eastern, they talk about her book. gold toothn with the was in greenwood, south carolina for a rally for obama in 2007. the rally was a bus. no one there but a small gathering of local folks needing something to do. obama was looking out at the emptiness. fired up, ready to go, the woman with the gold tooth abruptly shouted. is this on-q? began tole around her chant, and in an instant, the rally went from dismal two glorious. it shows you what one voice can do. -- that's one voice can change a room over a year later recounting the story. if a voice can change a room, it can change the city. announcer: atlanta, p.m. eastern on afterwards, republican

senator ben sasse from nebraska talks about his book "them, why we hate each other and how to heal." he is interviewed by arthur brooks, president of the american enterprise institute. >> i don't think political tribalism is the story of the moment. i think it is selling the vacuum of declining local tribes, and the tribes that make people happy. family, friendship, shared vocations or meaningful work. local worshiping communities. all of those things are being undermined by the moment we are at in technological history. announcer: watch this weekend on c-span2's book tv. c-span's washington journal. live every day, with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, the hill's congressional reporter melanie's in zone a and john bennett discuss the week ahead in congress. then the government accountability's office will talk about the cost states incur

for medicaid expansion. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal, live at 7:00 eastern monday morning. join the discussion. the american enterprise institute looked at the results of elections for the house, senate, and governors races around the country and why the outcomes will matter. the discussion is about 90 minutes. >> good afternoon, everyone. good afternoon. i'm carlyn bowman, i'm a senior fellow. i would like to welcome all of you and our c-span audience for our postelection analysis for the 2018 midterm to began this program in 1982. 19th's session is our biennial election postmortem. we had a busy day yesterday, pouring over results in 155 state ballot measures, more than

6000 legislative contest, 36 senaters races, 430 contests. with me to discuss these results are my current and former ai brown who, michael founded the almanac of american politics many years ago. his knowledge of american political history makes him one of the best political analysts in the country. i believe michael has actually set foot and all 435 congressional districts. don is the director of the democracy project at the policy center. his 2004 ai book on early and absentee voting anticipated the revelation in early or convenience boating that we saw in this election. our former colleague is a senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center. henry is one of the most important voices in the country on the republican party's past and its future. on monday, he made his predictions of what would happen on election day.

and he will be discussing them here today. my long-time colleague and friend, norm ornstein is washington's pre-eminent congress watcher. norm is one of the original authors of the invaluable guide, vital statistics on congress, now available on brookings website from which we draw so much of our understanding of congressional elections. we on this panel are especially grateful to our research institute eleanor o'neil. this program couldn't happen without her. we're also appreciative of the work of our intern this fall jackie clemons. so let's begin. we're going to start with a lightning round. i will ask each panelist to tell us in two minutes what they thought was most interesting about this election. two minutes, michael barone. >> you mentioned the year 1982 as the first year of this session and reminded me that's the last time american voters gave us the combination of republican president, republican senate, democratic house. so in 36 years, there's certain repetition.

my big surprise was watching the returns coming in from florida this year. was very much like watching the returns coming in from florida in to 18. -- in 2018. you had the democrats were favored in both cases. the early returns showed them ahead. when you check the big county percentages, versus preach performance, it looked like the democrats were headed to victory that andrew gillum would be elected governor and bill nelson would be re-elected to his fourth term in the u.s. senate. just as we expected hillary clinton to carry florida. but as the -- in 2016. but as the numbers kept coming in, the democratic margins of reported returns kept going down. and so what looked like a democratic carry in the 8:00 hour looked like the democratic percentages were disappearing.

and it was the small counties and the big trend toward donald trump outside the major million plus metro areas that explained i think what happened in florida in 2016. and explained what appears to have happened in florida in 2018 with ron desantis elected governor and rick scott elected to the u.s. senate. now, people -- >> john, your most interesting moment and you can't repeat what michael just said. >> so i will go with two quick vignettes. one, i'm a big proponent that we have improved our election system. the way we run elections. it's not perfect and a very complex system. but there are always glitches and some of them, one struck me in arizona this year, we had a polling place which failed to open on time because the night before, someone had foreclosed

on the building. [laughter] but they did resolve that. and they did actually come through on the up and up and people got to vote. but there was a glitch beginning. the second i'll point to for those interested in electoral reform, some are proponents of electoral reform called rank choice voting and in maine some adoption of it. at least in some races. there is still a very interesting race in maine, too, out there which this may kick in. the republican bruce poliquin is leading but secondary preferences may not be ahead and some possibilities of legal challenges to that as we go forward. >> henry, your most interesting finding in two minutes. >> the return of the obama trump voter. that the polls going into the race suggested a democrat re-creation of the midwestern blue wall. and that was going to be built on the return of blue collar democrats who had voted for president trump. their ancestral party. it didn't happen. that's why kim reynolds won iowa. that's why mike dewine won ohio.

that's why john james -- no attention and no outside support, got 46% in the michigan senate race. and why scott walker almost pulled it off. you also see it in the senate races. that if you compare 2012 results for heitkamp and donnally and mccaskill and you look at the cities and the suburbs they won enough of the vote compared to how they did six years before and they should have been returning. but those predominantly rural. obama trump territory. and they lost massively outside of those areas. and that's why none of those races was ever close. the return of the obama trump voter. >> norm, your quick take. >> so first, i turn to the great political analyst andy borowicz who said trump unable to stop care vain of democratic women invading washington. [laughter] there are two of them. in the next congress 99 women

among democrats in the house and senate. to something like 19 for the republicans. so the parties are very, very different in what we have now. they're different in the racial composition. but they're also different not just at the mass level. but as we look at our political characteristics, we have a party that if you look at the democrats coming in in both houses, it's going to have far more minorities than anybody else and white males are a distinct minority among democrats in congress. white males are the overwhelming cast of the republicans in congress. and i think we're going to see deeper and starker divisions among the parties, and the other thing that struck me was the level of tribalism in the electorate showing in different ways. democrats did extraordinarily well in the house. we'll talk about that a little bit more later on. but there wasn't a single district that trump carried by more than 55% where a democrat won. so they won in suburban areas.

