the white house wants congress to provide $5 billion for the wall. working on a criminal justice bill. c-span two.n >> when the new congress takes off in january, it will have the young this most diverse freshman class in history. on c-span.ve >> this week on cue and day, university of london -- she discusses her book behold america.

>> this week on q&a, sarah churchwell discusses her book entangled rica," the first and therica american dream. churchwell, author of "behold, america." this was out by saying not a book i planned to write. writing a bookas about henry james and then thinkcs happened, which i a lot of people had that reaction to the outcome of the election, in different ways. hit different people in me i had ways but for a strong feeling that some of the ways in which people were trump's to some of rhetoric, in particular his use of the phrase america first in slogan and the way

that was picked up, and his of the american dream, of course, with which than much more familiar america first was at the time, the stories that were coming out commentary and the were inaccurate. they were distorted and they idn't seem to be aware of a history that i had encountered in research i had been doing in and 1930s in america. it seemed to me like those alive in the very kind of ideas trump and his advisers were putting forward i think it was important to bring forth a kind of pre-history back to the national could.sation if i >> why had you been doing s?search on the 1920s and 1930 "the rote a book called ", we think of it as

the quintessential novel of the merican dream but a lot of people don't realize that that hrase was not a catch phrase when he wrote it. if you asked him are you writing dream?about the american do you mean? we don't know the history of the phrase and how it's changed. the f the things i found ost striking is the book that widelye it popular, he's egarded as the person who made it popular, you'll see op eds hat adams was the first to bring it out but no one seems to notice that he used the phrase exact opposite. he said specifically the american dream is not a dream of big wages and 40 cars and

houses. dream about portable social ability. of liberty and justice for all, equal opportunity. details that i like the most from that book, adams at the end of his book, he says is is in 1931, his symbol of the american dream is the public library. the library of congress. reading room. he said that to me has always symbol ike the perfect of the american dream because it is a space provided for the free,ment of individuals, and supported by the government, and it's for rich, poor, black, white, male, female, christian, jew, everybody is there to improve themselves. says is the american dream and i was very interested in the way, i think few people a public library was their first thought when they think of the american dream. that in a t back to

moment. ake us through your chicago, illinois, birth, through how many years have you lived? >> i've been in london for years which is really hard to believe. watching i grew up bugs bunny and sometimes joke wrong turn at albuquerque. i went there as a young academic. job.as my first i actually studied english literature at princeton. my ph.d. so i did i've been gradually moving east from the chicago area where i up. i did all my schooling in the then took ea, and this job in england almost 20 years ago thinking i would do it and come home but events overtook me and i learned along the way something hat's been very important for me, even thinking about things book, and i was young enough when i went over there that i didn't understand this. i thought you could have an and pack it in your

bag and take it home like a souvenir. the ways in rstand which those kinds of experiences transformative. it's changed my relationship in how i look at america. i have this stereo view now, to se a metaphor, this kind of insider-outsider perspective abroad, hearing what people outside the united states think, what we tell own countrybout our myths and values, and it's been very, you know, they say travel broadening and it really has me.n for >> what is being director of the being human festival like? a lot of tually, it's fun. the being human festival is the k's only festival of the humanities. the idea is a simple one. we invite researchers from all united kingdom, any university, or independent as well, to think of

creative and celebratory ways to share with the public their research into any area of the humanities. really it's there to showcase the fact that this area that some people think of as self-involved or doesn't have any real meaning or for them to show them how much humanity is mportant, how much history can change their understanding of their community, their identity, understanding citizenship or the law can change their relationship to everyday lives. alive in a ing that fun way. get the researchers off the campus, out into the communities encourage them to do fun things like pop quizzes with a to the storian or go cemetery and have walking tour nd learn about your history that way. simple creative things that get people reconnected. lot of fun.

