hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. a gruesome new theory about what happened to the body of the slain saudi journalist, jamal khashoggi. i'll ask the vice chair of the senate intelligence committee, senator mark warner, about this and about government after the midterms. then, as president trump ratchets up his midterm rhetoric, we talk to marc short, his former director of legislative affairs. plus, is america really as divided at is seems? republican congressman garrett graves tells our walter isaacson why cross-party cooperation might still be possible.

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welcome to the program, everyone. it's been almost exactly a month since they admitted he was murdered inside their consulate at is tan bull where turkey said he was dismembered but it's still not known what happened to jamal khashoggi's body. "the washington post" which jamal wrote for, is quoting a senior turkish official saying they are now exploring whether his body was destroyed in acid on the grounds of the saudi consulate or the saudi consul general's residence. last week cnn spoke to the company that was hired to examine the sewers outside the consulate with robotic cameras. these developments come as the united states and the united kingdom use this souring of relations to finally demand a cease-fire in the yemen war and to ease the regional stand off with qatar. senator mark warner has been vocal and insistent on getting to the bottom of this crisis.

he is the vice chair of the senate intelligence committee and he joins me now from capitol hill to talk more about this and, of course, about the democrat strategy for the midterms and what the afterward will look like. senator warner, welcome to the program. >> thanks for having me on today. >> so let us talk with something that's very close to, you know, domestic affairs, and that's obviously the midterms next tuesday. i just want to ask you in context with what we asked, is america as divided as it looks with all these hate crimes that we've seen over the past week and with the incredibly divisive rhetoric and new campaign ads that are coming out right now targeting immigrants? >> well, clearly we've never had a president like donald trump who is so loose with language, so willing to antagonize friend and foe alike, and who seems only about trying to rally his

supporters and even in the aftermath of the tragedies of the last two weeks hasn't seen his role as president as someone to bring folks together after crisis. that is a huge disappointment to, i think, the vast majority of americans. but there are moments of time, i work in a senate and on a committee, on the intelligence committee, for example, where we've maintained our bipartisan status through the whole russia investigation. i think on many issues there are still areas of common ground. one of the areas i spent a lot of time on recently is investigating some of the challenges, for example, in social media. one outside expert testified before our committee that if you look at the activity on the far left and the far right in terms of political commentary on the internet, that that commentary is literally 25-1 foreign-based

bots or foreign-based fake accounts over actual americans. if that proves to be the case, it may at least be a little bit of a good sense that there may not be as wild and crazy a voice on each ends of the extreme as there sometimes appears to be, at least in terms of volume of internet traffic. but i do think these midterms, which will be now just a few days away, are critical. and i would argue that every american needs to get out and vote. even folks who may even support some of this president's policies, i hope they will go out and recognize that our system of government, which has this enormous need for checks and balances, that if there's ever been a time that congress, the house and the senate, needs to exercise its constitutional responsibility to put a check on an executive that, for example, as recently as this week thought he could change the constitution by simply an executive action,

they need to the out and vote. i believe that means by putting democrats in control of the house. my hope is while the margin is thinner, put democrats in charge of the senate so we can provide that constitutional check on a president that sometimes i think understands the limits on his power. >> senator, you raise a lot of interesting points, but let's take them slightly in order and stay close to the midterms for a moment. first and foremost, you raised this issue of the constitutional amendment that the president has been talking about which is the 14th amendment giving birthright citizenship. immigration served him really well in the 2016 campaign, propelled him to the white house and he's doubling down and using that right now. can he, given his ability to nominate to the supreme court, actually follow through with this idea of changing that birthright citizenship, which he's telling his base right now?

>> i think this is an attempt to simply whip up fear. there is no responsible constitutional scholar on the left or the right that thinks the president can act unilaterally to make this kind of change. even the republican speaker of the house, paul ryan, called trump out on this item. now, of course that earned paul ryan another hit by a presidential tweet, but there are most of us, myself included, who have been the objects of these presidential tweets. i think as you pointed out, this is an effort to stoke fear, it is not a legitimate issue. if he wants to try to change the law, there is a constitutional process where congress has to act and then states have to act. there is no ability for a president to act in any unilateral fashion, so this is one more campaign tactic. we shouldn't be surprised.

think about prior to the tragedy in pittsburgh on saturday when in the previous week we had literally 15 bombs sent that i would argue were assassination attempts against former president obama, former president clinton, former vice president, secretaries of state, and the president rather than out and out condemning that action was complaining that the media was spending too much time on that rather than back on his favorite subject of simply trying to stir up folks against immigrants. >> senator, you mentioned the extreme expressions that are on areas of social media, and in fact we've just been looking and there's been a lot of reporting on the post-pittsburgh moment, which is tragic. the number of hate groups are not getting less after that tragedy.