they won in places where hillary clinton had won in the district the last time. but if you had a distinct red coloration to the district, even in a year where there was a wave focus, it didn't extend very far. and of course we saw that in many of these senate races as well. >> thanks, norm. before we take our deeper dive into specifics, i would like to say just a few words about the polls. the exit poll consortium this year consisted of the four in the works and edison research in new jersey. the associated press which has been collecting and tallying raw vote totals in the country ever since 1848 left the consortium in 2017 to try something new. n something new. a.p. working with one of the best polling outfits in the country and the university of chicago conducted 95,000 interviews in the last six days of the campaign with a more extensive questionnaire than the exit pollster can use. fox also decided to leave the

exit poll consortium and it too joined the new a.p. vote cast on election night. so this year, for analysis, we have a poll of voters from the exit poll consortium. and we also have the a.p. experiment. we're going to be comparing some of the results of these two different approaches in the new issue of a.e.i.'s political report which we hope to get out very soon. let me just touch on two things that i thought were very interesting in the polls. we always hear that off year elections are a referenda on the party in power. fortunately, the exit pollsters have asked a question that gets at the sentiment going back to 1990. what's interesting to us, is that more people than in the 1990's are saying that the president was a factor in their vote. in 1990, 34% said that their vote was to express support or opposition to the president. in 1994, 45% gave that response about bill clinton. in 2006 and 2010, around 55%

said that their vote was to express support or opposition for bush or obama. this year, nearly two thirds of voters gave those responses. how did they break? 26% of voters in this election said their vote was a vote to express support for donald trump. 38% vote to express opposition is. and a third said that he wasn't a factor. our politics have become more nationalized and presidents are playing a much larger role in votes than they have in past off year elections. let me say a word about the women's vote. norm touched on this. women and especially democratic women had many vktriss on tuesday night. and as we have seen in every election since 1980, men and women have voted differently. in this election, 59% of women voted for the democratic candidate while 440% of them vote for the republican. men voted narrowly for the republican candidate. despite a lot of misreporting, that the gender gap would be huge, the gender gap was 15 points, very much what it has

been in past election cycles. women are of course a larger share of the electorate than men. in every racial and ethnic group, women were more democratic than men. white women split their votes evenly in this election. but white men voted 60% for republican house candidates and 39% for democratic ones. there were significant differences among women by education. white female college grads were 16% of all voters. they voted 59-39 for democratic candidates. while females without a clenl degree were a slightly larger share of voters, 21%, they voted only 42% for drirk candidates and 56% for republican ones. this will be as norm says the largest class of freshmen women ever with overwhelming representation by democratic women. it remains to be seen whether they will be a cohesive block. now let me turn to my kwletion. and we will begin first with michael to talk about the senate races. michael.

>> naung. >> seven -- >> thank you. >> seven minutes. >> the political commentator joy behar said the democrats did badly in the senate races because of gerrymandering. that the boundaries of the states are redrawn every couple of years. and -- >> english gerrymandering -- >> no. and we've got some democrats that are causing -- calling for changing the constitution so that each state doesn't get two senators. they don't seem to realize that that is the one provision of the constitution that can't be amended without votes -- agreement of awful 50 states -- of all 50 states. my own view it makes sense as political strategy to try to win within the system we have rather than to arrange to get all 50 states agree to change it. and when you look at the numbers from 1914 when popular vote for senators came in for all the states, the 17th

amendment, the democrats have emerged with majorities in the senate from 32 elections and republicans in 21. if the democrats can't win the senate this time, it's not because they haven't been able to do it in the past. and in addition, one of the other data that's kind of interesting, going into this election, democrats held 11 of the 20 seats for both the 10 smallest population and the 10 largest population states. they lost one in each group. north dakota and florida. so the largest and smallest states are evenly split 10-10 between the parties. the republicans' majority comes in the 30 immediate upsized states. -- medium sized states. president trump in his press conference said that the republicans defieded history by gaining seats in the senate. actually, that happens on a number of occasions as i

mentioned earlier in 1982. if you go back to 1962, the president's party gains four seats. and there's a sort of structural reason for that. the house of representatives every member going into the election was elected two years before when the president was elected. in the senate election, almost every member was elected six years before which is often a landslide or a big margin for the incumbent president of the other party. so there's a structural reason for that. and it obtained in 1962, 1982, and 2018. now, the democrats were right to say this was an unfavorable lineup of seats. you had 26 democratic seats, 10 of which were carried by donald trump and five by double digit margins and only nine republican seats. only one of which was carried by clinton. the republicans lost that seat. the culinary union and harry reid seemed to rule nevada. thoroughly these days.

but the democrats lost seats in north dakota by 11%, indiana by 8%. missouri by thoroughly 6%. those were all trump 19 to 20-point states. democrats held on to montana by 2%, west virginia by 3%. also florida as i mentioned in my surprise, was a less than 1% race. rick scott won two governor races by 1%. in the three election as total of $230 million of his own money. seems to have taken the lesson that president kennedy said his father did when asked why he won by such a narrow margin. he said my father said that he was damned if he would pay for a landslide. [laughter] in constitutional terms, i think in some ways, this was not just an article one race. article one is about the congress, of course.

but also an article three race. the democrats who lost senate seats all voted against the supreme court nom nomination of justice brett kavanaugh. joe manchin, the one democratic senator who voted to confirm kavanaugh, survived by only 3% in a state where he's been a statewide figure for more than a dozen years. i think it's likely he would have lost if he had voted the other way. and what this does give is the republicans appear to have a senate majority that quite possibly they could maintain into the 2020's and be able to confirm judges under the reid rule that was extended to the supreme court nominees by mitch mcconnell and the republicans vote, s that it's marnlt no fill -- it's majority vote, no filibuster. the democrats' coalition of the ascendant, the democratic

pollster vote, stan greenberg's seems to be based disproportionately as i examine the results from white college graduates, especially single women, it's a relatively affluent thing:democrats were hoping for a blue wave. they got a whole foods blue wave. that did very well in districts and states that have a lot of whole foods. when you get away from a whole foods and end unseeing the signs for cracker barrel, they haven't they haven't been doing as well. you had disappointing black turnout, as measured compared to .arack obama it appears that even in florida and georgia, where he had democratic candidates with a chance of winning, no search of young voters to the polls that was disproportionate to other voters in a high turnout election.

