so hopefully this recognition is lly hemmings offspring a recognition that america truly is a multiracial democracy that needs to recognize all contributions. host: among the book, come hell or high water. hurricane katrina and to the color of disaster. the myth and meaning of malcolm x. dr. martin luther king's jr.'s death and barack obama and the politics of race in america. caller: good morning. this is like a treat. it's my birthday and i get to speak. ost: happy birthday. caller: thank you. i would like to bring the

conversation back to collin capper nick and the n.f.l. and what they're dealing with. he did set this protest up to talk about injustice, the police involved killings, they say shootings but most of the black people are dying in the streets. he wants to force everyone to stand up and participate in the national anthem. i think that this protest meets the goal a step forward to explain to america and the world that the national anthem is the celebration of slavery and killing black people. i don't think that america to

force everyone to stand up and participate in the national tha if they did, would they still feel that black people should stand up and put your hand over your heart and sing a song about killing, that. mayhem, mu and the rest? host: we'll get a response. happy birthday. thanks for joining the conversation. guest: happy birthday. this is also the -- would have been the 61st birthday of my beloved brother who i buried in october and preached at his funeral. , an ebulions but a sadness. happy birthday and you're absolutely right about kaepernick. often the events of crisis lead s to intro specks, the civic identities that we premise our citizenship upon and a lot of us did not know that third verse of the national anthem.

we didn't know it was celebrating the fact that enslaved people could be brought back and there was no place on earth they could escape the majestic mighty arm in reach of this nation. that is not something to be celebrated. that is not something to be uplifted. but because of his protest that was underscored. again, those who have joined those brave men, and a white player for the philadelphia eagles. those players have in mind the unjust treatment of african american and other people in this country especially at the hands of the police but also in the criminal justice system, here cash bails viss allow people to get out, where people are mistreated. so their argument is not about the anthem. it is not about the president.

it certainly is not about the flag. only in a fascist nation does the military dictate the terms of patriotism for the citizenry. in an american democracy, in democracies like ours, the citizens determine the nature character depth breadth and magnitude of what citizenship is about. rests upon. ysm and the military defends the right of those citizens to engage in the defense or reinforcement of rests upon. the beliefs. ry so i think donald trump needs to go back to a civics class and understood what a democracy is about. though proaches president obama for his lack of credibility this man of his inability to stands every morning

to excreet the moral depravet into a nation he has turned into a psychic commode this man has no moral authority to lecture anybody about the ature of true patriot ysm. the difference between patriot ysm and nationalism my country right or wrong i don't care are you must bow down to the american way of life. patriot izzm says no we love the country and the government not administrations. we can desist with an administration because we love the government. i think those brave men and many who have spoken out other whose have joined their voices to collectively say what is wrong is wrong and what is is right and we must stand up and speak against it. those athletes have been the historic lynch pin of revolution and democracy by

black people by speaking for us by using their platform to speak for us. a lot of people love jackie robinson who are white republicans because of his greatness but he said i will never stand for that anthem because that anthem doesn't represent who i am. that is jackie robinson, a black republican who understood the hateful nature of so much that was going on in the name of that flag. a flag is a piece of cloth without the principles that allow it to float in the air of freedom and democracy. and that is what these great young men are reminding of us. host: from the book america was split in two not between north and south but black and white. andrew republican line good morning. aller: good morning. fore i get started no more caffeine caffeinated coffee for dr. dyson.

guest: and i've only got water in here. imagine if i had real caffeine. caller: i admire your energy, sir. guest: bless you my friend. caller: so i was reading romans 5 this morning and it talked out that many are dead through the offense of one. because you were talking about one. out of one, many. out of many one. excuse me. guest: right. caller: so you should get back to that theme in your what should i call it ministry. we all are one. as you well know that from the scriptures. and we're looking forward to a ime of -- it talks about how we're neither bond nor free.

nor male nor female. for you are all one in christ. host: thank you, caller. guest: you ought to read texts of terror by phyllis trimble. in memory of her. another extraordinary book by elizabeth shoesler. and what these bi in memoryblic scholars us of, the book the politics of jesus. if you want to consult a source that gives you deep and profound insight about the a re of jesus' religion, one, when you read the book, you begin to see the complicated convergence of truths.

and what won out but was based upon some other issues rather than the spirituality of the text. so you remind of of text in isolation of context. what we're reminded of is a society that paid deference to roman culture and some of the sexist language in those scriptures that you neglected to read reinforced roman cultural values over against the christian identity ovement, not in terms of its contemporary racist expression but in those who identified radically with jesus spoke out against the vicious incrimination of people because of their identities as women. you know neither male nor female. that's the ideal. that's not the reality. the one that we are offended because we are one we have all died, the offense you speak about in roman 5 and other whose have used roman 13 to justify as jeff sessions has deference to government, there are other scriptures. god is made of one blood. all nations to dwell upon the face of the earth.

that means we have to resist the vicious misuse of scripture those who intend to dominate, to suboird nate and to marginize others. slaves will be your masters. children obey your fathers women obey your husband. what do you have in common there? you're the same dude. ou're the fads father, slave owner, father, of course you're going to interpret that. it will be great if everybody has to bow down to you. but look at those others i recommended. to understand a more complication of christ. now, the great mystic said his grand mother never loved listening to paul because paul was reinforcing their insuboird nation. host: our last call.

san antonio, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. i know san antonio, that brother dyson his profession knows very well that education is the key to a lot of this stuff. however, people without a reasonable amount of education have learned to do the right thing at the right time. there were marriages in new england between indentured servants and africans, between the reasonable people with africans. going across the water there were interactions and a lot of respectfulness between europeans and the moores and the africans. i wouldn't mention all this except that people are going to find a reason to hate. e're talking about something

race that is, that truly doesn't exist. if people wanted to find out what race is, they would take the time to research it and learn about melonen and homo sapeion sapeions. host: no doubt. guest: a lot of people don't believe god exists but stitutions and religions and imams, the koran. motorcycle maintenance, whatever your book of rhymes, your book of reason, your book of scripture is, the reality is that a lot of people invest in that truth about god being real even if there's no impeerkle proof. even inestine said god doesn't lay dice with the universe but he was talking about the structure of the universe. thomas jefferson, other early founding fathers and mothers

believed god wound the world up and let it go. so a lot of people don't believe of it. race ain't real either you're right. it has no genetic inheritance and yet it is real. this building is socially constructed. if it falls on you it will kill you. so it may be artificial which meant they weren't here when we came here as a human being. but human beings have created them. and their creation of them they hurt. they helped. they disadvantage. they benefit. so what we've got to do is undermine the scientific basis for the per petuation of race while we acknowledge that historicically using race as a basis to deny people privilege means we have to use race for a time to restore them to their rightful standing in america. minute what one thing do you want readers to take away? guest: that people who have

responsibility and artists, intellectuals, activists, minut thing do you want readers to take must use their platform to tell the truth as best they can. if justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public truth sounds like our greatest attempt to bear witness to the pain and suffering of the vulnerable so that the mighty might be held accountable and together we might rebuild our nation. host: book number 20, 25 years, hat truth sounds like. michael eric dyson, thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: when we come back we'll turn our attention to the issue of immigrants. joining us at the table is the president of the migration policy institute. also out with a book on immigration. later kate anderson brower her new book first in line presidents, vice president, and the pursuit of power.

