hello, everyone. welcome. here's what's coming up. ♪ god bless the usa >> evangelicals flood the zone for trump weighing their prioties against his foibles. plus, these mid terms could have an unprecedented surge of women in power. gloria steinem fhas been waging this fight for decades. and why is this country so deeply divide? the veteran journalist turnsis critical eye on america's

political drive. this could be home to one world river cruise and they're floating. today, that dream sets sail in europe, asia, india and more. bookings available for your travel agent. >> additional support has been provided by --

>> welcome to the program, everyone. now conventional wisdom has a much vaunted blueave surging over the congress tomorrow. at least in the house of representatives. t a major factor, the political power of e christian right is one to seriously contend with. so 80% of white evangelicals backed donald trump in 2016 and now two years later, their support is still at an all time high. as one of themys, if evangelicals are removed from the white vo, trump loses. ft the struggling to comprehend how people of faith would support the president who as they see it has hardly been a model of christian living. but president trump has been a major political advocate for christian laws andue v and they are pouring money and organizational support intobl

rean races all across the country. now, tony perkins is a leading person in this fight. he is the president of the family research council, a deeply influentialgrobbying p and he says the religious right is in a spiritualar with the rulers of darkness. welcome to the program from wash gton. >> thau. good to be with you. >> let's start with the beginning.u i said that e putting a lot of effort, organizational and financial into these into republican races. and i understand that you and your organizatio have been sortr of beenng on get out the vote. can you tell me what you're doing? >> well, you've covered a lot of territory here. i can tell what you we're doing is we'orng churches across america to bring them on an understanding of whahas ening in our nation. and the quote that you alluded to earlier was from a sermon i preached in ephesians e6.

rest was we wrestle not against flesh and blood but agait principalities. and the issue is not with people or with parties but with the spiritual esinflue so there is concern about the direction of our country. there's concern about religious freedom which continues to be a e jor issue for conservat voters. and one of the reasons they did back trump in the general electise is bec he promised to defend religious freedom and the exercise the of. and that's what he's done as president. what we've seen is more and mor pastors and churches who really understood the threat in the last eight years, are remaining very supportive of this president and his policies. >> i want to ask you whether you are at all troubled by what i alluded to. president trump and his personal life and what he's been saying in terms of refugees that others. you know he uses quite harsh, edgy language. and he's had all these issues,

stormy daniels and others. people want to figure out people of faith support that kind of individual. and i thin i'm hearing you say that it does boil down to politics and the kind of politics you support. >> no, that's a really gd question. but it's more than that. because the support for trump does not come in a vacuum. we go back to the 2016 tial election. in the primary, most us were not with donald trump. i was not a druonald trump supporter. it is when we had to make a real choice between hillary clinton who pledged to continue the policies of barack obama who were, his policies were antithetics to most christi in this country, especially his attack on religious freedoms such as little sisters of the poor. so they decided to take chance on donald trump. based on theha promises he made, based on that he wrapped himself in theepublican par platform, and that he chose a

running mate who we a knew, that was very clear on these issues, and to the sprise of many, he has kept his promises and he has advanced those policies that he said he would. do nothing has changed. those behaviors were prior to the election. there may be differences and disagreements on some policy initiatives and some of his tweets that he puts out. the evangelical community remains supportive of this president because he's kept his promises. >> just to be fair, hillary clinton herself is a religious woman and she woulday that she supports religious freedom and so, too, would president obama. i understand your differences. >> abortion. >> precisy. that's what it boils down to. if ywant to ask you this still stand by this. in january, a long time ago, you told litico, as long as trump doesn't disappoint evangelicals politically, they'll stick with him. when his policy stops and his administration reverts to just

personalities, that's where i believe the president will be in troubl so first, i guess, you still believe that. re there a line that you -- >> tre two things. two things i said in that statement. and i've said ts repeatedly. our support for the president is not unconditional. our support for him is if he keeps his promises, as he has, and this behavior that we hear so much aboutrior to his election, he is alleged to have engaged in. if that were to occur now, the support would not remain. that's not happening now. it is stuff that happen in the past. everybody knew he had skeletons in his closet. that's w they weren't with him in the primary. when it came to the choice between ande hillary clinton, evangelicals chose someone who lined up with them on the policy issues and he has kept those policies, or those is implementing the policies. as long as that continue s and ys on the straight and narrow as president, the support