i took a look at hispanics in the seriously contested senate races and a couple of the overnor races as well. overall, nationally, they voted democrat it by a 69 to 29 margin. some of them are small sample size. tennessee, they got 46%. texas and michigan, 35%. that is a very different hispanic vote if you look at new york. it is 15%. republicans inny

serious races outperformed their polling, particularly in the senate races in north dakota, indiana, and missouri. i wonder if pollsters are getting the rural votes or if cell phones don't work when you are out on a tractor. ina big night for democrats governors races. michael, one thing that mentioned indirectly is that this was a very high turnout midterm election by any measure. and we are still not done counting. to put it in perspective, since ,e allowed 18-year-olds to vote we haven't seen midterm turnout the 42 point -- the 42 percentage point range. we are at 44%, 45% now. both sides turned out pretty

well. it was a good democratic year. the good democratic wave or whatever type of rebel or tsunami or however you want to describe it, moved across the house races and across governors races and other state races. the senate was the train that wave moved onto. they were behind in the governorships going into the selection and we knew they would pick up three seats, and they did, in illinois, new mexico, and michigan. knew the republicans would gain a seat back from an independent. that happened as well. we are focusing on each competitive gubernatorial races. of those eight, it turns out that the republicans retained for and lost four. the democrats did beat scott walker in wisconsin. they won a race against a

candidate that is very close to donald trump, kris kobach. they won in nevada and in maine. one is still left to be determined. florida was a very large hold. in ohio, republicans performed very well, very good across the state and i just governors race, but the other state races which they swept. georgia is still technically not called you and it is likely that the republicans will win that seat. that will be determined fairly soon. seatlicans will keep that and i/o as -- and iowa as well. there were strong republican performances in those eight seats. three states that we talked about last time, which are extremely democratic states where republicans kept the governorship in a way they are not always expected.

in maryland, massachusetts, and vermont. i want to shift a little bit to the state legislatures. i think this movement continued there. but it also has applications for looking toward redistricting, which will affect the house and other things in the coming decade. districts tend to move against the president's party. a typical move. we saw barack obama when he was president over to elections lose 900 legislative seats in that in 2014 -- i'm sorry, in the 2010 and the 2014 election. we will see democrats pick up somewhere in the 230-250 seat range, good number. not quite as much as what moved against obama.

letter restructuring of states, realignment of various places, southern democrats replaced by republicans. but a pretty good when. they picked up seven chambers, some in minnesota, both chambers in new hampshire, colorado, maine, connecticut, and new york. new york was controlled by a coalition. now democrats will be in charge of the new york senate. the importance of this is that we are moving into redistricting season. it varies from state to state, where some states have commissions but most will still be determined by who controls the governorship as well as the legislature. there is more time for this to change. group of governors and legislative seats will be up. but these will be up for redistricting. we have a sense of how it will look. from 2012, there was a very strong republican control of state legislatures and

governorships, which helps them in drawings maps that help them hold the house of representatives for quite a while. looking at the 20 biggest states, republicans were in florida, ohio,, georgia, north carolina, virginia, tennessee, indiana, wisconsin. they drew favorable maps for themselves. democrats were in charge in illinois, maryland, and massachusetts. in some cases, republicans won the governorships and there was a retention of that. don't change in , republicans will control in texas and west virginia. they sort of control in ohio, but there is redistricting reform. georgia, they will continue to control redistricting. north carolina, even though there is a democratic governor,

the legislature determines completely. they will be in control. and there has been registering reform that has -- that will change that process. yes, and, indiana, wisconsin where scott walker lost, no. let me mention one other state that is of particular interest and that is new york. for many years, new york has had a very democratic state -- wylie very democratic state, has had a divided legislature. that meant every time a came to read -- two draw the district lines, there is a compromise. republicans were always able to preserve some elements of their districts. they kept the senate. they gerrymandered the senate to keep it in the hands, but they also had some say in the federal redistricting for their members of congress. looks like this will be gone as

now new york has an all democratic legislature and a democratic governor. while there has been some talk of dimmick -- redistricting they have not had their chance to put their stamp on a map in a long time. >> i think i read yesterday that the republicans before this election had 27 trifecta's where they controlled the governorship and both houses of the state legislatures. now they are down to 21. is that correct? >> i think so. large ones that we don't see anymore, like pennsylvania and gonegan and wisconsin have the other direction. >> thank you, john. henry predicted what was going to happen on election day. he called it to the revenge of the rhinos, republicans in name only. tell us what you found and how you did? >> i did very well.

[laughter] well, if you ask. [laughter] 32 and aocrats at less high range of 40. looks like they will get 32 to 36, depending on how the votes come out. with respect to the house, that is what the story was. it is the story a little bit in reverse in the senate which is that what happened in 2016 was moderate republicans, a group were derided by conservatives as rhinos, they left the party. they voted for hillary clinton and that swung a large number of districts in the suburbs towards mrs. clinton, some of which were large enough that she carried, like the district that george h.w. bush represented in texas.

and tom price is old district, the one that was won in that special election last year. what the data shows is that were romney-clinton voters are much more engine with .emocratic views on the issues they are closer to democrats on social issues. they are closer to democrats on immigration. they are closer to democrats on how to deal with islamic terrorism. and they are closer to democrats on economic inequality. they are much more concerned about that. within the republican party, their profile, when you look at the different candidates who are running, obviously, they don't line up with cruise, but they do

lineup with marco rubio. support in the republican primary was limited almost excessively to the 20% who consoles moderates, a particularly athletic group of that. that's exactly the voters who left the republican party in 2016 and give the democrats this time. at any major metropolitan area and you will find a seat that either went to the democrats that republicans had held or that narrowly went to the democrats. i divided the seats into four different tiers to illuminate that. the bottom here, looking at a pyramid, 25 republican house seats that hillary clinton carried. up 19mocrats have picked of those, which is exactly what i thought they would pick up. they might pick up one or two in california as the 7 million is sittingcalifornia on that have not been counted get counted. the next group is the

obama-trump districts. the republicans nationally have a hard time with this voter. the president understands them. the congressional leadership does not. this is where they missed their opportunity. there were 12 of the seats that republicans held. they lost seven. on the flipside, the republicans picked up two seats in democrat-held obama-trump seats, but they failed to challenge in others. in each other -- in each of those cases, candidates who had no support from the national party. they got between 45% to 48% of the vote all on their own. that was a strong partisan support for a party whose congressional leadership did not seem to want them. then you have the group of trump

under 50%, places where rhinos moved quickly towards clinton, but not enough of them and 2016 to tip the district. the democrats won five of those seats. they might and up winning six. up an extra urban seat in chicago. they picked up oakland county outside of detroit, michigan 11. conor lamb winning suburban pittsburgh. they beat karen handel who conceded this morning. they you have only five seats where trump won over 50% where democrats picked up. a number of those were unique circumstances. via tenney has been a controversial conservative her livingan all of

republican predecessors endorse the democrat. oklahoma city went to the democrats. that was also a seat that moved towards hillary clinton, even though it still remained republican. south carolina won, where mark sanford was taken up by a conservative challenger. the districtng in that is the most affluent the state. use our unique circumstances. the take away i got and the peace i talked about rhinos and their counterpart, tigers. taught -- those are trump is great republicans. nickname.ve a they are moving the electorate and people should start looking at them. congress came out and saved a lot of house incumbents. district only been suburban columbus, they would've

been what got, but it included tigers country. it saved french hill. electedock would have the democrat. but they have the tigers country in the rural area. the republican leadership will naturally want to recover their ancestral homelands with rhinos. but they win because of tigers. getdemocrats will want to beach country, but they can't -- if trump can improve only slightly, some of the republican losing challenges in michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania, we could see a second election in a row where trump loses the popular vote, wins the electoral college, and does so by basically telling the raynaud's -- the rhinos goodbye.