>> we welcome andrew sealy the president of the migration policy institute, which is what? guest: a nonprofit looks at migration issues around the world. we're a think tank, tries to come up with good ideas on how to manage migration. host: your new book vanishing frontiers the forces driving mexico and the united states together. first, an election in mexico on july 1. can we expect? guest: all the polls are that the front runner is the left of center candidate. he has been out of the left has never governed in mexico and it's going to be a big change if he wins. there are two other candidates. one could pull a surprise but everything tells us this is a move to the left and a government a little more that t runner is the left of center candidate. he has been out of the skeptical of the united states. host: the president is term limited. how would you assess the relationship between our two countries and our two presidents? guest: it's a complicated question. in many ways the mexican

government has an intense communication with the u.s. government. the white house and the foreign minister are very close. yet at the same time obviously donald trump was elected on the platform of wanting to build a wall and withdraw from nafta. so it's intense but yet they talk to each other all the time. it's probably one of the governments we talk to the most, maybe the most of any government. host: of course the headlines this past week, the situation along the border where families have been separated up until last week. where is this heading? what's next? guest: president trump annowsed they're not going to separate families in the future. it's not clear the plan they have is going to work. it's going to pass muster with the courts. but they're going to try to how's families together. they have alternative to let people go under supervised situations that might make more and they're trying to

figure out what to do with the 2,000 kids that got separated from their parents. some have been reunited and they're trying to figure out how to put that and they're try figure together. but it's not clear how you do that. it's going to take some muscle in the government if they're going to find their parents again president host: we'll come back. but this may surprise some people. you write the following. there are 11.6 million americans born people in the united states slightly half around 5.6 million lack legal documents but most mexican there are whose cross the border say do so with legal visas. guest: there's very little illegal immigration before. there was a lot in the late 1990s after 2000s. after the recession mexicans stopped coming across the border. a lot of south americans. many people are coming to be reunited but through the legal channels. the leel immigration is actually central americans, a

lot of asians overstaying visas. we have a different kind and we don't have much illegal before we did before 2007. the numbers dropped because mexicans aren't coming. host: those who are coming are coming because there are jobs. guest: yes. host: so should the solution be stopping the employers who hire the illegal immigrants working here in the u.s.? guest: people are coming largely because of jobs and central americans fleeing violence because there is a real push during the violence there. but i think both. you need both enforcement. we could do a little more in terms of people on the ground as well as technology at the border but a lot of it needs to happen at the place of employment. beginning to verify people who that e and finding ways people who have been here for 20 or 30 years living can become americans. we don't have pathways. and people who have been upstanding citizens can become good upstanding citizens of this country. host: more of the products are

made by mexican companies in the united states using american workers. mexican companies also provide much of the cement and nails that anchor our buildings. today it would be almost impossible to ride in a car, plane, train, or a bus in america that does not have parts made in mexico, the united states, and canada. guest: we have an interdependent economy with mexico and canada. something we've done over the past 30 years. it seems like a throwback to be talking about withdrawing from nafta. whether or not we thought it was a good idea, and i was one of the people who had reservations, what we did is 25 years later we have an economy that's deeply intertwined. so cars are made in seamless processes across the three countries. we have workers in mexico, the united states and canada making cars. most of the heavy assembly is in the united states. we managed to keep the auto industry competitive. foreign companies don't export cars to the united states any

more. they make their cars in north america and mostly in the united states because north america is so competitive. the same thing is true of the nail industry, the aerospace. increasingly one of the fun things that i found writing this book is how many brands we assume are american are actually mexican-owned. the biggest bread company in the united states makes sara lee,. one of the second and third largest dairy company. these are mexican companies that hire american workers. the same thing happens on the other side of the border. host: but if you listen to president trump, they're the problems. we're now approaching a trade war. guest: and i think that's going to do us harm if we go down that path. i think his advisers are telling him not to do that. trump wants to do something about nafta. clearly he has a particular view on trade.

advisers are telling him what i say in the book. what we do with mexico and canada isn't the same kind of trade with doe with china or the advisers are telling him what i say in the european so if we do something, the nail story is a great one. the largest company is owned by a mexican company. put steel tariffs in mexico, what made that company competitive and kept american jobs in the united states and southeastern missouri where it's located is that there's inexpensive mexican steel and american workers making nails. we've made the nails more expensive because we have deeply interlinked economies. do the same thing on cars it makes american production less effective and will hurt american production and workers. so you can't tear these apart any more. > vanishing frontiers. previously at the wilson center. we'll get to your phone calls.

you write in your book about dan yull lubees can i. who is he guest: the founder of kind. the kind bar. you find in starbucks or anywhere else around, become the fastest selling nutrition bar. he's actually the founder of the company. host: why is he significant? guest: because he tells us a story of mexican immigration we often overlook. immigrants tend to start twice as many businesses as native born businesses. it's something you can see in small towns and cities around the united states. you can see them in big metro areas. a lot of businesses have immigrant names, names in other languages. depending where you are. that's because immigrants come with a desire to actually do something risky, try to do

something new, try and pull themselves up by their boot straps. it's what made this country early on, it's what made this country after reconstruction. actually as african americans had the ability to create businesses it's something that happened a hundred years ago with italian and irish immigrants. there's something about that immigrant experience that is incredible in terms of building this country and it's still happening. of 's just a great symbol how mexicans have done this. most don't have businesses quite that big but tend to be huge contributors in creating small and medium sized businesses. host: republican line. good morning. aller: good morning. i'm wondering why we don't negotiate with mexico and help them build a wall on their southern border. could that happen? guest: there's a lot of conversations that go on.

most things about half of central americans who try to come to the u.s.-mexico border are actually detained and deported by mexico. it's about 42% i think over the past four years. so mexico has not very sophisticated as the u.s. border enforcement and immigration enforcement but they've been building it up in part in conversations with the u.s. i think it's at risk because mexico has done this in part because they saw a cooperative relationship with the united states so they were trying to build up their own capacity and take pressure off the u.s.-mexico border. there may be a point the government decides that's not in their interest but that has been an ongoing conversation. we have been working with how to build their asylum system. a lot of the central americans do have real reasons for fleeing violence. so you don't want to deport everyone back. you want to give people a fair hearing if they tell you they are fleeing an act of violence. but these are thing that is could continue into the future but i think it's in jeopardy at

a time when we talk about withdrawing from nafta or we begin to -- the president said mexico does nothing on immigration. but in fact his administration and the current mexican immigration have been working. host: who are these illegal immigrants who are being separated? guest: they're coming from central america. trying to come into the united states. there are few mexicans, a handful of mexican families but overwhelmingly were central american families. and they were being put into criminal prosecution, which is something that didn't happen for first-time crossers before. and their children were being taken away because they were being in criminal prosecution. host: as you look at these pictures is this representative of what is happening along the border? guest: we're seeing a lot of that going on. although we've now seen that the administration is pulling back from family separation. president trump signed an order

last week to stop doing that. they're looking for alternatives. the epends on what alternatives are. but it's healthy i think to their credit they listened to the american people that really were concerned about the idea of separating children from their parents. host: let's go to mark independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, gentlemen. i'm going to check out your book. sounds very interesting. with respect to nafta and trade in general, a lot of americans don't know that canada is the number one trading partner. i think mexico's number three, two being china. with respect to trade and jobs in general, there's millions of jobs that are unfilled today across america. i just don't understand the conundrum between the administration and immigration in general. if we have an aging population