will remain. >> tony rkins, clearly his supporters, and by a huge margin, including the evangelical community, his base, believes for instance in his current immigration policy or ents from pronounc the oval office, whether it is the separation of families, whethe it is the essential hard line against refugees, slashing the number of refugees allowed to come to the united states, they believe -- t >> i don't thit's fair. >> why not? >> because first off, there are two issues here. the evangelical community and broadly, thee christian community, there is not unifoity in the thinking on immigration in those policies. now, here's what there is agreement. on we're a nation and we need to be secure. to the degree these policies are to secure our nation, whether at the bordersr wheth it is the refugee resettlement, whenme it

the immigration, we are for legal immiination. and i you're going to actually see, most likely after this election, you're going to see the parties come together and come up with a workable immigration policy. there are many in the republican party supported by evangelicals. and you've even seen the president's posionon softening this issue of immigration. one is the problem of those in this country already. we know we have to deal with that and provide a way forward. i think that the primary issue that the president has got the support on is providing the security for this nation. whether that's at our border or again in the resettlement rkogram. >> mpes, i hear you again but i have to ask you this. even his own republican leaders in congress, we hear, are trying toad per the president to start doubling down on this caravan threat. he sent final,000, or he will

send 15,0o the border. they're nowhere near the border. most people don't believe there will be an invapson. he k using that language, as emhimself, as successful campaign 'mrhetoric. so very interested to hear what you're saying about a t election p immigration reform of both parties. >> hold. on i wan to ask you how you pass what the vice president and others, the white house press spokesman, use the language to extend the separation of parents and children at the border. this is what they said. they used a bible verse to defend that separation policy. and tn basically, any america who commits a crime will be separated from his or her child, et cetera. then what the bible actually says is that, you know, christianity is supposed to er transcend bar of race, class, nationality, wealth,ew

neither nor greek, neither bond nor free, male nor female, foare one in christ jesus. what i'm trying to ask could you dpefd as a christian? >> what did i i i took a group of pastors to meet with the attorney general and sat down and that was the beginning ofgh working thr a policy that would keep families united. and try discourage that. the reason many of these families were coming and these children were coming is because of lax forcement of our policy. so by creating this magnet to bring people here, we were dividing the families. so again this goes back to securing our border. making it very clear tt we're a nation. we have borders. we're going to eorce those immigration policies. but doing it in a humane and a

family friendly, if you will, way. and the administration responded to that. >> that assumes there is a problem and a massive influx of immigrants. in fact ts opposite i true. since obama, there's been more leaving than coming in. so it is a successful election toue and that is, i'm trying figure out where one draws the line in quote/unquote demonizing the other. you yourself have said, and i can quote you back to yourself, you wrote, this country must come together. we've seen a spate of hate crimes. i'm trying to ask you, you are a faith leader, what do you advise the administration? if indeed we' going to see some close mid-term -- reconciliation -- >> first of all,look, if we're talking about immigration, i think the president is doing tht righng by securing our borders. whether it is 7,000 or 70,000, i

think it is important that we are a nation ruled by law. people can come here and they can come here legally. america is very generous. i just got back from the middle east. i was in the uae. they're a nation of about 10 million. u just have to do it by the e. rules. by law. and i think this president is enforcing the law as the american people electedim t do. >> yeah. again, everybody believes in security. s not one single political party or individual who doesn't believe in security. >> that's what he's doing. >> right. but it assumes there is a problem of a massive influx. none of the facts support. >> you don't know who is in this caravan. there are people that infiltrate that caravan, they can come in, that do not want to become a rt of american family. i'm actually thankful that peop want to come to this

country. they want to come here. that's what america is inabout. ng people here. they just have to do it legally so we can make sure tha they're here for the right reasons. >> nobody wants the law to be broken. but again, bits language, isn't it? you have thich caravan in w the president and others talk about felons infiltrating, exotic, codedlord for m eerngers, invaders. i'm asking you -- >> well, the president of honduras -- >> in a political context, we're already very divided and you yourselfave called for some kind of reconciliation among americans, haven't >> i think we're conflating some issues here. the president was saking on facts based upon what the honduras president said, their telligence uncovered within this caravan. the president was making issue to that. i do think our conversation in the united stes as americans, whether we're republican, whether we're democrat, whether

we're indepeent, liberal or conservative, i do think that the rhetoric haseached aoint that we're no longer having conversations. we're talking over, not even talking over,e' shouting over each other, and i do think that we have to find a way back to, where we cangr di, we can disagree, but do so in a civil manner,hat respects one another as human beings. >> i think those are very, very welcome words. do you know, i just want to pick up from what you just said, you were in the uae, where you were meeting with leaders there. i guess trying to get protection for christians and other faiths, or your own faith in that part of the world. while you moved on or the team o movedn to saudi arabia, and that obviously is really important and central at the moment, given to what happened to one of our colleagues, jamal khashoggi, work and living in the united states and working organization.an

