and the blue and the rise of political tribalism. as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. washington journal is next. ♪ host: good morning. president trump at the white house this morning after another campaign rally, last night, this time in kentucky. 23 days until the midterms. the senate has wrapped up its business with three days left -- three weeks to go before the election. the one of to begin with the latest on that washington post reporter believed to have been murdered earlier this month. what should the u.s. response be to that saudi journalist who is a u.s. resident? for republicans

and (202)-748-8000 for democrats. if you are an independent, (202)-748-8002. join us on facebook. tod sunday morning, a lot talk about including this headline from the washington post. yesterday was asked questions about how the u.s. should respond to this development. >> we will be sitting together with all the folks here and we will have to make a determination. i do think i work very hard to get the order from the military. i believe it is the largest order ever made. it is 450,000 jobs, the best equipment in the world, but if they don't buy it from us, they're going to buy it from russia or from china or other countries, but russia and china wanted very badly. i got almost 100% of their order

from the standpoint of jobs, economic development, a lot of other reasons, i would like to do something where we could look at other things. that is a tremendous order for our companies, a tremendous order from an economic element standpoint. texas has a big chunk of it. almost all of our states are involved in that order. i think we would be punishing ourselves if we did that. there are other things we can do that a very powerful and strong. as of this moment, nobody knows what happened. we are looking into it very seriously. turkey is looking into it at a high level, at the highest level and so is saudi arabia. i know mike and john have been dealing with them. in terms of the order of $110 billion.

think of that. all they're going to do is give it to other countries and that would be very foolish for our country but there are other things we can do that would be severe. what is an example of something we could do? >> there are many things we could do. james do you have any suggestions? i do want to put you on the spot but if you guys would like to tell them some of the many things we could do, it is a big list. >> we have a long-standing partnership with saudi arabia. my first preference is to not talk about what we would do but let's talk about what did happen first. the key thing is is we are waiting to find out what happened. until we know, i would hate to take the next step on it. host: from the oval office yesterday and this is a headline from the wall street journal website, the president vowing severe punishment if saudi

arabia is implicated in the disappearance. is --g us on the phone who is following the story for the washington journal -- the wall street journal. what more can you tell us? guest: good morning. the president has made saudi relations with of the priorities of his administration, it was one of his first foreign trips he took when he became president and i think that because of foreign policy, because of security relations, because they view saudi arabia as a powerball -- a power balance to iran to keep rising power, he will have to manage this foreign crisis and pushed saudi arabia to

reveal what happened. host: you call it a crisis. what options are on the table? guest: there are a range of options that the u.s. has. in previous situations, even where mr. trump sanctioned several turkish officials, there are sanctions they could consider. they could consider diplomatic ties, but as i said, saudi arabia is a key ally in many ways for the u.s. in the region. we have to remember that a ramos oil is going to be embargoed as of november 4. saudi arabia has pledged to compensate for the loss of a ron's oil by increasing their production. 's oil by increasing their production. it turns out saudi arabia

murdered the journalist, the president is on the spot to take more leadership and take action. one action that will be, we don't know. -- what action that will be, we don't know. it will somehow strain this reliance. -- this alliance. host: i want to get your reaction to this op-ed by the journalist. the headline, my fiance was a lone patriot. when people refer to him as a dissident, he would reject that definition. i am an independent journalist using the pen for the good of the country, he would say. he left saudi arabia because it was the only way he could speak about the issues and ideas he cared about and work without compromising his dignity. what was most endearing about him was his honesty, his warmth. i began to see him not merely as

a sharp accomplished journalist but also a sensitive man who moved through the world with a piercing painful longing for his home. your reaction? op-ed thats a moving his fiancee wrote. she speaks from her heart and she must be going through a very difficult time and she also paints a picture of him as somebody who was speaking truth to power and if you follow the work, he was not in opposition ,igure and people who know him speaking to his friends and colleagues, nobody says that he wanted to dispute the monarchy system in saudi arabia or

or was any kind of particular threat to the monarchy. he believes in the system and he was close to the royal family. critic inritic and a a moderate voice. he wanted reform. as -- as the system mildly criticism as you can have but even that voice was not tolerated. fassihi, a senior journalist for the wash -- wall street journal, we thank you for joining us. guest: thank you for having me. host: what do you think the u.s. response should be? we'll go to marissa in montana, republican line. caller: good morning. so grateful for c-span. thank you so much. you are a light in this world.

what i really wanted to say was that president trump should issue a blanket apology to all journalists. his attitude toward journalist has caused this kind of blatant disregard for the press and the first amendment. all those people out there who are so worried about the second amendment, how about the first amendment, the right to a free press? the press should be honored and elevated in our society. issue a needs to blanket apology for his words and actions which have helped to cause this situation. also i would appreciate it if you would have the a of the -- to look at the aspca some animal rights issues. let's look at all of those animals that drowned in those hurricanes we just had. thank you so much for having me on. let me go back to this piece from the new york times.

this fiancee of the missing saudi journalist who writes for the washington post. my fiance was a lonely patriot. jamal spoke government -- against oppression but he paid for the demand for freedom with his own life. if he is dead and i hope that is not the case, thousands of jamal s will be born on today, his birthday. his ideas will reverberate across the world. oppression never lasts forever. tyrants eventually pay for their sins. when your loved one leaves this world, the other world does not seem so scary. essay fromd the full the new york times website. host: jeff is next from nebraska, republican line. caller: we don't even know if he is dead. everybody has a lot of speculation going on but that is $110 billion worth of military

and the middle east was a mess when he took over because of obama and now we are going to back away because of what? we don't even know what happened. let's take our time and think about what happened and get all the facts first. these people are already to jump. trump does not want the press to die, he just wants them to be fair. host: we will go to bob, next, oklahoma city. caller: good morning. i have to agree with the last caller. i don't think we should jump to judgment here. we listened to one side of the story and then make a decision before we have heard the other side, it is just too early to tell what kind of action should

be taken if any. to the caller before, please don't just blame trump for every film -- every little thing that comes on. he had no play in this. host: dan is next from new york. caller: i have been a republican since i came to this country because i really thought republicans were for freedom and this has been a fight against communism that there is an all -- there is an old saying, the people who act alike and gather together are of similar types and this is what trump is showing us, that the united states is the longer a nation that fights for a world order but is a nation that is just a shopkeeper nature -- shopkeeper nation the way that england used to be. it just does business and you saw what happened to england and we are going to be next. it is up to the next generation to decide do they want an america that will do anything and go anywhere to sell a few

damn goods. are we that low war are we the greatest power? low or are we the greatest power? for what youaction think the u.s. response should be to the missing saudi journalist. you can join in on the conversation. republicans.1 for (202)-748-8000 for democrats. paul from texas, on the democrats line. caller: can you hear me? host: we can, go ahead. caller: in regards to the if turkeyurnalist, had intercepted the video recording, why haven't the u.s. actually acted on that? host: we do know the president is going to have a phone conversation with the king of saudi arabia and the bbc is reporting that the recording came from jamal khashoggi's apple phone or apple watch.

that is the report. -- itnot been confirmed has not been confirmed. caller: i notice people calling in and talking about the money. when is a life going to take precedent over money? host: we will go to greg, next in detroit. caller: hello? host: go ahead. arabia aredi supposed to be our ally in the region, with israel and egypt, and they just keep acting like a rogue state like iran, arresting journalists. that is not something our allies are supposed to do. host: gary in virginia, good morning. caller: good morning. what this country ought to do is move all of our trucks, diesels and buses to natural gas, lng. that would do three things.

there was a lot more independent gas producers than there are oil producers. that would put money in their pockets. it would clean up the atmosphere because natural gas is 80% cleaner than gas. we would not have to import oil orm venezuela or iraq anywhere. get it out of the middle east and quit wasting our money. host: this is from bill king who says that the president does not cut off all aid and stop the sale of military equipment to saudi arabia, congress needs to do it. we will go next to robert joining us from misery. fromom misery -- missouri. caller: we have had some great presidents who actually got this country unbelievably great. why i do not understand is

is president we have now destroying our image all over the planet. [inaudible] host: thanks for the call. this is a full-page ad in the washington post. on tuesday, october 2 at 1:14 p.m., washington post columnist jamal khashoggi enter the consulate of saudi arabia in istanbul -- entered the consulate of saudi arabia an instant -- in istanbul. he has not been seen since. back to your phone calls. ray is next from utah, republican line. caller: good morning.

how are you doing? host: we are fine, how are you? caller: doing fine. one quick comment, if there is any rough -- if there is any wrongdoing on saudi arabia's part, this country should not do business with them until this question gets answered. permember the 1970 young to -- yom kippur. the embargo raise the price of gasoline from $.29 to well over a dollar. they are allies of convenience and they have always treated us like that. they have considered us their slaves and we are not their slaves. this attitude needs to be knocked out and if there is any wrongdoing on their part as far as this journalist, we should cease doing business with them. host: thank you for the call. michael with this tweet, most of

the media reports are speculation. turkey has teased that they know more than has been revealed. last year, jamal khashoggi in washington spoke about what his life was like as a journalist, as an opinion writer. it is available on the c-span video library. here is a portion of what he said. >> i think the saudi people are very supportive and are going through some kind of euphoria. people don't think, they don't question, the media don't discuss. this euphoria is also for government control. there are people who are called to sign pledges not to criticize the government. they choose to stay in their homes or arrested.

the environment in saudi arabia does not allow for constructive criticism or constructive debate matters that about affect us for the future. ast: the washington post has long road through risky territory, a look at the life and career and apparent legacy of jamal khashoggi. florida, democrats line. caller: good morning. times tolled several c-span to voice my opinion is a democrat but mainly as an american. i find this horrible that trump is not doing more. i believe he is the one who has incited people to attack journalists and what we have seen and what we have heard so goinge heard khashoggi

into the consulate, this should be an international investigation and something needs to be done and i don't care about their money. we can get oil from other places. there is clean energy we can use. there is no reason why we should be held victims to oil from the middle east. gas prices are enormous and it should not be this way and i believe that most of that is the fault of the trump administration. host: lisa from florida. if you put a businessman in charge, money becomes the top priority, knows apprise. louise in virginia, republican line. what do you think the response should be? caller: i think it is some kind givingax to push us into our jobs away or contracts away.

i think it is a hoax and i think it is an attempt by the media to push us into war and i want to know is he a resident or a citizen? and what is so special about a noncitizen that we should give jobshalf of our country and yes money is important and the lady that called from florida is full of hogwash. host: he is a saudi journalist from saudi arabia who is a u.s. resident, a resident in your home state of virginia. ins is from jamal khashoggi september of 2017, the ashington post is publishing series of essays he has written over the years including this the fear,t i speak of intimidation and public shaming of intellectual and religious leaders who dear to speak their minds and then tell you i am from saudi arabia, are you surprised?