used en also real quick i to live next to some el savel done immigrants that came over in the 80s and -- in east boston. these people were all -- they all owned homes and lived in this country for 30 years now. we're all pretty much americans through and through. so i agree with immigration. thank you. host: thank you. the book is titled vanishing frontiers. the forces driving mexico and the united states together. to the caller's point. guest: on the two points i think we obviously have to have controls on who comes in to this country. we do have to have border controls, immigration enforcement. but people who have lived here a long time and raised families we do at some point need to figure out what to do with them. there are no pathways to be

full members of american society. we're going to have it first with the dreamers with the people who came as children but it's a larger conversation. on trade, it's interesting. we are in a full employment economy but it's alleges true that a lot of what are middle class wages particularly in the industrial economy are bodes very precarious and are not necessarily going up and haven't gone up for a long time. so there are concerns about what you do with industrial jobs. industrial production is way up. mexico is a piece of that in canada our industrial platform in this country is incredibly robust and part of what we did with canada and mexico is make it very, very efficient to compete with the rest of the world. this was our way. we created a north american platform. since 1980 up until now we're producing twice as many goods but we're using a quarter less workers than we used to. that's a problem. that's largely because of automation more than trade but there are some things in the

trade area we could do particularly with china but not so much with mexico and canada. part of the same production platform. you're right mexico is our third largest trading partner close behind china and canada. so china sends a lot of goods but doesn't take a whole lot. mexico we have balanced trade as we do with canada. actually it is about half of what we trade back and forth things we're making together but other things are soy beans from north dakota, corn from iowa. things that our american farmers make that go to mexico. and a lot of the industrial goods we make together.

democrat's line. good morning. kimplingtsdz good morning. thanks for taking my call. i want to know whether we should be really talking about legal immigration. from what i understand and illegals, the majority of illegals came legally into this country through a visa program. and if that's the case, then why aren't we expecting the corporations and the ceos to be responsible to make sure that when they bring in a worker, that has a visa, it should be their responsibility and their cost to make sure that that individual goes home. host: thank you. we'll get a response. guest: i do think we should be talking legal immigration. we spend a lot of time talking illegal immigration. most is legal. in the past it wasn't necessarily so. there were a lot of people coming across the border without documents back in the late 90s. but today it's almost all legal

and probably more than half of the people who become undocumented, unauthorized illegal in this country do so by overstaying a visa. so we're in a new world. we keep talking about the borders, that's our source of problems but we need to figure out how to track people who came in with legal visas. that's a bigger peart of the equation and we should continue to invest in the border. we do need a little more in terms of controlling the border but it isn't a crisis. we have fewer people coming across at least as of last year we had fewer people coming across since 1971. so 46 years we have not seen people. so we talk about as though it's a giant crisis but the numbers keep going down. this year might be higher but p so close to what it's been the last few years. so we can gradually keep tightening it up at the same we handle k at how

people who are overstaying visas. host: republican line. good morning. caller: good morning gentlemen. first statement i wanted to make was the fact that mexicans who have been here over ten years haven't gotten in any trouble and have been productive citizens i think we should make them a pathway towards citizenship. if they can do english, got basic english skills, pretty good education, i think we should give them a basic examination. if they pass they should get their american citizenship. host: will the republicans go along with that plan? we know there's going to be a meet this week with democrats and republicans in the senate to reach a compromise but that continues to be one of the sticking points. caller: probably won't. a lot of times, they've got an election year coming up. so keep it real. a lot of trump supporters don't want anything to do with the migration of immigration

problem, unless it's just stopping it. that's what i think. on the trade with china i don't see how in the world it makes sense to have a trade war with china. it's too big and they bring so much of our products especially with our farmers. it's just not rational to go into a trade war with them. it doesn't make sense to me and probably half the people that's growing the produce and stuff they have to ship out and count on china for much of their money. so much of their income. guest: i think certainly a be war we should all worried right now that we're headed into a trade war not just with china but with the european union mexico and canada. i feel like mexico and canada the nafta negotiations will probably pick up again and take care of that although there's no certainty although that's most likely the one to be solved. probably with the european union there may be solutions. with china we should be a

little worried about what's coming down because that's could disrupt this economic boom we're in the middle of. on immigration i agree, i think people who have been here for a long period of time and contributed we want to find a them into full american life but politically it's hard. the place where it's easier to agree is with young people who came when they were minors who followed their parents them int up in this country. i know a lot of people in this category, the group called the dreamers know no other country but the united states who if they were deported back to the country they were born in would not have any recognition because it's not in their living memory. even that's been hard to figure out what's the right solution to bring them into full american citizenship or at least full american legal status in this country. if maybe we can get that piece fixed and it's a group that both republicans and democrats and independents are very sympathetic to over 0% support in public polling. if we can fix that piece that most people agree these are

true americans and deserve some sort of protection and recognition as true americans, aybe down the road we can have the larger conversation about people who have been here for a while. but i suspect that will come with a trade-off. how do we make sure that if we are bringing people into legal status we make sure we have ways of keeping others coming in the future. numbers are down, people want to know they're going to keep going down. host: the hill newspaper is reporting two in the republican tills and ted cruz and dick doiben and dianne feinstein sitting down to reach some sort of combh promise on the immigration debate. wean there done that in the any but does this give you hope that something will come? guest: it does a bit. if you can get people from any hope that those different parts of the spectrum -- tom tills has been very active, dick durbin has

been active. that's less surprising. they have been trying to build bipartisan consensus. and doing it in a way tillis is a conservative republican, durbin is a liberal democrat. it's not they're moderates. they're both well within the mainstream of their party but it's interesting to see ted cruz and dianne feinstein. they have credibility with different parts of the party. i think it's hard to get immigration done in an election year. before the november elections. but if there's a group of people that can push something that others might join on including the president that's an interesting combination. before esn't happen november even having things that begin to be ideas that people can gravitate towards that build a compromise in different sectors of our parties can agree to before november even having things is begin to be ideas positive to get something done after the election. host: we'll be following that story. the senate on c-span 2. the house on c-span both back in session this week. tampa, florida.

th andrew sealy, vanishing frontiers. good morning. caller: is positive to get i hope presiden trump's people are listening to this. what we need in the u.s. is a new moonshot to recreate the u.s.-owned supply chain infrastructure widespread throughout the u.s. that would destroyed as a result of nafta. all that trillions of dollars of infrastructure now in china and some in mexico, too. the other thing is immigration. we allow, what, a million legal immigrants into the u.s. every year. does the u.s. produce over a million new good-paying jobs every year? these illegal ve coming in as well. that kills wages for u.s. citizens. unions are killed. so that's going to get worse. c that kills host: thank you.

guest: there's a lot of dispute on the economics because of immigration but we have less immigration in the united states than most large industrial countries these days. if you add in unauthorized you may get up to 1.2 or so. country ry small for a of 30 million people. probably very probably very positive. microeffects may be negative. but we do know in a full employment economy generally speaking it's quite positive. but that doesn't mean it is for every single person. what happened the auto industry is the best indicater with what happened. actually allowed us to be competitive. it allowed the industrial production to be competitive and has gone up quite a bit actually. so what we saw with the mexico and canada integrated into the u.s. production chain.

