>> hinojosa: many knows the man who spoiled the 2000 presidential elections, but in the last five decades, he ought us the seatbelt, t airbag, the clean air act, and much more-- four-time presidential candidate, consumer advocate, and author ralph nader. i'm maria hinojosa, this is one on one. hralph nader, it's great e you on the show. >> thank you. >> hinojosa: so here's the first question i want to throw out to you, because, you know, you're a consumer advocate. ho as a kidas growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, you know, ralph nader... everybody knew what you were doing. but paint a picture of what our country would look like if you hadn't existed; if you hadn't,

you know, brought in theon regula what would our country look like? >> well, me and a lot of other people. >> hinojosa: okay, but... >> but well, for example, we wouldn't have mandatory motore vehifety standards, we pauldn't have recall requirements for ces who sell you a defective car. we got through meat and poultry inspecon laws; there were virtually no inspection standards of diseased meat and all the illness that comes from it, never mind the fraud. environmental protection-- there wasn't anything like that in washington. legal services for the poor-- this came out of the 1960s as well. a consumer product safety commission, for example, was created. the problem is that the corporations know how to game thessystems, and so they slowly, day after day with their lobbyists and their money, brinh e agencies down so that they don't do very much. year after year they decline. they don't enforce the law; thee don't haverosecutions. the toyota thing is an example

of a complete breakdown... >> hinojosa: in fact, i was just... >> ...of the auto safety agency. >> hinojosa: i was just watching something on television. it looks like they have like, a three minu ad for saying, "we're going to do great now." >> ( laughing ) yeah. >> hinojosa: "we're going to fix it all now"... >> yeah. >> hinojosa: and people are saying, "well, wait a second." this is the kind of stuff that was happening in the 1960s and 1970s...ea >> >> hinojosa: ...before there was protection, and yet it feels like we haven't made any progress. >> yeah. >> hinojosa: that must be incredibly frustrating for you. >> well, it's because we're outnumbered in washington. the are bout 1,000 citizen advocates in washington and teno of thousancorporate advocates, and they money... much more money to give to the politicians and many more lawyers to bring lawsuits. i mean, they starve these health and safety agencies. g is year, maria, we're go spend... the taxpayers are going to spend $775 million to guard the embassy in baghdad-- $775 miion. the entire budget of osha-- supposed to deal with tens ofsa ths of american workers who lose their lives-- is $520 million. >> hinojosa: how many times have you seen that number printed in a major newspaper of record?

>> almost never, but you see, the pentagon budget, which is eslf of the federal government's operating expenditisn't auditable. the government accounting office th congress every year say pentagon budget is not auditable. you know what that matns? eans they don't know where their inventory often is, they n n't know where the money's being spent, they stolen from and there's no accountability because there's no auditing system in place.an that's why blackwater and halliburton and all these people are ripping the taxpayer off like crazy. >> hinojosa: so a lot of people probably, you know, if they go back and they look at what it was like for you-- yes, you were leading a team of people, butyo .. you basically were at the head of this movement... >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: ...and you were confronting major corporations and thgovernment, and you have this belief that says just one individual can actually take on any issue and make change. here's whai want to know, though. >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: a lot of people don't know that you're the son of lebanese immigrants.

>> mm-hmm. s >> hinojostalk a little bit about how that experience of your mom and dad and what they taught you helped inform the man that you became. well, we talked a lot about public issues-- local, state, and national, international, around the dinner table. so there was no television, no, you know, text messaging. ( laughing ) it was... it was good conversation, and they would throw challenging questions at us. l and.e one thing my father said: "what's the difference between capitalism and socialism?" well, we started talking... >> hinojosa: and how old we you? >> well, i was maybe nine, but i uns the youngest in the family. and so we tossed a different things, and he came up with this definition. he said... he said, lism is government ownership of the means of production, and capitalism is corporate ownership of the means of government." and you see how pertinent... >> hinojosa: wow. >> ...it is today, with the corporations controlling our governmentripping it off, contracts, grants, very often a tax syst a grotesque favoritism for the