>> what stands out to you in white house races? you have focused on technology and money. the republicans were outspent in many races this year. second, how many outstanding races are there at this point? when do you expect we will have a final count? >> on the first time, money was use this time, of course, in two ways. democrats had an enormous surge in money. a lot of it was small donors, but they also had a number of theionaires who entered fray, something we had not seen so much before, where it was much more of sql the republican side. we certainly saw that play out again on the republican side. up the money in the end, i think, did not matter so much in many of these races because there was adequate money both for the candidates and for outside groups. the big winners in the selection

, as has been the case in several recent ones, where local television stations who make out like the bandits they are. side, it is still not clear exactly how many are outstanding, but somewhere around a dozen. california,hem in because there's so much vote by mail now. it takes them a long time to count those ballots. if you look at those districts, david wasserman, who really is the best at this game, who coined the whole foods cracker barrel difference when he looked at counties that only had whole foods and counties that only had cracker barrel, that was a good way to predict what would happen. usually the votes that come in late favor democrats.

there are a handful of districts in california were republicans have a nats, but where the late votes might change that. there we have the unique case that john had mentioned of ranked choice voting now in maine. isthe end, i think it possible the democrats could pick up as many as 38 seats. but somewhere in the range of 36, which doesn't fit the massive wave that we might have considered 40 plus. believes not a route there it is pretty significant. i want to make a couple of other points. us very fewduced civilly. and we need to introduce carla as effusively. she has stage-managed these elections for a very long time. areshe and eleanor o'neill

our trusted companion. they have put out these incredible election watch and political watch issues that all of you should get and all of you who are watching or listening, just go to ai.org. valuable and straightforward information. >> thank you. >> we haven't mentioned some of the referendums that are very important here. the one that got strikingly little attention was the florida referendum that brings back in friends matt -- enfranchisement for former felons. in an a 60% threshold evenly divided state. it got 67 or 68%. something that has approval across the board. but it has the potential of a profound impact on florida. 1.5 million people who have not been able to vote are now able to vote, the vast majority of them minorities very not all of them will vote. -- i think we will also see

this was another theme in the election as an undercurrent -- florida republicans in charge will find many creative ways to make sure they don't vote. cutting out early voting, moving polling places to spots where they can't be, purging roles and other things. we will have an ongoing battle in many states. in georgia, where we have the unprecedented secretary of state, the election official running for governor, staying in that position -- and by the way, as we go to see whether he gets below the 50% threshold, provisional ballots that have been cast, where he will be in charge, i suspect we will see court challenges and a lot of other issues. we are the only country, by the way, the only country that called itself a democracy, where , the election arbiters, are themselves partisan. imagine how comfortable you would feel if you are watching the world series and the umpires

were all part owners of one of the teams. that is what we do in our election. >> that is with the yankees are doing wrong. >> we did have four states with referendums creating redistricting requirements. .olorado, missouri, utah we had a ruling by judge just yesterday about maryland throwing out its districts. whether judges throw out the partisan gerrymandering for democrats enough a republicans remains to be seen. but we will see some changes. very quickly on the house. almost certainly, nancy will be the speaker of the house. there will be some members who will be uneasy about it. my guess is that she will have to say these are two years. there will be a broadening of the leadership to bring in new people. we do not have a surge of ultraliberal candidates. ocasio cortez stands

out alone, a vibrant person. pragmaticjority are progressives. they will not push for medicare for all. they will push for changes within the context of the four book air act. they will push likely for some control of prescription drug prices. it would not surprise me if the most liberal thing we see is the national minimum wage of $15, which will make it through the has but not much further. there will be a substantive agenda. but what we also know from the president's striking conference yesterday, if they go after him with subpoenas and tax records with hearing, the will send republicans to do the same for them and it will be warfare. but as a same time, it would not surprise me that an infrastructure bill will go through. it is in the interest of the democrats and trump to have something happen. remember when we had enormous tension between newt gingrich

and bill clinton, we got welfare wantedbecause newton terms in consecutive the house. and one final point. if you look at the house votes and project that onto a presidential election next time, donald trump could lose the popular vote by 8 million or 9 million and still win the electoral college. popular will is declining as a force of american politics. americans will live in 15 states, which means that 30% of americans will elect -- 7100 senators. they will not be representative of the diversity or the vibrancy of the country and we will have challenges to the legitimate -- legitimacy of the political system ahead.

it goes way beyond whether donald trump is president or not president. >> you anticipated my question about governance. but i want to turn to the rest of the panel to see if you think there are any areas of cooperation and what those might be, if you have differences with norm or agree with him here in just first of point out, we are very frequently having a very -- there is not a president who has served as to terms who has had congress because of -- by the way, the other porter -- it will be something we are forced to come to. is an area where there is

force cooperation. i do agree with norm. infrastructure something we talked about. every week has been infrastructure we for the past 52 weeks. donald something that trump is a little different than his typical republican. he is more willing to spend money on that. prescription drug pricing is also something that the president embrace away from traditional republican policies. like anytime we have divided government, we should not expect that we are agreeing on everything. the parties are far apart. there will be some discrete things and annual things that they will have to work on. >> the republicans did a pretty good job in the last congress of passing appropriation bill, at republican andan democratic congresses have done for quite a while. i agree with norm and john about infrastructure being a serious situation. i would disagree on one point

that norm brought up at the end, which is that popular will is declining. i went back and did the percentages of the total population, the largest state had and every census going back to the 1790's census and the disparity in state size were very large. they are not just a function of the 21st century. there is something that goes way back, and the constitutional convention was very much aware of this, and that is why we have the ultimate roger sherman compromise of a house that is apportioned by population. the first regular census ever enacted, as far as i know. and the senate, each state getting to senators. and that provision by article v not being changeable. i think that if you are an active politician, you try to win the game by, you know, you do not just win the football game by yards gained, you win it by touchdowns and points after into field goals.

and i think the democratic party has a problem in the concentration of its votes in certain areas. not like a super bowl problem, they nearly won in 2016, but realistic politicians adapted the scoring system, particularly when you cannot change it. >> here are some other issues you have not mentioned thus far. norm you have written about ethics reform, is that an area where you expect we might see something and will it go anywhere? also, immigration, guns, criminal justice reform, anybody?