a few jobs did go to mexico but other jobs were created in the united states. what you see an app an example is not only did we continue to produce american cars after we thought that american car companies were going to be overrun by foreign imports, but almost all the foreign car makers now make their cars in the united states and in north america. they don't make them abroad and try to import them -- export them to the united states. they make them in north america, and most happens with u.s. workers, in the united states, secondly mexico then canada. ost: yes no maybe will there be a wall? guest: yes. the sitting president cares about this. there's already a wall on the third of the border, about 600 all? miles of wall. i would be surprised if there's not a lot more by the time he's done being president. but will we have a wall across 2,000 miles? i doubt that, 600 too. host: diane, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning,

gentlemen. yesterday i read an article in the daily caller and it was a human rights. mexican presidential candidate on mass exodus to america. a hu. now, i'll just read a few paragraphs. mexican presidential candidate called for mass immigration to the united states during a speech thursday declaring it a human rights for all north americans. and soon very soon after the victory of our movement we will defend all the migrants in the american continent and all the migrants in the world adding that immigrants must leave towns and find a life in the united states. he then declared it as a human rights towns and find we will d.

guest: i don't think he believes that. i'm quite certain he doesn't. i'm guessing there's a little bit of an interpretation issue in whoever read the article. but politicians say crazy things. he would not be the first politician that has sort of thrown something out there that makes no sense. but i certainly don't think he will act that way as president. now what i do think is a real concern and i think there is a real concern beneath this that is actually true, i don't think he's encouraging mexicans to leave

up i think he's very skeptical government the be stopping central americans. really on their own collaborating with the u.s. to stop the central american flows. i think it's abe stopping centr americans. really on big issue if the next government decides they're not going to deport people. that will mean a lot more people arriving at the u.s. border. my guess is that won't happen. my guess is these are ultimately discussions that happen at a lower level and get resolved but i think that's the bigger concern. host: our next caller from connecticut. democrat's line. good morning. caller: good morning. i was a union member for 30 years and i saw my wages driven immigration.al

i don't know what papers you read but this candidate in mexico, everything that woman said is true. he's a communist. immigration. i don't know he doesn't believe in borders. he wants to invade our country. and it's emigrate when they leave their country. that's how ignorant this person is. the bottom line is you said the numbers are down. 50,000 people crossing the border last month. i mean, come on. 50,000 times 12 is 600,000. that's just the number that we catch. i mean, they've already admitted that they only catch 30%. 20 to 70% is getting through. so those numbers climb to a million-and-a-half illegal immigration. when you say that out of all the industrial nations we are low in percentage wise, excuse me but we do allow 1 million and over 1 million in some years legally to come to this nation. and immigration, you know stop using the word immigration. we're talking about solving illegal immigration.

this has nothing to do with immigration. immigration is a legal term when you come in the front door not when you speak in the back and drive down factory wages for the last 30 to 40 years. host: can you stay on the line for a minute? because i want to hear what the president said this past thursday. and then we'll give you a chance to respond. >> we can solve this problem. we have to hire thousands of judges. no country in the world is hiring judges like that. they hire border people. you can't come into the country. mexico is doing nothing for us. nothing. they have the strongest immigration laws they can do whatever they want. they can keep people out of mexico. they have a 2,000 mile journey up mexico. they walk through mexico like it's walking through central park. it's ridiculous. mexico does nothing for us. so then when people say why are you being so tough with nafta -- and i am being tough because it's a terrible deal for the united states. mexico's making $100 billion a

year off us and the horrible deal. and i am being tough. one of the reasons i'm being tough because they do nothing for us at the border. they encourage people frankly to walk through mexico and go into the united states because they're drug traffickers, they're human traffickers, they're coyotes. i mean, we're getting some real beauties. mexico is doing deal. and i am being tough. one of the reasons i'm being no exempt taking our money and sending us drugs. doing nothing. this problem ve in two this problem in two minutes. you wouldn't even have to do anything. but they don't do it. they talk a good game but they don't do it. so we'll see how that comes out. it will be interesting to see. host: that was the president last thursday. did you want to respond to what he said? caller: i couldn't agree with him more. i have been asking through e-mails to the white house, in e's 28 billion

remittances that go back to mexico every year. if we simply charged 10% on those wire transfers through banks -- and they could do this through regulation -- we could make $2.8 billion to build the wall. it would go towards the wall. this has to stop. like i said my parents were factory workers. there are no factories left. they were proud democrats. my father voted for f.d.r. he was a teenager in the great depression. he would be crying if he saw what was happening to this nation if he were still alive. host: thank you for the call. guest: just to go to the facts on this. i appreciate your opinion. a report in september on how many people get through. they think they get about 55 to 85% of the people that a report cross. that's the department of homeland security numbers based on the facts and figures that they have. we are on target to have -- yet last month a lot of people came through. but we're in target to have

350, 400,000 apprehensions. if you take 85%, figure out how many people are coming through it's a fairly low number historicically. we have a very low number in of illegal immigration. could we do better? yes. i'm not an open borders person. i think we need to continue to do better to make it harder for people to come into this country, and we need better channels. we need to think about what our legal immigration system looks like. but we are historicically low umbers in terms of illegal immigration. we're apprehending a greater number of people. so the number is probably much lower than was coming in any other time in our history. we need to continue to do things we've been doing but we don't need to declare it a crisis because this is an area where we're moving forward effectively. and the president doesn't help us by declaring it a crisis. and i think he knows better. that once separate us willing.

continue to vanish as forces stronger and more dynamic than any presidential order or trade agreement bring us closer together. you write, the push to separate the countries is a reaction to what the countries have already built together. let's go to linda from hollywood, florida. independent line. caller: i'm wondering whether the guest can correct, clarify trump's misstatements that most of these people coming across the border are sex traffickers, ms13, and drug traffickers, because i think it is important for the media to correct all of the falsehoods and misstatements that trump is making, that the democrats want all of these traffickers coming into the country. thank you. an easy one to correct. there are numerous studies that point in the same direction.

immigrants in the united states, including those that are here unauthorized, are much less likely to commit crimes then nativeborn americans. second-generation, their crime rates are similar to the rest of us, but immigrants themselves are much less likely. and they are more entrepreneurial than the rest of us. that doesn't mean we shouldn't have immigration control. we should still, as a sovereign country, be making decisions about who comes in. we should be finding ways of making sure we have good, robust immigration through legal channels. democrats and republicans should be able to find common ground. there is a general feeling among , that there is a deal out there to be made, where we want immigration, but we want it to be legal.

figuring that out becomes politically difficult. host: the book is titled "vanishing frontiers, our guest .s andrew seeley our next color is from texas. jb on the republican line. caller: why do we allow people to come from foreign nations and citizenship, receive benefits and money from us, and all they do is support their former country? i think their plan is to get their retirement and go to their former country. guest: dual nationality is common in the modern world, our own country allows it. many americans, nativeborn americans have dual nationality around the world. most people end up staying in the united states, but it is

actually to our benefit if some people decide to retire in mexico, because they access less services. you can't get medicaid, for example. there's about one million, 2 million americans living in mexico these days, full-time and part-time. a big percentage of that group -- we don't know how many -- are retirees. many with no mexican heritage at all, who want to retire or are doing a second career, later on with training or consulting in the u.s., and they live better in mexico. thing for mexico, getting talented people with skills to come in, and it is good for the united states. they are accessing less of the benefits they are entitled to. they have the right to come back

