trump's war on civil rights." then on wednesday author alan dershowitz talks about his book "the case against impeaching trump" and thursday "squeezed, why our families can't afford america." on friday, the book "sex matters. how modern feminism lost touch with science, love, and common sense." saturday, "the view from flyover country." and sunday, "american overdose." join us for authors week each morning this week on washington journal." this week on q & a, "the wall street journal" columnist holman jenkins talks about his work and politics in america

uring the trump era. host: holman jenkins, of "the wall street journal." when did you decide you wanted to be a write sner holman: i think i knew erl oin. my teachers identified in me a talent for writing and called it journalistic which meant i shouldn't aspire to be something creative like a novelist. i was very interested in history. my father was a political science professor and our house was full of books. my mother says i got the writing gene from her. that might be true. she was very much a reader. >> where did you grow up? >> philadelphia. >> when did you get the first hint writing would be your life? high school or college? >> i think it was second or third grade they had us write a little essay about what we should do if our shoes walked off without us and i wrote something they found so charming they put it in the annual publication of the school. it seemed silly to me. i said something about i'm going to put on my sneaky

sneakers and sneak off after them. they thought that was brilliant for a second grader and they told me i should be a writer. >> where did you go to college? >> hobart, upstate new york, geneva, new york. >> then what? >> i moved to boston for a while with my college cronies. none of us had any money. we did whatever jobs we could. eventually once i got enough of a nest egg to think about doing something with my life i applied to the journalism school at northwestern where you can get a one-year masters degree and get into the profession quickly and that's what i did. i spent a year in chicago. >> when did you know you wanted to be an opinionist? >> always. i didn't write for the school newspaper or read newspapers regularly except "the wall street journal" occasionally. i read national review and those kinds of publications and aspired to be that kind of writer. >> where did you get your base views? >> politically? >> mm-hmm. >> i remember the 1968 presidential election my dad was a dyed in the wool new deal democrat and we went up the

street to the humphrey headquarters and got all the buttons and bumper stickers. i kind of was paying attention at age 9 and started to think nixon made more sense given the chaos of the country at the time. i think i dwerged early. i remember once -- i think i diverged early. once seeing the guy who deregulated the airlines for jimmy carter i saw him on "firing line" or some show explaining regulation wasn't effective and the market would run the airlines better and i just said that's what i think. >> how much do you think jimmy carter got credit for being a deregulator? >> none. he gets a lot from me they fixed the problem of the american economy. he launched deregulation, put loaker into the fed to cure inflation. what a talked about disgrace the tax code was. it wasn't really addressed until terms.s first and second i think jimmy carter understood the domestic economy. people on my side of the aisle -- i'm not really republican, but a lot of my

are -- reviled him because of the cold war, all that. day, you could be a democrat.r and were a he was the one who held the initial hearings and brought in the experts to talk about why airline regulation was failing, why deregulation would be better for the american people than what we had then. >> how would you characterize americans today on deregulation? pro-regulation because they're pro-big government. subscribe to the public choice school where you look at the motivations of politicians, who them.porting i think the democrats don't really have a philosophy now. they're theis -- indiscriminate defender of big government programs, whether not.re working or i think that's what obama ran on in 2012. bipartisan,was the

postpartisan guy. i think that's what the democrats have become, politically, because those are their constituents. the networks are there. the unions are so important to all that. that's what their political base is. no ideas right now in the democrat party, as far as i can tell. republicans? the >> there were ideas. paul ryan people. doing, i think trump is not a man of ideas. yet if he succeeds in turning the republican party, the protecter of the old age he has really done something there that has created a new coalition. thosen't have entitlements if you don't have growth debates. that's why medicare for all is democrats,r for the all these 65 and older voters you're raiding our

kitty. >> you said you're not a republican? >> no. >> explain that for us. >> let's just say i voted for this year since 1980. all during my career as a journalist, probably because i moving around a lot, also because i thought i'm the listener, this is the day to speak. i didn't vote. so i voted this year. for the first 37 years, i was a republican-leaning democrat, now i'm a republican-leaning independent. >> why no voting? no primaries, no anything? >> first, as i said, i was moving around constantly. but the other thing was i feel-- i really did like -- i get my say 364 days a year. i don't feel this way about it now. i think i can vote and still be a good journalist. felt like i didn't need to participate in that way. enough participation and i wanted that to be a day that i listened. also, since i started writing journal, i have to write it on thursday.

increasingly that means writing early edition,e before the election. tuesdays now.y on >> so if you're the reading public. do they find you and how often? opthey find me on -- it's an ed column in the wall street journal. page.alled the pre-ed i'm there on wednesdays and saturdays. >> i want to go through some of your columns. and read back to you a couple things and then let you expand on it. one from saturday, november 3 and 4, the weekend journal. and the hem on it is -- the homicidals "we are a specious." do you remember? >> that's not a controversial statement. they've done studies that say that human beings, compared to mammal specious, are six times more likely to kill their own. truee way, that's also across the primates.