there were a number of appropriations bills passed. what you should keep in mind is they did a continued resolution to get past the election for the fiscal year that will end on september 30, until february. and donald trump is really spoiling for a fight here. i expect it very strong chance of a government shutdown, where he will demand full funding for the law. and then we will have more chaos. and chaos as democrats move aggressively on investigative fronts, is something to keep in mind. on ethics, i expect the democrats in the house will pass a robust package that will include ethics reform for congress. and then we will bring up a bill and that will include, i hope and expect, something that moves away from the idea that a member of congress can serve on a board and also have stock holdings in areas where they are making money al qaeda of decisions that -- all kinds of decisions that can benefit themselves. it should be noted in this tribal environment that two indicted members of congress, including chris collins, indicted for doing just that, were reelected. that is two indictments and one who had been convicted of

assaulting a reporter. and another who had been acquitted, the democratic senator from jersey, who was also reelected. which tells you that tribalism trumps ethics in many ways. but we will see some moves to reform the ethics process, including strengthening the office of government ethics. i expect we are also going to see democrats try to move in other areas you talked about, but it is far more laying down markers. enacting legislation is not a problem simply of divided government. the fact is the only significant accomplishment of the two years of the united government was the big tax cut. they were failures in most of the other major areas, which include infrastructure, going on 104 weeks, not 52. >> yeah. michael? michael: one result i found interesting, washington state had a referendum on a carbon tax attacking climate change.

that is a solidly democratic state full of people who fancy themselves environmentalists. it was defeated. 56-44. some liberalgine elites, and some conservative elites favor some action on this. you can imagine it happening much as of the tax reform legislation of 1985-86 was put together on a bipartisan basis, but not by the characters who currently inhabit our executive, or will inhabit our legislative branches. >> henry r john, dais -- henry, or john, do you see any areas of possible cooperation or anything getting done? john: i do not see anything in addition to what has been said. i think that energy in both parties is to decimate the other side. i was looking at the exit polls

and it said 77% of democrats , want trump impeached. i think it would be hard to a party whose voters do not want to see the other man -- the man the other side of the deal in office. aside from something like infrastructure, where the differences could actually be bridged because the parties are , lookingpart, i think back over the last decade, the failure to produce not even a supported reform, but a meaningful vote is a watershed. that you had the centers of both parties that were willing to do this sort of deal that had been done for decades in the past, but the extremes of both parties prevented the deal from going forward. i think the extremes are only stronger now. anything that matters will not be acted on.

john: quickly, you mentioned two issues. criminal justice reform, i do think that that is something that -- this is the compromise people have been talking about for a long time. between the libertarian republicans and democrats for reducing over incarceration. there is talk about some progress could be made in the lame-duck, but it is something the president is interested in it and it could happen, at least in the next couple of years. immigration, the opposite. we have very little chance of that we have a meeting of the minds. the election reinforced differences. a number of republicans who lost were the most willing to work with democrats on immigration reform. i think we'll be far apart on the issue. norman: one issue to watch, interestingly not in terms of action, but in terms of dynamic, is guns. the climate has changed. a sizable number of democrats who got f ratings from the national rifle association won,

in districts where in the past you would've thought that was an impossibility. the parkland kids, the incidents we've had and the horrible tragedy with 13 people killed today has changed the way that politicians talk about guns. and democrats will push significantly on this issue. i didn't mention leadership for the republican side in the house. paul ryan, who probably had as much do you with making sure there were debates that did not , ianywhere more than anybody think there will be a contest between his presumed heir apparent, kevin mccarthy, and jim jordan, who is under a cloud himself, but he would represent the freedom caucus. my guess is that mccarthy wins, because he is very close to donald trump, he is loyal to donald trump and trump may weigh in. that will be interesting to watch. finally, we can't ignore the elephant in the room, the forced ouster of jeff sessions. his replacement by matthew whitaker, a trump loyalist, his former chief of staff.

and what congress might do to react to that, if we do get, as we would expect, some curtailment of the robert mueller investigation. or even mueller and his team being axed. and there are certainly reports coming from the trump family that don jr. is anticipating he will be indicted soon. and all of those things that we have been talking about will be pushed to the side for some time. and how congress, both democrats and republicans, would react if robert mueller is fired, is one of the vital questions that we need to keep in mind. karlyn: this is a related question. the investigations of donald trump's personal practices and business practices, are they good politics, good governance going forward? >> i am not sure -- you know, as toebody who was opposed

trump in the republican primary contests and went through various moments of dreaming when about donaldthis trump -- in their eyes will be opened, they will recheck him -- we are still waiting for that to happen. he did not make gains from his 46% performance, which is a problem for him and his party, but the democrats didn't necessarily come up with a formula that is going to improve clinton's 232 electoral votes. i think those are challenges for both parties. you don't hear democrats telling those little "russia runs everything" the jokes anymore, do you. it is my view that the mueller investigation has fizzled, certainly in the fact of producing an ouster of the president, as so many democrats were supremely confident two years ago. karlyn: any thoughts on

, racism, the republican and democratic side, john? john: the dog that didn't bark, the senate, we will have two leaders there. there were be some lower-level leadership changes on the republican side because of term limits, but i think the big story is that mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer have strong bases in a their party and they will be there for the foreseeable future. >> i think it will be interesting. a lot of the democrats who were interpreted as not supporting pelosi stuck to a line they want new leadership in both parties. and i think that obviously the republicans have some new leadership in the sense of people moving up. but if nancy pelosi wanted to shake up the underlying leadership, as norm suggested, two years and then i am gone, but also push away everybody and have much younger people behind, you could possibly go back to your districts and say -- the deal of getting new leadership meant keeping the old leader around for two more years, so look what i accomplished.