with the young crown prince's rise to power, he promised to embrace social and economic reform and all i see now is a recent wave of arrests. i have left my home, my family and my job and i am raising my voice. to do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. i can speak when so many others cannot. saudi arabia has not always been as it is now. we saudi's deserve better. read the essay at washingtonpostdoc,. --washington post.com washingtonpost.com. caller: i find it appalling that this journalist was silenced and this is not the first time this has happened. we saw this last year with the -- being killed in the streets of saudi arabia. host: jimmy from virginia, democrats line. caller: thank you for taking my call.

i feel we must put pressure on those who did this brutal action .o mr. khashoggi -- because he is guilty. we should take this chance to make a better future for ourselves. they have to take the responsibility and pay the price of that. -- $50 million host: thank you. this is from another viewer. send us your tweet. next is a viewer from ohio, mike. listening and watching

and wondering. i am telling you what i am wondering about is of the fact before -- the fact is the summer before 9/11, james baker the third set up law offices and fbi offices throughout the middle east and i am just wondering why the fbi, if we set up offices in the middle east, i think saudi arabia, jordan, israel and some bush-cheneyhe administration wanted to create chaos throughout the middle east. that was their main agenda when they took office. why the fwondering the eye, if we set offices up throughout the middle east, why they are not involved in the investigation into this matter. host: we don't know that. they very well may be. the president yesterday saying his a administration is doing everything they can to come up with some answers. you could assume that they would be part of that investigation. caller: i tell you what the

answer is, it is oil. o is oil, i is is real and l -- logisticalnd l is location. host: the president making news in a 60 minutes interview which is jasonght and this from the washington post website talking about his friend and colleague who has been missing since october the second. is amal khashoggi washington post contributor who may have been killed for his work that was critical of the saudi government. he was last seen entering the saudi consulate in istanbul. turkish authorities say they believe he was murdered inside. if this is true, it is a against acrime journalist who was bringing the stories of a hard to penetrate

country to light. jamal often expressed he was concerned for his own safety about doing this work, but his love of saudi arabia, his homeland was so deep and important to him to continue to do his work, that he was undeterred. crown prince has been trying to present himself as a great performer and the reports that jamal was doing to the post -- for the post, we saw a different reality. it is a hallmark of his work that he was cutting through those facades. even now, the washington post has been under attack for externalism. i was a correspondent in tehran. i spent a year and a half in prison there for doing this work. we at the post, his colleagues will always appreciate jamal for his commitment to bringing these stories to light and his integrity in doing it and we

hope that these terrible reports are not true. host: he was our guest on a podcast that is available on the c-span video library. he is out with a new book early next year about his own experiences. we are asking you about the missing -- the missing journalist who has been missing since october the second. 60 minutes will be on the phone with the saudi president in the next 24 hours. on the democrats line, ray in ohio. caller: good morning. i want to remind people that the 9/11 terrorists came out of and control or slamming on the media is never the answer. we have to maintain a free press. it has to be worldwide. i spent two years in turkey in the army and i cannot imagine a

more open society, a more welcoming society. what they have turned into is i don't even understand how they could flip over as they have. this control and fear of the democracy andis a it is free press. host: this is from -- who writes the following quote, we arty know trump will do the right put saudih is to arabia on the terrorist nation list. next up is john from louisiana, republican line. caller: the thing that i think americans are not taking into consideration is balance of power. unfortunatelyt that this journalist was who are by the saudi's

along with most of the islamic usually set to do violence to each other. i think the bigger issue is iran, and i believe that if we lose sight of the fact that by pulling the stops or the foundation out from under saudi arabia, iran will take over all the middle east, attack israel and attack america and all of our interests. host: we will go to johnny next from atlanta, independent line. caller: good morning. host: how are you? i am good, how are you? caller: i am looking at my saudi talking about arabia and is actually saying that obama had already approved the package for $115 million and

a lot of weapons there that trump is talking about were currently in that deal. it is a shame that it is bigger. they just mislead so much. god help us all. host: this is from bloomberg news as saudi stocks plunge as trump valent punishment over khashoggi's fate -- vowed punishment over khashoggi's fate. saudi arabia has denied any involvement in khashoggi's disappearance. the absence of any information of his whereabouts, some companies have backed away from the downloads in the desert event intended to showcase the prince jake eight modernization prince'she modernization plan. pennsylvania, patrick on the democrats line. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am good how are you?

caller: i am great. in the history of national relations, there has never been a country more diabolical, more intent on expansion, more intent on creating a system of absolute complete oppression in the mideast. everyone of your listeners needs "inside the kingdom." it will show you the level of evil we are dealing with. this is a government that routinely murders gay people, oppresses women, has zero rights . the royal family has looted the national treasury of saudi arabia into abject ruin. there are real problems we are dealing with and demonizing the iranians when they have never engaged in warfare in the past

300 years. this is a regime that needs to end. the people need to demand this tradition -- this ridiculous relationship with israel. it is like oil and water when it comes to a real democracy, a real relationship. the israelis need to wake up and end the relationship and so does the united states. tweet, the president has conflicts of interest all over the place. what happened to him turning over all of his businesses to his sons? cnn has an analysis piece and the headline, when the mystery is solved, the story does not end. quote, turkey has presented a scenario in which the washington post columnist was lured into saudi consulate, murdered and possibly dismembered. no room for error is being echoed.

-- opening of saudi arabia to cinemas and entertainment. he has also ordered the incarceration of 200 people, including princesses at the ritz-carlton during an anticorruption drive. they were released among -- released upon payment of $100 billion", settlements. quote,ion in settlements. dear he is joining us from nebraska. good morning -- jerry is joining us from the brassica. good morning -- from nebraska. good morning. caller: i don't know why anybody is in such a hurry to condemn anybody. how can you trust the turkish government? theas only a month ago that

news media and the democrats and everybody was condemning the turkish government and erdogan. how can we trust them now? host: chris from new york, you are next. democrats line. c-span needs to let us know what country is khashoggi a citizen of? host: we have already said that. he is a citizen of saudi arabia and he has a u.s. president. he works for the washington post. caller: so in that case, as a citizen of saudi arabia, they should be dealing with the problem. with our be gilling citizens. as far as how to respond, being on in it -- in international level, we appeal to the united as humanistic

humanity concerns. that is my opinion. host: thank you for the call. dave is next, arkansas, republican line. caller: good morning. simplyent would be to remember the rule of law and presume innocence until guilt -- until proven guilty. host: thank you. senator tim kaine, democrat of virginia spoke to the washington post about how he thinks the u.s. should respond to the allegation that saudi arabia may be involved in the death of jamal khashoggi. this is what he told the washington post. >> that partnership has many connections, military to military cooperation, military equipment sales, economic ties. i am a member of the armed services committee.

sales asbout military things we would need to explore or communicate to the saudi's that this cooperation will be jeopardized if you have been involved in harming jamal khashoggi. the accounts we have heard from turkish officials, the reporting that the post, the guardian and others have done raises very serious questions about whether jamal khashoggi was either kidnapped or potentially harmed or killed by the saudi's. i think the burden of proof is on the saudi's at this point. host: democratic senator tim kaine of virginia responding to reports of that missing saudi journalist. this tweet saying life takes precedent over money. lauren from new york, independent line. caller: good morning. a couple callers echoed my view.

i don't think we should do anything until we know exactly what happened. i don't care if it would be trump or bush or obama. we cannot rush to do anything. a president should not take action until we know what happened. i don't think we know that yet, not fully. there are conflicting reports. trumpers -- trump haters say trump wants to hurt journalists. he does not pay journalists, he hates fake news. i have seen him talking to many journalists when there are different things going on. he does not pay journalists. he does not like journalists who who -- journalists who print stuff that is not accurate. host: he sits down with 60 minutes this last weekend and he

-- and then talked about u.s. response. you can read that story at cbsnews.com. next on our independent line. caller: i am assuming it is illegal to commit murder in saudi arabia and this murder probably happened on saudi arabian soil in turkey. the way i see it, all the president can do is insist that saudi arabia enforce their laws against murder and have a trial or whatever. some people that i. -- some people die. -- about his friend and colleague in the washington post. troy is next, independent line. caller: my prayer goes out to

the journalists family -- journalists's -- journalist's family. it is tragic what happened. are awayhow far we from this type of thing happening in america because when obama was in office, but he did sign the national defense authorization act where persons could be locked up indefinitely without a trial. when you think about that, it is not so different from what happened to the journalist in turkey. thank you. host: thank you for the call. joining us from istanbul, turkey -- he covers the washington post bureau chief in turkey. when was the last time you had any contact with jamal khashoggi ? guest: thank you for having me. in regularlly not .on -- regular touch with jamal

i called him years ago when we were trying to confirm something happening in saudi arabia. many journalists had close relationships with him. he was a trusted source for many western journalists. i just was not one of those people. i had not spoken to him since 2015 which was the only time i called him. host: can you give us the latest based on your reporting errant that of the washington post on what happened and what happens next? guest: certainly. the latest from turkey is that the government has been urging saudi arabia to allow prosecutors and forensic experts to answer the consulate in istanbul as part of the investigation. in the last few days, turkish officials have been complaining publicly that the search has not been allowed to happen despite

the saudi crown prince saying in an interview 11 days ago that turkey was welcome to go in and search the mission and that the saudi's had nothing to hide. for moreso waiting detail about audio and video recordings that turkish investigators are said to possess and that may shed more light on what happened that afternoon inside the consulate. u.s. officials who said they were briefed by turkey about the reporting's have told my colleagues that the audio in particular contained persuasive evidence that jamal was interrogated, tortured and killed inside the consulate. we still don't know exactly what is on the recording. we don't know exactly how turkey obtained them. president trump said yesterday that he has not yet heard the audio but that he expected to hear it soon. reporting thats

audio may have come from his apple watch. report in theas a turkish media that the apple watch may have somehow captured the audio be discussed. we don't have any confirmation that that is true. whetherhave questioned the apple watch would be capable of capturing the audio and it may be that the story is circulating in order to divert attention from other methods that the intelligence here may have used to get the audio. we simply don't know how it was obtained yet. host: we are talking with kareem fahim, the estimable bureau chief for the washington post -- the istanbul bureau chief for the washington post.

if -- was involved, why would they be involved? guest: there is quite a lot of speculation in recent days that what may have happened here is a kidnapping gone wrong. over the last year, jamal had beenfriends that there had contact with the saudi government and those conversations, some of those conversations appeared to be attempts to lure him back to the country. he was a longtime insider and a very prominent saudi journalist but over the last year, he had written critically about the saudi conference and leadership -- crown prince and leadership and they had taken a very dim

view of dissenting voices over the past year. that may be a reason but we don't know exactly whether it was in fact a botched kidnapping as some have speculated or whether he was intentionally killed which was some of the information that emerged soon after he vanished into the consulate. change tohing for any the saudi response so far. they deny anything happened but they are facing in normative pressure now as turkey has released details about the alleged murder and now that president trump has promised severe punishment if the allegations are confirmed. already, the saudi's are seeing participants pulling out of a very important conference schedule permitted this month in the saudi capital. ordi stocks have plunged 6% 7%. they really are under quite a lot of pressure. host: some breaking news this

hour from the associated press. a response from saudi arabia and reads as follows. they found to respond any steps taken against it amid mounting concern over the writer jakey disappearance. what -- writer's disappearance. what you tell us? guest: that response came out in the last few minutes. -- to be inme response to president trump's cabinet's yesterday -- president comments yesterday. it seems at the moment that there is no change in their stance. they are not conceding that anything happened inside the consulate or that they were not responsible for whatever may have happened to jamal.