loophole crowd, and turning the government against its own people so it doesn't serve the people. y >> hinojosr dad also said something really beautiful, which is one day you came home from school...>> eah. >> hinojosa: ...and your dad said to you, "so what did you learn in school? did you learn to believe, or did you learn to think?" >> yeah. that really stung me, and i went up to my room and i started thinking about that, and every time i sat in a class with aor teache professor, i would r y, "is this teacher trying to get us to believe,ying to get us to think?" so it's that one questn that was worth a lot of courses, and that's what, at their best, that parents and grandparents do. and that's why i put down their... my parent's questions and experiences in the book 17 traditions. >> hinojosa: which is a wonderful book. probably a lot of people mayot have read it. it's called the 17 traditions, and this is a book that you y that you basically wrote for you mom and dad. >> y, and for thousands of

other parents and grandparents who should put this wisdom and these experiencedown to connect with their children, who are more disconnected nowe because all thectronic gadgets that they're... you know, more disconnected from their family trail than ever before. this is a modestestseller, by the way. >> hinojosa: all right! >> oh, yeah, yeah. >> hinojosa: yes, and we'll talk about your latest bo in just a minute, but let me ask you about what it was that your m and dad understood as immigrants that almost they took american constitution, theirsp civic sibility almost more seriously than people who had actually been born and raised in this country. what's that abt? >> well, once... my father ran a restaurant and he'd always criticize what's goingn in the country, but he'd always have a proposal to improve it. ybut we'd have these fact workers come over, and they all knew each other and dad, and athe'd irritate them deliby. you know, try to get them angry

when they were drinking their coffee. and they'd say, "nader, why don't you go back where you came from?"he anould say, "listen, when i sailed past the statue of liberty 1912, i took it seriously. do you?" so he turned the tables on them, and he said, "do you love your country?" "darn right." he said, "why don't you spend a little more time improving it?" ( laughing ) so that's the kind of dialogue that were exposed to all the me. >> hinojosa: but there must have been times, ralph, when you were just saying, "god, this." i mean, you were under surveillance...hm >> m by general motors. >> hinojosa: ...by corporations, by general motors. they were coming after you. >> yeah. a: in those moments when you're... you know, you were basically being targeted across the board, what kept you going? >> i think it's a striving for justice. a i loot of friends in traffic crashes needlessly.se there were nbelts, no airbags, no padded dash panels, you know, no rollover suort. hnow, for example, it's m

safer-- motor vehicles are much safer-- but i lost high school, college classmates. and i used to hitchhike a lot, and often the truck drivers who picked me up would be first at the scene of a crash, and it was really pretty bloody and grisly and scres. and so i wrote a paper at harvard law school on safe automobile engineering and the law.oj >> ha: and back then, did people kind of think, "unsafe automobiles? what's this guy focusing on cars? cars are like, supposed to be everything that we want, and..." >> yeah. >> hinojosa: did they all think you were just kind of... >> yeah, well, you know, thi was in 1950s. the cars were advertised as psychosexual dreamboats with fins and ornaments and so on. never mind fuel efficiency, crash safety, or ease of maintenance to repair,ollution control. that's what we changed completely. the demand by the public for all these points that i just mentioned grew in the mid-19s congressional hearings, the signing by lyndon johnson the various motor vehicle and

pollution control laws. >> hinojosa: so you knt a lot of people... there are people who kw you as the tireless consumer advocate... >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: are people who didn't know anything about you... >> mm-hmm. >> hinojosa: ...until you decided to run for president in the year 2000. and then they say, "oh, yeah; he's the guy who ran for president in the year 2000. isn't he the one w made bush win?" and you say... >> well, listen. first of all, it's factually wrong. i've talked to gore about this, and gore has talked to other people. all, we all have an equal right to run for election, and why do they put the wrap on the green party candidate for? i mean, do these two parties own all the voters? n't we want the voters to have more choice, the way they did, say, in the 19th century and the antislavery party, and theme s right to vote party, labor, farmer, progressive parties? it's harder and harder now for small parties and independents just to get on the ballet. all kinds of petition requirements, all kinds of obstacs.

but gore, of course, won the popular te, so we have this monstrosity that you can come in second and become president because of the electoral college, so... >> hinojosa: which frankly, you knen people talk about the greatest democracy, and america is the greatest democracy, it doesn't seem to make any sense. >> not one american has ever voted for a human being for president since the history of the country-- can you imagine that? ithey vote for the electo the electoral college whose names they don't even know. it's absurd. but also, it was stolen from him in florida-- from tallahassee in all kinds of ways with kathleen harris and jeb bush. >> hinojosa: but you got 90,000 votes in florida, right? >> yeah. >> hinojosa: so if those 90,000 votes had gone for gore, then he would have won the state offl ida. >> that's not the way to look at it. the way to look at it is how die i gore before the election? did i push him to take more progressive stan which got him up in the polls, where he actually got more votes th whatever went to the green party? but you see, even the most sophisticated political analyst

