>> tonight on the communicators, we continue our visit to c.e.s. on the hill to hear about samsung's program, solve for tomorrow, which challenges kids to use stem to improve communities. a school shootings and intruders. we created a door lock that would go on the outside of the door. put that image in your mind. one on the door itself and one on the door frame. whenever the doorer is closed that box will slide in. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2.

brian: michael ramirez, have you ever drawn a cartoon of mohammed, and if you have not, would you? michael: you know, i haven't. and i probably would not comment to be honest with you. i don't do controversial cartoons just for the sake of controversy. the point of editorial cartooning is to reach a message to the audience that will not be overshadowed by the controversy surrounding it. where there may be an opportunity to use mohammed, just the fact of having that in the cartoon would overshadow the point i was trying to make and take away from the effectiveness of the cartoon. so it is not that i am not opposed to using mohammed but i am more for ensuring the message that i am trying to communicate gets to the audience. brian: this is a personal question.

when i read this, it was the first thing i wanted to ask you about. we will talk about your book. are you really the brother to two sisters that are medical doctors and two brothers as well? michael: i am. and their spouses are as well. we have like nine people that are closely related better all -- closely related that are all doctors. the only way i can get them to show up at family reunions is i say i deal with politicians and congress, so i am sort like a proctologist. them a sort of let me into the family reunion. brian: go back to this, two sisters and two brothers are medical doctors. and how many of their spouses are? michael: my older brother is a fertility specialist. his wife is not a doctor. she is the only one. all the other ones are doctors. my grandmother and my grandfather were both in the medical profession. my grandfather was a doctor in japan and my grandmother was a pharmacist. brian: your mother and father? ichael: not.

i wanted to be a cardiovascular surgeon. i never wanted to be a olitical cartoonist. i was saying in his speech at the other day, president obama got a nobel peace prize for doing nothing but i should get one for all of the lives i save by being a journalist instead. brian: go back to the beginning. you have a japanese-american mother and a mexican-american father. how did that happen? michael: i'm am half japanese. one quarter spanish, one quarter mexican and completely confused. my father was in the military in army intelligence. for 23 years. he met my mother in japan. she lived in the united states. but i was born in tokyo, japan. my older brother and i. the fir language i spoke was japanese. -- the first language i spoke was japanese. it has been a long road. i have lived all over the world. it has been good exposure because i lived in belgium, germany for two years, paris for eight months and on and off between the united states and

japan. brian: the political cartoon came to you when? michael: i never anticipated being a political cartoonist. the strangest part of this story is i really wanted to be a doctor. i recall reading the newspaper every morning with my dad. we had two when i lived in california. we took the orange county register and the l.a. times. the "l.a. times" had paul conrad. the register had jeff mcnally. he was working for the richmond times at the time. it ran his cartoons. we had this morning ritual where we would have breakfast, he would read the l.a. times first and halfway through, we would swap papers. i was aware of political cartoons and i loved political cartoons. and i loved paul conrad dark images. they were moving and they had deep messages. i think paul -- i think jeff took that a step further with his wonderful sense of humor

that i think extended the reach of the cartoon by reaching a much larger audience with a message with the humor. and so, like any other reader, i loved looking at the political cartoons but i never in my life envisioned being a political cartoonist. i stumbled into it by accident. brian: we're going to show a whole bunch of cartoons from your new book. before we do that, this is your what book? michael: my second book. brian: this cartoon may have been in your first book but it is not in this one. it was very controversial. you will remember it because the secret service came after you. as the cartoon -- you explain what it is. michael: basically, i used an old, very iconic photograph from the vietnam war era where the saigon police chief had just caught a vietnamese terrorist who had killed a colonel and his family in saigon. he basically executed them on

the streets of saigon. i used that iconic image to portray george w. bush being assassinated by politics during he advent of the iraq war. that image itself somehow got communicated to the secret service that i was advocating assassinating the president. or something like that. but honestly, i don't think i ever really was investigated initially. i think what happened was, a drudge letter, a headline that said -- political cartoonist being investigated by secret service. boy, when i got into the office of the l.a. times, we were inundated with calls. wanting to interview me. this conservative cartoonist being investigated by a conservative administration. but, i had really not been contacted by anyone in the secret service. the general rule at the l.a.