>> here's some videotape from 2017.y 20, let's watch. forward, a new y vision will govern our land. day forward, it's be only america first. first.a >> have you ever heard anybody first?itain >> they are just starting to say it on the back of trump. so there has become a britain but i'm happy to say not gaining very much as your there because, question implies it doesn't work the same way. he had a said that new vision that was going to country, that was very untrue, not his first and inaccurate t statement. america first is not a new idea nd it's not a new vision of

america and that's something i go into, a great deal of detail america ok is that first, as a phrase, it doesn't even begin with charles as many people said it did when trump resuscitated it. but ended with lindbergh until trump resuscitated it. began in 1915 when woodrow used it to stay out of the first debates about america first campaigns on the first f america throughout the teens and 20s, arding tried to pass a permanent protectionist tariff in the name of america first which would have saved donald he had beenouble if able to pass it. permanent protections tariff to pass in the name of america first. it was invoked to keep us out of nations, to keep us signing and ratifying the this , because there was idea that we would be giving up to european ty

overlords. there was this kabal of european who would globalists want to take charge of america that we needed to put america first. isolation it strain and political protectionist, economic protectionist strain of america first is a century old, very associated with some other ideas that trump's advisers have sought to back, particularly the idea of economic nationalism, which again was a phrase that around the america first debates in the time of the treaty of verse sails, and has s what steve bannon specifically said that he believes in and was promoting with trump. these are very old ideas. they are not new ones at all and in many ways, trump and the playing right e out of the republican playbook of the 1920s. >> i want to make sure that i a dellums of rom yours from november 12, 2016. us soccer punch for those of

who believe this particular spectacularly more ready -- than her grossly underqualified -- >> so you obviously feel strongly about it. >> i have not hid my opinions about this. i think it's one of the advantages of being an academic not a istorian and reporter as such. there is objectivity and objectivity. think you have to do is to allow your own political assions and your political values and your beliefs to be spoken explicitly. not trying to hide where i come from but what you must work very hard of doing is not skew your and of the facts presentation. so you don't get to cherry pick your evidence to support whatever your political iewpoint might be and that's what being trained as a good historian and good scholar is all about but that doesn't mean

have views on what those fat are. it just means you do your upiest be honest and tell the truth, ot only the part of the truth that's palatable. >> where do you vote? >> indiana in ow can you do that britain? >> i just went home to vote election he illinois because this election in particular, i felt, it was very -- it nt that i wanted was mostly symbolic but i wanted to physically cast my vote. > we'll go back to august of 1940, video of the man you just lindbergh, harles and hear him talking about first.a >> in the past we have built europe dominated by england and france. in the future we may have to dominated by rope germany. if we desire to keep america out offer a plan for

peace -- take the lead. that plan should be based upon welfare of america. by an ld be backed impregnable system of defense. t should incorporate terms of mutual advantage. but it should not involve the internal affairs of europe. do so many people get upset about charles lindbergh? > well, that was a rather benign version of some of what he said. so if you listen to a clip like context it doesn't seem particularly upsetting and distort that r to there is something objectionable in that except for a couple of things. clear, point it was very even in america, the degree to persecuting was jews in particular, but of course, also other communities. the extent of the atrocities in the death camps but they knew they were there. they knew jews were being persecuted.

hey knew there was terrible violence. it isn't as if americans were were e that the nazis doing very bad things, indeed, and lindbergh was aware of it so somehow we might have to deal with the germans is kind of you know, problematic for one who doesn't ant to support the persecution of entire communities. hat's already problematically appeasing idea but in other speeches he gave he made his views more clear. first radio s broadcast in 1949 that the conflict in europe was not a races, of the white that's a quote, the white races repelg to ban together to an asiatic intruder like a gun gas council. that were the case america would need to come to the aid of the other white races to repel invaders.hite so it's an explicitly idea of that are e people supposed to be in charge? what he said over and over

had to ban together as the white races, then america part.d play its but, he said, because this is just a battle between two white races, england and germany, then america should stay out of it. he implication being very strongly that it didn't matter which white race was in charge in ong as a white race was charge and he was prepared for it to be the nazis whatever they were up to. they were white who cares, and that's a problematic i hope so, t least in someone who beliefs in an of democracy.n >> have you decided to stay in britain forever? i have not decided. certainly as events have continued to shift around me, reluctant to make plans about forever. >> do you have a family? >> i have a husband, british husband. we got married i said to him the only thing i need to make sure of is that you would america if move to events took us there and he said, absolutely. in fact, he made a joke about

