moving forward, the senate has not put so much as a -- on what they need to do. host: back to your calls, asking will you vote to reelect your member of congress? up next, jack in tallahassee, florida on the independent line. good morning, jack. caller: yes, my u.s. senators are -- senator is rick scott. i'm a little nervous. when he was governor, he sold the state plane and he had his own private plane that cost more money than the state plane did. when he was ceo of columbia health in louisville, kentucky, he manipulated or stole $300 million of medicare. he pay back $100 million.

that was really -- paid back $100 million. that was really nice. he was elected u.s. senator twice. i just understand these things. it's very, very sad. i know when he was growing up, he grew up in the projects. i know some people who grew up in the projects in jacksonville. host: jack, what about your member of the house of representatives? your congressman? caller: my congressman? i don't know who my congressman is. there has been a state representative, two of them, and i live in tallahassee, but every 30 minutes after the program has ended they are calling each

other liars, and that is what is dominant in tallahassee, at the present time. but, anyway. host: tom in illinois calling on the republican line. good morning, tom. caller: i would like a little time, maybe 30 seconds. i'm not long-winded. before you cut me off. i'm voting republican in illinois, and that is like the guy in california. almost doesn't matter. the republican people here make deal with the democratic people and sell their properties and stuff. what i would like to talk about you, c-span, and you in particular, why don't you just put time up like in congress so we have the same amount of time? you cut off the republican people and then you let the lady go 1, 2, 3, she makes all these points and you let her talk? the reason the fema bill did not pass is because they wanted to give all of that money to migrants.

i mean, joseph the truth, democrats get to talk about whatever they want to talk about. put the time up there. thank you. host: calvin in mississippi on the line for democrats. good morning, calvin. caller: good morning. my congressman is not up for reelection this year, but i will be voting for flockins as the incumbent senator from michigan. host: are you in michigan or mississippi? caller: michigan. host: ok, and you are voting for alyssa flocking -- flockin? she is running against mike rogers, correct? caller: yes, mike rogers. host: and why are you choosing

her? we lost that caller. we will go to gary in illinois, on the line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: doing well. caller: yes i am in a very red district in my house of representatives is mary miller. when i went to vote early this week there is no democrat on the ticket for house of representatives. just republican, so i left it blank thank you. host: ellen in florida on the line for democrats. good morning, alan -- ellen. caller: yes, i'm not going to vote for rick scott for senator. he has, as other callers have said, the fraud and fema funding are some of the key ones, and

for congressman, posey is not going to be on the ballot, so i will be voting for the democrat. and i just wanted to say to the gym and in california, there has been so much misinformation on fema that is sadly effective people in the states that need it. and i wish there would be more fact checking on that. host: ruth in plymouth, indiana on the line for independents. good morning, ruth. caller: yes, our representative is rudy cockrum -- rudy rackham in south bend. who ignored that his predecessor did the same thing. also our senator from indiana is a trumper and has denied that biden was president. so i will not be voting for either one of them. host: ruth, who is the member of congress there that you will be voting for? caller: laurie camp. host: who did you vote for in

2022? caller: i stopped voting republican in 2016 one trump came on board, because he is crazy. host: daniel in tennessee on the line for democrats. good morning, daniel. caller: good morning morning, tammy. once again, appreciate what you and your fellow moderators do. i want to say that my congressman, john rose, has been missing in action the last several years. i don't know, is he ashamed of how trump handled covid? because here in pickett, county tennessee we must have lost 27 people in this county of 5000, and i would say 10 of those 20-something people could have lived if they had the correct information. but because of covid and nihilism -- denialism from republican leaders -- i tell it

-- i find it telling that trump sent abbott testing the scene -- machines to put in. the caller judy said that he would go away. that it is a democratic hoax. he was willing to commit premeditated manslaughter on you people. and one other thing. host: i'm sorry, daniel. we have to leave it there. next we are going to be joined by dan kaufman, a computing writer for new york times magazine. we are going to discuss his reporting on the impact of nafta on politics and presidential elections. later washington post technology reporter cat zakrzewski is going to discuss the use of artificial intelligence in campaign 2024. we will be right back.

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host: joining us now to discuss the impact of nafta on american politics is dan kaufman. he is a can shooting writer for the new york times magazine. welcome to the program. guest: nice to be here. thank you for having me. host: why don't we start by having you remind our audience what nafta is and why it was put into place? guest: nafta was a free-trade agreement, the north american free trade agreement. it was originally first conceived by ronald reagan for the 1980 presidential campaign. the idea was to remove all tariffs and trade barriers from between mexico and canada and the united states. as a way, a stencil play, to increase exports and gdp among the three countries. an agreement was negotiated between the united states and canada by reagan in his second

term. he was really george h.w. bush that negotiated the treaty during his presidency, what the prime minister of canada and the president of mexico. but it was not until he needed to be ratified by congress and it became the center of the 1992 presidential election between george bush, oakland, and the third-party candidate, ross perot, independent, wealthy businessman, who, really this inter-piece of his campaign was opposition to nafta. critics, particularly organized labor, were very fearful of it, because they saw it as, a sickly, cover to exploit extreme wage differentials between the united states and mexico in other words, factories would be incentivized to move their production to mexico, where they could pay workers as little as a dollar an hour.