this is what we are watching most closely because there has been some speculation that at some point, the saudi government is going to have to change the be a truthfulay version of what happened, it may be that some other person within the government or other actor is blamed for it but so-called -- but so far there has been no change in their response. host: because you are in istanbul, where was this consulate specifically located? neighborhoodin a .hich is a residential area the consulate itself is in a villa, and a few blocks away is

the consul general's house. it is an area that with a last 12 days has been besieged by reporters. host: kareem fahim is joining us from istanbul, serving as the bureau chief for the washington post. thank you very much. guest: thank you for having me. host: you can read his work and the work of his colleagues at the washington post website. doug, south dakota, democrats line. your reaction to all of this. caller: it is white up hearing south dakota. host: are you guys getting snow? caller: yeah, it was white this morning. host: i heard that parts of north cota got up to 17 inches. caller: the hills got more. trump needs to demand that they lit inspectors in to find out what is going on and get the

truth laid out. why the understand congress is wasting days for this investigation happened when they could figure this out within days i would think. killedaudi arabia just 30 some kids on a bus and whose bomb was it, but ours? put that up and show who is doing this and if i worked in that bomb factory i would think about quitting as i don't like out want to be killing kids. call andnk you for the keep that snow up there. michael says trump will do the minimal if nothing to the saudi's if he has conflict of interest so his decision will be made for his self-interest and not america. carly is joining us from texas, independent line. caller: good morning.

i would like to comment that words have meaning and when our president, leader of the free world runs around and says analysts are the enemy of the people, that sends a message to the saudi prince. don't forget, he did the sacred sword dance with him the last time he was there. has this, missing saudi journalist, we don't have the facts and this is another example of the liberal media reacting on a motion and not on facts. -- reacting on emotion and not on facts. our next caller on our republican line. caller: hi. am i live? host: try one more time. we will go to mikey from milwaukee, independent line. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call.

this goes up to the top. the president has accused the washington post, he calls the media the enemy of the nation and now saudi arabia, with the president of united states is calling the media the enemy and here they have a journalist writing negative editorials and reports about the prince of saudi arabia, they say we have to take your of the enemy. putinlist seven killed by -- journalists have been killed by putin and he says pruden is a putin is a -- friend. this looks like a mafia hit job. freed friday after

being detained in a turkish prison for nearly two years, flew home to the united states and there was this moment as he got on his knees in the oval office and said a prayer to president trump. visit lunch we did a tumultuous two years for andrew who is 50 years old and on friday did not know his -- what his fate would be and feared he could be sentenced to as many as 35 years in prison. we have that moment on our video library at c-span.org. we will go to marissa next from virginia, independent line. caller: how are you? host: we are fine. caller: folks are talking about the saudi journalist and how america should not do too much right now. my concern that -- is that internationally, journalists are being attacked and so many people are being attacked that

are dissidents of their government. i think our priority should be to protect these dissidents and one thing people should remember is that the saudi journalist was a permanent resident of the united states and if we cannot protect our own people and we don't want to seek answers for our people, than what does that mean for any u.s. citizen or anyone that is kidnapped? the conflict of interest between the current president and saudi arabia and russia and all of these other countries that are andng all of these actions disappearing people or whatever they are not going to get away with it and this is one of the biggest issues with having president trump as our president is that there are too many conflicts of interest. hithing he does is going to

his interest when he gets out. that is a big issue. host: thank you very much for the call. senators pushing a vote to block the saudi arms sale after the khashoggi disappearance. you can read it at politico.com. jared is next. ifler: i am a democrat and this guy is an american, i can see where it is our business but if he is not, it is not really our business. we cannot take your of the world, we need to take care of our people first. host: nick is next, florida. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have heard a lot of people calling in and that last lady was right. we can send some sort of condemnation statement but what it just -- what is jeff these us doing about this -- jeff baeza's -- jeff bezos doing about this?

everybody wants these foreign countries to be little americas and they are not. we just have not been nice enough or we are not speaking nice enough about journalist. it is not a race the way the world operates. all of people who want to bash trump, it is just another opportunity for that, it is ridiculous. host: this tweet from jeff. the saudi's human rights are nonexistent. this man is a contributor to a newspaper so what is this all about? the military-industrial complex. an excerpt from that speech delivered by dwight eisenhower in the final days of his administration. we want to go back to jamal khashoggi's fiance who has written an essay in the new york times. my fiance once -- was a lonely patriot. when people refer to him as a

dissident, he would reject that definition. an independent journalist using the good of his pen for the good of the country. he let saudi arabia because it was the only way he could write and speak in a issues he cared about and work without compromising his dignity. what was most endearing about jamal was his honesty, and warmth. i began to see him not merely as a sharp accomplished journalist but also a sensitive man who moved through the world with a piercing painful longing for his home. .com.an read it at nytimes lisa is next from las vegas. whoer: we have a president talks about fake news all the time but apparently the only news paper he likes is the inquirer, the one who hid his secrets for 30 years. he has been selling real estate to the saudi's since the 80's. it is all cash and deals and money to enrich himself.

of then never came out embassy. he was killed. he was butchered. we should not be selling arms to them. chairs in september 11 came from saudi arabia. our president likes to align himself with extremists and he wants to rule like they do. host: thank you. does good stories want to bring to your attention. the saudi prince's showcase has been tarnished by this report. they call it. those in the desert and many people are backing out. os in theall it dav desert and they -- and many people are backing up. a report suggests jared kushner paid tax bills of zero, no federal tax dollars. we will go to jay in new york,

democrats line. caller: it is great to be on. i see your topic asking what the u.s. response should be. i think it is important for us to keep in mind that this is a president the goes around calling the press the enemy of the people and this reporter worked for the washington post. it is a good assumption to make that this president might be pretty gleeful. like it is a good thing because this guy goes around freezing right-wing dictators across the world, saying he has fallen love with kim jong-un, saying that putin is not too bad. this is right in line with his normal modus operandi. the right wing troglodytes who look at this guy like a god need to get in line. he does not believe in the constitution, he is a maniac. some it going to get killed or thrown in jail.

-- someone is going to get killed or thrown in jail. host: -- scolded firmly in public and privately allowed to carry on as usual. james, independent line. caller: good morning. a lot of the callers are blaming trump. in the middle east and much of the world, there is not a free press. in kuwait, it is a five-year prison sentence for making a joke. this is pretty common in parts of the world that did not have a free press. callers who are blaming trump, they are supportive of the monarchies interfering with the free speech rights of people in the states. lawsed to think about the in other states. host: are you listening on c-span radio?

caller: yes i am. host: we appreciate that. thanks for being with us. this tweet from hank saying why does america keep playing these games? saudi's funded 9/11, they murdered a journalist, we keep them for friends -- as friends for our corrupt politicians. mark gets the last word in california, independent line. caller: thank you for c-span. this $110 billion that our president keeps talking about. that is not a firm deal. that is a notice of intent. that't think personally people actually believe he is

alive. president trump keeps saying that but we don't know if he is alive. he is dead it's disgusting that we would politics overial somebody that has just been cut up and brought back to saudi arabia. from lizzie who agrees with you. try to have some common sense. the conversation continues on our facebook page or send us your tweets. coming up, we turn our attention to the midterm election. henry olsen will be joining us.

he is a senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center. is joining us in our next hour. following the washington journal, we have our newsmakers program. political action committee supporting female candidates. >> there is a story about 50,000 applications have been suspended for voter registration because their application didn't match other records. recruitment a policy priority for emily's list? how does recruitment fit into your overall strategy of

electing more women? prioritysuppression of for you? >> let's start with what happening in georgia. accident that suddenly we are having this conversation about held up registrations for african-american voters as we are looking to elect the first african-american woman as governor in our history. one ever thought that was possible. i've known her for a lot of years. that she knows what's going on in georgia. this is ridiculous. it's not an accident. nonpartisan sources are getting involved to say this is wrong. when we think about the importance of diversity in elected office, that's a priority. 40% of the women we have helped

elect have been women of color. we need to do even more. elect two ofck to the first native american women ever in the u.s. congress. you may not know this, texas have never sent a latina to congress and we will send to this year. of deliberatesult recruitment efforts by our partner organizations to get these women in the races early. that will continue to be a priority for us. the american people should want and expect. host: emily kane is our guest on newsmakers. she is the executive director of emily's list. 10:00. watch it at welcome back to henry olsen.

he is a senior fellow and the author of "the working class republican." the president's name is not on the ballot, is his record on the ballot this year? guest: i would say his personality is more on the ballot than his record. a number of people don't like who he is. northachieves a deal with korea is less important than they believe what his valleys are. -- values are. host: how do republicans run on that? they would have to continue to emphasize how this is the best economy in a long time, how they are stoking the flames with the tax cut. it's going to be very hard for them to do that is not have to address the president. in so many of these battleground

districts, his character is what is on the ballot. former republicans are more interested in the president. host: the president was in pennsylvania, last night in kentucky. we continue to carry them on c-span. what does that tell you about these rallies? guest: they are no longer news. a typicalent is president going out campaigning. the events were never held as a regular full-time broadcast. i think it's regularizing with the president is doing. it doesn't mean he is unimportant. it just shows he is more of a normal president. host: we sat down with jeff flake. he is stepping down and the

interview aired last night. i want to share with you part of what he said about the state of the republican party. run in a somebody does primary against the president. republicans need to be reminded of what conservatism really is and what it means to be decent. we haven't had that kind of politics lately. i fear for the future of the party if we don't remember who we are. we've got to get back to decency. week, the commemoration of john mccain's life, was an additional reminder of stark differences. party, as the republican we've got to get back to decency

that has characterized the party. >> some say it is the party of trump. >> it is disturbing. the president is who he is and he's not going to change. it's not so much what he says anymore, it's the cheers from people behind him. the chance of lock her up for example. that's just unseemly. it does make me fear it's going to be a longer process to get out of this than it should be. we will. we have to. anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy. host: a lot there to talk about. your reaction? were: i knew jeff when we heads of our state think tanks. i respect that. i think he's wrong about what conservatism represents.