>> just to be very clear, i did not go to saudi arabia. >> right, but the team did, didn't they? >> some of the others went on. i dinot. >> do you know what they might ha said to, i believe they met prince mohammad bin salman. >> they did, but i have not had any conversations with them. saudi not to go t arabia. i don't feel that this is the right time. >> on principle? >> yes, i don't feel it was the right time to go. >> that's interesting, actually, since you made that point. what do you think -- i know liyou're not a cian, but what do you think america's relaonshiphould be in the post-c post-khashoggi world? >> we don't he all t facts. i'm troubled. i don't believe turkey and what they have to say. i don't believe saudi arabia and all they have to say, and they've been a great abuser of rights and religious freedoms in that country and they're a negative influence in that part of the world. i know the crowned prince is a supposed to b reformer, but i'm going to withhold judgment

until i see all the facts.m st going to say i'm troubled by what i see at this point. >> um-hum, indeed. t i wanto read something to you, which i think is really, really interesting, given these elections. one of the evangelical leaders quot over the weekend said, the number one thing anybody can give, you know, the faithful is supreme christ but the second greatest thing we can give this generation is the supreme court. talk to me a little bit about what you hope, if you get the votes that you intend, want,wi be the trajectory, and of course, again, in therk frame of the kavanaugh, very, very divisive hearings and appointment. >> jwell, yout go back to the polling in the last election o 2016 electio the supreme court, fact yoofactored very hi terms of the evangelicals voting in the election for donald trump, and here's why. you go back to the issuef

whether it was prayer in schools, bible in the school ten commandments in the schools, abortion on demand in 1973, none of those i were done by legislative bodies. those were all done by the court. for the last six decades, we've essentially had an activis h court tha taken on the role of legislators, and so now, what you see happening, and this is why i think even the motivation in the wake of the kavanaugh hearing will pour over into this election, is that people see now, we are at the verge of a haviourt that's anchored to the constitution, that will operate within thatframework, and not do policies that be done by the congress or by the people. >> i want to end by just playing you a little bit of an interview at i conducted with another faith leader, christian faith leader, william barber, who received the macarthur genius

grant, and again, he was talking in the context of this divisive political atmosphere in the nited states, this sort of tribalism, and mindful of the fact that, according to the latest "the washington st"/abc poll, 75% of white evangelicals from the u.s. describe the federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants as positive cpared toust 46% of americans overall. i just want to play you this sound bite about what he believes it mns to be a conservative. t >> first of al be a conservative is to hold on to the essence of.f the essencehe bible, if you cut out all the scriptures in the bible that talk about how you should treat the poor and theimmigrant the bible would fall apart. if you're anti-thean poo anti-immigrants, you're not being conservative. you're not holding on to the essence of. >> how do you respond to your fellow faith leader? >> i'm into the holding on to the essence of the bible. i'm holding to the principles of scripture and, as a christian

in america, what we seek too is to work out knowing that we are in a secular government, but we t ce those principles and argue for and shape policy just asse everyone in our country has the right to do. the scripture does speak to the poor, does speak t immigrant but it also speaks to the rule of law, and the fact that in almt every imassistance you read in the old testament about taking in the poor, the immigrant, the stranger. it is then that they have an obligation to operate by your custom assimilation., the it's the rule of law, and that's where many on kind of the left side of the ledger in the faith community fail to see the rule of law and how the two go together. >> tony perkins, tha you so much, indeed, for joining us. >> good to be with you. now, if evangelicals are ng tro build a firewall for president trump and republicans,