that would be the deal i would strike if i was nancy pelosi. >> there are other leaders we need to talk about, committee leaders. that will soon 4 be closer-to-household words, if they weren't before. adam schiff, elijah cummings, jerry nadler enriching neil. neal. richard chairs coming in on the oversight investigations committee, the judiciary committee and the ways and means committee. they are very smart, capable leaders, and i expect democrats will staff up with skilled veteran investigators. and you will be seeing them a lot. on the senate side, republicans have term limits for chairs. and we will see a significant turn in some of those chairmanships. john is close to some of this. but we have a question of whether or not charles grassley will move over to chair the finance committee and give up

the judiciary committee. we will have a new chair of the foreign relations committee. avowedmoved from an internationalist, bob corker, to somebody who is a mirror-opposite set of views jim , rich. and those matter, they set saw with theou kavanaugh hearings and other hearings which have been held on judges. who the chairman is can make a real difference. so we are going to see a lot of changes actually in both houses. john: i think we will see some changes in the senate, but i do want to go to the house. it looks like nancy pelosi is going to be the next speaker. i think originally we had thought, with all the pledges for people saying they are not going to vote for nancy pelosi, not only go past nancy pelosi, but they might even skip past to the entire leadership team because they are old, but iyears think there is a new generation and it would be difficult for

the democrats to pass by the black caucus and jim clyburn. there has never been a black speaker. i think if you do go to a second generation, whether it is somebody new in the leadership who is seen as the heir apparent of nancy pelosi, or perhaps just directly, i think the black caucus has a strong case to make that one of their people should be in there. >> i think if they want a new hoyertion, you know, stan turns 80, nancy pelosi is turning 80 and a couple of years. pelosi and hoyer are also highly competent people in they do nothing seem to have lost any significant number of steps, despite their considerable age. so there is less of a rationale, you know, as i think dianne feinstein showed what she did in the kavanaugh hearings. so it is, you know, is going to be harder to turn over a new leaf. and i think that would apply to jim clyburn as well.

karlyn: do you all agree nancy pelosi could hold back the forces pushing for impeachment, given the strong support among democrats? >> yes. >> what we have seen from what nancy pelosi has said, what i think will be a consensus among the larger share of members is they will not get ahead of their skis on this issue. they will push for a tough investigations and they will take their time. they will wait until we get a mueller report, if we do get one. i have a different view of what that report will have than michael does. but they are not going to do things that simply satisfy the base. and the fact is, if we had a different set of election outcomes, if you had seen super progressives who are highly visible figures win and win strongly, one it would have a huge impact on the presidential contest. it would give traction to those saying, never mind expanding your field and looking for independent voters, just excited

the base. that is not there anymore. but i also gives much more traction to the pragmatists who know that if you push for impeachment, you will lose the house next time, but you will also lose the public now. so i don't think we will see more than a handful of people pushing for that. >> i tend to agree with norm that that would be a good course for the democrats to take, but i weigh against mollie hemingway's report from her trip , that jerry nadler, who is a very smart guy, the chairman of the judiciary committee, wants to move ahead with the impeachment. that is irresistible force versus an immovable object. john: i think i agree with norman. there were -- i think the secret

is that there are plenty of things for democrats to investigate now that will keep them happy and engaged, and be able to be impeachment-lite without impeachment. i think that it will be tricky to think when we get closer to the next election, i think some of the presidential candidates will be pushing the issue, as typically happens. the party moves to the left or right and people running the primaries will not shy away from that issue. on the other hand it will be close to an election, bad timing to do it then, but i think the pressure of conflict will be greater on whether to do it or not in the second year. >> i think i would agree that they will probably be able to hold off, but i think it will be interesting to see if and when the robert mueller report comes out, because democratic partisans will read what is in the report much differently than other people. as long as something is tangibly connected to the president, i expect he will see the urge to move on that. but that may not be convincing to the middle. that, plus the natural competition from presidential

candidates catering to a base, 80% of whom wanted to see donald trump impeached before the mueller report. political considerations might look different in the house in august than they look right now. >> and we are going to have a bunch of democratic presidential candidates may be tilted to the left. we saw what happened in the republican party when they had 17 presidential candidates in the 2016 cycle, that produced a result that was astounding, to use the term from lincoln's second inaugural. and you have democratic candidates -- i note that this election did not produce a democratic governor in iowa, new hampshire or south carolina, where an incumbent governor might be a modulating force against extreme people in those early contests. karlyn: before questions my want -- before turning to your questions, i want to spend a few minutes on 2020. we provided a handout of the

senate governors races, but is donald trump better off with the democratic congress going into 2020? >> i guess i would say that midterm elections are not predictive of presidential elections. we have seen plenty of people, ronald reagan, bill clinton, obama do poorly, then come back , to win significantly. there will be different conditions on the ground. one will be the economy. the economy is helping donald trump now, maybe it will be just as good and good for him. but those things could change. the second point is the candidates, who the democrats take matters. the midterm is easy to unite democrats around an opposition of donald trump, but they all have their own flaws, the candidates, and their own strengths. um, -- >> the last three presidents, right after their first midterm and going into their reelection year looks plausibly beatable. all three of them won after the

1982 election, the 1962 election s which produced republican party gains in the senate and losses in the house. lyndon johnson went on to a landslide victory. well.augur on the other hand, donald trump had not increased his positive feeling passed the 46% he got last time and you had to thread a couple of needles to win the electoral college with that kind of percentage. >> if you look at political science models, which you have to do with some grain of salt, but they take fundamentals into account -- some of the big models consider how the economy is doing, what the presidents approval rating, and incumbency. incumbency is an advantage. one of the best-known models,

again i do not know if things traditions will be the same today as they are in two years -- if conditions will be the same today as they are in two years, but if you put today's conditions in that you see a donald trump victory. he is an incumbent, the economy is good, his numbers are not great, but they are not so bad to bring the model down. so again, i do not want to hang only on the model, but there are some fundamentals that if things were as they were today, even though the election did not go as well, those conditions any presidential election do not look back for donald trump. >> i was struck by many things in that press conference yesterday, but the fact he took republicans who lost, including mia love, who he considers to be a loser this point, and went after them and belittled them by name said something. it says he does not want to accept the blame for anything. and while they would probably say that donald trump was a weight that pulled them down,

from his perspective it was that they were not loyal enough to him. that tells me something about where we go from here, which is, he is going to blame the democrats in the house now for everything that goes wrong, and find ways to draw those lines. i mentioned the possibility of a shutdown. if the economy starts to go down, the theme, you can be sure, will be -- see when we were in charge, everything was going well, now that you brought them in, look what happened. that means we will see significantly more confrontation down the road. even if we get an occasional model of cooperation. particularly true if the economy begins to sag. which it might. we are on a sugar high from tax cuts and tariffs may make a difference at some point. what we will see is far more of a blame game than there will be -- let's figure out what we can do about this. and with all of that, given the nature of the electoral college, even if donald trump lost massively in popular votes, he still is in a position to win reelection.