times is all you have to do is call and start cussing and they would forward you to my phone. i never really received any phone calls before the story broke. and then as it turned out, the l.a. branch of the secret service did contact me but only because they had this big publicity about me being contacted by the secret service and i think they felt left out. and so i got a call in the middle of the day after numerous calls and this guy said -- i am with the secret service and i would like to see you. i said -- you will have to get in line. how do i know you are with the secret service? and he said -- well, i have dark sunglasses, a black suit, and a black tie. by all means that proves it, come on down. i thought it was a crank call. a few minutes later, the receptionist said the secret service was there to see me. i was willing to go down and see them. i couldn't remember any counterfeiting that i had done lately. the l.a. times dispatched their

lawyers, a team of lawyers down there and they promptly escorted him out of the building because we did not want to set a precedent of a journalist being interviewed by he secret service. brian: that particular scene, we have 18 seconds of video, it was shot originally by eddie adams, the a.p. photographer and also somebody for nbc. let's watch this 18 seconds to show how graphic this is. brian: you are not that old to remember that? michael: i do sort of remember that. i do not remember the entire clip, of course. back in television in those days, they did not show the entire thing, but i do remember the photograph as an iconic image of the vietnam war. that is what political cartooning is all about. using images that people are familiar with two convey a point of view. brian: another controversy that

you were involved with -- michael: i was involved in another controversy? brian: a hate cartoon. you were accused of showing the wailing wall in jerusalem. here it is on the screen. what was that cartoon. michael: it was called, "worshiping their god." what i did was, i took the stones that looked like the wailing wall and i produced the letters that spelled hate. it was during the first intifada. there is a figure that is a conglomeration of extremist israeli settlers and people that were opposed to the establishment of the palestinian state. the people creating the violent upheaval there. in addition to that, having a palestinian figure, if you notice, he is on a prayer rug

but he has his shoes on. both these figures are utilizing a false religion for political purpose. instead of pursuing a religious advocacy, i thought they were just worshiping hatred. this cartoon, when this appeared, i got numerous complaints from both sides. both the jewish groups were upset that i would use the wailing wall figure and the palestinian groups were mad at me because i was accusing them of hatred. it proves once again that i am an equal opportunity offender. brian: when was the first time an editor -- and you are syndicated -- how many different papers are you syndicated in? michael: about 540. i get hate mail in all different languages now. brian: when was the first time an editor said, i am not going to run that. michael: i only had one incident in my career. lionel lindner was the editor of a memphis paper.

he brought me over to memphis where i won my first pulitzer. brian: and you were there for seven years? michael: i was there for seven years. lionel was killed in an awful accident on new year's eve day. and, angus mccarran took over for him. he was the editor of the pittsburgh paper. the rumors were thick that angus was very liberal, and lionel was very conservative. i would be one of the first people to go because i am very conservative. we had civic leaders lining up in his office for three days straight telling angus to fire me. we had a pretty terrible beginning. in fact, he kicked me out of one of the editorial meetings. i like engaging in the editorial meetings. on the third day that he was

there, on a wednesday, the topic was on welfare reform. they were trying to advocate working to get welfare. i did a cartoon where i had an uncle sam figure lying in an alley, holding a sign saying -- will work with food. he is looking at the headline and workfare, he is turning to the bum next to him saying -- they actually want me to work. it is a totally legitimate cartoon. well, angus canned it. i went up to angus and i said -- this is a legitimate cartoon i think it ought to run. he said it would not run. and i said, i will send it to my syndicate and it will run it all the other papers. and he said well it's not going to run in this paper. he used more explicit language. i called my accountant and said we should get everything together because i think i will probably be leaving. i demanded a meeting with angus on that friday and went into his office.

i said look, you have five illustrators in this newspaper that are better artists than i am. if you want them to draw what you want in the newspaper, then hire them and let them do your editorerial cartoons. i'm an editorial cartoonist. my job is to think of these profound images, break them down into something easy to present to an audience for them to understand. it has my name on it. if you want to put your name on the cartoon, by all means, do. but i am an editorial cartoonist and i will not draw your cartoons. i will draw the best cartoon that i can. you give me the freedom to do hat i do best. i will research them and do my best with them. i will substantiate them. i will win you a pulitzer prize. but i am not going to draw your cartoons. if you are going to fire me, fire me now. he laughed at me. and he said, no, do whatever you want. from that moment on, we got along great. he gave me the complete freedom to do whatever i wanted.

that was the only incident when i had a cartoon killed. brian: how long were you with the l.a. times? michael: 7.5 years. brian: what happened? michael: a mutual parting of ways. they were looking for a way to cut costs. philosophically, it was never a good fit. i don't think. we had talked about paul conrad, my predecessor. paul and i are probably as diametrically opposed philosophically as two people an be. you know what, they actually wanted to limit the number of cartoons that i did every week. i had to negotiate upwards to try to do more cartoons. so, there was a huge transition between publishers. and i worked for the publisher. as the publishers came and went, i think the familiarity between me and the publishers left as well. and there just came a point where they were looking at cost

cuts and change it and i don't think they ever embraced my philosophy. it was probably the only job that i had outside of military service that i had to put on kevlar and a helmet to walk through the newsroom. brian: we will talk about your new job at investors business daily, where you are now. let us look at some of your cartoons from the new book. this book is called, "give me liberty or give me a obamacare." why the title? michael: they did not let me put -- an illustrated guide to impeachment. when i look at this obama administration, of things they have done, this massive expansion of government. we have $120 trillion of unfunded liabilities when it comes to entitlements. 15 million more americans on overnment aid. more than anything, this is what the administration represents. to me, as a political cartoonist. big government, progressive regime. unlawful regime.