the chimpanzees are murderous too. archaeologists tell us that the major cause of death was homicide. int's how you decide those -- died in those dies. >> what was the impetus to write this column? attacks on the pentagon. it was suggest suggested homicidal intent. everyone acted as if this america.appen in it has more to do with human nature than with our politics. a you wrote, if you are pundit not conversant with the existence of evil, it's hard to much use tocan be an audience. >> ha ha! readyou're not going to the next line. >> i am. but at least those readers who who on hearing, of last week's pittsburgh synagogue murders, said to yes, but howuote, does this effect the washington

post's max boot? >> max is a former colleague of mine. this synagogue murder thing, he said, this is not the america i recognize. how hecould not fathom could not find the life of our country from the very beginning and from before the beginning, know, is this succession of armed men showing up and killing defenseless people, whether it the native americans or whether it was the french and other.lish fighting each and, you know, these mass shooting incidents which we've had something like 300 this year. there's obviously, you know -- we make it easy for this sort of happen, but obviously it comes from human nature. insane,in many way, an homicidal vicious specious towards each other. make it easy for these things to happen? >> anyone can get ahold of an automatic weapon in america. gun control is a very political issue in this country. these aregoing to say not the weapons used in these

incidents. that's what happens. >> do you have a solution for that? >> well, if you can't regulate access to guns to a degree that these things -- it's very hard to stop. even with relatively strict gun control, a deranged person can acquire a weapon over time and plan one of these things. other thing, we seem to be much more relaxed about surveillance. the technology is within reach where we can have surgical spaces, use face recognition to know who is going and to use social media presence to see who is a threat and is not. the chinese are way down this road, as you read in the paper all the time. they have this social ranking inle where your behavior public is monitored with face recognition cameras and you get you jaywalk, that sort of thing. businesses are using it all the time, you know, where you have license plate readers to track our travel ls. if you show up at a store they're monitoring what counters

you linger in front of, that sort of thing. it's not like this stuff is not going to be dwpped and used. how -- developed and the used. it maybe is a worthwhile question. >> from time to time, you take a some of yourt journalist competitors. this paragraph, an unconscious people whoof populate sunday morning talk shows goes like this. the ark of history is pointing to human perfection. we'll get there when we have freed ourselves from corrupting and beliefs, much like the specimens on morning shows have already done. explain that. >> i kind of dipped into deep water. idea thatck to the it's society that corrupts us and that we're naturally good. theink a lot of people on left and a lot of liberal people think human nature can be perfected with the right and that these things won't happen. natureing is that human is and always will be what it is.

we won't be ourselves if somehow rid of our homicidal tendencies. live with to learn to that and make ourselves safe from each other. >> what does a columnist do every day? >> i'm not one who is running from t.v. studio to t.v. show or speeches.d writing thisob is column, to i spend a lot of time on it. i have lots of ideas going all the time. columns that get written, but never get published. that's what i do. im looking for the thing that can say that needs saying that won't be said if i don't say it. there?do you get give us an insight. where do you hang every day? >> i -- myself with most days the. go inonce in a while, i to meetings or call in to meeting and we have outsiders. of my time reading and thinking and occasionally talking to people and more often with people whose ideas i want to, you know, plum.

>> how do you know you're having impact? >> i'm not sure i am. i don't know. hard, especially to be the wall street journal -- a wall supposed to beis a high-pereprestige person. so noisy, on is cable t.v. and blogs, i don't think if i'm having any impact. i think i'm serving the purpose where i just described, where i'm saying the thing that needs to be said that won't be said if i don't say it, i feel like i'm earning my keep. >> overall, what is it like to be on the editorial board of the wall street journal? how many people are on that board? you meet?do can you give us the overall philosophy? an how often do you write editorial? >> i haven't written editorials in all time. columnist now who writes two columns a week. i e-mail my colleagues all the attention to their things, so i'm feeding into the gestation of ideas. but the editorial board, it's a i couldn't even tell you how many people it is.

they meet every tuesday morning. to those meetings in a long time. marvelous job of setting the agenda of the editorial page. if i would add much if i was there anyway. my columns put ideas into circulation and my e-mails put ideas into circulation. but the editorial page, we like of the few that actually sells newspapers and style goes back 100 years. bobs hired by the great bartley. a lot of people there put his made iton the page and what it is. it's a great institution to be part of it. to promoteission, the ideas of free people and free markets as the best way human civil laition. >> i'm not -- civilization. >> what's the difference between the journal's editorial writing or the new york times washington post? how do you explain?