i spoke to tim cook, the apple ceo, last week and he was in europe calling for privacy laws and regulation. let me just play what he said. >> usually i'm not a pro regulation type of person, i believe in free markets. but i think we have to admit when a free market doesn't work and take an action. >> so i mean that's the sort of short version of what he told me and it's a lot to do with what we're talk about right now, the polarization and the ripping apart of the fabric of society, including in the united states. do you think america would go for regulation of some sort, congress would do that? >> i believe that americans are ready for some guardrails. i think for years we celebrated the great success of these tech companies and they are remarkably successful, but as we've seen over the last few years in major ways, starting with the russian intervention into our elections in 2016, we've seen the ability to

manipulate and misuse social media. russians did it fabulously well by creating hundreds and hundreds of fake accounts that touched literally hundreds of millions of americans. so i laid out what i believe is one of the most extensive white papers, laying out over 20 ideas on how we might think about some of these guardrails. let me briefly not touch on all 20 but touch in the three areas where i think some debate and some sense of regulation may take place. first is around privacy. europe, as you're aware, christiane, has already set up a set of regulations called gdpr. it's a little bit clunky in certain ways, but it set out privacy regulations. much of those regulations have actually been copied by california with their own state legislative activities. part of that will allow you to have better transparency into the data that these companies

collect on you, the ability to be forgotten, the ability to take down some of that data. so there is a whole series of ideas around privacy. that's bucket number one. bucket number two that's not received as much attention but i think is where a lot of the debate is moving is around identity validation over the internet. in many ways, the internet was created as this vast open square where you could appear anonymously and many times these hate groups -- people are not representing themselves with their real names but are appearing anonymously and spreading this kind of venom and frankly finding an ability to connect with similar kind of hateful views in ways that are fairly spectacular. so certain ideas that i've laid out. for example, should we, when we go on the internet, have the right to know when we're being contacted, whether it's by a human being or a bot or fellow

computer. now, there's nothing inherently wrong with being communicated by with a computer but should you have the right to know that as you receive these messages. should you have the right to know if someone says they're christiane posting in new york but this post is actually originating in st. petersburg, russia. should there be a geoindicator that pops up and says somebody is representing to be one place but this post is originating someplace else. there are even some that are starting to say there needs to be perhaps even two internets going forward. one where you can be anonymous but another internet where if you're going to tract business, you have to have identity validation. so there are countries like estonia that have received so much russian interference that within their borders they decided that you could no longer be anonymous. you had to indicate through

biometrics and special pass codes that you were the actual person you represented to be, so identity validation is a second bucket. third, briefly, is this whole question around can we add competitive factors so that we diminish a little bit of the dominance of these firms. i think most americans, for that matter most citizens of the world who use google or facebook think, oh, gosh, these are free services. they are not free. they are milking huge, enormous amounts of information about us. if you are a regular user of google or facebook, those companies know more about you than does the united states government. so a couple of the ideas that we've laid out, just as in the old telecommunications world that used to be hard to move from one telephone company to another, then we mandated number portability, perhaps we should mandate data portability so it's easy for you to take all of your facebook feeds, including your cat videos, and easily move them

from one platform to another that might offer greater protections. and we've even put forward -- let me make this last point, and facebook has said they're open to this. the proof will be in the pudding. should you be able to know how many pieces of information facebook or google or others have about you, and not only be transparent about that data, but also how much that data is worth on a monthly basis. so if your data is worth $18 a month to facebook and mine is worth $20 a month, that kind of transparency around pricing would actually, i think, make people realize their data is valuable and might interject new competitors into the space that might again help provide protections just within the competitive landscape. so data privacy, identity validation and competition are three areas to look for. sorry for the long explanation but important areas. >> it's going to be really

interesting to see whether they gain traction and whether it lands somewhere that there's a change made. many citizens are quite fed up with this. i want to ask you because you did in all of that mention how russia was able to interfere with the last elections, and obviously there's an investigation into that. i want to ask you given these elections that they still think there's interference, why haven't we been able to stop that or why haven't you all been able to stop that? but also the other set of interference is getting a lot of focus and traction right now, and that is voter suppression. apparently 24 states in the like have got significant hurdles towards voting rights, and mostly target minority communities. how is that going to, a, change, and, b, affect this election coming up. >> let me put them in two different categories. one in terms of interference. the russians were masterful at misinformation and disinformation. that goes back to their history from the soviet union on. that kind of