what i am proud about in this book is it really makes the case on all of the things that they have done wrong. past history is a good way to provide for the future. we are getting into another presidential election cycle. i am hoping this will spark the initiative for people who want real change to get back to our constitutional foundation, to enact them and get involved in the process. that is what political cartoons are. a catalyst for thoughts. and to educate progressive's who haven't thought clearly what the consequences of these disastrous policies are about. brian: for folks that do not know your politics. one of the introductions in your book is from dick cheney and the afterword is from rush limbaugh. no question on where you are. i want to show you what cartoon from 2008. it's from headline of the 47 million uninsured.

for those of you that cannot see it, the first figure says -- i can afford it but i do not want it. there are 18 million under that person. i am 18 to 25 years old and i am indestructible. i am illegal and i'm not here. 12 point 6 million. i am in between jobs and only temporarily uninsured. 9.4 million. i am covered but my parents have not sign me up yet. 8 million. and, i am eligible for government health programs and i have not signed up. 3.5 million. and you have a note that says, there are more. some have overlapped. michael: this is the sad consequence of when the media does not do its job. it's sad when a political artoonist has to put out the relevant debate. the 47 million figure has never been really proved. in fact, i think a week after the administration rolled out the 47 million uninsured number, they brought that number down to 37 million because they had pulled it out of the air.

i think from what i've read, nd the sort of -- the in-depth investigation done at the time, we are talking about 4% of the people that were uninsured at the time. brian: here is another one from 008. you will see it, there is a woman standing there with "amateur" over her head. she says, i love cornhuskers, and you have two women senators walking by. michael: not two women senators. prostitutes. ben nelson is saying amateurs, and the prostitutes are saying amateurs. this is on obamacare. the kind of gift making an trading that was done to convince the senators to go along with this program. use had to bribe and chicanery in the process,

hange the rules for obamacare. brian: this one is from 2010. tell us about the mad hatter. michael: the mad hatter is nancy pelosi. she is saying, you have to pass this bill so you can find out what is in it. and this is the most ethical congress ever. once again, it was based on this obamacare scheme that this administration was going to push through utilizing whatever methodology that they could. this complicated, complicated bill that nobody ever read was going to be passed and thrown on to the american public without really knowing what was in it or what the consequences of what was in it was going to happen to the population. brian: the cut line on this is, "please remove these items from your person." it's from 2010. michael: this was on the debate going on today. which is on the fourth amendment. how far do we go to protect the general public, and what constitutional rights do we have to exchange for safety?

this is a real question as to the extent of that. the thing that defines america is our constitution, and the liberties that we have, and the freedoms that we have. hopefully, the fear of this danger from these terrorist groups will not overcome our common sense to redefine what america is. brian: up there in the corner on that badge it says, tsa. inside it says, u.s. department of groping? michael: that is when you had the stories where the tsa guys were getting touchy feely. a bunch of them got a bunch of phone numbers. maybe it was a good thing for them. brian: 2014. the police are keeping us down. explain this. and the art of this and what you are trying to do for the person that picks this up in the newspaper. michael: we have the juxtaposition of the reality of what's going on in the black community.

the vast majority of homicides and killings are done by black on black crime and yet, there are some other civic leaders that are blaming it on the police. as we have seen, just recently in the cases with the san bernardino and the policeman who let these people who could have been hostages out of the building saying i would have been willing to take a bullet for you first. the police have a terrible job keeping us secure. it has made it harder by this movement that is blaming them for the irresponsible behavior of other people. and in certain circumstances, obviously, the police should be condemned for their overzealousness or the horrendous things that have happened. for the vast majority of circumstances, they are there to keep us safe.