ofwell, ours, i think -- all these -- i mean, there was a time when most newspapers tried to be even handed, to have conservatives, liberals. have a philosophy and you wouldn't want to come and wek there unless you had -- debate all kinds of things all the time. but you wouldn't want to come boughtnless you really into sort of the general philosophy of the page, which i people, free markets, economic growth. >> and do you get feedback in the columns you write? >> sure. i get e-mails from people. measure myways i impact is, you know, how many comments readers put on. they run down the page. you have 400 comments or 1,000 comments. that's a crumb column that touched a nerve. the recent past? >> anything with trump in the headline. really, you take the career in hands right now if you don't write about trump, because

there's a huge appetite to what's going on with presidency. >> in this one column, it says, like any journalist, i keep a of every ill-colored thing president trump has said. >> don't we all? to me, you know, he is an agent of chaos. that's part of his nature. that's why people elected him. as far as i can think of, there ran fordy who ever president who was better known to the voters in all of his trump.han donald he is a person who has been known in this country for 40 years as quite a character, as a blow hard. and as a person who, you know -- who is ethically, he's not presidential material, you would way because of his -- the he carries on his personal life and his high-rolling business ventures and other things. people knew who he was when they elected him. am not as offended as a lot

of my brothers in the press are off-color, untoward things, because that's what they wanted. you think of him when there were 17 candidates? know, i wrote a column called the phenomenal trump, which i did not think that he going to be running for -- that he was going to make it process in the primary but i thought his voters were quite interesting, what it was him, that this guy would come in -- this idea that a businessman is going to run a business never carried much water to me, but i understood that he was a very disruptive element and they liked that. >> what do you think his real are?ics >> i don't know. i think primarily he wants to be the center of attention. i don't think he's a racist. i think the way he looks at people, everyone is either a or an enemy. and you can change categories very easily. grudges.no you know, i think his ideas

thing-- the america first is an idea that i think he holds dear, that our country has been dealingsged in its with the rest of the world and that reflects in trade policy immigration policy, the things that, in the minds of many of his supporters and theme america, have hurt and their economic prospects. i think that is, to a degree, a of beliefs on his part. >> you close out by saying of ofrse the abundant paradox this disreputable mr. trump is the way he entices so many ownrs to shred their reputations. it's the willingness of the mechanically, predictably to debate every time. case?'t that the this whole acosta business, do you think this is making trump that there's this huge that pressthe way conference went?

he loves that. he likes having the press as an enemy. it works not only with his base of who he's been all his life. he's the subject matter of -- cable t.v. on three cable channels is donald time.all the >> the head of cnn was quoted as talkinghat if we aren't about donald trump, the audience isn't watching us. >> yes. i just saw it, it's been reported that there's been $# billion on -- a billion on 2.4 billion of sales. sales. it has been an unbelievable blockbuster for them. think ofo you television journalism? >> i would be the last one to ask, because i stopped watching much. but i -- >> when did you stop watching? >> oh, in the last year, year half. ofike the business channels

cnbc. you know, it's what everybody says. mostly extravagant exaggeration. it's not really where the american people are. it's entertainment obviously. little bit concerned that there are some impressionable who take stuffe too seriously, like people who go into synagogues and send mail to democrats, that sort of thing. but i think on the whole, it's just an entertainment business now. >> october 19. you wrote, america has yet to inke stock of what happened 2016. and the strange circumstances the frequently loudish mr. trump an instrument for refreshing our political culture, a place to start is recognizing his singular making newn of things savable. >> well, that is true. to question nato, which was so sacrosanct. to put that -- the truth is, we

have alliances with countries that no longer have militaries. we're basically the stand-in military for all these countries. has to change. we can't have people drawing us into wars that they're not to fight. i think trump has been successful in that, getting on their spend monies militaries. on climate change, we are on a dead end. toerals are committed policies that are expensive, and ,hat have no effect on climate that are trivial in their impact. if --ole behaviors was basis was if we have these will somehowers agree to have policies as well and climate change will be solved. that's been proved not to be workable. donald trump was just pointing rid of all just got that. that clears the field for maybe something more sensible down the road. were to advise people that want to know where to get active besides your column, who do you respect in

philosophers, politicians? is there a list? >> there is no list. a lot of things. you know, what can i say? reading books pretty religiously now. george will is one columnist who i find regularly interesting but others aboutmany whom i would say that. just people at various points in time -- andrew mccarthy, alternative views on this whole russia business. well worth reading. blogger.an, the there's a guy who writes a called street-wise professor. very interesting. they're doing it on their own getting paid like me. there now. >> but when you were in younger