book it's much more like barry goldwater minimal government. that's not where the republican party is. it's not where ronald reagan was. for all of donald trumps rhetoric represents that center of the republican party much more than jeff flake does. host: he said he is considering running for president in 2020. how likely is that? guest: i think he will get a primary challenge. he is to controversy all not to have one. if george h w bush could get pat buchanan, donald trump will get somebody. the question is how serious will that be? will it be somebody like pat kristol,or maybe bill and intelligent person who

represents a certain point of view. host: our guest is henry olsen. your message in the book is what? guest: half of the republican party represents the broad middle, the working class. that's what ronald reagan did. reagan democrats. was donald trump did it despite all of the way he's not like reagan in his rhetoric and ideas, he was the first candidate since reagan to go back to that. he got what we can now call our trump democrats in the same regions of the country. they want that broad center-right philosophy. host: one of those regions is west virginia. michael dukakis one west virginia in 1988. it is now a solidly republican

state. what has changed? guest: it's one of the more religious states in the country. 80's, they voted union over business. the democratic party has changed. it no longer speaks to represent the average working person. it seeks to represent certain identity politics interests. are directlyts opposed to the interests of west virginians. west virginia did not change its values. host: let's talk about three senate races. texas, it's getting a lot of attention. $38 o'rourke has raised million. guest: he's raised more overall. he is a very attractive candidate if you are a centerleft democrat. texas is a red state.

ted cruz has been ahead in virtually every poll. i would be shocked if beto o'rourke one. i wouldn't be shocked if it's closer than we expect. host: indiana. this is a state that should go to the republicans. we are not clear. joe donnelly has run a very good race and focused on what you winced expect -- would expect. suggestthe demographics he could close and when. host: north dakota. heidi heitkamp said she would vote against brett kavanaugh. she won six years ago by just under 2500 votes. there is a big issue with the native american population and whether they will be able to vote without proper id.

guest: that's because of a law that north dakota passed the required street addresses. the reservations argue they don't have streets. it's very heavily democratic, but it's a small population. 2012,howed her down in but not by 11 points. that is the likeliest seat to flip to the republicans. host: the senate will be? guest: it will be controlled by the republican party. host: who will be the speaker of the house? guest: a democrat. the question is whether or not enough people keep their promises and don't support nancy pelosi and they choose somebody else. a democrat will be the speaker.

the house will be flipping and the democrats gaining 35 seats. host: we are taking your phone calls. thank you for waiting. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. ofald reagan took advantage lewis powell's giving corporations the human right to speak. he was the first communication countryst to turn this to the acquisition of money. he changed our constitution from a human rights document to a corporate rights document. turnover inad the october with the takeover of our supreme court.

thank ronald reagan for taking over and taking out the national credit card and financing the takeover of the country so a -- as nong is have more value than a pork belly. guest: i will respectfully disagree. ronald reagan love the average american. he believed what he did what empower the average americans. it wasn't really until the great financial crash in 2008 that people began to be dissatisfied and open to more pre-reagan democratic views which were expressed by speaker pelosi and barack obama. most americans like the changes ronald reagan brought. host: you said the president could cause a higher turnout for

both parties. guest: i think he has caused a higher turnout in one party because democrats have been enthused since his inauguration. drivingcan be doing is turnout for his own party. i think his stance on brent kavanaugh energized a lot of partisan republicans who did not have that anger that tends to fuel turnout. i think his rallies will help. they may not be carried in their entirety. they are going to be broadcast throughout the state that he is visiting. that will send a message to republicans. i think the turnout gap will be much less. host: in addition to our coverage, they are all on her website as well at www.c-span.org. jacob from the bronx is on the democrats line. caller: good morning.

thank you for taking my call. please listen to me. don't go to violence. they don't deserve your vote. thank you. i think the elections are going to be conducted fairly as they have in the past. we will find a true expression of the will of the american people on election day. i think it will be a mixed verdict. i think the democrats will do very well in the house. the other parts of the country will come out in support the president and we will have close to a repeat of what happened in

2016 with a division between the coasts and the interior. host: the gop had better represent the working person. guest: that's been a liberal argument for decades. the challenge for the republican party is to genuinely embrace what reagan and trump have been saying, that we need to be focused on what works for the average person and not ideology. republican party does represent the working person. it helps generate jobs are people and understands how to advance that person. host: how me democrats run in 2020? guest: there will be many running. anduld expect between 10 15. i would expect seven to nine by the time i will votes. host: the list includes?

guest: kamala harris, elizabeth warren. garcetti theric mayor of los angeles, maybe mitch landrieu. bernie sanders. maybe joe biden, we will see if he has the energy at 78 to get in the race. john delaney has been running for eight months and has visited all 99 iowa counties. will be outclassed by the more serious contenders. there will be a lot of people who won't honor a lot of support but will be out there. host: kamala harris will be in iowa a week from tomorrow. she has on to south carolina. we will cover it for the c-span networks. joe is in missouri. .e are talking with henry olsen

it is new book is looking at reagan democrats. working union sheet metal worker. i do not listen to my union because they are only partisan toward democrats. inody is going to be trump primaries for the next election. we love this guy. mccain, theyohn are weaklings. john kasich, another weak sister. trump has taken over the republican party. look at his rallies. we love this guy. he has taken the base away from the democrats of construction workers. he has taken the democrat base away from them. he brought the factories back.

we love trump and nobody is going to beat him. host: before you hang up, how old are you? caller: 66. host: did you vote for ronald reagan? caller: yes i did it. twice. because he was strong. jimmy carter was weak. reagan took 49 states. host: thank you. guest: i think you just heard an excellent example of the person donald trump has excited. there are so many places the trump won that had not been carried by a republican. this is what people on the coast don't see and don't acknowledge. ,hey see their neighborhoods there is a reaction in one direction.

in other places, there is a reaction in the opposite direction. oft: ronald reagan 149 out 50 states. will we see another president winning by that type of landslide? would like to think that we have a lot of cycles left to go. forecasting out the next eight cycles is difficult. the politics is extremely divided. it's difficult for me to see someone weighing 354 electoral votes. you've got 40% on one side and 40% on the other. that broad middle seems not to be as dominant as it was when we were younger. host: you are generating a lot of tweets. there's a reason the republicans are mad. they need anger to vote. what happens when they have the

majority and their anger has no justification? people vote when they are motivated by something. anger tends to be more of a motivator than love or gratitude. i think a lot of republicans are angry. saw one side what one side sees as a justified raising of concerns. they sought as a cheap hack job. i'm not going to mediate that dispute. you have to acknowledge that's how both sides see it. that's going to drive some people to the polls that might have sat out. host: we welcome our listeners on c-span radio. we are talking with henry olsen from the ethics and public policy center. we are going to tom next on the

line for democrats. caller: i am going to bust your bubble for your gentleman. i was a conservative republican for nixon. i turned democrat for carter. i would like to hear from him. the republican party went the wrong way with reaganomics. what i heard at the trump rally was the country has been going the wrong way for 30 years. if you look at where we've been since reagan, we have had the republicans in control 80% of the time in congress. the senate for 80% of the time. they've been in control of the presidency for 50% of the time. in 1970, 90% of

democrats called themselves social democrats light bernie sanders. wages andmber one in living standards. after 30 years of this republican rule, maybe other people don't look over the whole somewherewe are now around the sixth highest living standard in the world. we are 18th in wages. i would like to know, where did the republican party go wrong. the average worker was making $16 an hour and now they can't get a nine dollar job. i think president trump is running in some part as a correction to the policies of the left. since 1980, the republican party has had control of the presidency in both chambers for

4.5 years. to argue that the republican isty has been in control contrary to fact. we tend to have divided government, which suggests we've got blame to spend around across both parties. that's what donald trump was running on. that attracted people who are both democrats and republicans who were upset. i think trump would like to bring back more of those $16 for our jobs. that's what his trade policy will do. now aa former republican democrat michael bloomberg was in new hampshire. does the guest think of bloomberg changing to the democrats? guest: it's no secret that the

mayor has wanted him to run for the last two cycles. mayor bloomberg decided wisely that there was no path for a third-party candidate. democrats, to the which is where he was before he changed to republican to run for mayor in 2001 indicates the possibility he may want to get into the race himself. formidablewould be a factor. it's not the only factor. he tends to be less than charismatic on the stump. he has a more centrist appeal. it would be interesting to see if they would cotton to someone's has not been part of their camp for so long. host: do you deny that trump is a pathological liar? the president does not

always tell the truth. that's pretty clear, if he does that with the knowledge if he is doing it or if he is indifferent to certain things. i'm not going to get inside his head. his appeal rests less on specifics and more on a broad sense of direction and morality. beenat side, he's surprisingly constant. prior to being a politician changed his views on a number of things. take a look at how he's been since he got in the arena. constant in his message. i think that is what voters are responding to. author ofguest is the "ronald reagan: new deal republican." will be with us for another half hour. i want to get your reaction to

this story. jared kushner paid a tax bill of zero. but me read you what they are writing. they have spent billions of dollars buying real estate. his investments have soared. his net worth has quintupled. senioreral years, the white house adviser appears to have paid almost no federal income taxes. there are many ways people in real estate can avoid taxes. if they lost a lot of money before the years that are looked at in the paper, well before donald trump became president, you can carry those losses forward. i don't know whether they are just good at tax lawyers or

whether there is something else going on. i think most people think it should be fair and just that someone pay taxes when they earn money. there should be laws that reestablish a minimum tax that has real bite on the wealthy rather than an alternative that hits higher income families that don't have the advantages of corporations and tax lawyers to reduce their bill. host: we haven't seen the presidents taxes. guest: i think it's clear that people have some of that information. it would be preferable if andthy people paid taxes did it in a way so that they couldn't use losses to offset their obligations in better years. i think every family goes through a time when they have to

draw down their savings and they don't get to carry the loss forward. reflectg that would fairness would be preferred. i think people who support trump have decided they think that a sharp business and not corruption. host: our guest is a senior fellow at the ethics and public policy fellow -- center. emily is in san francisco. good morning. good morning. i'm glad to see a republican on and learn a lot from him. atelieve anybody should look being a republican. just for the stake of what this president has done. i find him to the very refreshing and a man who works extremely hard and a man of peace. i see too much violence and i'm concerned about that.