karlyn: henry, your thoughts? in particular -- maybe i am imagining this, didn't you write that democrats need to nominate a woman? henry: that shouldn't surprise us in a party whose primary voters are between 60 percent to 63% women, 99 of the house democrats are women. for each of the last cycles, i have written an article on this and i have looked at the data 2016.004 and each cycle where we have exit polling the number of men goes down and the number of women's percentage goes up. in correlation with that, each four years the democratic number of people who call themselves moderate or conservative drops. the number of people who call themselves liberal or very liberal, goes up. i think that what you're going to have is a democratic electorate that will want to nominate a woman who satisfies

the need to be viewed as progressive. i think the debate will be over whether you want to be an open progressive, or a pragmatic progressive, as norman said. but i think it is likely that donald trump will be facing a woman. and i think if donald trump, who is known to be ruthless to subordinates, wanted to change the odds in his favor, i think you should dump mike pence and select nikki haley. karlyn: now time for questions. >> or ivanka. >> no, nikki haley far reason. the biggest thing the democrats continually push, and the media pushes, is that he is a racist and a sexist. that weighs heavily on the rhino rino, educated person. so you say, i have changed america and the person who will continue this is going to be a competent executive who understands foreign policy.

a woman of color nikki haley. ,it would flummox the left. karlyn: time for your questions. we will have mics coming around. we will start in the front. >> thank you. i'm garrett mitchell. i write "the mitchell report." thank you for a stellar panel. i want to stay on the subject we have been on and ask the panel, perhaps henry and norm are best to address this -- to what extent and in what ways do the results of this election begin to give some sense of direction to democrats about who might be the most effective candidates? i am talking less about names,

and more about factors. in other words, less a personality contest and more about whether there is learning here to the extent the parties are capable of doing this, and smart money is capable of doing this, it might say the democrats, this is what we need to be thinking about for 2020, the ideal kinds of candidates rather than should it it be a woman, or should it be a, you know -- democrats go back to, are coming historically, in the last 20 or so years, close with an offense took central left to left democrat in key swing states. florida with andrew gillum, and stacey abrams in georgia, and beto in texas. kyrsten sinema in arizona.

part of what i can see people saying is, look how close we came in these places. all we have to do is flip one of them and we will win. but the more import question is, again, the midwest. you have to prevent trump from picking up one of those big states he did not get, and that mitigates in my belief, in favor of somebody who is not a strident progressive, but somebody who touches all the bases, but does not excite the fears. and that suggests to me somebody like an amy klobuchar who would be much better for them, than to pick somebody, -- obviously people are saying beto lost for senate and abraham lincoln lost for senate, so let's follow that. but somebody who is more of a shouter, who is appealing to a wing of the democratic party.

>> i go back to something michael said and i agree with it. republicans had 17 candidates and it was a zoo. you had ten on the main stage and the other half on the kid stage, it is almost impossible to go from the kiddie stage to the main stage. most were unknown, except for the real aficionados. and then they get known in the debate. each of them will have seven or nine minutes to make a point, and it depends more on what the zeitgeist is at the time than anything else. it is not like you have party officials who can do the kind of analysis henry just did, or that any of us would do. and if they did so, then they would pick an amy klobuchar, who just soared in minnesota and has extraordinary strength, or they pick a make a landrieu, a former mayor who can unite black and white. a pragmatic progressive. but we do not know what the zeitgeist will be and who the candidates will be. having said that, if there are lessons learned, i think that

one is, you focus on the issues people care about. and health care was the one the democrats hammered away at over and over again. and i think we will find that was a key in their victories. that for an awful lot of republicans, including some like mcsally, who might well pull it out, the people who proudly stomped on the if what will care act, then turned around and had to say, well, pre-existing conditions, nobody cares more about them than we do. that did not work well. it put them on the defensive, even if they manage to win. you will see a focus on those issues. but also, what beto did was less about motivating progressives, it was a broad, inclusive message -- we all need to come together, but progressive message that david brooks wrote about in his column, but ignored what some candidates were actually doing. that could work for beto who now has a huge fundraising base, a lot of followers, and isn't going to be saddled with being a non-entity in an unproductive senate. but you could also imagit

the zeitgeist is anger and that is where one of these angry, left-wing candidates could emerge. and it might be impossible to stop them, given the nature of the nominating process. that is a nightmare for democrats. it is also a nightmare for the nation if that is the kind of choice we face. karlyn: any questions in this part of the room? >> quickly come a couple things. -- quickly, a couple of things. to win in a primary, you have to do is to wish yourself of a base. really, the two options are to have a good hold on the black vote, or a good hold in progressive wing of the party. so some candidates will have one, or maybe some who have both. and then again, to the general election, not that the democrats have to put forth an african-american candidate, but that would make a difference. somebody like barack obama, who was able to balance both parts of the party. you look at the 2016 election and the turnout, you put it a little in the direction of where

obama was and is a good winning formula for the democrats. >> my opinion, but you may disagree with it, if in fact ever since 2010 when the tea party helped the republicans gain a nominal but not necessarily working majority in the house, and so you labor under the fact of you control all three branches and cannot get anything done -- if in fact what we have had is a nonworking majority, a nominal majority, but it was not a working majority because the republicans had too many faultlines, is the president better off with an actual loss of a majority, since he never had a working majority?

michael: norm or somebody was suggesting he gets a punching bag in the opposition party, at least on the issue where he wants to go after them, and you know, he may get a situation where he could get an opponent that would be too far to the left and he would get some votes there he did not get last time. my answer basically is, we will see. [laughter] karlyn: question in the front, then in the middle. >> thank you. i identify from the state of wisconsin. and a very red republican area , the fox river valley, that gave us joe mccarthy, would have given you george wallace, and helped give you donald trump. it is very heavily dependent on agriculture, the whole state. my question is, is there any chance for a red state that is either dependent on agricultural exports, or say japanese

factories in north and south carolina, is there any possibility for those red kind of states and districts to weaken if tariffs and trade begins to wind? >> they are already biting. soybean exports are way down. i think a lot of people who supported donald trump, including not just those in agricultural areas, coal mining areas and the like, are with him believe that because they believe he respects them and it speaks to them and the elites have ignored them and have looked down on them. and we see a lot of books now, including one about wisconsin, about the degree to which of those values can overcome some economic trauma. i do think though, if we get an extended period of a tariff war, thisll hit agriculture for

it will hit agriculture harder than anything else, although it is hitting auto in some ways, it will cause an erosion of support. and we see a lot of books now, including one about wisconsin, about the degree to which of those values can overcome some economic trauma. >> and there are complicating factors to getting into infrastructure. >> one of the glories in our democracy that we've had over the last several years, really are pretty close

elections, serious competition and rising turnout. one of the problems you get if you seek legislation or compromise is parties who think that they are in a disadvantage now, but they can win everything ,ext time if we just hang tough they tend to hang tough and not do the sort of things that bob packwood and jim baker did in the tax reform of 1985, 1986. i think that you have brought up some of the points that are at issue. and wisconsin, remember wisconsin voted for ted cruz in the primary in 2016 over donald trump. karlyn: in the back. >> thank you. senior adviser to serve usa. what are the implications for

both parties, and should the robert mueller report not see the light of day? >> mueller has indicted several people. i think democrats supposed that mueller was going to do the sort of things we saw in 1973 and 1974 on watergate, go up the chain of command, find violations of felony laws, and so forth, and cause the president to lose all support in his party and resign from office in the face of impeachment and removal pending. uh, it has not worked out that way. and we have the indictments that have been obtained, they have been about paul manafort doing things in 2009, or some such year, that he shouldn't have done. um, it does not look like we are going to - -i think -- i think the idea that this is going to be -- remember all the russia jokes?