people should be reminded of that. . there was a cohesion. kind of a person on person

relationship. whereas the new millennium have a lot of violent video games, they communicated in ways that they do not really see people anymore. when we have this incident, this cartoon was about the shooting in colorado. the batman movies. the question was, what changed this person into this monster? the lack of communication. the lack of human contact. playing violent video games. these are all questions for generation y. brian: the next one is complicated. you are sitting at home and it would be hard to see it. it's from 2012. the headline on it is, "a weapon guide for the uninformed." over there to the left you have what looks like an ar 15. these military style assault weapons. mass shootings, 18. is that 18 people at that time? michael: yes. at the time, i wanted to compare the homicide rates and what type of instruments of murder are used and what the damage is. the problem with some of the progressive media is they exaggerate things to fulfill their political agenda. like this idea that these weapons that look like assault rifles are in fact assault rifles. there is a big difference between an automatic weapon

where you squeeze the trigger and it fires off many rounds and these long rifles, which are the same as a hunting rifle where you squeeze the trigger and it shoots one bullet. i wanted to compare and contrast how many murders are done with other instruments, and with the cartoon you can see that blunt objects, handguns, which nobody is talking about banning, drunk driving, people using their hands and feet in violent acts, auto accidents constitutes far more deaths than these mass shootings. brian: auto accidents were 32,000. ifles, 453 killed. 6,009 people killed by handguns. 674 by blunt objects. you have a hammer there. 817 with knives. drunk driving, 10,839.

hands, feet, fists, 869. that is in one year. michael: that's in one year. i think the statistics came from the fbi statistics. if we are going to debate, you have to know the facts. they have to be grounded in facts. let's put everything on the table, figure it all out and figure out what we are talking about. brian: cartoon here from 2009. again, the figures are small. explain what you see in his. michael: two indians looking at the new invaders of the new world. one indian is saying to the other -- running bear, not another word about immigration reform. be polite to our visitors. of course, the motivation behind this is on immigration and how the indians probably did not worry about immigration back then, therefore now you see who is dominating the new world. it is kind of a tongue-in-cheek play on what is going on in immigration. for some of us, there is a delineation between immigration and illegal immigration. just like the delineation

between islam and radical islam. the leaders that cannot figure out the difference between the two, probably should not be uiding our government. brian: how many will be conservative in this country and how many will be liberal? michael: we are outnumbered robably 9-1. i'd imagine. if there is 1% of the conservative cartoons, or 10% of the conservative cartoons out there, i would be very surprised. brian: who are some of the other leading conservative cartoonists? michael: there are not that many, to be honest with you. steve actually went the other way. stephen started out being conservative. down in the arizona republic. the debate he had within his church, the mormon church, he left the mormon church and is now very liberal, has become very progressive.

we are outnumbered. maybe a half-dozen progressive cartoonists, liberal cartoonists that i love. conservative cartoonists are a handful. gary in indiana. scott standish in chicago, more center-right. than far right. there is a ton that have retired or left their paper. the mccoy brothers. gary and glenn mccoy. i think nate beeler, probably center-right. there just aren't that many. celebrated political cartoonist in my lifetime is a man named herb locke. they did a documentary of him t hbo. here he is, he appeared on book notes in 1993. he is deceased. when he died, he gave $50 million he had earned at the "washington post" to a foundation.

[video clip] brian this is a cartoon from 1950. the headline on it is, "you mean i am supposed to stand on that?" write up here is mccarthyism. did you invent that? > apparently so. the first use of mccarthyism that i know of. i remember how it originated because i wanted to put something on that barrel and you could not call it mccarthy himself. it could say mccarthy techniques and so on. i thought maybe use one word, mccarthyism. and you know, it caught on. [end of video clip] brian: how often has a cartoonist from your experience developed something like mccarthyism or some other term? michael: it happens very rarely i imagine. to be honest with you, i don't look at other political cartoons. at all. brian: never? michael: i do on occasion. somebody says, hey, here is a cartoon. we all deal with the same ssues.

especially with the 24-hour news cycle with cable. i don't one to see what my competition is doing. i want to deliver a message to my readers. that is the most important thing in my mind. i don't want to see what anyone else is doing because i think we are going to talk about the same subject matter. i don't want to subconsciously adopt one of their ideas. or anything like that. brian: how often do you find people who do not focus on what the politics are of cartoonists? how often do you find people that completely understand what you are trying to do? michael: because you and i are into politics, we think in that way. i don't think the vast majority of americans actually think in that light. in fact, i am really surprised when i give speeches around the country, and i give speeches all the time, how closely unified the american people are

on the majority of the issues. they are divided on a lot of substantial issues, but for the vast majority, americans are much closer together than people would think. there are people in political organizations that have an agenda that want to draw these people apart because it helps them. there are more things that unify us than divide us. brian: the cartoonist appears in cartoons over the years. his name is pat oliphant. 80 years old. here is -- this is back in 2014. david mccullough is on the stage with him. i want you to see what he does as he is drawing richard nixon. right next to richard nixon is lyndon johnson. [video clip] [laughter] >> i get the feeling that you are having a good time doing that face. >> it comes back about once a year. [laughter]

trange afterlife he has. [laughter] [applause] >> i did not know he was left-handed. [laughter] brian: so, when you were growing up, what cartoonists besides paul conrad and others you mentioned, did you pay any attention to? and what about the drawing part of this? i'm going to show one in a minute.