womenom voters, activists and women candidatesd intento be the battering ram that smashes into tha wall. since the 20 16 electi16 electi have marched and organized for office in predented numbers. gloria steinham says she's never seen anything like this in her 83 years on the planet. she graduated from smith college in the early 1960s and her extraordinary life is the subject of a new play called "gloria alive" and the actress, christian lahti plays steinem in the title role. here she is recreating the address. >> sometimes we put our bodies where our beliefs are. sometimes pressing i"send"s not enough. the constitution does not begin with "i the president." it begins request "we the people." >> glo aria steinem and herer

dopplega kriststst lahti join mi mimi. welc >> thank you. >> let's describe and talk about w.e issues at hand right we've talked about an unprecedented number of women running for congress and running for governors and all sorts of different offices. first to you, gloria. what do you think the effect will be? what do you hop to wake up to on wednesday morning? >> democracy. little thing like that. just look at who oed ele officials have been, regardless of party. look at who the authority figures in our culture have d been, he rising women's movement, not just here, but around the world, is saying wait a minute, ies the authori don't look like the country by sex and race and so eon, do w really have a democracy? and they are surging to transform us into a democracy. >> andas i correct when i said

that the women, and i know you're aeminist as well as an actress portraying glia, are trying to shape up as the battering ram against any more gainst women's rights? >> yes, of course, because we got this radical idea that women are human being in the '60s. >> where did we get that? >> i don't know. >> crazy idea. >> and then it was about a third, and gradually, gradually, radually it has become the majority, and actually, black women are on the forefront of ou this, and if look at the vote, you see that black women voted something like 90% againsa trum 51% of white women especially married n-llege educated women dependent on their husbands voted for trump. >> i'm going to get to that in a se wnd. you sai would have thought it, kristine. you said yoursel it wasn't til about the '70s that you assumed feminism, that you got

to grips what it was thatct af you and until then, you had thought that being a second class citizen was a biological fact. >> i did. i saw my mother. i saw all my friend's mothers in my suburb basically wte suburb of detroit, and saw that they were all second cla citizens. nobody worked. none of these women worked, except in t house. they were housewives and mothers, and they were treated with disrespect, and i saw that, and it broke my heart, but i thoug thought, that's just the way the world is. i went to colle and in the d, it was a whole new world, and silvia plath wrote when she first went to smith it was likew aermelon cracked at her feet, this big, juicyatermelon of possibilities and life cracked open, and that's how i felt when i went to college and learned about gloria and robin morgan and betty fredan and feminists and it became an eye

opener. it changed my life, a feminism has been my life jacket that helped me navigate to a world i detected finally in the early '70s, a worldhat didn't respect or like women. i so am grateful to my feminism. .> you credited gloria with saving your li you used that word. >> yes, it's true. >> first of all, ho and- >> because other women saved my life. we get it. it's contagious. when we see someone who actually is a whole human >> i was honored to get this part. gloria and i had been friends for a long time and i heard there was a play being done about her. i didn't knowhtf i was r for it or the right age or anything gld i e-mailed everybody.

i e-mailed ia, e-mailed the producer, e-mailed the director. i didn't know the writer, a just said throwing my hat in the ring. if it comes to this, i'd love ke opportunity but i donw if i'm right but know i'm interested, and then it happened. >> and what do you portrayed inr theater night? >> look how lucky? no, because both as an actor and as a human being, i i mean, feel immensely honored. the first idea of kathy najimi, who is friend who said i should play my own life, i actually tried to do and could not do it, no way, but that's how it started. >> and i've heard both of you say that, in a way, your lives have been, correct me if i get it bwrong, you're living your mother's unlived lives. >> yes. >> gloria, you had a particularly really heart-rending relationship with your mother, who you love, but

was very sort, she was unwe o, fu anxieties, right, and you sort of, your childhood was spent looking after her.>> hat's true, but what i discovered later, that befor i was born, she was a journalist, and she was an amazing journalist. she was the sunday editor of a newspaper at a time just a few years after women got to vote, but she was trying to be a mother, a wife to a wonderful but totally irresponsible man, e and pressures on her were so neat that she had what was then called avous breakdown and was in a saner to y er sanitorie of years and it broke her spirit so i was seeing a broken spirited woman. it took me a long time to understand. after i wrote about her, people would say to me, aren't you afraid that her illness is d hereditary, would say, only if patriarchy is hereditary, because she was not ill. >> did you have a similar situation with your mother or