a green card. he has a slightly different view of that right now. >> why? different he have a view right now? he's as angry about what's going on and i don't think he would live under the current government policies of the united states, and, indeed, he would be an immigrant in those and, you know, it's a pretty hostile environment for even native speaking british, he doesn't want to be a part of that. believe in what's happening here. >> however you feel very strongly about what's going on you itain, i want to show some video that you have seen from may 10 of 2017, and you're a man who is very prominent in the british now.tical system right >> i'm also -- i also offend it extraordinary that anybody finds antics and his bafinery amusing. >> the specific comments that he libya, a country civil war and he said it had nice beaches that invest in once

they cleared up the dead bodies, that's not a joke. not not funny, it's appropriate for the foreign minister of great britain to say. e should have been sacked instantly. >> so boris johnson you're talking about. >> i was talking about him. too.de me angry, >> but why are you any happier over there than would you be here? >> i'm not. not happy about what's going on over there as well and that's exactly why i'm trying to fight back. for me it's not bind their. it's not me saying america is in said, ile state -- as i didn't leave america for political reasons. i as an economic migrant, went for a job, and it's primarily because of the way that my career developed that i married a brit i and my life is there, for the most part but i'm very angry about what's happening there, too, and i think that the assault on the kind of -- what i the basic to be tenants of liberal democracy are definitely happening in britain, too. nd the kind of

catastrophic/farce-cal brexit, on march 29 when brexit happens no one has a sense of where the british what kind of e, trade relations we'll have, and there is a very real possibility will he british economy fall off a cliff. i know loads of people who are out where they might have passports for other kinds of national eligibility. about are very worried it. for me it's the other way around. dual ally -- i became a citizen. i got british citizenship in the spring of 2016 so that i could in the european referendum because, i didn't want to be in the place d write had lived. i had voluntarily des infranchised myself. so i decided to do that. an i'm going to have britain europe and i'll have america and all of these options, and i got that wrong as well. so i felt very much as if suddenly the two countries that

loved had decided to plunge off a cliff together. >> you mention this in your ook, this is from february 2016, it's donald trump on the campaign trail being interviewed. you retweeted somebody, 2016, it was a mussolini quote but you didn't know it was mussolini. one day as ao live as a -instead of one day sheep. did you know it was mussolini? president trump: mussolini was mussolini. it's a good quote, interesting. i saw -- i know who said it, but what difference does it make mussolini or somebody else. it's an interesting quote. >> you want to be associated fascist? >> no, i want to be associated quotes.teresting >> what are you hearing? >> i'm hearing evasiveness. i'm hearing somebody who very has no problem -- the idea that it's an interesting uote but that somehow is

separate from it being spoken by mussolini as part of a fascist deeply , it's a disingenuous thing to say or to try to believe. i don't believe he believes that second. of course, he admires the strong mussolini.s of he very clearly mimics him in all kinds of ways. in jack strut around boots in a heartbeat if given a chance. he wants military parades. he's demanded that kind of cult personality. about being president for life. there are lots of jokes that he emulate ire and mussolini. he's not repudiating it. walk ot stupid enough to straight up and say i'm a fascist or i would adhere to of fascist s platforms or support certain orri f fascist values

oidiologies. are you ch teaching doing and what is it you teach? >> i'm not doing a lot of teaching right now. i mostly teach postgraduate students. ph.d.'s and i work on fitzgerald with my students but context of 1920s nd 1930s and do work around that with my students. >> do you find anybody in london who likes donald trump. no. no. he's all but universally reviled. one or two crop up on social occasionally but you can never be sure how much they exist in real-life or just bought. handful there must be a of people who admire him but, no again, not ely, and just by the liberal metropolitan reviled.'s widely >> so when your husband and you are talking about donald trump both don't like anybody about him, how do you work it out? anger?you work out your >> i worked my anger out by

writing a book and by going lots of talks.g the book came out in the uk in the spring and i've done talks ng like 60 or 70 around the country talking to people about this, trying to get hem to understand what these coded statements are about, and what i think it is, why i think trump presents such a danger, i think my husband is happy for me to be doing that on behalf of both of us. writing the up in book and it's kind of a joint effort. the s almost as upset at outcome of the election as i was. do?what does he >> he's a businessman. >> you have several people in our book that you tell the story with and one of them is alter lipman, another one is dorothy thompson. here's dorothy thompson, before we run this, who was she? dorothy thompson is kind of the hero of my book. she was a journalist. a foreign correspondent, she's american but she was a foreign correspondent in europe during fascism.of she was in italy when mussolini was on the rise in vienna and