and you were in college, were followed?le that you philosophers? economists? people that you trusted? >> oh, i was a big gary wills when he wrote books about george washington, about lincoln's gettysburg address. aen he became kind of like virulent left winger and i kind of lost interest in him. but he was a person who interested me a lot during my early years. white's memoir, i was interested in the lives that journalists led. by aember reading a book guy named leonard mosley about the months before the buildup to that was just fascinating to me when i was probably 13, 14. sparked bys probably interest. but i'm not a person who has a guru. >> what about books? a book reader? >> i do. on i have so many books open my kindle that i never finish, i

can't even cope track. >> what do you think? >> history, biography. every once in a while, somebody will say some science fiction book is interesting and i'll of that.20 pages >> back to a column on october loophole, the times accuses the trump's abusing is a grantor retained annuity trust described as one code's great gifts to the ultra wealthy. unsurprisingly, it also happens thee a favorite of sulsburger family, which owns the new york times. all about?t >> that's one thing a source gave me. this was all about donald trump father's tax avoidance, legal tax evasion is not -- i have to keep that in mind. 20, 30 years ago, the time to the big -- the times did a big exposé on that. was just pointing out that what they called this giant gift

to the wealthy, this form of tax code avoidance, the new york times also uses to keep control of the -- the family that runs to new york times uses it, make sure it isn't taxed away from them, taxing away their contain.f the >> but is this for the ultra wealthy? is that how it got there? >> sure, in a sense. we have this inheritance tax allem that would break up these family businesses because they'd have to sell to, you taxes.ay the sell the businesses. we don't really want that. we want to say we're taxing the we don't really want to, so we carve out all these loopholes. i'm sure the trump family was adept at exploiting those loopholes. as the times reporting says, they were using the same as all the new york families were using minimize their taxes. >> what's the difference between the power of the new york times and the wall street journal? >> well, i think the new york times is very influential in

new york. journalthe wall street is influential elsewhere. i'll put it that way. january 30, 2018. mr. trump is not a conservative. hardly even a republican. at the same time, no candidate so well-known before he entered the political arena. imageiberately pedaled an of himself as garish, playboy-businessman. is, a colleague once said quote, his basic value is making money, money, money, and collecting women. >> does that sound like the donald trump that you knew for 40 years? that's the donald trump the american people knew. i really do believe that they a persond him not as who had strong policy ideas or imprint ono put his the country in some really

structured, far-seeing way. chaos, as ient of say, and they kind of had some in our touching faith institutions and the press to recognize the message that the voters were sending and to work try and shape this trumpian realignment of our political system in a way that with go forward and deal the problems that american people want dealt with. i'm disappointed that that didn't happen. one, the effort was to delegitimize trump. what do you expect in the next two years with the thecrats in control of house? >> you know, either the the trump moment of presidency is over and it's just orng to be nasty fighting donald trump is a deal maker. he has been open, in his first two years, to pretty interesting democrats that got ultimately shot down by extremists on one side or the other, like immigration. we might see that donald trump

coming back. who knows? schumer go way back. that was one of the reasons i in favorant to ever be of giving trump the president, because you don't really know. know which ideas he's really attached to. have toese days you write about him all the time, because that's what people want to read. how often do you write about him? >> i don't say i have to. i'm a columnist. i can write about any darn thing i want. want to be part of this conversation, and it is what the about. want to read there's so many interesting things to say about it and wind thatme much needs to be leaned against, coming from the rest of the media, i feel like i have a role here. >> give us an example. >> russia. this whole thing about, you to paint him as a russian agent or the russians moveg this big strategy to him into the presidency. part of -- it's just a scheme to le legitimize -- delegitimize

figure the voters gave us because they were trying to tell us something. it alsoan aspect of that i think, you know, i have a few people who are on board with me on this. but the most important way russia influenced the election influence on jim comey, the f.b.i. chief's decisions to intervene on behalf of hillary clinton. and it was his second intervention just before the when he reopened the hillary investigation, which may be the single moment that the outcome ofd the election. there's polling and exit polling data that suggests that may have changed enough votes to give trump the presidency by virtue narrow electoral college win. there are lots of people who say that. and what has never been understood is how much comey's original action was driven by of russian intelligence that we still have not been told any details about. the press reported a little bit on it.

comey alluded to it in his memoir. some leakage of his closed hearing testimony talked about russian intelligence. in the horowitz justice department inspector general report about comey -- which criticizes comey's behavior during the election, he mentioned repeatedly this classified annex, this russian role inence and its sparking comey's behavior. finally, adam shift -- he's the housee chief of intelligence committee -- has admitted if the russians had a major impact on the election, the most important way, by how they affected jim comey's behavior. that is a story the media just ignores. >> i'm sure you know this, but chaif has written about you that you flipped completely trump wassince donald elected. >> i don't read him and i don't know what he says about me. early and often critic of vladimir putin.