you have a certain way of drawing. how would you explain this? michael: my influences were whatever was running in the newspaper and the people i liked the best. pat oliphant was one. i think pat is just a phenomenal political cartoonist. i can appreciate the art form itself and what it is meant to be, which is a mechanism to influence people regardless of what political party you are affiliated with. or broad philosophy you are affiliated with. pat does it better than most anyone i know. jeff was in that category. jeff was a good friend. and sort of a mentor. i loved just work. he added an element of humor that i think was a great tool in expanding the audience of a political cartoon, which is something i try to utilize in my cartoons. paul conrad, the dark and

foreboding images that he had. they would reach you and touch you. i think that is what good effective political cartooning is all about. i kind of view political cartooning as almost like advertising on television. you have about five seconds to capture the viewer's attention. you have five seconds to deliver the point or sell a product. the difference is with television, you're selling a product. with political cartoons you're selling an idea. and believe me, i believe i am trying to reach people. i believe i am trying to change people's minds or reinforce the ideas that they have for a purpose, which is my view of what the united states ought to be. what this self-governing, democratic republic is all about. the power of america lies in ts people. less government, more people. the people should have the power. they should wield this power.

because of the political celebrities, people forget that it's the politicians who work for the people and not the other way around. brian: back to the cartoons. from your book, this is from 2014. a familiar face will appear on the screen. how have you drawn her? michael: hillary has been great. in fact, i have to say the clintons are probably my favorite political family. i won my first pulitzer in 1994 on the back of that administration. this is cartoon, it is when she was saying, i was dead broke, that will be $200,000, lease. brian: that was at a podium. michael: that was when she was professing not to have any money and she was making $200,000 a speech. the relationship that bill has with his interns is probably the same relationship that hillary has with the lack of being able to tell the truth. she makes for great political cartoons. brian: how did you -- did you draw her on purpose that way? she has a little tiny mouth and teeth.

michael: when you take a caricature of someone, you are changing the dynamics of their features. not only to make them into a cartoon but to show the dynamics of their personality as well. if you notice in my president obama cartoons, the more he is caught in prevarication, the larger his ears get. you can see that in pat oliphant's caricatures of richard nixon. as he got more immersed in watergate, the shadows on his face got darker and his eyes got darker. pretty soon, they were barely eyes. they were black holes in his head. brian: i remember asking pat: thought years ago, he was not -- pat oliphant years ago and he was not particularly friendly with the jimmy carter dministration. at the end of the administration, he was tiny and in the corner.

michael: the perfect evice. the one thing we have over our journalist colleagues is exaggeration. we get to create our own world. he dynamic of that world reflects on what we are trying to say with the personalities. brian: when did you go color? ichael: when i first went to investors business daily. because i am a capitalistic i have to say it is the best editorial page in the country. i do write some. i get to comanage the editorial page there. it was an expansion of my uties. frankly, we have great writers there. the one thing i love about our editorial page is we are not afraid to tell the truth. people are giving praise to donald trump for his bluntness but i have been doing that my entire career as a political cartoonist. we do that in the pages of we -- of investors business daily. we want people to have the facts and to decide for

themselves. brian: located where? michael: we are located in los angeles, but we have offices in new york, d.c. i think our new printing plant will be in texas. brian: last i saw, 156,000 daily circulation. is that hard copy? michael: that is strictly print. brian: what about digital? michael: i don't know what the numbers are to be honest with you, but we have rapidly expanded digitally. that is the emphasis of our newspaper now because we are reaching so many more people that way. brian: here is a cartoon and it looks like you are cutting both sides. erskine bowles is on the eft. alan simpson, the senator, is in the middle. simpson bowles. the commission and then you have a tiny kid on the right. his formula bottles saying, cut spending. michael: they convened this

debt commission. i don't know how many millions of dollars they spent putting together this commission to figure out the solution to the $18 trillion national debt that we have. it's very difficult balancing a very complicated and the little baby just continued saying, cut spending. it is amazing, when you look back at our budgets. the last time that george w. bush was president, we had a democratic majority in the house and congress. he was rarely criticized for overspending which was right. i did cartoons against that as well. i was looking back at that number in the last year when you had that configuration and the deficit was $160 billion with a b. seven years later, at the apex of the obama administration with a democratic majority, in the house and the senate, the deficit rose to $1.3 rillion. that doesn't mention the growth in the seven years how much federal spending increased

during that period of time. think at the time it was like $2.4 trillion with the federal outlay. almost $3 trillion in seven years. population growth was 4%. how big does this government have to be? when you read these endless stories about the duplication of services. obamacare has become an expansion of medicaid. it is costing taxpayers of -- a huge fortune and yet they are not receiving better services. you know, with me, it's about having a smaller, more efficient government. the realization is that we have a finite amount of capital out there. you can divide it a couple of ways. you can either give it to the people that innovate and create jobs. they use a dynamic economy to grow. or you can give it to bureaucrats who do nothing but shuffle paper. and are inefficient in what they do.