germany. american reporter to interview hitler and she got out of germany by the reich which made her an international celebrity. syndicated e to a column and litman. most s one of the two influential columnists of the day. it was "time" had said the second most influential woman in america after eleanor roosevelt. us to know tant for is that she became very much the america anti-fascism in and very much the voice, warning that fascism could happen in the united states. picture, there are three people in the picture. you'll be easy to identify. who are they? > dorothy thompson, sinclair lewis and their little boy. sinclair lewis the author of the novel "it can't happen here." that novel was very influenced thompson's european circle, by the debates and

arguments that they were having nd there were concerns about what was happening in europe, and he wrote a novel, very much by, if that's the right huey long, ed by louisiana senator, with a vision specifically t american fascism would look like and it's remarkable to read that now, in the context of trump because a lot of what it's predicted there, trump to a t. it's really extraordinary, the way the voice sometimes sounds like trump.ly >> let's catch up with dorothy thompson first. issue between the foreign correspondents and the german government concerns the of journalism. the german government allows its only to publish official news. believes, to be in support of the present regime, and it seems to have the attitude, but the foreign press should also share this point of

view. american.id she's an where does she get that accent? >> she grew up on the east coast and lived abroad for a long time. she sounds a little bit like katherine help burn. americans tion of often had that mid atlantic accent. >> what is she saying? >> she's talking about the of the freedom of the press. the idea that a free press is almost another branch of and it's absolutely a cornerstone of democratic germany was hat involved in a wholesale assault on the freedom of the press, and very much part of a fascist regime, that they are --y going to have a national a nationally approved press that propaganda and stories that are, you know, flattering to the current regime thatould suppress anything was critical. and, of course, that's why people are so worried about any of assault on the press in a democracy, and by donald rump's repeated decisions and by sarah sanders and others supporting him in these decisions to suggest that

the enemy of the people. very, very fascist phrase particularly for the press states and his secretary to be using. reporters are not the enemies of the people. bulwark of ely a american democracy of free press. >> having said that, how often done something to eliminate speech with the press other than accusing them people?g an enemy of the >> well, look, i think that people are going to have ifferent views about how fox news plays into this, but, you know, the complexity of the american political debates about hether there is a liberal bias to the media, if it's been corrected in some way by fox that's a very w inaccurate and distorted version of what's happening because when you look at the mainstream media, so-called "new york imes" and cnn, they are always having conservative voices, explicitly conservative voices.

when is the last time fox news had a liberal on. so it's heavily weighting things in one direction. fox news as a phenomenon worries because it does not make any attempt, except the extreme news people like help is smith to be objective or balanced, to unbiased, and their deliberate blurring of the boundaries between entertainment nd news, that's always their excuse or their defense, you not sean hannity, he's pretending to be the news, this is supposed to be entertainment. academic for bit a second i would point out that who is a german jewish refugee of hitler and british philosopher, and this is something political scientists alk about, he talked about politics a ng spectacle and entertaining, the kind of fascism as this

emotional spectacle. i was of this feeling that fox ith its emphasis on entertainment is moving in that direction. trump's willingness to let the media align, drive his tweets, his policies, his public worryings, i find very indeed and i do think that is a kind of bellwether for an press. on the >> what's the difference between that and reading the "new york imes" editorials every day and believing everything you read there and following that, not his president but another president, who would be very much attuned to them or the "washington post"? well, as i say, the difference is that the "washington post" and "new york times" have conservative voices. a part of that conversation. they have those debates. they have bret stevens. they have david brooks. they have people who are making conservative case. that, i think is the difference. t's just not to me clear that that so-called liberal bias exists. this idea that truth has a bias.al

people are doing their best -- on one side of the equation they to tell theeir beth truth and in another they are at all.ng >> with billions of videos on tune, cbs, "washington post" and i can keep mes," oing, why do people get so upset about fox news? it is helping to create this, about it as a bubble. gain, they seem like very distorted versions of what's happening. i have seen, all the time on media, i'm usually but ing this from abroad, some big story will break, i won't be able to think of an the top of my head, but, you know, the "new york story about trump's inheritance being based on tax fraud, right? a big "new york times" story.