, but if they don't, that is good for the taxpayer. i have a few things, so bear with me. we have dealt monti, chiquita, and dole. they all went down to central america, south america. we get our bananas, our pineapples. americans don't get them from the united states. even hawaii doesn't grow pineapple anymore. brazil does, costa rica. bananas, avocados. has anybody ever asked trump if at any of hisfy properties? we have -- also, we have expired visas. at least what, joe says 50,000? living here?

all of these people on expired visas are still in this country. guest: certainly for american corn, soybean, work. for farmers and ranchers, mexico is a huge market. avocados, strawberries, other fruits. one of the things, if i could use this question to answer something that probably wasn't asked, when you get outside of national politics, people are really pragmatic about how they deal with each other. the governor of arizona is a conservative republican, but he is -- and he's very vocal about this -- figuring out how his state can engage with mexico, because it is a huge export market. happeninge same thing in san diego, a majority republican city.

they decided not to build a new airport, but built a bridge to the you want airport -- to the tijuana airport. if you are in san diego and you want to fly to asia, you go down and park in san diego near the border, and you take a bridge. you quickly go through immigration, then hop on your flight to beijing or tokyo forseoul. ultimately, these are human cases. people near the border, solving everyday problems in local government, in the business community. they are doing it because the u.s. and mexico are so intertwined that there are things that can be done together that help both sides of the border. the forces driving mexico and the u.s. together.

our guest is the president of the migration policy institute, thank you. thefirst book was on residents, and a book on america's first ladies. now, a book on vice presidents. titled, first in line, presidents, vice presidents, and the pursuit of power. we welcome our radio audience. it is sunday morning, june 24. we are back in a moment.

>> this week, the c-span bus , withed to juneau, alaska the help of our cable partners, gci. to fairbanks.ues be sure to join us on july 21 and july 22, when we will feature our trip to alaska. watch or listen on the radio app. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1970 nine, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. youontinue to bring unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. yearn is brought to you by cable or satellite provider.

host: the book is titled "first in line, presidents, vice presidents, and the pursuit of power. the third book by kate andersen brower. news from the book, the selection of mike pence. walk us through the process and who was involved. guest: for a while, donald trump had michael flynn on his list. newt gingrich was a finalist. a republican lawyer in town who did the vetting for john mccain, as we talked a bit about sarah palin. he said that it terrifies him that there is no fbi process involved. you could have had, potentially, a president michael flynn, because there's no fbi vetting. cabinet officials get better

vetting than presidents do. i thought that was fascinating. the vetting process is intense. they have these white-collar attorneys who do it for free. it is kind of like being a private eye. i interviewed hillary clinton's vetter, and he described the process of how he would dispatch attorneys around the country. i think vetting is a fascinating process. and lessons from past mistakes, like thomas eagleton with george mcgovern. guest: i talked about these very detailed questionnaires. when dick cheney was doing the vetting for bush, which is funny that he was then chosen as vp, he had 100 questions where a lot of deeply personal questions are done on the phone, because

nobody wants any written evidence. for instance, when sarah palin's daughter was pregnant, she actually spoke to the lawyer about this on the phone. 2008, when the republican lawyer was vetting john mccain's running mate, the main question he asked was, if you had osama bin laden in your sites and you knew that taking him out would mass casualties of innocent civilians, what would you do? he said sarah palin's answer was the best. he said that she said i would do it, then i would pray to god for forgiveness. he was amazed by how shrewd that answer was. this final decisive meeting, it was melania trump, the aloof former model married to the real estate tycoon, who

drew the final line. whoever he drew must be clean. no affairs, no messy financial entanglements. you write that newt gingrich was also on the short list. someone who was married three times and had a messy past. it is about who melania trump is. saying that she would do an interview with the fox news host, promising this interview, and she said no, i'm not going to. so she's very stubborn, but she's also shrewd and involved. host: did walter mondale change the vice presidency? guest: absolutely. he was the first vice president to have a weekly lunch with the vice president. he had the west wing office. he and jimmy carter outlined an agreement that lasted to this day. obama and biden reinforced that agreement.

every piece of paper that came across the desk, walter mondale had access to. he wanted to have no definitive the between his access to president. everything about the vice presidency depends on the power the president is willing to give the vice president. write, his agreement to become jimmy carter's running mate, that the deal included three major requirements. unimpeded access to the president, the same access to classified material as the president, unimpeded responsibilities. you indicated he wanted a west wing office, which he got, and a weekly lunch with the president, which he also got. i interviewed -- i learned he called the german ambassador at one point and

apologized on behalf of the united states, when president trump did not shake chancellor merkel's hand. this is somebody who is very much aware of what is going on, still very attuned to american politics, watching, kind of surprised that the turn that the political landscape is taken. a picture of the relationship between john kennedy and lyndon johnson, and how it changed when he became the nominee. and about joe biden, senior to that hisyou write perspective was simple, if not condescending. this is my house, these are my things. i like your input, joe. i want you to be happy, but you are a guest in my house. that really sums up the vice presidency. they are completely at the service of the president, and i

think you see that with mike pence and donald trump. what you did see it with joe biden and barack obama. house was a white reporter at bloomberg news, i never got the sense of any tension there. joe biden about it. it wasn't love at first sight for them. it took time to build trust, but by the end of those eight years, they did something no other modern president and vice president had done, and they moved closer in those eight years together, and that was unprecedented. host: who had the most acrimonious relationship? guest: eisenhower and nixon was not a great relationship. he would not even endorsed him. he was asked what the vice president's greatest accomplishment had been, and he said i would have to get back to you, and i never -- and he never did.

had an and kennedy fraught relationship, but i think the dick cheney and george w. bush, their relationship really unraveled toward the end. host: do you think george w. in 2004 inrious naming a replacement to dick cheney? guest: i think they considered it more seriously than president obama did, because there was thought of replacing biden with hillary. when i worked for obama, he said the only person who would've been less happy about that would have been hillary clinton. a lot of people don't want to be vice president. it is a difficult job. but i think that it is an ,ncredible opportunity especially for someone like mike pence, who very well could have lost his race for governor in indiana. he is now in a position where he could one day be president, with his name known nationally. few people knew who he was outside of indiana just a couple

years ago, so it is a stepping stone. infantilizing. i interviewed mike donald, and he says it makes you wonder if you matter very much. i thought that was a great quote. joe biden was in the senate for almost four decades, who, like lyndon johnson, had incredible power, and is made subservient. guest: did the trump team have -- airplane the trump really have the problem that caused him to lay over in indianapolis? guest: we might never know. i know that paul manafort played a large role, along with melania , which i thought was surprising. host: what is the story? guest: eric trump and donald trump were campaigning in indiana with mike pence. there was a problem with the airplane and they have to stay overnight.