even obama said in one of his speeches brothers, why the violence? everybody wants to know why is it. i think it is socialism. sophie carmichael thought he could find happiness. he went to cuba. he was discouraged. he went to russia. he was unhappy with that. i think we have to cut some of the violence because there are people trying to kill us in our country. host: we will get a response. guest: i think we see too much of that. we see people harassing senators in restaurants. we see people talk about violence and reactions that could spur people to violence. theould be worrying if

shooting at the congressional baseball game last year. think michelle obama counseled against that in the last week. they are playing a leadership role, saying don't let your hatred turn you to the dark side. host: patricia is in iowa. good morning. ander: yes, i was listening it's kind of amazing about what when this president rules through fear and anger. my comment is this administration has seemed to have forgotten the people and is more concentrated on the wealth and the money. the first thing they did was a

of tax plan that gave 4/5 1.5 trillion dollars to the 1%. that's just not right. becomeur presidency has a reality show. violence, the president in his rally earlier would say punch him in the face, beat him up, i will pay for it. i will represent you. if anyone incites violence, it's the president. tweet from another reviewer said trump is a man of peace, white he say he would pay the legal bills of supporters who attacked protesters? guest: with respect to the tax cut, i think the argument of

republicans is we live in a capitalist economy. we have to attract investment and people make investment decisions based on profit. the united states had among the highest corporate tax rates in the western world. if you're a multinational, in the u.k. you pay 19 and in the united states you pay 39. it lowered the corporate rate to the average. they hope in the long run that will spur more investment. that means a will be a good thing. if not, we can revisit it. host: joe manchin is seeking a second term. he is being challenged by the republican attorney general. he is ahead over patrick morrissey. guest: he has shown the strongest position of any of the threatened them across. for a taken more care

long time to be a moderate democrat, not just one who occasionally votes on the moderate line. i think it has paid off. he is likely to win. it is voted in favor of brent kavanaugh denied his opponent the last issue. host: two of the most competitive races are out west. one is in nevada. how would you size of that race? guest: two months ago, i would say heller is a dollar. 48% ofblican has gotten the vote in a long time. the polls are suggesting a lot of strength. tosuggests see me be able win. i think it's a tossup right now. it will depend on the latino turnout. in the past, they have turned

out in presidential races. if that happens again, not only will you see him win, you might see an upset in one of the congressional districts. host: the new york times has this cover story. guest: it depends. one of the things that democrats are talking about is abolishing ice, abolishing the customs and immigration service. oft strikes a majority people is the wrong idea. you have the possibility between being torn between an immigrant lobby and a progressive lobby that once open borders. a more moderate position would enforce laws but have open immigration. if the grandma kratz moved to the left, i think they open up the possibility of a split. host: the administration is

considering re-implementing the policy of separating families at the border. guest: that's a problem for them. people would like to see laws enforced humanely. if the president goes forward with something that separates families at the border, that will rebound against him and the republicans. i suspect they won't do anything before the demo -- midterms. i would counsel them against that, even if they think that deters families from migrating. americans want humanity in their government. they think separating mothers and children doesn't do that. host: let's go to stephen houston. caller: good morning, c-span. i would like to ask you a question and then make a couple of comments. as far as the middle-class

wages, years ago the ceos only got $40 to every one dollars of the workers. now they are making $300 for every one dollar. isn't it policy that if they cut back on that the money would go down and the workers would start being built back up again? that was my question. i love trump. -- tax breaksks would've gone in at 15%. i think the united states would've been more favorable for manufacturing jobs to come back here. socialists and fascist people, all i see is the democrats doing that. host: we will get a response. guest: i think that is something that worries people, that ceos

are making so much more than the average employee. if you cut them back to the old ratio, there are so many employees and only one person. you might get a better ratio, but it wouldn't improve the worker paycheck. it seems that people who gain from economic growth are managers and investors and not the line workers. donald trump pledged to reverse that in many ways. presidency rests on his ability to do that, whether it's through cutting taxes that will increase the amount of money available for everyone, but also through trade, whether you can change the incentives for people to bring jobs back to america. said theinternal poll tax cut is not a driving issue

in the election. we have lost the messaging battle on the tax cut. you believe that? guest: i do. for theoo complex average person to understand. people don't know if they are winners or losers. taxesnts about corporate has a long-term effect. there is nothing to point to. you can say this was the result. there was never a strong demand for it outside the corporate sector. ran on tax reagan cuts, that was in response to tax revolts. there was a voter demand for. there was no voter demand to cut taxes this time. you didn't have grateful voters receive a. you had voters saying i care about something else. host: does the debt matter?

another cut will add trillion dollars to the debt. guest: politically, it doesn't matter. the person who is not taking care of themselves and the plaque is building up in the arteries, it will matter when the heart attack comes. we should be taking care of this. there is little if any evidence that it has voter impact right now. nobody is thinking when they eat that cheeseburger. host: let's go to james in north carolina. good morning. caller: i have a two-part question. i just want to get his opinion on the fact that a lot of states have retooled their voting districts. what is his opinion about that?

is it more helpful for the democrats or republicans? i would like to put his ethics have on and ask him is he aware that there is 150,000 african-americans who had their voting rights questioned in the state of georgia. they collect the first african-american person from that state. host: thank you. changingting district on balance has helped republicans. i got my start 37 years ago as a redistricting analyst in california. was called gerrymandering has helped republicans in state legislatures and congress over the past decade. with respect to georgia, i've been reading reports.

it's 50,000. i want to know more about that. it's argued that registrations that were received need to have strict identification requirements. i would be very concerned with what happened if people were denied the right to vote. because of changes in the law 15 years ago, anybody can pack -- cast a provisional ballot. you can't prove your route -- registered, but you vote anyway. if you are one of those voters in georgia whose registration is held up, cast your ballot. you can have it counted afterwards. they gives you time to prove who you say you are. this is a piece from the washington post. a look at gerrymandering.

that is inside the a section. we will go to cheryl in virginia. thatr: i want to say 50,000 black votes were challenged. how many white votes were challenged? what thenderstand identity politics and demonization of white men. white guyserstand talking about the democrat party. they are trying their best to marginalize white men in this country. guest: with respect to the 50,000 votes, what i read is 50,000 registrations are being held up because they don't necessarily comply with new identity laws.

it's alleged the large number of them are african-american. i haven't seen a breakdown of them. again, the laws of identity are important. person castingne multiple votes. we did make sure that every person has the right to vote. anyone, if you're not on the roles on november 6, cast a provisional ballot. this is from steve saying americans to understand the tax cut. they know it benefits the 1%. that's an argument that democrats use. the argument republicans have is it's primarily a tax cut for corporations. it's a tax cut that should

produce greater investment in greater jobs. you've seen a number of companies announce wage increases. they say they could not have afforded that without the increase to their profits. i think this is an argument where we have a better sense in five or six years after they have a chance to make investments with this new law. we can see if it brought more investment to the united states. if it did, it's a success. host: let's go to alan in indiana. good morning. caller: good morning. god bless c-span. we appreciate you so much. i am going to agree with the gentleman. we are going to have to wait and see what's going to happen with these policies.

plan, it'she tax reaganomics. it's trickle down. it's the same thing. happen is next year we will have a recession. it's going to start out at 1.4 trillion with the deficit. we are going to add to the debt. can we actually go bankrupt? all the tax plan is going to do .s put more money into the top we have more billionaires than ever before. that money is not in the economy. see whatthink we will happens in a few years. the debt and the deficit is a concern. it's not really motivating

voters right now. if we had another deep recession, we would be borrowing and we don't have as much leeway as we did 10 years ago. southwest, the race is surprisingly close. arizona is a state that normally elects republicans. it's also a state with a large number of educated white people who don't like president trump. they can't seem to break 47%. that seems to be a ceiling for her. if that's the case, we could see a last-minute surge and a republican upset. host: what about jeff flake? does he have a voice in this race? guest: he is lost the confidence of arizona republicans.

his favorability rating is quite low among arizona republicans. voice, he should probably not exercise it. tennessee is one the democrats touted because the candidate is a very popular governor. it's a republican state. they've been responding. she now it and almost all the polls. host: we are going to randy in san diego. caller: thanks very much for letting me on. i want to tell your audience that ronald reagan is the father of nafta. he passed the take our companies out of michigan and move them to canada and mexico. idea onto george herbert walker bush who negotiated that deal.

he signed that agreement. it was passed through the republican congress and put on bill clinton's desk. the damage it's done, took eight most powerful economic engines in michigan and destroyed our economy. it lowered wages. it killed michigan. i want our speaker to answer my question. are -- that left michigan are coming back and when? guest: i can't speak specifically to michigan. reagan talked about the north american common market. it was passed under bill clinton's administration. a lot of these things, you have to look at the whole. investment and auto

plants outside michigan. there is a bmw plant in south carolina. you have toyota in kentucky. ismay be what you find investment occurs in other states. michigan requires more content to be produced. mercedes and bmw started talking about sourcing more of their parts from the united states. it may not come to michigan. that's not a bad thing. i am sorry about michigan. maybe people who seek their future need to seek it elsewhere. host: this is a tweet from catherine. we have seen a lack of courtesy and empathy by the republican party. they have shown who and what they are. they do not respond.

guest: i think republican would argue they were shown a lot of discourtesy if we are talking about the cap hearing. the president speaks in a way many people find between offensive and repulsive. he may be speaking less that way. senator flakehat says about courtesy. it would be preferable if the president adopted a more courteous tone. he needs to fight back. he needs to fight back. he needs to fight back more politely when he feels he's being unfairly attacked. that's one of the things his supporters find as a virtue. host: right now, bill nelson is withinning a narrow lead the margin for error. the governor has not been able to break that. guest: rick scott has one two

races as governor by one point. he never hit a majority of the vote. times when iy few say it comes down to turn out. this is going to come down to turn out. do african-americans come out and vote? rick scott one because of the turnout drop off. if that happens again, he may have a narrow victory. if they come out in large numbers, bill nelson will prevail. andrew gillam is the first african-american nominee for the governorship in florida. he won the primary because of an unexpected surge in turnout. if he produces that in the general election probably, -- election, that will carry him to victory. host: we have another full week of debates, including the debate

in the ohio senate race. you can get the complete schedule at www.c-span.org. the base we have covered are on our website. good morning. caller: 30 years ago, we had a president who didn't and around the congress. whowe have a president wants to deliver arms to murderers. that doesn't sound very conservative to me. guest: i think we will see what happens with saudi arabia. whatever happened to the journalists is an awful thing. if they murdered him, that is particularly awful and some consequences will be paid. they are not the only country in the world that murders dissidents. we had a journalist in bulgaria

that was raked in murdered. we have evidence that vladimir putin sends agents to use poison devices out of james bond films to kill dissidents in the united kingdom. the chinese government is imprisoning people right now in detention cap's. mps.a think veryneed to carefully about what the repercussions would be a following our heart rather than our head in foreign relations. host: from florida, john. thanks for waiting. caller: i just don't understand how anybody can vote for the democratic party when they resorted to dirty pool. disgrace tos is a her party.