"he was taking orders from putin," the russians are controlling the government, so forth. we have ended up with a more anti-russian foreign policy than we had under president obama. i think that this has not panned out to be a repeat of 1973-74. and that if the democrats hope to elected president, they ought to start grappling with some of the problems, but also opportunities they face in the nomination process and the legislative process and so forth. >> michael lives in a different universe man i do, i must say -- than i do. we do not know what it contains. this is following a classic pattern of moving up the chain and we haven't gotten to that point yet.

i suspect we will hear more about russia before we are done. if the president had the attitude that michael has, he would not have been so concerned about the mueller report and bringing in the acting attorney general, instead of what would be the normal process, the deputy, bringing in a guy who has made his political career by going on cnn and saying we need to squash this investigation. i suspect there is something more there. --in fact, the report is completely, you will see a big uprising. but how that plays out in both parties, i am not sure. whether it means that senators on the republican side go to their dedcon one, issuing tweets saying, we are deeply concerned, instead of just we are concerned, they take it to another level, i do not know. we did have a bipartisan bill to pass the senate judiciary committee to protect mueller and mitch mcconnell would not bring it up.

and now he is saying that -- basically trashing any notion of going forward in these areas. own he have a hold over his members, i don't know. what would trigger an impeachment, no question in my mind, prematurely, would be if there is a move to fire robert mueller or make sure whatever report emerges does not come out. and there is one other point to keep in mind. we had an election for the attorney general in new york -- by the way, a lot of the democratic attorneys general elected across the country, every candidate running in your , basically was a red meat -- we are going to take on trump. we have probably some indictments at the state level the brewing against some of the ,rump children on fraud charges and we have questions about the trump foundation. how much of this could be at the criminal level, i do not know. it can't be pardoned, of course. then you have the southern district of new york, which has a traditional level of

independence from the judiciary committee that has -- some of the investigations have been farmed out there. and one final thing to keep in mind, there could be sealed indictments already issued or about to be issued that can be unsealed at any time, but once they are there, they cannot be stopped. so there is a lot of churning going on out there some of which we will seek moving forward in the next month or two , but we are in very uncharted territory. >> i would just say that donald trump must be guilty because he wants the investigation to stop. want in the investigation to the us wanting the investigation to stop is also consistent with there being nothing to these charges, whatsoever. from his point of view, it is a diversionirritant, a fanned by a very sympathetic media to the anti-trump cause.

so i don't think it is dispositive one way or the other that he is irritated with this investigation. karlyn: final question. yes, right over here. >> i want to say one of the great things about this group , as you can tell, we disagree pretty strongly amongst ourselves, but we have always been civil and we are also great friends. >> i am david smith of the guardian. do you think that donald trump will feel vindicated that, what he said about the migrant caravan moving to the border and all of the racially divisive rhetoric, will he feel that that worked in the midterms and allowed him to declare victory, and if so, will he pursue the same strategy in a 20 and does that mean that things will get ugly? >> i think he will feel vindicated whatever happens. [laughter] i think that is the problems with donald trump as a leader.

>> i think that it has not been a surprise how he ran in the primaries on immigration. it has been an issue for him. i think the biggest issue in this election was pro-trump and anti-trump. democrats care about health care, republicans were more interested in immigration. i do not think it is going away and a divided government, again the president is going to use some of his executive powers to do things in that area, and i don't think it is an issue that he will back away from. >> if you ask it is going to get ugly, i think it will be ugly anyway. you cannot underestimate the degree of loathing, hatred and antipathy that the rank and file democrats feel for donald trump. you cannot underestimate the antipathy that a large portion of republicans feel for the democratic party and what they believe are their willing co-conspirators in the media. when you have 70 or 80 million

people who love each other, he each-- who loat other, things can get ugly. >> paul ryan, among others, tried hard to get president trump to change his approach in the final days and weeks of the campaign. and a lot of his political advisers did, too. they prepared commercials on the economy, and he brushed them aside. will he feel vindicated? the senate ended up doing a little bit better, i ink, that a lot of people thought. and some of those contests were won handily. governorships in florida and georgia, you could argue that may be drawing the lines brought out more republicans and made a difference. so i do not see any reason why he would think he should change the approach he has used. it will be interesting now to see if the 15,000 troops stay on the border past this next week or two. and what actually happens, if and when we get what will

probably be just stragglers from that 1700-mile journey. but if there is not a caravan, there will be something else used as an issue that gets your excited base. and that is the nature of politics now. it is the mindset that he has going forward, but as henry said, that aside the division and acrimony, are the rule of the day. >> and you see some democrats explicitly now calling for open borders. anybody from another country that wants to come here can come here. i do not think that is a viable position and it transforms what are potentially negatives for trump and the republicans into a positive. karlyn: i want to thank all of you for coming. two people in particular with us

-- who were with us in 1982. and i also want to thank my wonderful panelists for a very deep and serious discussion. thank you for coming. [applause] and one final thing. we hope to be back in 726 days to discuss the results of the 2020 elections. [applause] george h.w. bush and former first lady laura bush will be awarded the liberty medal in philadelphia. a former vice president joe biden, vice chair of the senators board of trustees -- and live at 5 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org or listen on the free radio app.

coming up this weekend, tonight at eight: 05 eastern, new york times magazine talks about her book, to obama with love, joy anger and hope. >> the woman with the gold tooth was ingrained at a rally in south carolina. folksl gathering of local needing something to do. out with looking emptiness. fired up and ready to go. the woman with the gold tooth abruptly shouted. people began to chant and in an instant the rally went from dismal. it shows you what one voice can do. that one voice can change the room a year later.

if the voice can change a room it can change a city. cook's republican senator from nebraska talks about his book, "them: why we hate each other and how to heal." -- i thinkthink political tribalism is filling the vacuum of declining local tribes. a deep friendship, long-term location or meaningful work. all those things are being underlined by the moment we are out in technological history. week and c-span2's book tv. club,the national press robert wilkie talked about efforts to readable form -- to reform the v.a., converting to electronic medical records