i said that he was an empire builder, that the hope that he was going to convert russia to thailand, large and dutiful partner in finance and business, was wrong. had bigger ideas. 2005. era, iough this trump have qonte continued to write to putin. need't think that people to hear anywhere that putin is a order.to the world he basically now says i flipped then that's probably his argument. that's not true at all. people write these blog things moment.of the you write something in the paper. words.in 400 it's completely meaningless and not thoughtful and i don't pay attention to it. going to grab this october 12 column that you wrote way it usually works, a column like last fire on's will catch twitter, which i ignore -- your

later,and then 24 hours abusive e-mails start arriving in my in-box from people who probablyad it and didn't have access through the paywall. often these e-mails quote one of context.ut >> this is a pet peeve of mine. bills. what pays the you have to subscribe to read our stuff. that's the way it should be. pay for it or we're not going to be in business long if we can't get for what we do. but there was a period where the the paypage was outside wall. i had everybody who was on the on planet earth, as a reader. existence justify my by getting readers. now they're 2.5 million journal who are our audience. you have to attend to what their sizeabled in to have a audience when you're writing a

column. >> why don't you read twitter? don't have time. a few tweakssent and thought, this could be a time suck and it's probably just ratchet up my blood pressure. >> what kind of impact do you presidentas that the tweets and that people are tweeting? >> i think it's magnificent for to control the nation's agenda without having of his bathrobe in the morning. he can wake up in the middle night and send out a tweet, and it's all we'll be talking about the next day. thinks it works for him. it is a powerful tool. >> explain this. finally, we come to splitting. compulsive neu neurotic either bad things as was originally seen as a feature of borderline personality disorder. to such people, it often seems

the central purpose of mental life. it's widely understood to be normal -- >> the first two things come from, like, psychology. the second thing is my take on it. media is -- ane aboutist blogger talks how it's all about raising and lowering ideas and people and institutions and status. it's who should be thought well of, who should be thought badly of. of punditry. me.ust doesn't interest and it's partly a stick. it gets people through their day. it gives people a patter that people can tune into it and gettingnd what they're in reading but it's so darn boring all the time. >> where do you live in this new york area? bury area,in the dan because my wife works up there.

>> you have a family? kids. lots of members wh of our family who are procreating. >> how long have you been married and where did you meet your wife? her in new york in 2001. she was my neighbor -- my neighbor was having a party and invited me over. i saw this woman there and i thought... >> what did she do? industrial gas company. germaned with a big company. they manufacture aragon and and distribute it all around the world for industrial and commercial uses. two columns ae week, is there a way to describe the ones that you really enjoy? have to do thing you leading up to it? and how do you know if you've been successful? >> writers are the most -- there was actually a study that showed are the most neurotic of the creative

classes. ever't think any writer is happy with his work, or her work. yearsmes i go back five later and read a column, and i'm like, damn, that was a good and that is the biggest reward i get. years ago, my colleague, dan, of thest member editorial board, came in one day, he was on the subway the night before. and he'd sign a copy of the journal sliding up and down the there. he said there was a hole torn out of it where my column was. kind of reward. somebody thought it was worth tearing out and showing to somebody. that definitely makes me feel good. >> what impact do you think it when you go to college campuses, almost always the professors are saying, read the new york times? and often do you know from your that they say read the wall street journal? >> well, i think a lot of professors say read the wall street journal.

i don't know what's -- i'm not the right person to ask that. i'm sure that everything i hear about colleges being overwhelming liberal. all surveys show that conservatives are 1% or 2% a faculty is true. seemed to me it was that way when i went to college 40 years ago. has it been 40? yes, it's been 40 years. and wereme out there capable of -- we're capable of thinking freely anyway. don't worry about it as much as other people do. >> column. victim status. you say victim status has become a prize status in our society. base from which to launch assaults on the dignity and equanimity -- i don't know if that word is right -- of others when the need arises. is a defense against such assaults which can land on time.y at any >> by the way, that's in a column you write about lebron warren -- elizabeth warren and meghan kelly.

>> getting back to the universities, that is certainly of the university culture that elizabeth warren came up in, when she saw it in her interest as presenting herself based onve american, very scanty evidence. the institution said she was associated with the university of pennsylvania. they were very open to her in asserting that claim, because they want to claim diversity points for that. >> speaking of the media, you occasions -- you talk about the whole story about meghan kelly. now, this is sometime ago, but why did you want to write about that? you just had a look on your face that said i was disgusted. written about've this a few times. been this upwelling of people inc firings of big media and corporations for that are not