report that ative was, you know, stood up in all and, you see it, every media outlet leading with except fox news which is telling that the caravan is about to invade. that's what i mean. their unwillingness to ever be critical of what trump is doing. ever unwillingness to report anything that might be negative is what starts to make a propaganda state agency rather than like a free and fair press. >> why do you care? in other words, there are all of these other outlets that can say the other side, do the other cnn now is viewed as somebody that's always banging as is msnbc, p while fox is always supporting viewership so he low, they only have a couple, wo or three million people watching and you've got 350 million people in the united states? >> of course, the vote was also don't have 350 million people voting.

people ad 136 million vote. >> there is a lot of evidence to uggest that a lot of them were influenced by what was happening on tv. let's not forget trump was very all of the ing up oxygen of television coverage during the campaign. that's what he got right. tryingy time hillary was to give some earnest policy speech the cameras would swing carnival trump was running because he understood that he could suck up way and xygen in that could --'t could >> recently it was said we -- i'm not quoting hip exactly, when we leave the trump us.y, our audience leaves so who is at fault? > sure, i'm going to blame us, too. -- even more outrageously said donald trump may be very bad for but he's very good for

cbs. hich is to say it more cynically. the real nuts and bolts, in all of we've allowed our political coverage to be driven, it has to have a advantage.e you don't see that in any other democracy. that's one of the great lessons me, in britain they have outlawed negative campaigning. you can't pay for television coverage. the state gives officially every recognized party x number of a broadcast and that's all you're allowed and there are all kinds of controls over what a political party is do.owed to there are all kinds of limits on campaign contributions. they don't have anything like united, and keeping all of that money and allderdice of those financial interests out of not just political campaigns but out of the coverage of political campaigns. >> how do you feel with all of you have a first amendment? >> well, that is, of course, question. it will be, there is no chance that will be changed. >> who knows.

doctrine,e a fairness right? the fairness doctrine until 1987 think is when it was overturned which said did you have to try to present both there f an argument and was supposed to be some attempt at objectivity, and that was, fcc, i think, put of the the beginning laws without broadcasting until name reversed it in the of free speech that it was somehow against free speech. have emocrats since then said, when obama was asked about it, he said he had no intention that battle fight in. that sense, no, i don't think it ill be reversed but that's not to say it couldn't be. you'll remember, and it's now unimaginable, in the 1970s, most trusted man in cronkite.s walter and the idea that today a journalist could have that kind knew he, that everybody was doing his best, it didn't mean he got everything right but

best new he was doing his and they believed he was trying to be fair and to be just, and now we've liberated everybody obligation, and i find that really, really worrying. what would you think of a fairness doctrine was applied to book writing, to newspaper writing? well, i mean, look, it is applied to newspaper writing, in case of stories like the "new york times" story that i trump's --about >> how? >> mostly by the lawyers. they are going to make sure that nything they say is not defamatory, is not libelist because they have to but also good reporting, you know, there standing up ad of story. i don't have to tell you. ou stand up by a story to make sure it isn't just one view or one opinion and you make sure the facts are robust and you've and there are facts, i mean, it is possible to stand those things up. you write about citizen kane in the book, why? said it's trump has his favorite movie. we can assess that as we will.

you know, citizen kane was movie that orson wells made specifically as an anti-fascist, anti-american fascist story. he saw william randolph hearst, the newspaper magnet who spoke of america first, he was a vociferous supporter and e would put america first over his masked head and he was also a very ardent isolationist. he felt strongly that america needed to stay out of european affairs and he was the model for , the charles foster kane in citizen and wells was very worried by hearst's decision to meet hit her. he felt like hearst was a latent made citizen kane a satire of that kind of in whichty and the way wealth could drive power america. in >> 34 seconds of citizen kane directed by orson wells.