i'm sorry, yeah, a dollar an hour and it became this big battle. clinton won. he promised to negotiate separate side agreements to protect environmental regulations and labor. those were the two big concerns. he did that, but they were widely considered hollow, and in fact, they were never -- no country has ever been fined for violating them. the bill was passed in congress after a very contentious debate in the house, where a lot of democrats opposed it. however, clinton brought enough of these democrats along, whipping the boat furiously, to pass the bill. he signed it into law in december 1993, and since then you have seen a pretty massive outpouring of plants and jobs,

well-paying manufacturing jobs that are historically higher-percentage of union jobs in the manufacturing sector, and it also paves the way for other future aid -- other free-trade agreements. namely the china normal permanent trade relations. it opened up a free-trade juggernaut that has left -- cost the united states millions of well-paying manufacturing jobs, and it also was a signal of a political realignment. the democratic party became more focused on the wall street investors and so on that were pushing nafta and the professional class that stood to benefit it. it is important to say that gdp did grow, but the distribution of that wealth was not equal. and in fact, there are studies that show most people without a college degree lose about $2000 a year from trade with low-wage

countries. so, in a nutshell that is what nafta was. complicated agreement that ushered in political and economic realignment. host: that was passed in 1993, signed into law in 1993. and your article, you wrote this article, the headline in a recent new york times magazine, "how nafta broke american politics." you say the passage remains one of the most consequential events in recent american politics, and economic history. let's talk about the politics and what you mean when you say the impact it has had. guest: right, well, as i say, it ushered in more. it was sort of -- kind of broke the opposition to these agreements. that first passage in the house of representatives in november 1993 was a very -- it was one of

those inflection points where a party makes a realignment. throughout clinton's presidency there were many policy changes, really significant ones that reoriented the democratic party to -- as i say, a professional class, more of a wall street investment financial is asian and so on. i think without the passage of nafta that would not have been possible. there was the granting china permanent normal trade relations which paved the way to entry into the trade negotiation. which has cost the u.s. some 4 million manufacturing jobs. there were also some bills, for example the repeal of glass-steagall, a depression era law that sort of place restraints on investments from wall street, and that was repealed.

there was a wide reorientation away from the democratic party's new deal roots that nafta kind of ushered in. i think that has had ripple effects. the other thing that is important to remember is that nafta, the effective it is still ongoing. in 2018 trump renegotiated nafta, an agreement called united states-mexico-canada agreement. it was signed into law and it was supposed to change that, but it really tinkered around the edges and you still have plants and so on, including the plants i profiled, in my article -- it was master lock in milwaukee. most of the jobs had already gone to mexico in the late 1990's. however, there were still a few hundred jobs at its historic milwaukee plant that ended just this year. so, it kind of -- the effect of deindustrialization, which i think has had a huge effect on

american politics and the economy is still ongoing. so, i think nafta's effect is ongoing and the way i see it as the most accounts -- as the most consequential is, it changed the democratic party. again, this idea was deeply rooted in the republican party. from its inception through george h.w. bush's negotiation. that changed. it became a bipartisan consensus around trade. i think in 2016 you saw both on the right, donald trump, seeing an opening, there was a lot of pain, particularly concentrated in the rust belt states where these job losses have been so heavy. on the left you also had bernie sanders, who originally opposed nafta, and he won the michigan primary, which kept his campaign alive in the 2016 presidential campaign, largely because of, you know, opposition to free trade.

so there is a lot of deep-seated anger that does not go away. these jobs are very good. they were stable, well-paying jobs, largely because of the labor unions that were -- that had won these games are -- these gains over decades. that anger does not dissipate, and in many ways has deepened. and i think nafta sort of paves the way for the rise of a lot of the right populism that has dominated the republican party today. host: we are talking with dan kaufman. he is a contributive writer for the new york times magazine about his recent article, "how nafta broke american politics," the impact nafta has had on politics. if you have a question or comment for him you can start calling in now. the lines, republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. and independents, (202) 748-8002 .

dan, i want to ask you about the passage from your story. you mentioned deindustrialization. once known as the machine shop in the 1950's nearly 60% of the city's adult population worked in manufacturing. the vast majority of whom held well-paying jobs. in them in 1969 milwauk in the country.est median income by 2lwaukee had lost more th of its manufacturing jobs. ly 5% of those remained were unionized and it had the second-highest poverty rate in any large american city. but you also point out in your piece that the -- deindustrialization started in the late 70's, before nafta was put into place. so how did the agreement accelerate what may have already been happening?