misinformation/disinformation used by individuals misrepresenting themselves as americans, that activity is still active, is still out there. as a matter of fact, there was an indictment two weeks ago of a russian agent for both activities that she had taken in 2016, but also activities that were going forward in 2018. so making citizens more aware of fake accounts, fake representations. we haven't made as much progress as we'd like. we have seen certain aspects, for example, facebook is starting to at least label foreign campaign advertising on the internet the same way they label advertising on tv and radio. good half steps, but self regulation won't get it. we've also seen in terms of election security, ann increase in security at our polling stations. in election security there's three categories. there's the companies that regulate or manage the voter

files. unfortunately, three companies in america manage 95% of all these voter files. and i don't believe we have appropriate perspective into those companies and what kind of security that's taking place. second is at the voting machine level, there's been great progress made where in my state and many states we now have a paper auditable trail so even if the machines were hacked, you could find paper ballots that would have some record. unfortunately, because this administration has opposed election security reform legislation, even though it would pass the congress overwhelmingly, we've not been able to pass this on a national basis to have that in effect paper trail. the third area around where the votes are tabulated, again, the department of homeland security has done a better job, but in a normal administration after the kind of intervention we saw in 2016, a normal white house would have appointed someone in charge

of election security. this white house has not done that. as a matter of fact, this white house eliminated the position in the white house in terms of cyber security. now, on the second part of your question, and refresh my memory. >> i really want to get to gentleman nall khashoggi and the intelligence you may or may not have, that was about voter suppression in 24 states. >> this has been an activity that is not active at the federal level but there has been virtually no history or examples of major voter suppression. yet you have state after state, a classic case in georgia where the secretary of state is actually running for governor, where you've had states try to restrict voter rights or add additional identification requirements with the idea that it is stomping out voter fraud. but there's no evidence of that. i believe most of this is acting

as voter suppression. >> we'll see how it manifests itself and what the results are in the elections. but i want to move on, because as vice chair of the senate intelligence committee, you heard how we started with this new "washington post" theory, according to turkish officials, about what awful thing might have happened to the remains of jamal khashoggi. it's almost too awful to talk about, but his body might have been disposed in acid. what i want to ask you is the cia director, gina haspel, went to turkey last week. she was briefed. we were told she was told about whatever evidence the turks may have. has she come back and briefed you, congress, the senate intelligence committee, the president? do you know anything of what she was told? >> very shortly, the intelligence community leadership in congress, which is called the gang of eight, the leaders of the intelligence committee and the leaders of the house and the senate, will receive that briefing. but i believe it's obvious now that mr. khashoggi was brutally

murdered, that it was a planned activity by saudi arabia. the question i would ask, and we'll never know the answer to this, and this is again where i sometimes think the president doesn't understand that his words matter, oftentimes more abroad than even domestically. i could not imagine under an obama administration, under a bush administration, under a clinton administration, i could not imagine under a reagan administration that a so-called ally like saudi arabia would take this brazen an action, because they would fear the comeback and the price that would be paid from america and its other allies, because in a normal course, you'd have a president of the united states that would, one, stand up for the freedom of the press and, two, be willing to call out allies who violate human rights. when this president refuses to

make those kind of traditional calls to action that previous administration -- american presidents of both parties have made, again, we'll never know for sure but did the saudis think this action could be taken this brazenly without any repercussions. >> so do you think there will be repercussions? we've heard from some of your colleagu colleagues, including republican senator marco rubio, that america's nuclear talks with saudis should be abandoned and potentially the u.s. and uk, according to american officials, are trying to use this moment to end and call for a cease-fire in the war in yemen? >> i think that you will see congress act. you've heard democrats and republicans alike condemn the purported saudi actions, which again i think even the turkish prosecutors made a very strong case. and whether it's our collaboration on nuclear activities, whether it is arms sales, i think there will be action that we will take, even if trump doesn't take.

but i also hope, and i commend finally secretary pompeo and mattis if they are using this moment to try to rein in the saudi activities in terms of the war in yemen. there are parties on both sides that are guilty in yemen, but the saudi misuse oftentimes of american technology in terms of their indiscriminate killing of civilians needs to come to an end. i hope that we and our british allies and frankly others can put enormous pressure on the saudis to ratchet back and bring about the cease-fire in yemen that would be long overdue. >> yes, indeed. senator mark warner, thank you so much. in fact the world has called ene yemen an unprecedented human catastrop catastrophe. now, let's dig down further into donald trump on a

last-minute midterm campaign blitz. even by his standards, the president is causing uproar anew for sharing what some say is the most racially charged campaign ad in decades, repeating tropes about filling the nation with cop killers. his immigration rhetoric propelled him to the white house two years ago and he's counting on it shoring up congress now. so let's talk to marc short, former director of legislative affairs in the trump administration. and, of course, we have to disclose that he has signed a nondisparagement agreement. so, marc short, welcome to the program. >> christiane, thanks for having me on. >> can you tell me what that nondisparagement agreement means and why we have to say that? >> sure. before i signed a contract with cnn, any time i come on i can give you full and unvarnished opinion about what's happened inside the white house.