slightly remotely intended to be offensive but that were not the most fel -- in the best way. social mobbing, when you tweet something that was ill-advised, the mobbing of the world, you have to throw these people overboard. say, i accept that meghan kelly was not trying to all.fensive at andy lack had to make sure he andheard denouncing her made sure the work got out to disowningthat he was her. >> what do you think of the salaries that people on television are making? free marketer, i think people should be -- people are paid based on how much money they can make for somebody else. that's how it works. nobody is handed a chunk of because they're loved or because they can generate revenue. meghan kelly makes

something like that, it doesn't offend me. and a little bit of 2017 have had real impact on some very big names in new york city. and television, whether it's lowry or charlie rose or les moonves. what do you think? going toct is that have on anything? >> i don't know. i hope that at some point, we'll lines that are clear and permanently drawn about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. and that will be the end of it. people will change their behavior. this stuffot of borders close on rape, and rape should be prosecuted. at the same time, you don't want get into this place where anybody you want to settle a them with, you just accuse of sexually untoward behavior and based on no evidence, that person is railroaded out of his profession. that would not be a happy outcome either. >> tax. a lot about tax. >> do i? myor enough that it's got attention.

you talked about tax codes, tax loopholes. what do you think of the overall code? >> well, you know, the wall street journal is known for one in the last 35 years. supply side economics. people, caricature in idiotic ways. the fact is, if you tax it.thing, you discourage if you tax work, you're gonna get less work. you tax investment and risk taking, you're going to get less of it. any sane exist, i prefer a tax code where the rates are low, where there are no loopholes that are distorting individual and market behavior to satisfy some interest group another. elementary tax good government, going back 100 years. the tax codethat isn't just a rates, but the loopholes and gray areas. intelligent person wonders why its so full of features that work across purposes. unfortunately, a lot of people have an interest in a

complicated tax system, all.icians most of explain. >> i was writing about donald hemp's taxes then and why and his father went to such contortion not to have their byiness taken away from them a 40% inheritance tax, estate tax. politicians love to be heard and seen and, you rich, because the that's what the public wants to hear and wants to believe that goodies can be provided them that they won't pay for, rich will paye for that. but you don't want the productives on behavior, because you won't get the productive behavior. you won't get the long hours people put in trying to create something of value to their fellow man. the tax code is too much of a battleground in our country. i'm really sorry it has to be what ay, because we know good tax system is. loopholes. no >> you also wrote on the same

page, for once, a politician was this whenut all president obama said he favored high taxes on the wealthy as a thel stance, even if economic consequences were bad. we should applaud him if all theircians defended preferences so honestly. voters surely would be able to decisions. >> it's a distinct improvement on bernie sanders, who offers the skye pie in programs and says that we can fund them by taxing the rich. the problem is, if you tax businesses and entrepreneurs, you don't get the money. extinguish the value. you extinguish the wealth that's there and nobody gets anything it.of obama at least -- you know, he theactually confirming supply side thieves, that these -- thesis, that these high taxes are economically destructive but he favored them anyway to make a moral statement. it's most favorable to him that the rich should pay their fair more than other people to support the country

that gave them so much. >> net neutrality. >> oh, no. do we have to talk about that? for sos such a big issue long, now it just has completely dropped off the radar screen. bothso irrelevant, economically and as a matter of the regulatory agenda, the businesses that once promoted it. lot about former federal of the fiel communications commission, tom wheeler. why? >> he is the head of one of the independent commissions that was created by the progressives back in the early part of the last to get politics out of this business of deciding what rules should apply to and how their resources should be allocated. he was well down the road at trying to work out a net neutrality compromise that would satisfy the people on the left the goldeneserve goose of our internet. then he abandoned his plan overnight because obama decided into the election, that he

throw his you know, full weight behind a really netograde definition of neutrality that took us back to the 1930's kind of utility regulations. >> who in your opinion really wanted net neutrality? >> i don't think anybody really it.ed i think there were companies like netflix who used the political issue to get leverage over their most important partners, the internet distribution companies. a political battle because netflix did not want to have to pay for the, you know, infrastructuren that its users disproportionately consume. was a political battle and they got leverage over comcast. netflix is what sells broadband and wireless broad brd of consumers. those two industries that were partnersheads are now in expanding broadband. everything is fine. for net no need

neutrality. >> way back in 2014, you wrote, of politicalmoment truth. mr. obama doesn't give two hoots fast lanes oro or the overheated regulatory ideas the net neutrality crowd. people and their interests are a small, indistinct dot in the distance. >> yeah. i think that speaks for itself. i mean,ay, that is -- people idolize obama. ways, he wasn many a typical politician. a lot of things he said were tonkly untrue and just meant stir people up and satisfy his base. and his position on net pure,lity was unadulterated base satisfaction. trump, it's just a stunt. >> you just saw that mr. obama of things that weren't true.