never looked at the preelection day dynamics. there have been some social scientist studies who have concluded that i actually, by pushing him to do what lieberman didn't want him to do... >> hinojosa: mm-hmm. ur ...by challenging the drug, oil, you know, ice companies in speeches-- remember "the people, not the powerful," that was his slogan-- that he got more votes than if i wasn't even ithe arena. but it's such a ridiculous discussion, because les all put our best foot forward to the voters and let's have a od, competitive election and not say, "oh, someone siphons votes." when somebody said, "did you siphon votes from gore," i saidn no-- gore siphoned far more votes from me!" ( laughing ) hinojosa: so would you do it again? i mean n, because this is one of the things that people will... and people-- many of your supporters who were die-hard ralph nader supporters said, "okay, that's it; i'll r forgive him." would you do it again? >> well, you see, that's a terrible subservience to a two

party tyranny. they're not thinking clearlyit about the necefor equal access to the ballet, more choiceo the voters, and let the best prevail. >> hinojosa: is that going to happen iour country? i mean... >> oh, sure, it could. it's very easy. i wrote a book including... only e super-rich can save us that talks about the clean elections party. >> hinosa: a small book of 700 and how many pages? >> 700 pages, but it's big print and it's fiction, so it has a realripping, exciting narrative. lesley stahl read this on her vacation and wrote me a nice letter. she said she found it engrossing, creative, and funny. i said, "i'll take all three." ( laughing ) >> hinojosa: but you're all about grassroots and every citizen can change, and... >> yeah. >> hinojosa: so isn't this kind of saying,wait a second. so we can't depend on the grassroots. now we have to depend on these ultra, ultra, ultra rich who may have their own baggage," but they're the ones who are going to actually make our country better, or our world better? >> yeah, i selected them becaush they're enned, in advanced stage, had a different perspective on life, and had ain lot... were wito put billions of dollars into mobilizing the grassroots. so it's the p down, bottom up.

justice requires money. itequires money for lawyer for organizers in the communities. it requires money for ansportation. it requires money to constantly reach people directly. and people don't understand. e abolition of slavery movement? a lot of it was funded by proper bostonians in the 19 century. the civil right movement?rr try the family and the stern family in the 1950s and 1960s.t they poured a money. i mean, these people didn't go south, you know, by hitchhiking and the freedom rides and so forth. naacp was supported by rich people, so we... >> hinojosa: so this notion that if you're wealthy or you've made money, therefore you're aligned with corporate interests and yoa are therefor you're basically saying, "no, it doesn't have to look that way." >> 99%, you're right, but never do 100% stereotype, because all you need is one percent.

these 17... in every page, once you accept that you have these influential-- who get their calls returned-- 17 people, super-rich, older age, enlightened americans, they puta raise $15 billion and they turn the country around fromhe grassroots all the wa to washington. so every page could happen, onca you acceptpredicate. warren beatty thinks it'll make a good mie. by the way, i have him in there running against schwarzenegger. all this occurs in 2006. >> hinojosa: so are you hopeful, ralph? i mean, you've been at this for, what? you're 75 years old now. you've been basically... todd purdum from the new york times said your public life has been one long, unyielding argument with the world. so... >> look, i'm... >> hinojosa: ...are we making progress here? >> yeah, sure, we're making progress, bu h.. ojosa: or are we three steps forward, two steps back? >> both. you know, cars are safer, for example. we have a great freedom ofrm inion act to get information, which is the currency of democracy.

but the other hand, the corporations have become fewer and bigger. the bigger ones are fewer, they merge, they're global, they pit one country against another, they control these trade agreements, and they never stop concentrating power. they have to, to get their way, control government. they have to. there isn't a single government agency and department where the outside influence is overwhelmingly corporate. n hinojosa: so how do we... how do we... so how mal citizens-- small, regular citizens-- when you're saying it's so massive, their level of influence... >> simple. corporations have no vthe people have the vote. the biggest... >> hinojosa: but you're alt saying te vote in the united states isn't actually a just vote because we're voting for the electoral colleg >> right. that has to be repealed, of course. but let's start with congress. congress is the most important bran in government. it controls, you know, the war part, the money part, the appropriations part,ealth and safety, general welfare. there are only four... 535 men and women. they put their shoes on like you