governor of this state -- with one purpose only out and make public the dishonesty, downright -- of the political machine. control of the government of this state. my first official act as overnor of this state will be to appoint a special district arrange for the and tment, prosecution, conviction of boss -- >> now trump aside people have said this is the greatest movie made in the united states. >> absolutely. i think it probably is. lotink it's got, there is a of reason for it to make that claim. worth hink it's remembering how trump plays into it as well. that image that you showed there perfect example of why trump's stated admiration for matters because that's how he presented himself when he accepted the nomination

at the republican national ofvention that giant picture himself behind himself. that cult of personality is what is worrying people. way in which he seems to want people to love him as dear current, you s the know, presidential incumbent who will be removed in eight years that doesn't and seem to be the way he wants to things. >> here is some footage from the american nazi rally from madison square garden in 1939 before he got into the war. it's brief. i pledge undivided to the plan of the united states of for ca and to the republic which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> and your point of using this book?e >> well, to point out that there was a very active american

in the 1920s nt and the 1930s, earlier than people think. the s associated with phrase america first from the beginning, so again, lindbergh just create this in 1940-1941. long contrary there was history there and that they had this of traction, that american nazi party had 20,000 supporters who came to a rally at madison square garden and as footage shows in the middle of new york, stormtroopers with the nazi salute sw swastika next to a picture of washington. that rally was for washington's and peel giving the nazi salute. the point is it can happen here. tendency to think we're inoculated, somehow our that acy is so special we're just -- we're immune to fascism and that's not the case that it isn't.ws >> this is from page 155.

it appeared six months after the memorial day parade riots in new york, when the ku klux klan and self-proclaimed american fascists clashed with onlookers in manhattan and queens. >> why did you put that in there? > i think it's important that we understand that the question, there is a very open question bout how much trump knows of this history, and we know he's not a big reader. to say the least. but he's also talked about how much he admires his father, and how much his father influenced thinking. he has said over and over again to his father taught him believe in what he calls gene theory or the biological, a in genes, which is to say, and you can look at the interviews, there are dozens of given over the years that he believes when superior people mate they people.superior

eugenics idea. that was very prevalent in the s. the klan had march as part of memorial day parade. there were 20,000 onlookers. memorial day l parade but the ku klux klan had been controversy allowed to well and scuffles and a riot broke out and the police six in queens ultimate arrests. five were card-carrying self-identifying, the sixth was fred trump. at least that's a remarkable coincidence. in the book his later record in race relations would there to t he was protect the klan. there is no evidence that i'm aware of. to say that heir grew up, in a world in which in whicha commonplace,

this was a world view, this idea of america first, an idea that a white protestant american mehow more than people who are not like that. that was to be hahn percent and can or real american other people were less american or unamerican, and i certainly think that donald trump view, and hat world that's what i'm trying to show there. >> did you find any reason why his middle name was christ? > it was actually more common than we might think at the time, ut it does, i mean, that was maybe, i couldn't resist it, also that o think trump's narcissism is so blatant and so disabling, this kind i've been talking about his okay cult personality but also messianic. only he can save america, reverse the economy and this i just thought, c stood for christ just making me think of donald as well growing up what

kind of family did you have in illinois? >> well, my parents divorced i was very small but they both stayed there and so i was of those lucky children of divorce where i had a father who was also very active in my my sister and i grew up with my mother but we were only a if you blocks away my father who remarried. >> what did they do? >> my mother did all kinds of a single mother. my father was a lawyer who became a businessman. did you develop your strong views? question. a good i think, they maybe weren't as well-informed as they should ave been and i'm become more politicized as an adult than i was as a young person. as a young person i was just caught up in books and i was very happy living in the orld of imagination, literature, storytelling and narrative. my political convictions, they raised ays there, i was in a household that taught me these values and taught me they fundamentally american.

i believe in liberal democracy to my core but i probably wasn't in fightinginvolved for those rights as i have been as an adult. a book on you write marilyn monroe? book, it was the first book i wrote that came out of my ph.d. thesis. got interested, but what happened was, i ended up with kind of a crusading spirit. all of my books have had kind of a crusading spirit in one aspect, which is that i became all of i was reading these biographies for various easons, that there were these consistent lies that were being told and i felt -- i had this kind of feeling that i wanted to and a truth tellingler debunker and to say here's what we need to understand, and about the ways in hich cultural myths can be distorted in ways that we're not even aware of. in retrospect, i realized that all three of my major books, my marilyn monroe book, gatsby book and now this one, all been about the american