i think between the tweets that were read how differently democrats and republicans view these events. the side sees the other as aggressor. each side sees the other as ill motivated. that is why we have partisan tensions rising. it's why we will have a high turnout. when people are upset, they see the other side in the wrong. it will be very interesting to see the turnout. host: jane is in new york. are you with us? we will try one more time. caller: can you hear me? we are going to have to move on. we will go to barbara in virginia beach. maybe the comment is

journalist was killed by somebody to create problems? guest: thank you for that comment. i think we don't know what happened. we know he walked in and didn't walk out. we know the turks allege that he was tortured and murdered. we don't know what the evidence they have advanced. that has not been made public. there is a lot the public doesn't know. what we think we know is worrisome. we should suspend judgment until we know more. i hope the president and his team are receiving all the evidence and wayne it carefully. turkey and saudi arabia are friends of ours. it would be dangerous to choose one or the other in the absence of evidence. host: the crown prince is putting together a. close in the

desert. saying they are not going to go. steve mnuchin is still going to go. i think based on what the government seems to know now, he probably should go. it's a question of our relationship with the saudi government. the same is true if we take a hard line on these positions. the unfortunate fact is billions of people in the world are governed by regimes who don't people the wayr a liberal democracy thinks they should. evidenced out there is that the saudi government was involved in the murder of this dissident, i think we should

consider sanctions. the would include withdrawal of representation. host: the book is called "the working class republican." thank you for being with us. please come back again. khanna up, steve kornacki joins us from new york. he is a political reporter. first, one of the debates we covered last night in wisconsin. they challenged each other in the >> that is why i believe the actions of senator baldwin cheapens the me too movement. the me too movement is when there are serious allegations that have in corroborated. i believe something happened to

dr. ford. i do not believe judge kavanaugh was the person that perpetrated that on her. there was nothing to corroborate that. importanty it is so that we have people who are willing to listen and follow through on due process. sen. baldwin: has shown us -- n she is not: has show interested in doing this. with keithy stands goodwin, but she has been endorsed by him. here is the case where the accused person, the woman has put the allegation forward has serious medical reports showing the extent to which she was allegedly victimized. up by hernd beaten boyfriend.

in that case, a serious me too movement. , you cannot be there for judge kavanaugh. >> now, an opportunity to respond. >> i'm going to clean up a bit here. she is lying again. the way you make an appointment with a nominee is to go through the nominator, which is the white house. i am among dozens of senators who are denied the chance to meet with him. i do not know if they are going into protection mode, but that is the truth. best voting attendance record in the entire senate and house delegation at 99.6%. i wanted to note that.

the questions are asked by the panel. >> not showing up to seven out of 10 opioid task force hearings. that is the record of my opponent. i went to get to the question. there is lots of reasons people do not speak up. some do not believe they will be listened to. some do not believe they will be believed. ford came forward with great loss to herself and her family. she thought it was her civic duty. we have to create a world where people can do that. some of the victims in the catholic church take decades to speak out. it does not have to be corroborated. host: you can watch that debate and all of our debate coverage

on our website at c-span.org and get complete scheduling information. a lot more debates in the next few weeks. we hope you tune in. joining us from new york is steve knowlton kornacki -- is steve kornacki. he as an msnbc political correspondent. thank you for being with us on c-span. guest: thank you for having me. host: over the weekend in new hampshire, michael bloomberg, the former mayor of new york who ,witched to become a democrat there is speculation he may be a candidate in 2020. your reaction to this race. i'm so used the cable news that leads into the soundbite. i apologize.

the bloomberg news to me is mainly -- the new attitude that i think potential candidates are taking. i think a lot of the things that would've held back candidates and the past would have made them wonder, this is not the right time. i think a lot of those things are suspended in people's minds. there is a sense that if donald trump can get there, maybe i can get there. i think you're going to see perspective democratic candidates air on the side of giving it a try. it does not mean they are going to go forward with a full-fledged campaign. it does not mean they are going to last to iowa and answer. -- and new hampshire. i suspect that when we get into the early months of next year, i expect it to be as big on the democratic side if not bigger

than it was on the republican side back in 2016. you do have those two separate debates -- they had to have those two separate debates. . i am expecting we will see something similar. i have all sorts of questions about whether bloomberg is a good fit for where the democratic party is. whether the idea of a bloomberg candidacy would make sense. that he think the fact has taken a look at it, he will not be the only one that might surprise you. host: we learned that senator kamala harris will be in iowa later this month. guest: bright. -- right. before the kavanaugh hearing took the turn with the accusations, a thing i was seeing in particular was some jockeying among members of that

tomittee, democratic members really show the democratic base. to get the attention of the democratic base. cory booker, maybe kamala harris. amy klobuchar got a little attention too. -- atinteresting to see this point looking ahead to a presidential campaign, that was pretty easy to come up with a list of hey, these are probably the five strongest candidates. maybe even to start ranking them. i cannot begin to give you a list. i can give you someone who might be the strongest and they could easily be the weakest. host: congressman beto o'rourke running against senator ted cruz in texas, $38 million in the last quarter. is that enough to turn a red state blue? guest: if he fails, it will not

be because of money. i think that is the national reality for democrats. if they fall short of their goals, i do not think that money is going to be the thing that we look back on and say that is the reason why. in texas, what he seems to be up against is just the fact that it is texas. they voted by -- he voted for donald trump by nine point. that was down from the 16 that mitt romney won texas by an 2012. there was some movement away from trump and towards the democrats. the democrats have been making this noise or sometime about making texas blue. it has been 30 years since a democrat has won a senate race. the last time a texas -- that texas has voted democratic. the political gravity -- not

just texas. we saw polling in a number of states where on the senate side, the idea of political gravity may be asserting itself. in tennessee were democrats had -- philes about phil bryant us in -- construct movement back to the republican side. we maybe have seen it in some other states. whether it was kavanaugh are something that was inevitably going to happen, i get the sense that in these deeply red states, where the senate races are being held, there is been some solid movement to the republicans over the last week. i think candidates like beto o'rourke are up against that. host: we are talking with steve kornacki. his new book, the red and the blue. we should point out that charles lane of the washington post has a review in inside today's

lesson can post. he writes the following, the country emerged from the 1990's, into two political groupings. americans chose sides and dug in. it is the same basic framework we know today. how did we get there? guest: it is interesting to set it up with the end of the cold war, which is the start of the 1990's. think of the major event that cap's off the decade. that is election night 2000. november 7, 2000. the closest thing to a perfect tie we have seen. you watch that map fell in that night -- fill in that night. then being sent into overtime with a 36 day recount.

what the country was left to stare at was not just a near perfect tie but also a picture of division. a picture of deep geographic division. the entire south republican. the northeast blue. the pacific coast blue for the democrats. the interior of the country red for the republicans. it was an illustration of how divided we were. those colors on that map had really meant nothing before the 1990's. they were randomly assigned on election night by the networks. there were some years they made the republicans blew. -- there were some years they made the republicans blue. we lucked this map up and saw the divisions. we tried to figure out how it happened. there was a moment during the recount in 2011 when david letterman said, i have a solution to this impacts --

impact the country is in. why don't we let al gore be the president of the blue states? . it was kind of a novel way of looking at it. that was the reality of the divide that was created by the political wars of the 1990's. bill clinton versus newt gingrich. the republican revolution of 1994. the government shutdown in 1995. all of these in the political world, these seismic events were taking place. they essentially cumulatively forced americans to choose sides. election,in the 2000 which i think is the product of the 1990's. i know the map has changed a little bit here and there. the concepts of red states and --e states, that is been that has been what has defined our politics. host: for those who do not remember, here is how your

-- election results continue to come in. >> what the networks give us, the networks take away. nbc news is now taking florida out of vice president gore's problem. -- vice president gore's column. that is been the position of governor bush throughout the evening. we are told that a few moments ago, jeb bush told his dad that we will not know about florida until at least midnight. host: steve kornacki, bring back memories? guest: one of the fun parts about writing the book was, i am writing about a period of american political history where rich is a rich bu -- a video library available. it was very achievable for me to

go back and relive these moments as we all watch them -- as we all watched them. i can remember watching with all of the twists and turns. the other thing about that night , not just the fact that it was the red and blue and the creation of that, it was just the fact that that was the first time in a generation, that we even had a suspenseful election night. that was one of the reasons the colors had never really meant much to the networks. in the era of the colored televisions, think about all of the landslides that coincided. 1972, richard nixon wins 49 states. gets 40 in 1988. clinton did not win and quite as bit of a landslide, but those

were not quite as suspenseful elections. it was almost a novelty in 2000 when you went into election night not knowing who was going to win it. just the emotions of the night. polling so widely from one direction to the other. florida gets called for al gore early in the night. then they are looking at the results at the screen. bush is still leading florida. then it gets hold back. -- a gets pulled back. they are talking about who is going to be in the cabinet. then they pull that back. we are launched into an unprecedented place in american politics. they went over time for 36 days. are they going to count this county or that county? how are they going to count a chad, d remember that -- do you remember that? a 5-4 supremeby

court decision. that ends up deciding the election. the division of that period has not gone away. host: the seeds of that division you point out were planted in the 1980's. we are talking with steve kornacki. i want to talk about newt gingrich. i want to show one of the moments that you referred to in your book. for newt gingrich, congressman bob michael was one of the leaders that -- he spent every day since at the mercy of democrats. they were becoming a guerrilla army, looking to reroute the democrats -- looking to provoke the democrats into becoming fellow warriors. this moments, one of the most famous moments in c-span history. [video clip] >> how during the eisenhower

administration, we were the people that later on the nixon people were opposed to. you not say anything about things of that nature. very interesting. my personal opinion is that you deliberately stood on that well and challenged these people. you challenge their americanism. it is the lowest thing i have ever seen in my 32 years in congress. time, lety reclaim my me say first of all, -- >> i move we take the speaker's words down. course, trent he went on to serve in the senate. why was that a seminal moment in american politics? guest: that was the turning point in newt gingrich's career. i think it is the turning point in the republican party. the modern history of the

republican party. gingrich went on to lead it. he stopped being this backbencher, which is what he had been. he was only in his third term in the house when that played out. newt gingrich had been elected to the house in 1978 on his third try. republicans had been the minority party. they look like a permanent minority party. we did not have midterm elections when republicans were 10 to 13 seats away from taking the house. there is the kind of -- it was just a given election to election that democrats were going to run the house. 60 -- going to be nearly merely 60? they started to call it the permanent democratic congress. of 79ch came in january -- of 9079. he said i am going to lead you

to the majority someday. most of them kind of dismissed them as a crazy guy. all sorts of freshmen newcomers who have wild ideas and we stop talking about them. that is what would they thought newt gingrich was. discoveredtools he -- he is trying to get attention. he is trying to get an audience. the big three networks at that point, the major newspapers, they were the only way to break through in the media. he was looking for a way around that. he discovered c-span. the c-span camera arrived in the house chamber and 1975. he recognized there was an opportunity there. he can play to an audience that was watching nationally. not so much to his colleagues in the chamber. he became claiming his time.

any member could claim the floor and talk about whatever they wanted. in general, nobody used this time for anything. maybe they would read something into the congressional record congratulating a local little league team just to get into the record. gingrich starts cleaning this time. most of his colleagues do not think anything about it. gingrich and his allies start using it. they are not really talking about things that are in legislation in front of congress. they are talking about national ideas. it is this idea -- gingrich wanted to nationalize politics. he wanted to make it a clearly defined republican party. a republican party that would offer a conservative opportunity in society. he wanted to contrast that with the democratic party that was offering what he was calling a liberal welfare state. he wanted that to be the choice that every voter was making on every election on their ballot.

these speeches on the house for were aimed on doing that. he had a couple of his allies where they were trying to portray the democratic party as very extreme on foreign policy. they called democratic members by name on the house floor who it sent a letter to daniel ortega. dante,ressed it as deer, gingrich and his allies were shredding this. that is the sort of -- the genesis of that moment where it culminates. -- one othertially aspect of it is that o'neill got thatamera to pan to show gingrich was talking to an empty chamber. it is newt gingrich and his third term baiting the speaker

of the house -- he is the face of the permanent democratic majority. he baits and into a fight -- he baits him into a fight on the house for. o'neill has work in house rules. he personally attacked another member. saying it is the lowest thing i have seen in 32 years. he had to have his words taken down. it is the first time a speaker of the houses words had been taken down. the whole house chamber was packed. this was in both sessions. he leave the chamber. he leaves to a standing ovation. it is a turning point. they do not understand what he was doing. they understood after that. they understood what it felt like an looked like. they started hearing from their own voters, why aren't you doing more of that?

they started seeing that was what was working with their base. they had been stuck in a minority for three decades. gingrich was the first one to come along and make things happen. that started a rapid rise. host: mo is joining us from herndon, virginia. good morning. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. i do not trust either party. they both are in it for personal gain. remember trojan horse? russians for many decades tried to destroy america. they could not. finally, they made a trojan horse called donald trump. send it to america and bring division.