cnn wants to disclose that each and every enter view i do. but the reality is i've been on the network three months and providing my opinions both favorable and unfavorable with the administration's acts. >> let me ask you whether you have a favorable opinion of this ad that we've been talking about. we're reluctant to give it too much air because it does seem such a dog whistle. and you know which one i mean, right, the ad which shows a convict in court who looks completely off his rocker and he's talking about he wished he could kill more cops. that's being used as scare sort of tactics. what do you think about using that kind of ad at this particular time? >> christiane, i believe that it's a legitimate issue. i believe that border security is an issue that has continued to plague this country. i think it's one that many voters have supported trump for, as you said. where i probably disagree is i think some of the interjection of changes to the 14th amendment, i think that there is actually a lot of independents

and even some democrats who believe the president is right on border security. when you begin talking about changing the constitution, i think that that coalition fractures and falls apart. and so i think that the administration should stay focused on their actions to actually look to secure the border without talking about 14th amendment changes. >> so that's interesting. you kind of agree with what senator mark warner said, that you can't just change the constitution, it would take, among other things, an act of congress. so you think it's kind of dead in the water and you would not advise this president to focus on that? >> you know, i'm not a lawyer so i'll try to make sure that i understand my limitations here. but i think that the concern is not so much changing the constitution the way senator warner said, it's the way you interpret a clause "of the jurisdiction within." there are some legal scholars that say if you were here illegally or part of an embassy or foreign diplomat, you don't have the same rights and protections and shouldn't have birthright citizenship. again, i think there's too many

other issues that unite a larger percentage of americans about what we need on border security. that one i think is one that's more controversial and many americans aren't interested in looking to change interpretation of the constitution. >> so, marc, are you prepared to esday and what we might hear t on tuesday evening? others, many are saying according to polling that the congress might get democrat control, the senate will stay with republican control. is that your working assumption? >> i think republicans in the house face a lot of headwinds. the reality is that americans like divided government. i think that republicans have 44 retirements now among house republicans. when that happens in a retirement year and you create an open seat, you lose all the power of seniority and all the power ofincumbency, so that puts many more seats at play. i think that the democrats have the advantage in the house. having said that, the playing

field in the senate is very different. and i think republicans will actually gain seats in the senate. so it will be somewhat of a split decision here in the united states in which republicans get more power in the senate, but certainly democrats i think are poised to have a significant night on tuesday in the house. >> so let me ask you to weigh in then, because maybe it might be different if things weren't so polarized and highly charged right now. the president obviously has -- is able to run on the economic performance, and others have said, i'm not original on this, that you shouldn't be having almost no unemployment and a pretty good economy booming plus the president's lowish approval ratings. those numbers shouldn't be happening in the same sentence. so what do you say, then, to those who are analyzing, for instance, you know, the people who were his coalition before, a lot of them being turned off by the race and the gender and the divisive aspects that the

president keeps harping on? >> well, i think it's important to remember that when donald trump won the presidency, his approval rating was at 38%. so i think people talk about numbers that are falling, when in fact the country was divided. i do think you're right that there's been significant achievements in judicial appointments and the economy, unemployment at all-time lows, growth that's now over 3.5% this quarter, 4.2% the previous quarter, so a lot of things going the right way. but as far as the campaign rhetoric, often i think voters don't really care about what you've already done for them, it's what will you do for me now. that's why i think you see a lot of the immigration injected. so the economy, you already took care of that. what are other issues to motivate voters come out. i think that's why the administration is focusing on the immigration debate right sn now. >> you yourself said that was a political winner, you've said that in the past and presumably the president believes that as

well. let me get back to what will happen post tuesday, if there is indeed divided government and you said the american people like that. what do you think is going to happen? do you envision a house controlled by the democrats, you know, putting up obstacles along the way, even if they don't go for impeachment, as minority leader pelosi as said that's not where her focus is. what do you see coming down the pike? >> well, i think you're going to se democrats poised for a lot of investigations, a lot of subpoenas of the administration, and frankly i do think you'll see them proceed with impeachment proceedings and some of it will be more of a show trial. that is where the base of their party wants to be and i don't think their elected members will be able to resist that. on the republican side, there are occasions when republicans shut down the government and every elected official on the republican side would say that's a bad idea but they're getting flooded with phone calls from their constituents saying we need to stop spending and we've got to do that. i think democrats will be in a similar position next year.