they had dinner with karen pence , the next morning they had breakfast at the governor's mansion. the children flew in that night, and they all had breakfast thing where amazing they were all sitting at the breakfast table at the governor's mansion in indiana, and mike pence and karen pence come out and serve them breakfast. arethe trump children shocked that there is no staff serving them. i think the fascination the trump's have with the penses is fascinating. they have less than $15,000 in their bank account, and to someone like donald trump, that is shocking. they hold hands, they are deeply religious. i think one story in the book, pences say they are praying for the trump's. they were taken aback, what do you mean? we are praying for your

guidance, your leadership, your well-being. it is an alien concept to donald trump, which i think is fascinating. book --is is your third your next project? i have been mulling over some ideas. books. nonpartisan i don't take a stand as a reporter, but things are so divided now. it is a more difficult landscape then in 2017. now the news is chaotic. texas,hone call from independent line, daniel. caller: hello. host: how are you? go ahead with your question. listening to what she was saying. for vicee was picked

president because donald trump needed to get to the religious conservatives. he is a devout christian. you make fun of him all the time. , trying toat woman sell a book, she doesn't know anything about christians. be scorned onto and spit on. we are mostly nonviolent, and can be made fun of without retribution. i am christian myself, so i certainly don't make fun of religion.'s there is the separation of church and state in this country, so i point out in the book, when he was head of the republican conference in congress, on the wall in the congress room, one of the first toments of his credo was

glorify god. as someone who's christian there should be a separation of church and state. i certainly think he is a moral person. he did have a bible that would be open on his desk every day when he was governor of indiana. he was deeply devout and does stand by that, but you can't deny that the excess hollywood tape, for instance, cause problems for them, because they would not behave in the same manner. obvious charges of hypocrisy that come up, and you can't ignore that. host: the weekend that the video was made public, when did donald and mike pence have a phone conversation? guest: there was a couple of days, i believe, where he wasn't taking his calls. donald trump calls up mike pence and karen pence and asks to

apologize to both of them. brother,o mike pence's who said, my brother would never behave in that manner. in thatd talk to people family, and they would get quiet . host: our next color is from oklahoma city. robert. caller: good morning. thingsto talk about two that i see that nobody in the united states is talking about. when barack obama was president of the united states, he allowed the monroe doctrine to be alleviated. that stood for many years. the second thing, that i've been trying to call for years, you've had this on quite a bit.

agreement that has all these people migrating all over the world and having no place to go, because turkey is part of nato, but that agreement, which believe, ited in, i believe it was 1916. in 1916 -- in, it is got to step off-topic. if you want to bring it to the book our guest has written, we will be happy to take your question. caller: they are trying to cut down president trump about what has happened. this stuff happened on barack watch. when these people came, the pope and the archbishop of the russian orthodox church met in

cuba, most people have forgotten that. host: thank you, we're going to move on. unless you want to respond. guest: i don't know enough about it. from john is calling silver springs, maryland. caller: thank you for taking my call. i'd like to ask kate, usually, when you get to the vice presidency, you have to have someone you are very comfortable with. could you elaborate, the day that barack obama invited joe biden into the white house and gave him the honor of the you knoweward, if anything about this, or if you can tell us if you know something about the day that barack obama made the decision about going after bin laden. he probably talked to joe biden. he was probably

saying, if things go wrong, we are doomed. it is really something i believe that having a vice president that, he can give you the side of the story clearly, no politics involved. great question. joe biden was in the room when the navy seal raid was being discussed, that took out osama bin laden. i talked to joe biden about it. he said he was against the raid because they were not clear enough on whether it was definitely bin laden. a lot of people in the room were against it. many people said hillary clinton was also not as supportive as the -- as supportive of the raid as she later said she was. joe biden fell on his sword. he wanted to make it clear that

this was a decision that president barack obama made. he realized it could come out bad for him, because it came out in the report that he didn't support the raid. was a big success. part of being vice president is standing on these issues -- he escorted the president from the oval office after they had the meeting, he took obama aside and said, i think you should follow your gut. if your gut tells you to go in, go in. obama, whossage to they called mr. spock, because biden said he had so much agree matter.-- so muchgray smart, but sometimes had trouble being in touch with his emotions. thought it was his role to get barack obama to

trust his gut. host: he wanted to be the last person in the room. why is that? guest: he wanted to be one of to influenceces policy and decision-making. it was literal and figurative. he wanted to be there while these tough decisions were being made, and he really was. they were very close. they have these lunches together, and when beau biden was ill from cancer, joe biden told me he stopped mentioning his son, because president obama would become so emotional about it, and he really cared about the biden family. barack obama did not have a big family. he was brought into the fold of the biden family, which was sweet. host: you talked about dick cheney. image as enjoyed his one of the most polarizing figures in american history.

his relationship with george w. bush was all business and they were never especially close to begin with. with regard to lyndon johnson, you write that when kennedy won the nomination, he sent him a telegram. lbj means "less back jack." -- rights, it was almost as if romeo and juliet had gotten married. the scene at the hotel, in the convention, where he was trying to convince johnson to stop being the running mate, it was brutal. shuttling up and down the stairs, trying to convince johnson not to do this, because they hated each other so viscerally. host: but john kennedy wanted him? guest: they needed each other in a lot of ways. a lot of this is machiavellian

in a lot of ways. back then, they would get a vice president who could win certain sections of the country. rightk the caller was about donald trump, with the conservative base in the republican party, someone who has been in congress for six , with great relationships on capitol hill. he's a politician. that's why joe biden told me he talks to mike pence at least once a month, which i think is shocking to people, that they have that relationship. he says, look, you can work with mike pence. he tells foreign leaders to call mike pence and not donald trump, because pence has experience in government. he compared it to bill clinton and newt gingrich, the relationship they had where they could work together, even though they were completely on opposing sides. host: bob is joining us on the republican side.

one andersen brower's book the vice presidency. caller: i want to ask about mike pence and the president. do they have a weekly prayer meeting? also, was there anything 2016, bringingut trump to jesus? thank you. mike pence has a weekly prayer meeting with members of the cabinet and friends in the executive office building in the white house, and that he will cancel meetings to attend that meeting. he makes it happen every week, very important to him. i don't believe donald trump attends that meeting. as far as whether or not donald as regularly as mike pence, i would doubt it,

but he did call mike pence before the vice presidential debate and say he was praying for him. host: but the calendar was critical in terms of when governor pence was nominated, because of what? there was a requirement that he would have had to of been running for governor of indiana at the time. he would have had to withdraw at as last minute from his race governor of indiana, and make the gamble of whether trump would offer it to him. there was a gamble of whether he would select him. he really does get along with newt gingrich. you was convinced by paul manafort, and maybe a little bit by his wife, that he needed somebody to balance him and didn't have the baggage that he had. between the two of them, they would have had six wives.