brian: a cartoonist that is deceased, we did an interview with him in 2008. who is probably as far left as you are right. i want to know what you think of this. he was not the same kind of -- you saw him mostly in magazines like the "new yorker." i think he also drew for the "new york review of books." nyway, david levine. [video clip] >> it is a drawing of henry kissinger. hand or stand one of them was rejected by a publication. >> no, by one publication called "the nation." it was known among cartoonist -- cartoonists that if you had to try something or you wanted something that was "loaded," in political terms, this was the place to go. sure enough, they printed kissinger having sex with the globe, being the head of the

woman. it was to suggest that sexually, this guy is screwing the world. brian: what do you think? would you do something like that? michael: i do there -- ibd is a family newspaper so there is limitations what we can do. i want to reach as large of an audience as possible. i have not seen a lot of what david has done but they are mostly caricatures. they are really beautifully rendered, i really love them. you know, i am a hard right-winger, i guess you could say. very conservative. i am looking at these issues on their merits. not about personalities. i am an equal opportunity offender. it is about, when you make these drawings, how will it translate to the audience and how many people can i reach? and i think, if you do something too crass, it is going to be limited. now of course, you can get

controversy about it but controversy itself is not always good. sometimes, it overshadows the point you're trying to make. sometimes the hardest decision for an editorial cartoonist is really not running a cartoon. for instance, there was a time when when johnny cochran died. i thought of a great cartoon. the first image i thought of was johnny cochran in heaven. of course, johnny had gotten o.j. simpson off on a murder charge. he's at the gates of heaven and st. peter saying -- i'm sorry johnny, if the halo don't fit we don't admit. it was a natural idea. but you know, upon investigating who johnny cochran was, seeing all the things he had done -- he was a very generous person, involved in very charitable activities. i could not define the man by one single action. with political cartoons, it is almost just as important to know what not to draw. as it is what to draw. brian: from 2012, the cut line is, "and there is plenty more

where that came from." we will see it in a second. what is this? michael: this is on turning corn into ethanol. one of the byproducts -- we can go into the details of the inefficiencies of using corn-based fuel. because it takes so much farmland to create it. what they did not realize was, in doing this, you also limit the supply of food out there for third world countries. they are making the cost of corn rise because they are utilizing corn for ethanol. i decided to juxtapose that to the conditions going on in the third world where corn is a very important element for them o survive. and yet, we are doing it because we want to push this movement toward alternative fuels, even when it's inefficient in its creation.

i was just showing the side effect of that. brian: i read an account in your university of california at irvine alma mater publication that you use to have bill clinton, an imitation of bill clinton on your telephone answering service. michael: one of my dearest friends is paul shankman who does voice impersonation's on the rush limbaugh show. i got several calls from paul in memphis, tennessee. i was invited to play golf. i surf because i am from california. the surfing in memphis stinks. i had to find an alternative. so a friend of mine invited to go play golf with a couple of his friends and it was the first time i had ever played golf. and fortunately there was one person who was more physically inept with a golf club than i was. i was leaning down to putt, and suddenly i heard ronald reagan coaching me on this putt and it

was paul. boy, he's an amazing impersonator. i hooked him up with the rush limbaugh show. so now he is doing the rush limbaugh show. so paul, every once in a while, i would get him to record my answering machine and do different voices. i made the mistake once of giving him my code to the answering machine. i actually had to get rid of that answering machine. in the middle of the night, he would change my messages and that created all kinds of problems. in fact, on sundays, when i was doing "usa today" for mondays, paul and i would get together to talk about parodies and skits for his songs. when i am starting to draw my cartoon, i get focused and ignore everything. unbeknownst to me, paul would answer my telephone as me. later in the day, i would have friends calling me back asking me what kinds of medications i was on because i was speaking gibberish. and i would say, no, i have not spoken to you today.