guest: right, well, there were different ways. in the 1970's there was a recession, interest rates very high, which caused a massive wave of deindustrialization across the midwest. there were two recessions concurrently. what nafta did was, and incentivized the movement of capital to mexico in particular. and that is the way it made it easy -- it was really an investment program, and this had been going on -- there was these mexican factories along the border that was largely tariff-free, even prior to that emerged in the late 1960's. it basically gave the government seal of approval on moving capital. so, a lot of these companies in their plants moved to mexico. the other way that nafta really affected deindustrialization and the loss of working-class power,

economic power, was just by threatening to move. in other words, they had the ability to move very easily, so the unions they were negotiating with him adjust the workforce, had no leverage anymore, really. they could simply threaten to move. if these concessions they presented were not acceded to . i think deindustrialization is complicated. high interest rates, the recession, deregulation. but nafta really accelerated it, and again, nafta also pave the way for other free-trade agreements. the most important one of which was the deal with china. but in many ways it remains sort of the foundational pillar of this change in both our economy and in the political parties --

political party's stances. not completely. nothing is ever as neat as one cause, but while deindustrialization was happening it was incentivized by nafta, and it accelerated greatly. again, it also allowed for the passage of other deals that followed. in fact, the party, barack obama, through his presidency, was trying to secure an agreement called the transpacific partnership with 12 asian countries. those asian countries combined represented 40% of the global economy. that did not happen, and trump made opposition to that central to his campaign. but in those ways it accelerated. it really made it easy. as you say, milwaukee, it was this incredible industrial powerhouse. you know, arrival -- a rival in

its own way of detroit. these were well-paying jobs and provided a stability. the other thing people don't appreciate or are as aware of is the labor movement, there is a sense of social cohesion. union members, there are studies that have shown they are more active in civil society. they are more likely to vote. they have higher incomes. even if there is a non-union plant, that has to compete wage-wise roughly to maintain its workforce. so it put a lot of downward pressure on wages. and, again, it gave added leverage to corporate interest. they could move their plant, as master lock it, or threaten to move, and in the piece there is a woman that studied this, and she said, basically, 50% of

camino, contract negotiations in the aftermath of nafta were, there was a threat to move, you know, as part of it. and new union drives. there were also a lot of movements of factories, you know, in response to a plant being unionized, and so on. she documented this, so again, it is a complicated, multifaceted change, but -- host: we will bring our audience into the discussion. we are talking with dan kaufman about his piece "how nafta broke american politics," and we will start with fred in indianapolis, calling on the line for democrats. caller: good morning. dan, listening to you has brought tears to my eyes. finally you have got someone who can speak the truth about what

happened back then with nafta. the only part you are not putting in, which i wish you would is, where american workers was at during that time. and the problem at that time, because they did not believe ross perot. they were just fooled and believing that all of these jobs would remain here in the united states, that they are going to be getting this work, and blue-collar workers in the republican party. the white man was really fooled by this, by that, by newt gingrich and the rest of the republican party out there. i mean, i could not understand. i cannot understand why they just did not catch on to what was going on. host: we will get a response

from dan. guest: fred, thank you for your call. it is very heartbreaking story, and i'm sorry if it brought up some painful memories. i remember it as well too. i think you are right in a lot of ways. it is worth noting that bill clinton, you know, signed the agreement, and he really exerted a lot of effort into selling nafta to democrats that were skeptical. organized labor was very opposed, and it was a real point of tension, and there were a lot of rustbelt representatives, people like marcy kaptur, david bonior, the house majority whip at the time, who were deeply opposed, but i think you had a shift. the democratic party elites were now kind of reorienting themselves towards different interests than their traditional camino, blue-collar workers.

so, i think both parties coalesced around this idea. most democrats voted against it in the house, however, as bill clinton's trade representative said later, in a really excellent book by john macarthur called "the selling of free-trade," she said, you have to have a democratic president. george bush could not have passed nafta because you cannot bring in -- bring along enough are republicans. it is important to emphasize that this idea was deeply rooted in the republican party and remains so until donald trump. donald trump did not change much fundamentally. the agreement he signed has not stopped the outflow of capital. there was a plant in illinois, stellantis, one of the big three just moved last year. in fact, the uaw was there

recently protesting this. so, it made modest tinkering, but the fundamental structure of it and the fundamental way in which it was drafted heavily influenced by corporate lobbyists, remain the same. anyway, thank you for your call, fred. host: dan, something you spoke about, the fact that former president clinton did really have to sell this to democrats. it was a close vote, looking at the c-span website there is an excerpt of the 11th hour debate they had on before they eventually passed nafta, and so other oppositions to it. one of it was ross perot, an independent presidential candidate. we have a clip of him from the second presidential debate in 1992. we will play at and i will talk about it on the other site. mr. perrault: we have to stop sending jobs overseas.

for you in the audience who are business people, pretty simple. if you are paying $14 an hour to factory workers and you can move your factory south of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, have no health care -- that is the most expensive single element -- have no environmental controls, no pollution controls, and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south. if the people send me to washington the first thing i will do is study that 2000-page agreement and make sure it is a two-way street. one last point here. i decided i didn't understand it so i called the folks who have been around and said, why won't everybody go south? i finally got them up for 12 to 15 years and said, how does it stop in disruptive? when their