did your mother had an unfill filled life? >> after six kids went off to college she became a painter anc actuallye a pilot. >> a pilot? >> she was soloed. she didn't fly a lot but she did solo. fore that, i did feel that her spirit was broken. i did feel that she did not have, i mean first of all, being financially dependent on my father, she would have her credit cards taken away if she misbehaved. that was heartbreaking for me to see. even to this day i have a separate bank account from my i husbans important to not be financially dependent on a man. i saw howag dg that was, and she had to ask me to lend her money when she wantedo help our mentally ill, her mentally ill daughter, myse sister, bec my father didn't want to do that at the time, and thought it was against her need to be independent, and anyway, i saw her being broken by that kind of stuff, and i was determined not

to ever be that way.>> nd we should say that there's a rationale for this here, which is controlling reproduction, and the religious leaderust interviewed, the single issue that he actually mentioned asi from generalities is abortion. now, nobody is pro or against it. that's not the point. the question is, who makes the decision, the womanr the government? he thinks the government should make it. we believe the wan should make it. i support his evangelical women and whatever decisio they make but i think they have a right to make it. >> so this is now the cruxth of matter, right? >> yes. >> because clearly this political battle ishis battle, this cultural battle, and women re, again, the front line targets. >> but it's not just, well, culte is what happens to women. politics is what happens to men, but it is the first most basic question is who controls

reproduction? if we didn't have wombs, we'd b fine. >> yes. >> it's all about -- and that's where patriarchy began which is relatively new in human history and racism reinforces it. you have to restrict e reproduction mn order to maintain racial separation. so it's no accident that he is first and foremost trying to take women' control of our own bodies away. >> so the question is, ts is established law in the united states, is the right for a woman to be able to choose, roe versus wade, 1973, i believe, and clearly there's an effort, because president trump talks about it, and others talk about it, the religious leaders talk about it, to stahe court to change that. >> yes. >> what do you both, what do you see going forward or do you think there's no way that could be changed? kristine? >> i do feel roev. wade will be reversed, up to the states.

i think that was trump's objective and he achieved it by stacking the court, and if women do not have the right to choose what to do wit our own bodies, we will not be living in a democracy. so what's at staketo rrow, election day, is not our general democracy, whichsts at e, but truly women living in a mo acy or not. if they don't have the right to do what they want to do with their bodies, there's no freedom for women. >> i mentioned the numbers, but this is an unprecedented number of women running. >> yes. >> in terms of numbers and percentages, wdidn't, we haven't seen this since post-anita hill inhe 1992 election. >> even greater than that. >> much, much bigger. what do you attbutet to? what do you think the end result of this will be? >> well, attribute it to a will to govern our own lives, and not to have big daddy up there telling us what to do. let's not forget that this

present lost by 6 million popular votes, 3 for hillary clinton and 3 for other candidates. he is only inse office, bec someone, the russians and hemeone understood the electoral college. s not a popularly elected president. he is not legitimate in the see that most americans believe in one person one vote. >> so what do you do then? because you heard tony perkins, and there's obviously a massive ash between people like you, what you've just said, and people like theho base, believe he's more than legitimate and are delighted with himnd are greetin him at every single rally with great fervor, including women. how -- i mean, is there a way at all to be able toon rle two very diverse populations in the hiited states? >> well, i so, because if trump wins, he will take away the democratic decision-making power of women especially, and

otrs, too, and if he loses, we get it back, so i am fighting for the democratic right to govern their own lives of all those evangelicals, and they're fighting against ours, so i think that we are enough of democracy so that the defense of their rights and mine willwin. >> see, i go's that's important, the defense of their rights and yours. absolutely. >> so can i play a little bit from tirana berg, the original me too founder because there seems to be and i'm interested in your perective onhis in a moment a backlash of woman on woman to the me too moment right now. one year later, there's a backlash, but let's listen to what she said foe to me about i. >> we are not people to be pitied. we are a power base that votes along our needs and vote along the things that we want to see change in policy, so that means more women being voted in, but not just women, women who believe the same things we

beeve, women who are able to see us and hear us and believe >> so there seems to be as she alluded to this sort of attempt to portray women who are complaining aboutarsment and abuse as promoting a culture o victimhood and she's like saying we're not victims. we are to be believed and we are to be able to speak our truth. how do you attribute thatnow, of all times, of certain circles of women basically lobbying against other women? >> i don't see them. ng on't know who she's tal about. >> i do. i hear them. >> i see them, too. >> you do, kristine >> well, i mean, we're lobbying for people to be ablepe to their own truth, and it is probably the case that, for some women to hearhe reality of other women -- you know, rememb the days when people, when a woman was raped and people would say, well, why did