theis it, if you contrast way a lot of the television mr. obamaovered compared to the way they cover mr. trump, there's a huge difference. >> they like obama. but also, obama played the game. he knew what kind of things you true andhat aren't what kinds you can't and which ones the media will go along they won't.ch he plays the game pretty well. and trump -- trump plays the way.well in a different he wants to bait the media every time he says something. he wants to be the guy who is not playing by their rules. obama played by their rules brilliantly. trump, you know, flips the bird to their rules and does so brilliantly. completely different but they're both very effective politicians. sears,ve written about general electric, tesla. tesla.tart with tesla bleeferls have nobody nobody toevers have blame for themselves for a --

>> it's impossible to justify tesla's stock price on the basis of the kind of money you can make selling cars, even electric cars. somewhere in that column i talk tesla's market value in relation to each car that it $200,000 worth of market value or something like that, compared to whatever is a case of g.m.in the and 20,000 in the case of bmx. tesla is not priced like a car company. it's priced like apple, like a technology company that is going indeliver something magical the future that we can't even define and that's where all the going to come to justify that stock price. come from the car business. >> why not? >> because you can't make enough money on cars. mean, it's a very competitive business. there's giant car makers out who are capable of making cars just as good as tesla. you just simply don't get the 40% profit margins you get on

selling software, for instance, 60% for google search. these are businesses with -- no marginal cost to expanding the product, you know. another google search. cost google nothing. 100% profit.ue is you never get that in the car business. >> here you are on business in general. this is in october. in the real world, of course, this seldom happens. businesses keep doing what they know how to do, making small hope of fending off competitors and securing a future. eventually, all businesses fail. >> don't they? g.e. is someink kind of miracle because it's been around for 100 years. 100 years is not very long. businesses come and go. i think there's government statistics that say the average lasts five years, you know. i mean, think about new york restaurants. close restaurants here

when they're at their peek of popularity. they take the money and go. they go start a restaurant somewhere else. businesses are not meant to be forever. >> gone forever? >> in what way? >> businesses. i mean, if you think about it. it.ell, think about the people don't go. they find new jobs. don't go. the machines are sold to somebody else. the property is sold. peoplen companies, complain about all this, you know, mergers and acquisitions. disassembly of all these mergers. companies are constantly in responseemselves to market signals. there's something remotely permanent about a business. think of a name like g.e., it's been so many different businesses, doing so many different things under that name for so long. there's some continuity of much.e maybe but not very >> how much difference do you think a person has to do with success in businesses like general electric? >> the right person making the right decisions at the right time makes all the difference in

the world. it's also a lot of luck. mean, the number of variables that are important are so beyond any single person's control. but if you have an eye for taunt the right choice, sometimes it's a matter of just flipping a coin. apple. create an >> in your time, you've been writing a column since '92. >> no. iens '95 -- since '95. i started as an editorial writer. i went to hong kong. then i started writing the column, i guess it was the of '96.g >> i'll ask you about hong kong. and being close to china. to your that do thinking about china and how important is that story? >> i knew it was an important story. there, just the sheer size of it, the energy of it, to a westerner, the sense was both familiar -- these are human beings just like is sot their culture different. their history is so different. it was a little bit daunting. made me think, i don't think i'm ever going to be ready to

take on india, because china enough of a challenge. but it was a fascinating time to be there. i guess, before the handover, while, you know, the end of the british rule was coming. everything was just -- all the culture and the politics and is scrambling after their future. it was all kind of ramped up to 11. just a very interesting time to be there. >> does the united states have to worry about being number one? and does that matter to you? think the things that we do well, we should want to keep doing well, which is innovating and being open to new ideas and creating new business models. that's so deeply in our culture and d.n.a. that we can hold on to that forever if we do things.t i don't know if we'll be the biggest. we're not going to be the biggest in terms of g.d.p. not gonna matter. i think we're going to create for amounts of wealth ourselves and our people as long

as we hold on to that entrepreneurial culture and continue too flourish. >> would you give a definition for artificial intelligence? >> artificial intelligence is for us betterns than we can make them for ourselves. >> translate that. makes -- what is it made? >> it's already happening in your car. andput your foot on the gas there's a little computer in in that decides how much power is going to the four wheels of the four-wheel drive. there's stability control and that doesn'trol let you roll the car over. there's artificial intelligence operating in our world. i mean, i've never really taken on this subject yet. but elon musk i write about a lot. he's one of the dooms sayers. he says that artificial intelligence is going to some master.cally be our we're going to be to our computers like our cat is to us. we're going to be its pet. i don't necessarily buy that.