forphone numbers are up, republicans, (202) 748-8001. for democrats, (202) 748-8000. and for independence, (202) 748-8002. work on your book. two or three quick things. one is this prayer reference you made to the vice president, and how valuable that is, and how it was surprising to the , and the factmily that they served them breakfast is an incredible story to convey for the background. i noticed this week on one of the pressers were the president , thoseing a luncheon five minute question and answer comments, where just before the mike's went off, someone said --

i believe the president said -- mike is going to lead our prayer during lunch. , as ana powerful thing example. i'm calling as an independent. , that is arify conservative call. higher on the political food chain, and my sense, then republicans. i called because of your reference to church and state, the separation, which i promised always correct if i get the opportunity. separation of state from church is the opposite. it comes from our history, and read the eight and the catholic influence, henry viii's influence of the state imposing itself on faith and the universal freedom that we have as believers. he said, you are christian. in the future, you would reverse the reference to be more accurate, that we are

wanting to separate the states' power over the church. it is in the first amendment, the very first thing they say, that congress shall not establish a religion, and it continues, nor impose or infringe on the free exercise thereof. host: thank you, sir. guest: i don't really see the contradiction between those sayings, the idea that there is a separation -- that the government should not infringe on religious rights, or that religion should not be part of government, i guess, i don't really fully understand the conflict. untilevery vice president gerald ford lived in their own in 1974, andtil -- nelson rockefeller, the first to it,this home -- where is

and why is it significant in the story of the vice presidency? three miles from the white house and a beautiful, leafy part of washington, most people have no idea. when i interviewed barbara bush, she said she didn't want to leave the naval observatory because you could go out in your bathrobe and walk your dog, and no one would know you were there. house,u go to the white you were obviously in the epicenter of political coverage, so there's just no privacy. in the naval observatory, there's a beautiful pool. joe biden would have these great parties in the back of the house where he would run around with a water gun, invite kids and families of reporters to come. it was just a really fun environment it's. i know that dick cheney told me he loved having his grandkids their, joe biden loved having his family there. it is a sprawling queen and

style house, with a sprawling front porch. it was so beautiful that the admiral who lived there didn't want to leave, and was really angry about having to leave. line, fromrats reston, virginia. guest: good -- caller: good morning. i respect the vice presidents christianity. i came in 1973 from jordan, but i know that when one major religion controls everything, the minorities don't have the freedom. i want to ask all the christians, we use to have a lot of american and british missionaries come over. i know christianity is love and forgiveness, and loving your neighbor, and your foreigners, but the danger is, this is what

extremist muslims talk about. god appointed this and this, and they don't want separation of church. how would they feel if the buddhist majority became president or vice president, or muslim. how would they feel if they wanted to impose their own beliefs on other people? has religion ever been the factor in the selection of a vice president? nixon andtart with eisenhower. of course, there was a lot of discussion about joe lieberman men.devout jewish that was a big issue. kennedy was considered in 1996, briefly. guest: and the fact that he was irish catholic was a huge deal at the time. but this book isn't about religion at all.

it is about the relationship between presidents and vice our 48 viceof presidents, 14 had become president, most of whom who have become president because of the death of the sitting president. the last vice president we had who beat -- who won and election is george h w bush, the person who mike pence admires a lot. the only other person was martin van buren. presidency toe catapult yourself into the presidency is something i was very interested in. i found out that mike pence and donald trump do have these chiefslunches, but their of staff sit in on these lunches, and i found that fascinating. al gore told me he just needed the weekly lunch with the president, with bill clinton, with nobody else listening in.

pence and donald trump had the chief of staff, john kelly, and the chief of staff of mike pence, listening in on the conversation. i find that very telling about the nature of their relationship. these are meant to be personal moments. why is the conversation being steered by two top staffers? host: from the book, the vice president is the only member of the team who cannot easily be fired, a fact that joe biden used to like to repeat. usually one of the last people standing, with other people resigning out of exhaustion or being pushed out. vice president cheney admits his influence waned in the second term, and the relationship between gore and clinton almost fully unraveled at the end of their administration. joe biden and barack obama are under the-

relationship, campaign trail, remarks about monica lewinsky, i did not have sexual relations, to the swearing-in of the first lady. i can't imagine what was going through his mind. he had lost the presidential election. the famous recount was going on, and here he is swearing her in. it was very difficult for him. if it was aer gore relief whether or not they lost the election, and she said, frankly, no. we still wish we had won. that hiss friends said father always wanted him to be president. his father was a famous tennessee senator, really wanted , soson to fulfill his dream it was always understood that al gore would one day become

president. imagine, joe biden never look at barack obama and thought, i could be like him. but al gore looked at bill clinton and always thought, if i could just be a little folk seer -- a little folksier. if i could connect with people. al gore had a lot of trouble connecting with people, and bill clinton, famously, was so gifted at it. oft: indiana, home state vice president pence. good morning. caller: good morning. you talked about obama's relationship with joe biden, his day-to-day authority within the administration. i wanted to ask, does mike pence have the same kind of role in

the administration? in terms of creating policy and decision-making? host: let me first make reference to the so-called between joe biden and barack obama, to the colors point. guest: it is genuine they had a great relationship. mike pence at donald trump spend about three hours a day together . they talk every morning and night. it was different with joe biden and barack obama, because biden was much older than obama. he had four decades of experience in the senate. there's a great picture where biden is leading his mother, 91 ,t the time, there in chicago and she whispers to obama, don't

worry, it's going to be ok. when biden told me that, you now see him laughing. ,t was a family friendship relationship. mike pence rarely disagrees with donald trump. most vice presidents don't even in in public, or meetings with the president. i think this is even more like a lyndon johnson-hubert humphrey it wasnship, where always very clear who was in charge. there have been a couple instances where mike pence has disagreed with the president, for instance when he wanted to get involved in who would become speaker after paul ryan said he would resign. donald trump wanted kevin mccarthy, and mike pence said you need to let congress do its thing. occasionally, he will disagree

with the president, but not often. mike pence really wants to keep relationships good on the hill. he really wants to touch gloves as often as you can on capitol hill, to walk through the rotunda to get his picture taken with people. i think what is missing about the understanding of mike pence is how deeply ambitious he is. host: richard nixon and spiro agnew. guest: spiro agnew wrote a book about his experience as vice president, about how he thought he was railroaded, that it was an excuse, all of the scandal building up in the nixon administration, he thought it was unfairly -- thought he was unfairly pushed out. they had a tough relationship. all, it isnow him at knowing that he was forced out of office because of scandal. host: he admitted that he took bribes.

guest: he was not an ethical politician by any means, but he was also working with somebody who refused to meet with him and kept trying to have private with next and, who refused. it just became this -- it was the last thing he needed, a vice president with a scandal hovering around him. they had to get rid of him. of course, gerald ford became , unelectedent president, amazing story that you could not make up. chris is joining us from tennessee, our line for independence. theer: i'm sorry i missed first part of this segment. i caught you speaking about al gore. al gore really was raised in washington, d.c., and that is why he couldn't even win his own state, and i believe that's because we didn't look at him --

we looked at him as a creature --washington from basically his father was a racist democrat from the 60's or whatever. i don't know. that's all i got to say, thank you. kids true that he went to saint albans. when i talked to him, i couldn't his facial expressions, i was talking on the phone. i asked him what it was like working in the white house with the most powerful first lady in history. we haven't seen a family member that powerful since robert kennedy was attorney general. he said, i think our conversation is almost over. to me, i think he was joking, but it was also kind of, he didn't want to get into that relationship with hillary clinton because it was so challenging. there were two power centers.

imagine how hard that is to navigate. he also told me that he and bill clinton were like brothers, for most of the time he was in office. along well, two baby boomer couples on double dates. ,ut it unraveled at the end because he lost. he didn't even let clinton go campaign for him in arkansas. a lot of clinton staffers said it was a huge mistake. hindsight is 2020, because at the time, clinton was radioactive because of the monica lewinsky scandal. you right in the book, in 1992, when the decision was made to select al gore, many people opposed the choice because they thought he would never want to play second fiddle. cast a permanent shadow on their accomplishments, and gore did not publicly defend him. there's a photograph in your after the election.