dream. i've actually been writing about along butan dream all i only became conscious of that with this one. >> you say this is a significant in donald trump's life and -- we've shown this several but i want to get your take on it. his was back in 2011 at the white house correspondent's dinner. >> all kidding aside, obviously about your credentials and breadth of experience. [laughter] >> for example, seriously, just an episode of elebrity "apprentice," at the steakhouse, the men's cooking the judges impress from omaha steaks and there was a lot of blame to go around but trump, recognized that the real problem was the lack of ultimately and so or didn't blame little john

meat loaf. you fired gary, and these are kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. [laughter] have said that's the moment he decided to run for president. do you think that's true? good hink there is a chance that's true. i won't claim to know what's inside his head and i don't want inside his head to be onest but there is a very real possibility. i think it's worth noting that soon after he got behind the conspiracy, idea that obama was illegitimate as a president because he was not a american which goes back to these ideas about white who counts as a real american. just recently, he said that he to go after the birth right citizenship enshrined in he 14th amendment which was a specific reversal of dread scott hich said african-americans were less american, that they were, that they had fewer rights and they didn't have access to citizenship, and, of

course, that goes all the way back to the constitution, idea 3/5 of a k people were human. o all of these ideas are a circle around the de legit legitization legitization. you write o ask you, about this in the book and ask you why. >> it's not pleasant to look at, at all. i have several photographs like that. decided to write -- i to include the specific context actually after charlottesville, after the event in year.ottesville last i was already writing this book at that point and i was sort of assuming a reader knew how bad kkk was, and so, in my earliest drafts i had just said, know, what's wrong with america first is that, the of the ku klux klan in the teens and 20s.

and then charlottesville happened and then we had a up and said stood there were many fine people on both sides of a protest, when entirely made up of klansmen and neo-nazis. finenot view those as very affinity goes way back. a few burning crosses, no one is efending harassment or saying some hangings in the woods are okay, but how bad was it really? to show very clearly and very graphically how bad it really was. the violence nd that we're talking about here. we're talking about human beings that were burned alive in the united states in front of crowds grinning white00 people until 1934. torture.lking about

we're talking about dismemberment. jesse y weren't just -- washington, who was lynched in 1916 was raised and lowered over for two hours until he died in front of school children lunch e there on their break and it was in front of the city hall in waco, texas. we have to understand that these atrocities and they were done in the name of america first. in the name of being 100 percent american and being 100 percent american, hose white crowds in the forefront meant that you were allowed to do things like that, declared to beou less than 100 percent american. we're not out of that cycle of violence. people who ose thinks that the summery by ution of black people police officers who are not held accountable is modern lynching. is.eally think that it we're speaking not long after 11 ews were killed at a synagogue

in pittsburgh, which is the greatest massacre of jews in american istory, on soil. so the violence is real and it's still happening. by proxies but it's always happened by proxies but it's in the name of these beliefs. we have, i think we have a tendency, again to think that our democracy will somehow save also that we're somehow always benign and we treat anomaly.as if it's an i want to show how deep the goes and how violence it was >> that picture was from marion, indiana and you quote from the evening press of muncy, indiana this remarkable picture -- >> now, what stopped this?

> well, it stopped -- there were several things that finally kind of ground it to a halt. kkk started to lose influence. it started to lose power. --was >> why? >> well, they had financial scandals. that ad sexual scandals helped to bring them down because they were actually infiltrating government. again, had the highest concentration of klansmen in the 1920s. right up there o i can't, you know, i can't one up you on that. but people don't realize the extent to which it penetrated midwest. the extent to which lynching was raveling into duluth, minnesota, oregon, and, so, you boasted they had to rs from portland, maine portland, oregon. wane becauseted to they had scandals. but then the crash happened and

$10 le couldn't afford the to be a klansmen. they also didn't have as much pare time which i don't mean facetiously, but there was this sense that the targets of shifting.were the naacp was getting more active. the great civil rights campaigner got her start as an investigator into lynchings, finally the federal government started to crack down. of claude neal backlash and roosevelt got involved. we had more than 200 bills were put on the floor and not one could pass. congress could never bring lynching should be a federal crime but roosevelt started to push back against it. hoosier. another former senator from long deceased albert beverage and you have a long quote in here, if don't mind i'm going to read most of it just to ask you why and what in the book it means. senator beverage says --