but there's huge potential in intelligence, for good and ill. >> why have you been so fascinated with elon musk? >> well, he's a fascinating dude. he's created these two really companies, doing spectacular things. he is a little bit off the wall. love his spacex, which is, you tow -- if we're going develop resources of -- that we ourdevelop in orbit and in solar system, you need private companies competing to provide once did.es that nasa he's doing an excellent job of that. reusable rocket is really a huge cost boon if he can make that work. think electric cars are great for people who -- they think god-awfula abomination that we treat them as a solution to a climate problem. that his reliance on subsidies and politics annoys me elon, but he understands

the world that we live in. >> would you buy an electric car? >> no. doesn't make a lot of sense for me. first of all, i don't drive that much and i have motorcycles and would never want an electric motorcycle. but also, when we do drive in my family, we're often jumping in the car to do it, drive-by multipleing, through relatives, in the new jersey area, so we need a car that will just run and run and run for 12 hours. we don't have time to recharge. >> what's the origin of the first name holman? >> well, it came from my father. he's a holman jenkins sr. he had an uncle who was john weiser who owned a bread company in pennsylvania and was guy.of an enterprising did a cross-country trip in a model a. the namehat's why comes down. >> when did you get interested in motorcycles and why? >> oh, you know, it happens when kid.e a my aunt took me to bermuda once. waiter atwho was a the princess hotel plopped me on

the back and took me for a ride. was about six and i was hooked then. and i had a cousin whose i wasend had one when about 12, put me on the back of it and took me down the internet at some-- interstate ridiculous rate of speed. i liked them ever since. often are you on one? >> daily if i can, if the weather is suitable and i can get out. you ride from home. >> yeah. mostly. >> you feed it into the wall journal editorial page process. can somebody tell you no? you can't write that? >> ha! nobody has ever said no. there are times when people find of metaphor a bit too colorful for a family paper. if somebody says something like that to me, it's usually some person who is highly responsible and who i respect and i will make an adjustment. a have you always been metaphor person? >> yeah. yeah, i think so. >> why? >> i don't know. just the way my brain works.

i think i'm very spatial and so things in terms of shapes and moving parts. for holmanere a book jenkins in the future? and if so, why? >> i don't know. is.n't think there every once in a while i think maybe i don't believe in, like, packaging your columns in a book and doing that. but it seems like the trump columns, there's enough of them by now, and i think they tell an important enough story, sometimes i think about doing that. other than that, if i retire someday and get a big, you know, thatrical research project i'm interested in, i might write a book like that. otherwise, i feel like i get so many readers from what i do in the journal, i don't feel a write a book. >> so if you met, and i assume you have met somebody who just can't stand anything about donald trump, what's the one or two things you'll tell them, , that theyerspective ought to think about? >> first of all, the things that arehate about donald trump also the things that his fans

hate about him. oh, i disapprove of x in trump. for him mustted like x. that's not the way it goes. i hear from trump people all the time. they complain about his tweeting, his vulgarity, his off-color comments and his much.g too they want that agent of disruption and chaos. i remind people that going into 2015, it looked like we a candidateo have named clinton and bush running for the presidency. that era is now behind us, i trump.thanks to donald that alone is -- i mean, there's only so much you can expect from a president. and this one president has cleared the field for things to be very different as we go forward, for the parties to reshape themselves in more sensible ways. and i think that's worth the price of admission right there. >> can people read your column anywhere other than behind the pay wall? are ways to get around the pay wall, but it is not my duty to tell you how to do that. certain newspapers around the country, in

australia, pick them up from time to time. strongly urge people to subscribe to the wall street journal and pay for it, because myst of all, that's how salary gets paid and that's how all my colleagues do the excellent work they do. got to be an economic basis to it, so you should pay for it. >> holman jenkins, wednesdays saturdays, in the wall street journal. columnist. thank you very much for joining us. >> my pleasure. it's been fun. ♪[music] >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. also availablee

as c-span podcasts. >> today is day three of a partial government shutdown. the house and senate return thursday. and negotiations continue on a spending bill to reopen the federal government. as debate continues, you can watch live coverage of the house senate onand the c-span 2. christmas day on c-span. 11:45 a.m. eastern, a look back on this year's memorial lady barbor first bush, senator john mccain and president george h.w. bush. then at 3:30 p.m. eastern, theral william mcraven on future of the u.s. military. at 8:00, former president barack former secretary of state

james baker and historian john u.s.'s role in the world. >> if there's a problem around the world, people do not call moscow. do not call beijing. they call washington. our adversaries expect us to solve problems and expect us to keep things running. >> and at 9:00, a conversation inh entrepreneurs on women corporate america. >> and we know that women's networks tend to look very female-heavy. men's networks tend to look very male-heavy. fine when you're in your first position right out of school. who do you think wins with the network by the time you get to senior leadership? >> watch tuesday, christmas day, on c-span. >> next, florida senator bill nelson delivers his farewell of theon the floor senate. senator nelson lost his bid for state'serm to his gove