-- it is going to bring division. pain-and-suffering. you.ca -- thank host: a response? --st: what is interesting the first comment about not trusting either party. that is such a broad and powerful sentiment. it is interesting because there are two different things going on with the political parties. i write about the red and the blue and the idea we're divided into tribes. organizationally have been weakened because that sentiment exists within both parties. the power of the party to -- ite things to voters think that has never been weaker. i think people have come to identify with the democratic party or the republican party --

with the idea of blue and red america -- they are must identify with them culturally now. it is almost part of their identity. the values that are represented by the people who identify with the party. there was a poll in 2016 that jumped out at me. it asked people, would you be bothered if your son or daughter married someone from the other political party? among democrats and republicans, the answer was yes in a more than 60% of the responses. those are numbers used to look at for interracial marriage. lookingt really about at position papers and saying, i think the republicans are right on capital gains taxes but i like the democrats on this one. it is much deeper. it is become more cultural. i think that is one of the things that happened in the 1990's. it is a must a merger of

politics and media culture. it made the lines of division so much more deeper and more personal. past week on msnbc, you brought up a photograph of bill clinton, hillary clinton, timber gore, and al gore on the campaign trail in 1992. you made the point that three out of the four people in the picture would win the popular vote for the presidency. that is an interesting point. guest: that makes the 1992 election and the rise of bill clinton such a major point in a modern -- in modern political history. i introduced the moments there that i think about a lot, this great what if in democratic politics. on the even of the 1992 presidential primaries -- on the eve of 1992 presidential

primaries, the filing deadline was december 20 1991. right until that day, there was a question as to whether mario cuomo would run for president. he passed away a couple years ago. around, thetill governor of new york. for those who do not remember what he was at that moment, he towered over democratic politics. the polls show that he got in the race, you probably triple up -- that if he gotten the race, he would probably triple up bill clinton's support. this all stemmed from his keynote address. i tell people that if you remember barack obama giving the keynote address in boston and 2004 -- in 2004 and how he was able to ride that to the white house, cuomo had that potential. there he is trying to decide whether to get on a plane.

he is charted a plane from albany to new hampshire. is he going to get on it and deliver his filing papers to the secretary of state and get on the ballot or is he going to stay out of the race. of course, he does stay out of the race. that opens everything up for bill clinton. clinton,ton, hillary the clinton wars of the 1990's have been a major and constant part of our politics for 25 years. 26 years to be exact. i was struck i it. if you're -- i was struck by it. it was the second presidential debate. that access hollywood tape about donald trump had broken days before the debate. what was donald trump's response? how did he try to handle it? he brought all of bill clinton accusers to the debate within. 20 plus years later. it is still driving our politics. still playing a factor.

what if mario cuomo gets on that plane? what if he wipes out bill clinton in 1992? it is a major what if that i found myself thinking about. host: you mentioned the speech in san francisco. mario cuomo delivered the speech and flew back that evening. here's part of what he told the democrats. [video clip] a in many ways, we are shining city on a hill. not everyone is sharing in the city's slender -- the city splendor. or everyone seems to be doing well -- there is another city. there is another part of the shining city. the part where some people cannot pay their mortgages. where most young people cannot afford one. where students cannot afford the

education they need. middle-class parents what's the dreams they -- parents watch the dreams they hold to their children evaluate. there -- the children evaporate. more families in trouble. more families who need help and cannot find it. there are elderly people who travel in the basements of the houses. there are people who sleep in the city streets and the gutter where the glitter does not show. there are ghettos were thousands of young people without a job or education give their lives away to drug dealers every day. there is despair, mr. president. in the face is that you do not see. in the places that you do not visit and your shining city. -- in your shining city. this is a nation --

[applause] mr. president, you ought to know tot this nation is more cities than it is just a shining city on a hill. host: the speed by then governor mario cuomo. -- the speech by then governor mario cuomo. the book is called the red and the blue. we will get back to your phone calls. long beach, california. caller: i was wondering with the fake news accusations always and the red and blue divide, how can as a democrat, we find a way to reach the republicans or trump supporters to give them our view where they might trust us? i know -- washington journal is

my favorite place to go where you can get both sides. it still does not get to the general public. what kind of strategy can democrats do to make people that are not even just the in politics -- not even interested in politics find out what drives the? with global warming and everything, there are important things that are happening. we do not get to that because there are too many other chaotic things happening. host: thank you for the call. steve kornacki. guest: when i talk about political tribalism and the rise of red and blue, media is intertwined with all of this. you talk about the ideas that newt gingrich had of nationalizing politics. there was a certain inevitability with the evolution of media. you think about from a generation ago where was the big

three networks. the big three broadcast networks. you had cnn that was created in 1980. they started to become a major player in the 1990's. cnn in those days was doing a part of politics. it was doing a lot of world news. a lot of 30 minute newscasts during the day. msnbc and fox news the not come along until 1996. you just had this proliferation of viewing choices. you also had the internet, social media, facebook, twitter, everything else. there is just all sorts of channels of communication that are available now that are conducive to political tribalism. to the idea of going and finding a source for news on the internet. a twitter feed that you want to follow. whatever it happens to be.

that aligns with your sense of the world. the risk always with that sort of thing is it become self reinforcing. if you are only hearing from people who share the worldview, that perpetuates certain things. that does not necessarily expose you to what you might have been exposed to before. i am not longing for the good old days of the big three networks. that is -- there is a reality where there were all sorts of undercurrents. all sorts of things that were not being covered and part of the national conversation in the media and politics but were there. newt was one of them. ross perot was one of them. pat buchanan was one of them. they recognized the undercurrents and brought them a little more out into the open. they were always there. our media before was

insufficient to cover the. -- to cover that. i wonder if we will get to a nowe somehow 20 years from where we look back at this era of our politics as being a messy but necessary bridge to something better. host: this program is airing live on the bbc parliament channel. we welcome our viewers on -- viewers in great britain. our guest is steve kornacki. i want to go back further to the 1970's. you're right, in the pre--- political talk was not seen as a moneymaker. --n one of bc's powerful when one of d.c.'s powerful , the stationhed decided to experiment. was the beginning of

the political and media career of patty can. pat buchanan -- of pat buchanan. pat buchanan was a nixon speechwriter. he started on and on these radio station in -- and all news radio station and washington, d.c.. it was a left and right pairing. when they changed the format in the 1970's, the drivetime show was supposed to be the comedian mort saul. it was a political debate show. that was drawing the audience. longthere, it did not take to make the jump to television. the creation of cnn a couple years later and then cnn launches a television version, which is crossfire. it is pat buchanan on the right

and a liberal from california on the left. every night for half an hour on cnn. debating the issues. the show was a hit. it made pat buchanan. he was not running for office in the 1980's, but he was gaining the reputation of a politician. particular an major force in american politics. he ended up parlaying that into a series of presidential campaigns that astounded the political establishment. it scared a lot of people in his party. he was running on some issues that his party did not think had a lot of support in the republican base. you can showed that they did. host: david is joining us from oklahoma city. caller: good morning.

i would like to ask your guest, what exactly is the democratic party for? everything i have heard is what they are against. it seems like all of your news reporters are part of a clinical arm. they only give their opinions. host: thank you, david. ,he issue of opinion journalism which we have seen on fox and msnbc and cnn. guest: i think that is one of those -- that has come with this explosion in media availability. moving away from the old model of broadcasting. think about the term. you are trying to get as broad an audience as possible in the old days. you wanted to have democrats, republicans, you wanted to have liberals, you wanted to have conservatives. you wanted the advertising dollars that came with that. along inevision comes

the 1980's and every year, millions of people are getting cable boxes. it starts with cnn in 1980. it is not really take off until the mid-1990's. that is when fox and msnbc were created. i know the long-standing criticism on the right that journalism is a major national -- new journalism in particular has a liberal bent to it. the fox news channel and 1996 was showing a way to capture -- you are not going for the broadest audience possible, but you can find a quarter of the market in cable. you can be wildly successful with that. roger ailes in 1996 had produced rush limbaugh's television show. he had been with nixon and george h.w. bush. he's all those through rush limbaugh.