as far as what can get done legislatively, i think there's promise for an infrastructure package. it's something that was on the table in the last congress. we did not accomplish it. but i think that democrats typically wanting more government funding for infrastructure in america. it's something the president agrees with them on. i do see that you'll have many house democrats running in 2020 when the president is on the ballot in states the president won in 2016 that will want to partner with him on that. one area that i think have a greater caution is on trade, because when the second nafta goes up to congress on december 1st, there's 180 days for congress to approve that. if the democrats have recently taken over control of the house and launched investigations and potentially impeachment, it's hard to see how nancy pelosi at the same time tells democrats to give the president a huge victory on trade. so i do have concerns about that pathway in congress on nafta 2.0. >> so let me ask you about trade, because obviously, you know, clearly one of the things that the president said in his

campaign was that he's going to hold china accountable and he talked about a trade war. he said it's good, he said they're winnable. we're hearing lots of anecdotal evidence from people in the trump heartland, whether they're farmers or others, who are feeling the impact of tariffs which are in fact a tax. whichever way you call them, they're a tax. they're feeling this impact. how do you think that's going to play out? and do you believe that the president will continue to ratchet up the trade war with china? >> i do think that he will continue to ratchet up the trade war with china because i think there's a lot of support among a lot of republicans in congress. they believe that china has stolen intellectual property from many of their constituents' companies. they believe there's probably manipulation of currency. they believe china is a bad actor and a growing threat in the pacific. so i think the president has a lot of congressional support there. to your point about some of the districts that the president won, particularly in farm districts, i think their sense of elected members has been

let's focus on china, let's not have trade wars with the european union and canada and mexico. i think the president has moved to try to wrap up nafta 2.0 as well as initiate trade discussions with european allies, so i think there is more of a move from the administration to focus more singularly on china. >> you talk about european allies, not to mention allies in canada and mexico. one of the big complaints that many in the foreign policy establishment, both republican and democrat, have is not the way president trump necessarily discusses with adversary, but what he's doing with allies. consistently they have used alienating allies and not fully understanding the value of alliances in trying to get his agenda and the western agenda forward. do you think in a post midterm election he might take a different tack with allies?

>> i think the president has restructured some of the alliances. i think he's raised concerns about what our allies have been contributing to nato and i do think you've seen a change there. christiane, i also believe one of the strongest teams he has is his national security team with secretary pompeo, secretary mattis, our nato ambassadors, senator kay bailey hutchison, a long-time member of the united states senate. despite some of the rhetoric, if you look at the actions, this administration has continues to enhance many of those alliances and i think you'll see us move forward protecting those sustained alliances. i accept that the president had some rhetoric in which he felt we were being taken advantage of in some places. i think a lot of that has been corrected and i think you'll see him continue to -- his administration continue to solidify the existing alliances we have. >> so i'm not sure whether this is in your bailiwick, but we're talking in the context of what i asked senator warner and the news about jamal khashoggi and what might have happened to his remains. there's a huge bipartisan, significant bipartisan push to

stop the weapon sales to saudi arabia or at least suspend some of them, to get them to stop the war in yemen, which the united states is sort of attached to, and to do -- you know, to hold them accountable for this murder. what do you think should happen? and the president has really tied his middle east strategy to this one crown prince. >> yeah, i think that's a very important point. it's less about the crown prince but the alliance with saudi arabia is so much focused on iran and needing additional allies in the region. at the same time, there can be no tolerance for murdering in cold blood a journalist. and i think that the administration probably needs to take a stronger action, because i think that congress is poised to look to try to pull back some of the arms sales to saudi arabia. when that legislation was passed in the first year of the presidency, it actually was a pretty narrow margin at that time. you move forward to today, and all the concerns about saudi arabia now, and i think if the administration doesn't take more forceful action, you're going to see congress step into that void

in the near future and look to end some of those arm sales that are ongoing to saudi arabia. >> it's really an interesting point. you know, you talked about how a journalist's murder should not be tolerated. let's not beat around the bush. the president is kind of at war with most journalists in the united states. even this week, after after the horrible events, the hate crimes that took place last week, he was on fox, he talked to laura ingraham. she asked him how this was good for him, this sort of war with journalists. and this is how the conversation went. >> how does it help expand your base to call them the enemy of the people? how does it help america heal in times like that? >> it's my form of telling the truth. here's the problem. we have a lot of supporters, you know that better than anybody. all you have to do is look at your ratings, okay. but you know it better than anybody. those supporters know that they're lying. i watched "meet the press" this weekend. everything was so falsely put. putting words in people's

mouths. >> i don't want to get into "meet the press" but really is that the kind of rhetoric that we should hope for or expect going forward? >> i think that a free press is foundational to any democracy, and it's withbeen foundational american democracy and we should be protecting it. the media is not the enemy of the people. with the free press comes a responsibility to get it right and without bias. i think it would be hard to argue that mainstream media have not covered this administration with bias. so i know the president faces -- has enormous frustration. he believes that many of his social media outlets are ways to get around the media to communicateeeetly with the american people. in a short answer to your question, no, the media is not the enemy of the people and i don't think it's constructive to call them that. >> and just we have to keep saying this, we fact check all the time. unfortunately, the president is constantly throwing out things that are inaccurate, conspiracy theories, this, that and the other. so we also have to do our job and responsibly shoulder our burden.