. >> i put that in there because the idea that america was once a nation racially, and you know, onderful, bygone state should be recovered is, a, totally untrue.

never racially homogeneous. there was this small matter of he genocide of native americans. the small matter of the fact that we had forcibly imported people from africa from the beginning, and it happened from the beginning, so this idea that we were ever racially homogeneous is a fantasy and a racist one. dangerous one. what worries me about, why i hink that speech is important, is because we're hearing very similar lines being taken now. we need toument that have -- that we need to have a purification of the racial pool a very aryan idea, something that hitler would have been perfectly happy with. it's important to note that hitler got his ideas for the from germany from our race laws because he wanted to legal and historical justification so there was always the back and forth between those ideas is we have then and now, people are prepared to use

violence to bring about that is impossible. you can't have racial purity. that ship has sailed. existed, which it didn't, by the way, but we don't have to get into that, if it had ever existed it's gone. you can't reverse the genes cal -- dominant work the way they work. you aren't going to do this unless you're prepared to wipe out entire populations of people and that's the implication there and that's why people are fascismabout this being because it is the slippery slope outright genocide, to trying to remove groups of people who you see as tainted, pure enough. not being the right kind of people. that somehow keep your nation fantasy of a s homogeneous nation of blood which doesn't even mean anything. use violence to fantasy.ring about that >> you're not so sure that you ever want to come back to this country. >> that's not true at all. to show, a, this was always there, so it's

something we fought before and it again. to fight i believe very strongly if you love america you don't walk away and i'm not ceding this country to these people. i will not give it to them. profoundly in the ideals of our nation. we never lived up to them, and is partly showing we never lived up to them but that doesn't make the ideals bad. have never been good enough to, you know, make them real but it's the striving, aspiration to try to create a more perfect union. o try to protect liberty and justice for all. i believe totally in those and i'm not walking away an giving these guys. donald trump can't have my country. no way, no how. lived here aven't for 20 years. that's an accident -- the fact that, my moving back here would somehow, you know, actively help turn the would do it in a heartbeat. >> would you come back and run for office? >> i don't think so, because i my skills are better used in other ways and i think that i

far too outspoken to be probably a very effective candidate. but i don't think everybody needs to run for office. think we all need to put our shoulders to the wheels in different ways. >> is living in britain a better deal than living in the united states? a good question. look, i don't know. 've done it for very personal reasons. i've done it because, because i really like the career that i've developed there and it's not -- it's not even clear to me that 10 years ago i could have written these kinds academicas an american and i believe in the books that i write. >> why not? > because of the way american academia, what it supports and what it needs, professors to do all kinds of or reasons. basically there is more room for on television ce as a commentator, for writing or guardian and other newspapers, for the financial times, that stuff has developed clear there and it's not to me that i could have here.hing similar

>> one last question. behold, this book, america. who named it? >> that's a good question. editor who lly my came up with using the phrase but the phrase comes from one of iterations of the american dream as a phrase to describe a national value system i found. it was from a commemorative ervice in honor of grant in 1895 and it's a little speech that shows that the american used at that g time to describe those older founding ideals that we were just talking about. ideals of self-government, of opportunity for all. aspirations and that's what they used to mean the american dream meant and not free market capitalism and that's an important line through the book. i was struggling actually to book tight for the because it's about ideas and it wasn't obvious how to do that. said, was my editor who you know what about behold

america. history, s just this and, she's american, my editor in the uk is actually an started as well, and we talking about it and realize there is actually a really nice in there because it works two ways, so it is both look at america in a way you haven't behold so a before, the image that we use there is from one of those nazi rallies where you've got an american flag next to a nazi flag. but, so you're beholding an america you haven't seen before statement to a america to look at itself. behold, america. look at this story. sarah guest has been churchwell and the book as we america," the d, entangled history of america first and the american dream. we thank you very much. >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

to or free transcripts or give us your comments about this at q&a.org.t us also available at c-span pod casts. >> next sunday on q&a, genereal his reporting t in politics during the trump era, that's q&a next sunday at p.m. eastern an pacific times on c-span. former f.b.i. director james com any back on capitol hill of y for a second day testimony before the house judiciary and oversight and committees, eform their year long investigation into the 2016 presidential