-- he's all those through rush limbaugh. there was an audience on the right who were very dissatisfied with the idea of the mainstream media. there have been -- fossett not the only one doing this. -- fox is not the only one doing this. there was a lot more opinion that is out there right now in the media been there certainly was a generation or two ago. you start looking for something -- this is one of the things and -- thatderstood newt understood. he was telling them that they were being trampled on by the democrats. once he got them to start looking for it, they started seeing it a lot. looking for bias and bias against your side, you are going to start seeing it.

host: this review from charles lane this morning and the washington post -- in the washington post. a review on the block out by our guest, steve kornacki. donna from st. louis, good morning. caller: good morning. this is not part of what i was going to say, but i watched a lot of buchanan over the years. i was a delegate to the convention in long beach. i am proud of the. -- i am proud of that. the reasons the democrats had control of the house for so long, republicans fought every major thing that benefited most people from the beginning. social security, medicare, medicaid, obamacare. since the republican appointed fiveme court voted for the

on there for the citizens united decision, the rich and powerful can spend unlimited money anonymously on negative ads. the republicans have had control of congress for most of that time. the republicans do not want to be primary with the negative money. now, russian money is in on it. spending all of the money on facebook. secondly, the word is rain washing. the russians -- is brainwashing. the russians are experts. trump benefits from it. host: let me go back to your first point about pat buchanan. patwrite the following, buchanan declared his candidacy. the contrast was irresistible. george h.w. bush with his faith in international coalitions called for a new world order and called for a policy that made his --

he saw himself as a working man's -- are there parallels to what we see with donald trump? guest: i think you can see in the story of pat buchanan and the 1990's -- in the 1990's, you can hear the footsteps of donald trump coming a generation later. buchanan and trump intersected in a dramatic way. that buchanan sent out to run -- pat buchanan sent out to run his campaign and he was challenging george bush. that was taken as a protest vehicle. bush had famously said, read my lips, 90 taxes. he then -- no new taxes. he then turned around and raise them anyway. buchanan raised against -- buchanan ran against bush in 1982. -- in 1992.

there had been predictions that it was going to be the economic and the desert -- the vietnam in the desert. the economy was cratering by the end of 1991. bush was getting trouble -- getting in trouble. buchanan in 1992 did much better than expected. it was a low moment for bush. you can and did pretty well. -- buchanan did pretty well. the consensus on buchanan as a candidate was they were conservatives who did not like that bush raised taxes. buchanan goes back to television for a few years. he runs in 1996. he starts off and gets about 2% in the polls. it is in the 1996 campaign that you start to see this.

buchanan was running on the idea of tearing up bad trade deals. reviving american manufacturing. building a fence along the border. on oil --r moratorium on immigration. he thought immigration have been raised to rapidly. thethat the tradition of american culture was being threatened by that. this was the pat buchanan who in 1996 nearly beat bob dole in iowa. bob dole was called the president of iowa at that point. buchanan one the new hampshire primary. togives -- it is interesting go back and watch. buchanan was a wordsmith. giving the victories beat, he talked about how he is going to

-- how the republican establishment will be out to get him. he called his supporters that he can in brigade. he said amount up and rise to the guns. it was an insurrection against the republican establishment and the media. there were shades of trump in terms of the message and what he was appealing to. up2000, buchanan and declaring the republican -- buchanan ends up -- 1999i should say. he says he is going to run for the nomination. who's that's up to run against him, donald trump -- who steps up to run against him, donald trump. donald trump takes a visit to the museum of tolerance. he comes out and tells reporters that he wishes pat buchanan would go too.

in the end, trump backs out of the race because buchanan is cleaning his clock when it comes to organizing. buchanan had him beat hands-down. -- his way out of the race is to write an op-ed where he talks about how he enjoys the experience. he looked at the people who were supporting patty cannon and decided -- supporting pat buchanan like david duke and decided that he did not want their support. he said, maybe i will do it again someday. host: let's go to john in fairfax, virginia. caller: good morning. i am really impressed by the quality and personalities of the impress -- of the personalities on msnbc. i always learn something new.

i would like you to cover the issues of initiatives on the state ballot. i would like c-span to develop some time to the issues on the ballot for people running. i think that is something that is not covered enough. host: thank you, john. guest: i have to admit -- that is probably the area where i am most deficient. i hate to disappoint the color -- the caller. politics have become so nationalized. that was the vision i thought about newt gingrich having. the events that are driving national politics and the media. increasingly, we see them driving voters up and down the ballot.

still a lot to the adage that all politics are local. we are seeing this trend to where people are seeing this -- they are seeing what happens through the media. what we are losing -- we used to have at the start of the 1990's what we called split ticket voters. someone goes in to the booth and checks a republican for congress, a democrat for president. that is vanishing. host: we should point out that we will be focusing on some of these a la initiatives. we will have the result on -- on some of these ballot initiatives. your prediction for the senate is what? guest: it seems pretty indisputable based on the polling of the last few days.

the landscape has moved dramatically and the republicans favor. one way you might look at it -- for the democrats to have a chance of taking the senate on election night, they are going to have to win one of the following three states. north dakota, tennessee, or texas. that does not give them the senate. that gives them a chance. that is the threshold they have to meet. they have to protect high camp in north dakota or get one of the pickups in tennessee or texas. you had high camp down 12. she voted against the kavanaugh nomination. i have seen some theories that people will be inspired by her shell of independence. that cap and it may not help her in north dakota -- that kavanaugh vote might not help her in north dakota.

we had our poll over the summer -- in the last 10 days, there have been polls showing him behind 14 points. there is pretty clear and big movement there. the idea of political gravity reasserting itself. you go down to texas. the most recent poll put ted cruz up by nine points. that is on the heels of a number of others. seen in thathave aheadas shown ted cruz except for one. if you look at that, if cruise hangs on and if republicans hold in tennessee and high camp can't miracle, i do not see any path for democrats in the senate. host: william, thank you for holding. caller: good morning.

toad a question with regards trump, but you guys pretty much answered my question. i have another question. i am a big fan of your work. my question is, can you make a nixon'son to richard silent majority to donald trump's silent majority. what is different and similar between the two? guest: thank you for the compliment their. is -- there is a connection there in pat buchanan. the nixon electoral strategy was something that pat buchanan helped to shape. i guess the difference in terms

of next and his framing of the silent majority and what you see with trump is i think you see a lot more spear i knew in trump -- a lot more spiro agnew in trump. nixon was a lot more cautious in his public presentation. there was a lot more nuance to what nixon was trying to do. spiro agnew was the attack dog. they would unleash him to go against the national press in a way that was shocking at the time. it was jarring to the press at the time. there are parallels with donald trump today. two or three weeks into his campaign, it was that rally down in mobile, alabama where jeff sessions was on stage. that is where he said we are bringing back the silent

majority. host: you brought up west virginia in the book. it was a state that went for michael dukakis. it has since been viewed as a republican state. also in 1988, the governor of arkansas making his debut with a speech nominating michael dukakis. a speech that went on and on. after that speech, he appeared on the tonight show. [video clip] >> thank you for coming here tonight. my first question is how are you? [applause] >> fine. >> it is great to have you here. i mean that sincerely. the first time we met, he walks in and says, -- i thought it was great that you came on the show. host: steve kornacki.

bill clinton receiving a lot of flak for that speech. guest: what a fascinating moment to look back at. we can think now -- there was a temptation to think it was a lighthearted moment. his political future seemed to be in crisis after that speech at the atlanta convention in 1988. he set out at a very young age to get to the white house. he set out on a path from arkansas to the presidency. we mentioned the cuomo speech earlier. this, billk about clinton showed up at the 1984 democratic convention trying to get attention. he went to all of the delegate breakfasts and the donor meetings. he got a small speaking spot at the convention. he talked after a video truman

-- a video tribute to harry truman. clinton gives a nice beach about harry truman. -- a nice speech about harry truman. cuomoutes later, mario walks onto the stage. he did not seem to want it. he finished his speech and walked offstage and flew back to new york that night. he seems to show no interest. bill clinton wants to run for president and seems ready to run. shockingly at the time, he pulls out at the last minute. it is clear in hindsight that there were a lot of concerns with the gary hart scandal. he had just been pushed out of the democratic race. bill clinton had to sit out 1988. michael dukakis asked bill clinton to give a speech at the

convention. clinton, this is his chance to be mario cuomo. he was given an equally powerful spot. they overstocked the speech. they put every thought they had never had into it. in the middle of the speech, he is going on and on. the broadcast networks pull away from the speech. he gets to this line toward the end of the speech where he says, in closing. the whole hall breaks out into sarcastic applause. ,linton is looking at it like you needed a certain -- he needed to be taken seriously by the national media. he was very worried. the johnny carson appearance was a chance to show he can take a joke. he can laugh at himself. up inears later, he shows

1992 as the nominee. are, ist words he gives came here to finish that speech i started four years earlier. host: what was your big take away in researching this book? guest: there was a certain amount of inevitability to the polarization and tribalism that we find ourselves dealing with today. i do not think it had to happen the way it happened. it not have to happen how it happened. i tried to write the story of my view of how it did happen. host: the red and the blue. the 1990's and the birth of political tribalism. steve kornacki is national political correspondent for nbc news. we thank you for being with us. guest: thank you. i really appreciate it. host: also from nbc last night, snl. [video clip] >> at midnight, it is interns

gone wild. first, full coverage of the overall -- of the oval office meeting between president trump and jim brown -- and tim brown. discussed were alternate universes and superman's flying cars. -- we the president trump go to president trump. [applause] >> thank you all for joining us today. this is in no way a publicity stunt. this is a serious private conversation between three friends plus 50 reporters with cameras. i am proud to welcome kanye west. an amazing guy. thank you for coming. >> yeah that is right. i flew here using the power of his hat. >> that is terrific. we also have hall of fame running back and civil rights

advocate jim brown. how are you feeling, jim? >> already pretty nervous. >> you to our dear friends of mine. -- you two our dear friend of mine. thank you for giving me a pair of your sneakers. they are perfect for me because they are white and wide and they are never going to be worth as much as you say they are. we have an amazing lunch to get to. wants to that kanye make one or two brief lucid remarks. >> let me begin with the idea that time is a myth. i am a prisoner in a different dimension. have i lost anyone so far? host: that was last night on saturday night live. c-span,e, a spoof of which they do from time to time. we are back tomorrow morning

with c-span's washington journal. we talk about the stock market and federal reserve. we look at federal and state health care policy. morning onorrow western journal. thank you for joining us. newsmakers is up next. be sure to check out our full schedule. enjoy the rest of your weekend. have a great weekend. [captions copy right national cable satellite corp.2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> a pair of campaign 2018 debates are on the schedule after the hearing, leading off with the new mexico senate debate followed by last night's wisconsin senate debate. and later today, ohio center sherrod brown will face his opponent on c-span. and on the free c-span radio app. on monday, david bureaucrat -- david brat will face his opponent. live at 6:30 p.m. eastern. and in arizona, sinema-mcsally for the seat of retiring republican jeff flake. live at 9:00 p.m. eastern on -span.

>> fox news host tucker carlson discusses his book, "ship of fools" how a selfish ruling class is bringing america to the brink of revolution. >> it's about why we elected trump. i couldn't get past it. i couldn't get past the idea the country voted for donald trump. how do you do that? it's not an attack on trump. i think trump is right in a sematic sense in a bunch of different things. but you wouldn't elect trump unless you really, really, really wanted to send a message. happy countries don't elect donald trump, desperate ones do. what is the message? the people in charge on both sides, all of whom hated. , screwed up. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. >> tonight on "after words,"

gina allen, fox news guest analyst and member of the trump campaign 2020 media advisory board on her book "mad by tics" and is interviewed louie gohmert of texas. >> is president donald trump crazy? >> crazy like a fox. narcissism is a spectrum and i do believe most of us, not meaning you, you may be the great exception, but most of us who put ourselves out there have an unusual sense of confidence. if you want to call that narcissism, i don't have a problem with that. is that a daycare reduce sort of narcissism? i don't think so. are there dangerous sorts of narcissism? absolutely. i've seen it in politics but don't think our president fits in that category at all. >> watch "after words" tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2 book tv.