we aim to do that. but let me ask you this. the president after these two years in office, we're seeing, according to studies, according to polls, that many groups of people are now getting motivated to vote, whether it's young people, they seem to be polled as wanting to come out even more than they did last time, whether it's nonwhite voters. there seems to be a big sort of groundswell amongst those who perhaps would not vote. how do you think that is going to shape the midterms? >> great question. i think if you look back to 2010, the last time there was one party in control, obama was president, harry reid was leader of the senate, nancy pelosi the leader of the house, republicans had a huge election victory and in fact won 63 house seats, a record. i don't think you're going to see that replicated this cycle, but there's no doubt that the party out of power is energized. the challenge for republicans is there are a lot of people who

voted for donald trump who don't like republican members of congress. the president is concerned about that gap of republican voter and that trump voter who's not turning out. how do you close that. i think one way to do it is to say here's what happens if democrats takes control and how it impacts the president so that's why he's making it a referendum on him. >> you worked at the white house obviously, you were the director of legislative affairs, directly with congress. how do you think this white house, the president, will deal with a divided government, will deal if they don't still control the house, for instance? >> if we end up there, i think he'll surprise a lot of americans. i think if you recall in september of 2017, the president had a meeting with speaker ryan, leader mcconnell, leader schumer and leader pelosi, and to the surprise of many, he sided with schumer and pelosi in striking a deal to keep the government funded for three months. i think this president is very much of an independent mind. i want to do what's best for our country. and i think that you will see

him be able to find opportunities to work there. but at the same time, i think if democrats in the house are launching impeachment proceedings, that is going to complicate it in a way that the president will take that very personally. i think that it will impair some of those opportunities to work together. >> this might sound sort of a repeat of that question, but do you see any place for this unprecedented divisive fabric of american society and government and the white house and everything, to calm down? >> i actually see plenty of places honestly, christiane, where there's opportunities for them to work together, from not just infrastructure package, but criminal justice reform. several things have been on the docket waiting for a bipartisan opportunity. as far as calming down the administration, i think that honestly, i think the media does cover the parlor games inside the white house. and that's fair, but i also

think there's often an avoidance of some of the things that have been accomplished. if you look at the record of the administration, what's been accomplished in the first two years i think is pretty phenomenal, not just for the tax bill but with the judges, with 15 bills signed under the congressional re view act when previously the record was one. i think they have done a lot on the regulatory front, economic front and judicial front. so i think that, yes, it's fair to cover what's happening inside the building, but also needs to cover what's actually been accomplished too. >> all right, marc short, thank you so much indeed for joining us. >> thanks for having me. so amid this political fervor, few politicians actually dare step across the aisle for some bipartisan leadership. we heard earlier how democratic senator mark warner feels about that and we've also heard from marc short. our next guest is republican congressman garrett graves from louisiana, and he tells our walter isaacson that he wants to make deals and friendships even with political rivals. >> congressman, thank you for joining us.

>> thank you. >> we're here in louisiana, your home state and mine. it has a colorful tradition of politics, and yet somewhat miraculously there is not as much partisanship as you see in other southern states right now. we have a democratic governor, a republican lieutenant governor, a legislature that's able to pass budgets and appropriations. why is that? >> i think it's mardi gras. walter, i say that in jest, but if you think of it a little bit, we do have a different style here. we have a different culture and it's a very fun-loving culture here. and so while -- with republicans and democrats, we may disagree on policy, we do have fun and share time with one another. and whether it is a mardi gras celebration or jazzfest or washington mardi gras, we spend time together. it's not this situation where you're entirely tribal and spending time only with folks of like mind. and i think that's one thing about louisiana that really is

amazing, is how that fun environment that we have here, it does transcend the politics of this area and the different ideologies. congressman cedric richmond represents this area and we have a good time together. he and i do a lot of legislation together. in fact have had the president sign a number of our bills into law in just the past few months. >> we've gone through a really horrible period recently with the pipe bombs and the temple in pittsburgh and kentucky kroger. there's a sort of divide in this country that i think people are yearning to heal. you're a republican, you're running for re-election, and you're about let's try to get together. let's heal. let's avoid this shouting and partisanship. how do you think that resonates and how would you make that work? >> well, i think it's very different from what you're seeing in most other places. in many cases, you see campaigns