it was paul answering my phone as me. if you want an obnoxious friend, there is one for you. rian: a couple of years ago, former vice president al gore sold his television network, current tv, to al gentleman zeera for reportedly $-- jazeera for reportedly $500 million. you have a cartoon in 2013. explain this one. michael: well, al gore is saying -- brian: so, i sold my station to an anti-american network. funded by an oil rich arab state. i always said i was for a green economy. michael: right. it was kind of ironic that al gore who was supposedly for the green movement turned out to be more of a capitalist then an environmentalist in this circumstance. i almost openly wept when al gore did not win the presidency because i think that would have been a fine thing for editorial cartooning. brian: the next cartoon is from 2014, and it's very

complicated. it says on there -- starts out with, global cooling with a line through it. global warming with a line through it. climate change with a line through it and then climate disruption underlined. explain this one. michael: this is the rebranding of the global -- i should say the climate movement. first, they called it global cooling in the 1970's. and then, global warming. and then, the earth has not warmed in the last 15 years so they changed it to climate change. now, even that wasn't good enough. people were making fun of it. they wanted to change it to climate disruption. the little kid is writing on the bottom corner of the chalkboard, it's called weather. brian: on the other side. you have to see this up close and buy the book. the climate is warmer and that is crossed out. below it says cooler for now.

michael: right. the climate has been pretty constant for the last 15 years. one thing i do like about that cartoon, you are going to have to buy the book if you want to see it, if you look carefully on the top, it says -- e=mchammer. brian: this is one from 2009, speaking of slavery, explain this one. michael: this was on a government that has taken on the role of being the nanny state. saying -- stop your whining. we will provide for you. just do what we asked. if you do exactly what we asked, we may provide you with some health care. the plantation mentality of the government that oversees everything that we do. i was up in new york, i always have breakfast. they had a city person guiding me to make sure i didn't use too much salt on my eggs. brian: 2011. this cartoon. it's rather stark. what are you saying here?

michael: here, i think when you think about clarence thomas, there's a lot of criticism with clarence thomas. i am going to use him as one example. i love clarence thomas. some of his writings are just mazingly in-depth analysis of everything and yet they criticized him because he never asked questions during the supreme court hearings. it seems to me, when you look at these conservative african-americans, they ought to be models for the community. the mainstream media negates who they are, or their members within political organizations. they are negating who they are because by virtue what their skin color is. i am half spanish. one quarter spanish, one quarter mexican and half japanese. ompletely infused.

i think in the 21st century we should move beyond this idiotic idea that race ought to be a determiner for anything. i have discussed before, i have two brothers and two sisters and they are all extremely intelligent and kind people. the exact opposite of me. we come from the same genetic material. at some point, we need to discover that we need to move beyond these things. brian: i want to go back to this. some people listen to this program, i want you to explain what they're looking at. michael: what they're looking at, back in the 1950's, they discriminated against blacks by having refrigerated water for the whites and having these ind of very poor water delivery for the blacks. i'm saying, there are certain political -- people within the political hemisphere that have done the same thing to conservative blacks. that kind of discrimination is going on today. the kind of things they are allowed to say about people like clarence thomas, like ben carson, i think is horrible.

brian: you might find this interesting. i am not sure i'm going to pronounce this correctly. the former l.a. times baghdad bureau chief. back in 2007 talking about an iraqi cartoonist. atch this. >> this is a very poignant one and it just shows a scene where a u.s. soldier is aiming a gun at in iraqi guy. they have then, you have uncle sam drawing a portrait of this scene. instead of a gun he's handing the flower to the iraqi guy. i am asking him whether he thought this war toon was inflammatory. whether it might cause to much trouble, and he sort of laughed at me. he said, i go online and i check out the american cartoonists and the stuff they have about bush and u.s. foreign-policy and american domestic and international politics. it is far more critical and far more nasty than anything i have ever drawn. brian: what do you think? michael: it reminds me -- there

are a bunch of us that got to visit with ronald reagan. in the rose garden when he was president. he had a wonderful joke. he said -- the difference between the united states and the soviet union is the united states political cartoonists can draw political cartoons of the president of the united states. in the soviet union, the political cartoonists have to draw political cartoons on the president of the united states. that is the one thing we have here that is so amazing about this country. the freedom of speech. freedom of information. you can effectively criticize those people that run the overnment. it really differentiates between who we are and what other countries are. a bunch of us went to cuba. havana, cuba. i got the opportunity to talk to the information minister. and so, i asked him questions about the brothers in arms flight that was shot in international airspace.

about the journalists arrested. about the people that were handing out petitions simply to even talk about democracy, they were arrested. he refused to answer any of those questions. i said -- let me ask you one more question. i talked to your reporters and some of the cartoonists in cuba and they are not allowed to draw images of fidel castro. they cannot draw images of che guevara. in america, we believe the country that cannot make fun of its leaders, is usually a country that is imprisoned by its leaders. so let me ask you this question, what is your favorite fidel castro joke? his face went white. little beads of sweat gathered on his forehead. he finally said -- i do not know one, but i will tell you one later. that is the difference between the united states and the freedom that so many people have sacrificed for to ensure. we have men and women out there who are fighting to guarantee

our liberty and our freedom. the freedom that we take for granted. i don't think any editorial artoonist -- it is our responsibility to use this freedom, to educate the masses, to make sure that this government works for the people. brian: here is a cartoon -- you made some people who have an iranian connection mad at you for this. i don't know what the title it is. put it on the screen. called "the cockroaches." michael: this cartoon received a lot of criticism. if you look carefully at the cartoon -- on the bottom of the grill. it talks about terrorism. specifically about extremism in iran. brian: let me just explain. it is the country of iran and it has a sewer lid over it and cockroaches coming out of it. michael: i think it says extremism, i cannot read it.