if you could just read what they are saying, you have a very animated al gore talking to a pensive president clinton. guest: i think what i did is for list --freedom a thenformation act -- of documents during the recount. it was less than a dozen during that time. but who wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall, to know what he's saying in that moment. there was a lot of anger and bitterness. they didn't see each other again until after 9/11. the two of them reuniting, al gore had been traveling. on 9/11, it was hard to get anywhere. driving to clinton's house, and the two of them spent the night talking. it must have been emotional for

nation wasse the under attack. they had just been in office. it was the first time they had spoken since they had left office. host: who was the most expansive of the vice presidents and talking about their role? dick cheney, absolutely. i think he really appreciates history, is really interested in it. he knew all of the major players in the book. he knew richard nixon, gerald , ronald reagan. he was there when ronald reagan tried to convince gerald ford to be his running mate, which i think is an incredible story. they are at the convention. host: the dream ticket. guest: he really considered it. he told me about how he couldn't believe how much the reagan team and reagan were willing to give the gerald ford. and of course, gerald ford did an interview where he described

it as a co-presidency, and for ronald reagan, that was just too much. there's a scene where he says, all right, where's bush? and i did interview george h. w. bush about ronald reagan. he said history will have to judge his accomplishments. it is very like bush to be a vice president. he said his favorite memory was watching ronald reagan, after he had been shot on the floor of the hospital, ronald reagan was on his hands and knees, spilling -- cleaning up a spill of water that he didn't want the nurses to clean up. i thought that was a touching moment between a vice president and president in a real crisis point in our country. from arkansas,e line for independents. caller: i can detect your

enthusiasm for the book, which i hope to enjoy reading also. aboutstion is not relationships, but i was a tadpole in grade school when jfk was assassinated. looking back, the fact that lbj was in the same city, and governor connally was in the , and lbj was on the same plane when he took the oath of office. did they take serious corrective measures to avoid the same thing after? thank you. interesting putting yourself in the position of what was happening at the time. i was lucky with my other book about the first lady, total meat lady bird johnson's social secretary. to come to the office where the white house is draped in black fabric.

there was no inaugural celebration, obviously. a heavy, dark cloud. they were worried on the plane -- they cut the engine, ordered everyone to put the windows down so nobody could see into the plane. they were concerned this was part of a larger conspiracy. jackie kennedy said she almost wished it had been part of a larger conspiracy. the verdict is still out, of course. people still discussed lee harvey oswald. but the idea that her husband would die because of one man was very upsetting to her. that whenohnson jokes jfk was president, i feel like a raisin hovering over his shoulder. raven hovering over his shoulder. lyndoned, i don't want johnson listening for my heart beat every morning.

there is the feeling that they are always just waiting there for something bad to happen, because that is how they become president. the drama of this assassination is that it was very difficult, and johnson tried so hard. there's a picture of this pony that he gave the kennedys. it's incredible, he gave them a pony named tex. , at really didn't want it first. he was constantly trying to ingratiate himself and win their love and respect, and he never really got it. he was kind of a laughingstock. the kennedy people call him uncle corn pone. they made fun of him for being kind of aruba -- kind of a rube from texas. thisn his mind, they were group of elitists and johnson never belonged host:. that kennedyn

would have dropped johnson in 1964? guest: there's a lot of conflicting evidence about that. secretary wrote a memoir in which he was absolutely going to drop him. i don't know if that would have happened. jackie kennedy talks about that as a possibility, in her oral history and interviews. she didn't do many, but in one, she spoke about it. i would have been shocked. it's unusual. george w. bush tried to get his father to drop dan quayle and replace him with dick cheney, but bush would not do it in 1992, because it makes the president look weak, like they are reconsidering their decision. bush took a risk and pick somebody relatively unknown. if he had dropped quail, it would have made it look like he was doubting himself, and nobody wants a president who doubts himself. host: catherine, good morning,

republican line. since you are not political, and you've done a lot of research on what has been going on with the president's and vice presidents, where do you think the government got so corrupt? under whose watch? host: how much time do we have? guest: that's a good question, and i just don't know how to answer. in the book, i get into concern about succession. george h w bush, i ask whether there needs to be a more clear delineation, for instance, when had sufferedwho several heart attacks, he actually wrote a memo and gave it to his chief of staff. it said, if i become incapacitated, give this to george w. bush. if he -- he left the house with

the folder and the memo, and his house burned down. host: where is the memo today? guest: i don't know. i wonder if it is in the archives. i wonder if cheney's has been redacted of classified information, making it difficult to get a hold of. should bek that there a more clear -- if something happens to the president and vice president, there is not a clear way, for instance, a stroke, for it to be made clear that the vice president is incapacitated. we know what happens if something should happen to the president, but it is an unclear chain of command with the vice president. but as far as corruption, i'm sure you could write many books about that. host: our next color is from london. simon. it's good to see you on

the show, i tweet you quite regularly. thank you for the book and fascinating interview. i have a comment and a question. i got the impression that the american public could tell the difference after clinton between a good president and a bad husband. i wonder if that is the case today. anduestion regarding pence, you get the impression that he was the kind of vice president who, after trump, could initiate the process of healing that arguably needs to happen? do the music.st that baroque music you play distressful. play is dreadful. guest: mike pence has strong relationships with democrats on capitol hill. he talks with joe biden quite a bit. one thing i learned is that mike pence's brother, greg, told me that donald trump reminds mike

pence of their father. that he was a real taskmaster, could be abusive at times, reportedly. i think he has grown up in an environment, one of six kids, irish catholic, he voted for jimmy carter instead of ronald reagan because, reportedly, who wants to have a movie star president. but he does believe in this administration. it is not an act. he believes in what trump stands , but i doy ways think, as someone who is more experienced in the ways of washington, who doesn't tweet in , heway that his boss does would certainly be more of what we are used to in a president. i think donald trump is just just reallys changed the presidency and some many ways that it is quite incredible.

book,you quote from the the job occupies "the strange no man's land between legislative and executive power. it comes with a job description that is only slightly more defined than that of the first lady, which has none whatsoever. the authority coming from the president, how much authority that he, or someday she, gives the vice president. guest: joe biden brought a lot of washington politicos. people who are very skilled in the ways of washington, which is smart. and they keep him very -- you'll notice, he's not part of the rumor mill. he and his staff are isolated and kind of cushioned in a way that is quite smart, really. but they are president of the senate, and that is his job. he has been able to cast many

tie-breaking votes, and joe biden didn't, and am sure that bothers him quite a bit. mike pence's first chief of staff said his entire career depends on donald trump and keeping him happy, protecting that relationship. i think he will do whatever it akes to keep him looking like loyal servant, really. he believes in servant leadership. this model of following the rules and a chain of commands. host: there are a lot of stories. what one thing surprised you asan a-ha moment. guest: i think it is fascinating that donald trump reminds mike pence of his father. there's an age difference. when an adult walked into the room, he would force the kids onto his feet to recognize the adults. he was very much a taskmaster.

way he that shapes the interacts with donald trump. he gushes over him, and it is sometimes uncomfortable to watch even. i think he knows he has to do it. host: thank you very much for being with us. you are back tomorrow morning with washington journal. immigration will be front and center. we will break it all down. later, the president asking for the creation of space force. newsmakers is next. thank you for joining us on this sunday. enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week ahead.