that are actually trying to drive people to the polar opposites. our message is just that seeing this country being as divisive as it is and seeing some of the volatility, such as the events that you mentioned happening, we think that there actually is a way for us to be working together and think that it is porc important for us to keep in mind that there's so many things that pull us together, whether we're all americans or all wanting better education for our kids or crime reduction and things like that. there's a path for doing it and there's so many goals that we share. we think that it's a really powerful message that's being received well, and we have tried to carry out that strategy. we've had some great legislative successes this year doing it. >> a traditional role of the president is to unify us and be president of everybody, to bring us together. trump, with his rhetoric, is not doing that. what would you say to trump if you wanted to have him be part of healing this poison we now

feel? >> look, first of all, if i had the chance to steal a cell phone with a twitter account, i'd be all over it. unfortunately, the secret service keeps stopping me. but seriously, walter, i think it's important to keep in mind the environment where we're in where you have these 24-hour news cycles where folks are just sdpa constantly attacking each side and this barrage of misinformation or misleading attacks on folks. and i think it results in people responding in ways that are probably overly emotional. with the president, one of the things that we've tried to focus on is focus on outcomes. i think you can look at the fact that right now all americans, whether you're african-american with the lowest unemployment in history, asian american, lowest unemployment in history, hispanic american, lowest unemployment in history, 65-year low for unemployment for women. try to focus people's attention on outcomes is one thing that's

really important. i think the president has an entirely different style than i'm used to. i do wish that we could find ways to say things differently sometimes, but you've got to put it in the perspective of the environment that we're all operating in, where it's this crazy environment where everyone is trying to speak to their tribes andin citing those strong emotions. >> but isn't it the role of the president to say, no, let's stop this. let's not keep inciting both sides. he's got an extra responsibility. >> so, walter, but let's keep in mind the environment that he's operating in. he's operating in this environment where you have 24-hour news cycles that are just completely beating him up constantly. and trying to paint this image of what's happening in the united states. it's completely inaccurate. i don't understand why it is that everyone tries to paint this doom and gloom picture of this performance when things are actually happening, if you allowed the rhetoric to tone down and just looked around, you'd realize that things are actually going pretty well in

this country. and that perhaps this approach in terms of the economy and regulation is actually benefiting all americans as opposed to this doom and gloom and criticizing every single decision that happens. >> but isn't the divisiveness somewhat driven by a president who keeps both tweeting and saying things at rallies that seem bullying and seem inaccurate? >> i think that -- i think that a lot of his comments are actually in response to what happens and how things are being -- >> so you don't see that he has a bigger world to transcend just responding? >> i think that the press has a bigger role and i think that the president needs to -- i'll say it again, i would take away his twitter if i could. >> and if you were in his role, would you be acting differently? >> it's not my style, but that's a personality issue. you've got to remember, americans -- i'll tell you something that was one of those most revealing moments for me during the presidential

election. i watched an interview, and i think it was on cnn, where they were interviewing all these millenials. they were interviewing them and they said who are you going to vote for for president and almost every single one of them said i'm going vote for bernie sanders. they said what happens if bernie sanders doesn't get the nomination? virtually every single one of them said donald trump. at that moment it was very clear that what voters were looking for was someone that was going to come in and flip the tables over and cause this transformational change. they weren't looking for folks that were going to come in and sort of rearrange decks on the titanic or make these small changes. people did not feel represented. i think they wanted this bold change and that's what we're seeing right now. >> i think one of the things that may unite louisianans is we know it's in the same boat when it comes to hurricanes and flooding and things. to what extent should that be a nonpartisan issue, and how could you, for example, make climate change, which has become such a polarizing issue -- >> it has. >> -- which it hadn't been in the past, republicans versus

democrats. how can you make that a unifying issue? >> if you think back to the history of louisiana, we've lost about 2,000 square miles of our coast. i think initially a lot of people looked at it like an environmental problem, like a birds and fish problem, not a human problem. hurricane katrina is really what united us here and that folks understood it was an economic problem in addition to an environmental problem, and it made folks come together. now, we had to lose 1200 to 1500 of our neighbors and brothers and sisters and friends in order for us to come to that realization, but now there is a very concerted bipartisan effort to restore the coast, restore our coastal wetlands and environment, and it's working well right now. in regard to climate, which of course is challenging our coastal problems with sea rise, it's one of those poster childish uz that -- issues that makes republicans and democrats go to their respective corners. and redefining it, and i think we have an opportunity with

climate change and welfare programs and others to redefine it. for example, since 1980 in the united states, we've had about 220 disasters that have cost our nation over $1 billion. we've spent $1.5 trillion responding to those disasters. and so instead of talking about climate change as this big issue that is related to emissions, talking about how we can come in and carry out adaptation projects and help to improve the resiliency of our coastal communities and coastal ecosystem because 40% of our nation's population live along our coast lines in those counties an parishes. you've got to get good at living resiliently in those areas, but we can't afford the continuum of being reactive. >> but you would push that be accompanied by carbon reductions? >> well, i think if you come out of the gates and say we're going to do this because of carbon reductions, i think you'll run into a brick wall. but if you can talk about it from a -- hey, here's a way for