it is talking about a very specific segment of the population of iran that is responsible for engendering the surrogates of evil and spreading chaos within the region. i did receive a lot of criticism for it. what i said was that iran is responsible for a lot of the chaos that is going on. this expansion of radical extremism. it started in iran first. you could argue that extremists in saudi arabia are doing the same thing but these groups -- when you look at the population, i think the average age is, what, 28, and they are very pro-western but that the theological dictators of the regime, the revolutionary guard uses these surrogates of evil to create chaos in the region. brian: one of the things in this cockroach cartoon is it shows cockroaches spreading to afghanistan and iraq and syria.

and even to israel and the gaza strip and pakistan and all of the countries around it. what made people the maddest about it? michael: i think the iranians were mad because i characterized the country as a whole as a refuge for cockroaches. but i was very specific in the extremists, i think. i don't think people realize that this expansion, this iranian expansion is very dangerous. when they become a nuclear power, mutually assured destruction only works when the other side does not want to die. because this nuclear arms race that will go on in the region, the region has a lot of oil money but little reverence for human life. it will become a much more dangerous world. brian: one last one, this one is from 2014. you can see it on the screen. this is the world trade center. you have people falling to their deaths.

and the one fellow says, how do you feel about enhanced interrogation? this will be our last one. explain this one. this caused a lot of feedback too. michael: it did. i am not afraid of the feedback. there is a a real question as to the responsibility of our intelligence services to figure out where these dangers of terrorism are coming from. i think because -- when you look at this war on terror that we are in right now. it can only be effective if you know what is going on on the ground. by taking away the devices that allow you to figure out what the machinery is that is generating this terrorism, you expose us to danger. you can go through waterboarding. our seals go through waterboarding training. i don't think it is torture, frankly. if you just blow up terrorist

and you do not find out who they are and how they are connected, the san bernardino case, we got their electronics. we can put together a trail of who these people are. that is a much better way to secure our safety. brian: i only have 30 seconds. one last question. how did you get dick cheney and rush limbaugh to write the forward and the afterward? michael: i am honored to say i have become friends with dick and lynn cheney. some friends of mine had them over for dinner and i got to meet them. i have always been a fan of the vice president. and his view on politics. and of course, rush, i've had a relationship with rush for a long time. not only with paul shankman, but he used to run my cartoons in the limbaugh letter. brian: besides buying this book for $28, where can people see you on a regular basis besides investors business daily? michael: if you go to our website, www.investors.com/cartoons, you'll see my cartoons every

single day. you can get me on twitter, ramireztoons. and on facebook. brian: the name of the book is "give me liberty or give me obamacare." michael ramirez, thank you for joining us. michael: it's a real pleasure to be here. >> all "q&a" programs are available on our website, or as a podcast on c-span.org. mr. capuano: corporation corporation -- the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> august, 2016, she was a guest on "washington journal" program and received a call from gary, a white man from north carolina. he said he was prejudice and asked ms. mcghee what he could do to change. ms. mcgheee talks about her

interaction, her relationship with him and what he's done to change his views. there is "q&a" next sunday -- that is "q&a" next sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern time on c-span. >> both the house and senate meet at 3:00 eastern today for legislative work. the house will consider veterans' affairs issues, including expanding g.i. education coverage, and work continues on the $383 billion spending package for seven federal departments and related agencies including war funding, the 2020 census, and highway funds for next year. the senate will work on programs and policy for the defense department, including weapons programs, military pay raises, and pentagon policy. watch the senate live on c-span2 and the house live here on c-span. >> the reviews are in for c-span's "the presidents" book. it topped "the new york times"

new and noteworthy column. stone. ls it a mile "the presidents" makes a fast and grossing read. note how historians rank the best and worst chief executives from george washington to barack obama. explore the life events that shaped our leaders, challenges they faced and the legacies they left behind. c-span's "the presidents" is now available as a hard cover or ebook today at c-span.org/the dt presidents or wherever books are sold. >> today, president trump increased sanctions against iran. he signed sanctions targeting iran's supreme leader, which blocked the leader's access to u.s. financial institutions and companies doing business with u.s. banks. here's the announcement in the white house followed by treasury secretary mnuchin answering questions about it.