and i do.co 1,50orations who don't have a single vote get their way with the majority of thesegain and again. where are we back home? why don't we organize back homev if in any congressional district 2,000 people out of 630,000 in each congressional-- and there are colleges and community colleges in every district-- if they would form a strong congress watchdogth group an would fund two full-time offices and two fud-time people and they wo devote 200 hours per person ar year, volunt establish major redirections, living wage, health insurance, prison refor tax reform, electoral reform,or coe crime crackdown, on and on, it would happen.no there'ing out there except a few single-interest groups-- nra, pro-life, pro-cice-- there's nothing out there except corporation. auto dealers are out there organized, insurance agents are out there organized, connectedto to washiand their patron

companies. so the biggest secret of democracy is not just that it can work, it's that it doesn't take that much effort by a small number of organized people who reflect broad puic sentiments. who reflect broad public sentiments. it may be passe in a lot of people, but that's what i didsa with the autty. >> hinojosa: okay, but i'm sure that people are watching this and they're saying, "well, ralph nader, we actually saw that in this country with the election of president barack obama. there was a movement that wanted changeand some people might say this was, you know, a hopeful change. it aually brought in a chang >> yeah. >> hinojosa: you're incredibly frustrated by president obama. has nol, first of all, h organized base. i mean, he got a lot of small contributions, but he also raised, more than any presidential candidate in history, wall street money, corporate money, corporate law firm money. soome sails into office not a mass movement-- i mean, he got

a lot of votes, but that's different from a mass movement like the farmer progssive movement at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. i mean, they... the ates came out of them. they became state legislators, governors, senators, and so forth. they knew where they were coming from. he sort of had an electronic victory. you know, the internet and all that. he didn't campaign much in poor areas at all, hardly mentioned the poor. said he was going to expand the war in afghanistan, e was against single-payer full mecare for all. so he warned us that he was very much a corporate democrat, and why did all these corporations put so much money into him? because they knew he was their man. so i'm not surprised. what i am disappointed in is his extraordinary belligerence overseas. he's bush light-- meaning his rhetoric is better. but he's made some... many of e same claims, the same national security state, going anywhere, never mind ternational law, et cetera. and the second... i mean, he's

into pakistan now. i mean, when... you know, congress is supposed to declare these wars. and the second is too concessionary to big business. he's had personal invitation. six times the head of aetna insurance, six times the head oz drug, have met with him in the white house. he's never called out to us. >> hinojosa: has he called out to you? >> never once. doesn't answer the letters. one his best friends, dr. quentin young, 85 years old, in chicago, the leader of the single payer movement, wonderful doctor who he used to spend quite a bit of time wi, he never invites him for consultation. the head of aetna, the source of the problems? he is nflict averse. >> hinojosa: so what do american citizens... what do we do, then? because, you know, there are a lot of people who are saying, "well, wait a second. we thought that change was on the way. obviously some people are saying, "wait a second. we don't see the change coming. now i feel entiry frustrated, and i feel so frustrated that i'm entirely apathetic, and i don't want to do anything." >> well, that's exactly what the power structure wants you to do. in other words, wants you to quit, to withdraw.

and of course, that is not acceptable, ght, if you care for your descendants and your children and your country and your world? i mean, where's the courage here? where's the guts? is it just on the sports field or in the battle arena? how about civic courage? how about moral courage? how about your own self respect? you know that if you're going to destination and it's going to take 500 steps, do you say to yourself, "oh, it's going to take 500 steps-- i'm not going to take the first step, the second step"? isere are all kinds of wonderful citizen groups in ountry who want you to join. civil liberty grps, environment, labor, migrant reform, all these things.bu people give up on themselves. and the moment they give up on, themselve country's on the way into the pits. e they're the only ones who can hold the reins of the power brokers. >> hinojosa: there's something that... you once were asked a question about optimism and pessimism, and you said something like, "you know what? i'm neitr optimistic or pessimistic. i don't really, you know, work in the field of emotions."