us to approach -- innovatively approach bringing down consumer prices, helping to reduce prices on how much it costs us to drive our cars or how much it costs us to power our houses, how much it costs us to power these factories that we're building products and competing on a global environment, you reduce emissions because of the innovation and conservation and technology that you're bringing to the table. and so, sure, talk about it here's my emission reduction idea. but in republican circles there's a different way to define it to help bring folks onboard and not have this continued knocking of heads or resorting to corners. >> the various climate change studies we've seen say we have maybe 12, 15 years before it's going to get really bad. do you feel there's a man made component to climate change and we have to have a holistic approach? >> i do, i do. i think that there is both a biogenic or natural impact and a

manmade impact that is contributing and we should look at it holistically. >> you're at the forefront of transportation and infrastructure, not just coast lines but throughout this country that's been one of your fields. why is it we haven't had a great infrastructure rebuilding program as the economy got better? >> now with our economy growing like it is, i think you are seeing the cracks in both workforce and infrastructure, and infrastructure is a huge one. the underinvestment and i think the poor priorities that we have exercised over the last few decades are really showing right now. i think one of the problems with infrastructure investment is that everyone knows of infrastructure projects that were low priorities that were built anyway, politicizing where these investments go. i think that has really frustrated a lot of taxpayers. you know what, i'm not giving more money to that system that has delivered poorly to our communities and mismanaged the dollars that are there. so i think that's been a big part of it. i also think that you continue

to be largely in this disconnect between a lot of the taxes and fees that are out there and how they may benefit communities. what i mean by that is right now, and you and i were talking earlier, baton rouge, louisiana, 13th worst traffic in the nation. new orleans, louisiana, 20th worst traffic in the nation. those are positions we don't deserve when you look at the population. and so i think that a lot of the community is just very frustrated that they're paying dollars and they're not seeing projects that are actually yielding results. whenever people come in and say i want more, i want more money to invest in projects, people say, no, i'm not going to give you more. we've got to do a better job helping to quantify, this is how much money you're spending in extra gasoline payments because of traffic. this is how much time you're wasting in traffic. this is how much those additional emissions are affecting our environment and community health. helping to quantify some of those costs today and then also demonstrating if you give us this much, we can build these

five projects, which will then cut your extra gasoline payments in half, we'll give you back 30 hours a year in your time sitting in traffic and help improve the environment by this. we've got to help to reshape that discussion because i think that everyone looks at an additional fee or tax as an increase, whereas there are ways where you can clearly demonstrate that some projects are truly investments that are going to provide a return. >> if the democrats win the midterms, do you think we're fated to have really bad gridlock or could people like you and your friend, cedric richmond, from here, actually lead us out of that wilderness? >> i think that if -- if the house flips to democrat, i think that you are going to see some very aggressive oversight investigations activities that are going to probably further divide the congress for a period of time. without a doubt you will have some relationships among

different members of congress that will transcend party, but i do think you're going to see for several months a good bit of, believe it or not, growing divisiveness, if the house does flip as a result of some of these efforts. you've heard members of congress talk about it, about what their oversight agenda would look like against this administration. and so i think ultimately, you could see some islands of bipartisanship happening, but i think it is going to be a very divisive environment if that ahd of the midterms and an interesting idea on how to bridge that climate environment with democrats and republicans. anyway, tomorrow our conversation turns to music and its role telling the stories of our times. singer songwriter roseanne cash collaborating with her husband, john 11 thaul, gave us a special

rendition of the song "everyone but me" from her new album, "she remembers everything." ♪ our strange and beautiful lives ♪ ♪ fade and turn to dust ♪ mother and father ♪ now that you're gone ♪ it's not nearly long enough ♪ so it seems too long >> her father, of course, the legendary johnny cash. that is it for our program tonight. thank you for watching "amanpour & co." on pbs. join us again tomorrow night. uniworld is a proud sponsor of "amanpour & co." when bea tollman founded a collection of boutique hotels,

she had bigger dreams, and those dreams were on the water -- a river specifically -- multiple rivers that would one day be home to uniworld river cruises and their floating boutique hotels. today that dream sets sail in europe, asia, india, egypt and more. bookings available through your travel agent. for more information, visit uniworld.com. >> additional support has been provided by rosalind p. walter, bernard and irene schwartz, sue and edgar wachenheim iii, the cheryl and philip milstein family, seaton melvin, judy and josh weston, and pie contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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