>> yeah. >> hinojosa: well, but most people do actually get sad, or they feel inspired, or they don't. but, you know, when they get into a place of entire frustration, and you're just saying, "look, i'm just not emotional, i'm not going to..." well, what do you say to people, who arn fact? >> well, you have to control your moods, because otherwise you become discouraged, u know, you want to drop out. w that doesnk. corporations work 24 hours a day. you keep that in mind, and you see how they're grinding workers under. i mean, look at the ridiculoust wagest... you know, one out of every three workers making wal-mt, $7.50, eight, nine, ten dollars an hour. they're grinding other consumers. they've got you right by the neck.di your cscore, your credit rating, they've got you in debt. you know, they control so much. they're even now planning your genetic future, your political future, your military budget future. and that ought to get you angry. that shouldn't say, "oh, i'm going to give up." it's amazing. for every million people who

don't give up on their sports team, even though their sports am's got a losing record, why do they give up on themselves, if only for their children? we he to have this kind of agitational dialogue with one another, instead of these insipid, you know, text messages. i had a teenager tell me thehe day she did 300 text messages in one day. i said, "wl, tell me, phyllis, what's the urgency of the communication here?"in >>osa: yeah, what are you talking about that's so important? >> the trivialization in these electronic gadge... that's why, you know, when you go to citizen meetings around the country, there's hardly anybody under 40. i mean, they're all elderly people. because they grow up with these electronic gadgets, vi reality, looking at screens. you know a ten-year-old now, the average ten-year-old is watching screens seven and a half hours a day. that's the lest report. >> hinojosa: it feels a little bit like 1984, you know? 'rnd of like, "okay, now y all controlled, you're programmed." >> yeah. >> hinojosa: and then people ary going to"no, that just sounds really, really strange. we're just regular folks trying

to figure this out." i mean, big conspiracy here, or... on the part of corporations to. >> corporations, they just want to sell you stuff-- junk food, junk this, junk th, violent programming to the kids, undermining parental authority. parents are going up the wall. i mean, their kids are being marketed right out of their control.>> inojosa: and so a parent should do what at that moment? >> just take control. i mean, put that tv aside, you know, put that ipod aside, don't even buy them that stuff. get them to read, to think, to converse, to connect with their own peer group on a wholesome level, to exercise their bodies. look at the obesity, child obesity. it's because of a, junk food, and b, they're sitting hourho afte looking at screens. >> hinojosa: but the way you paint it it's almost as if, youw this country is going down the tubes, ralph nader. >> it is going down ths. i mean, the highest average wage in the country's history is 1973. see, right there, verty's increasing, child poverty is increasing.

>> hinojosa: so what's the motivation on the pa corporations to take this country down the tubes? then they don't have anybody to actuallyuy their products. >> well, that may occur increasingly. but as long as they can ship jobs and industries tonist and fascist regimes like chinaan at 50 centour, where they know how to keep workers in their place, and then ship the haoducts back here, that's they like. someday there's going to be less and less purchasers here. on t other hand, there'll be more purchasers in china. these corporations are extremely expedient. they have no allegiance to our country, even though they were born in the usa, they profit on the backs of usa workers, bley're bailed out by washington when they're in tr defended by the marines abroad when they get in trouble with dictatorships and so o and they still don't have any allegiance to this country. they just go where the serf labor is, where they can pollute the easiest, get away from not paying tes, bribe officials. this country starts with the constitution, "wpeople." we the people have to get together. we've got to stop making excuses for ves, copping out, you

know, rationalizing our own futility. lookrt our forbearers at thei best. did they cop out? i mean, look what they did-- slavery, women's rights, cil rights, workers, farmers. we've got to... and it'sex ting, too. people live such dreary lives because they're so dtely trying to pay, you know three months ago's bl, and the rent. and this excites people. and you can see that particularly among women civic leaders, who come up from very poor areas-- black american women, hispanic american women. you don't ink their lives are enriched when they go against injustice?an i it's a whole new lifestyle. and there's nothing more atifying than advancing justice for your fellow human being. o >> hinojosa: athat note, get out there an act, everyone. thank you so much for your words, ralph nader. a real pleasure. >> essential.org is our web site. >> hinojosa: we'll go. thank you. >> okay.

>> hinojosa: continue the conversation at: captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

robert: president trump rattles global markets after threatening china with billions in new tariffs. i'm robert costa. u.s. troo head to the border and t embattled e.p.a. chief fights to keep his job. tonight on "washington week." trade war. president trump: you have to go after t people that aren't treating you right. robert: president trump calls for an additionalli $100 b in tariffs on chinese goods, escalating the feud between the world's two largest economies. plus -- >> this president has shown tremendous courage. robert: will e.p.a. administrator's scott pruitt's unwavering support t f president help him with a storm of controversy. questions about h hou