she go to that neighborhood, and what did she have on? >> right, yep. >> it's sometimes easier to blame the victim than it is blame the person who is the perpetrator. >> now they're saying isn't that awful, oursons, our brothers, this and that, they won't be able to flirt, won't be able to hire women or interview women. you're hearing it. i'm hearing it. >> yes, what was it, the man me too or the him too, it was a support group, now trump has kindf twisted that into being men are victims. i don't think men are victims.i ink women by osmosis internalized misogyny and like in the play, we say it's not we live in a patriarchy but it lives in us. the low self-esteem that women don't matter. it's everywhere you look, in thi down the street, in your neighborhood. it's a won assistant daley

mindfulness, for me as a feminist to be conscious of how many times, so many forces of someone like me who i've my life since gloria saved it, really tryg to combat that kind of tug of misogyny that is internalized, and i think a lot of these women are feeling that, and they have to -- my appeal to them is be mindful that it's soe much b to be a full human being and not a second class citizen. st this is a phenomenon of all discriminated agagroups. >> yes. >> in days of anti-semitism, which are n over but are better than they used to be, there was literally a desire change your name to be the only jew in the club. we absorb society's opinion of us, and that happens to women, too, but the purpose a of movement is to counter that, and say we each have a rht, not

mine is not more than yours, but we each have a right to identify ourselves. >> so you've spoken a lot and you started the conversation about how black women really led this fight, and you call yourself an intersectional feminist. i want to play a part from the play, which points this ou >> is dorothy pittman "adline news she is dorothy pittman hughes.f >> onehe first multiracial child care centers. we focus going mainly to the south. we see there are feministn speakersther parts of the country. >> less likely the south. >> ande less lie the two of us together i wthe south. ♪n the truth is found >> it is stunning and i want to know where you think that intersection is right now and is it still intersectional? is it march progss going forward? >> it's becoming ever more clear how diverse w e alwayswere, but the role of black women in nd

starting and fg the women's movement and feminism all togethe is still not in the history books. i mean, likeca native ame history, black history, there are two things. history in the past, and they are not the same. you said native america. the whole set is like a circl which gloria found out that native american women dealt witr their livesgh story telling in a circle, and the thing that just blew my mind was the part where you were speaking to, she was called man killer. wilma man killer, somebody you met of the iriquois nation. >> cherokee nation. >> was it the iruois invited by benjamin franklin? >> yes. >> tell the story. it's remarkable. >> i didn't know the democracy of our founding fathers, without the mothers, i guess, the fathers anyway based democracy,

benjamin franklin invited members of the iroquois confederacy to -- >> the constitutional conference. >> -- the constitutional conference and based democracy on thatiroquois confederacy, was a balance between men and women. and matrilineal. >> and the first questn was said to be where are the women? they couldn't understand that. >> question still being asked. >> and greece had slavery and no women, excuse me, no, that not the basis of democracy. >> it was the native americans. >> it washe native americans. >> which is an amazing lesson to learn, all these years >> yes. >> you are a hopeaholihopeaholi. >> true. >> hope keeps us marching forward. gloria steinem, kristine lahti, thank you for joining us. our next guest says america's political climate is

mired in tralism. george packer believes people are branded by badges o identity, not of thought. women versus men and redder have lus blue, not good versus bad. packard tells our alicia me den, nez n the age of trump, fear is also drowning out moderate republican. voic >> thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> you've written extensively about the midterm elections, one of your most recent articles was about ibalism in america. looked at a study that asked questions about tribalism. what did that research find? >> it was a group called more in common and the report was called hidden tribes. they wanted to oind what believe believed beneath their political opinions, what are their world views, what values do they hold? they surveyed 8,000 americans, and they ended up dividing them into seven tribes, based on answer ato questionsut child rearing, about tradition and authority, about personal

responsibility versus social circumstance, and from lef to right, there are progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, sort of the checked out moderates i t diagnosisal conservatives, devoted conservatives. the two extremes are only about 18% or 20% of the population >>er' t ethey're the people we the most from. >> they're on cable news the the their tweets a loudest. they are the ones most to engage hiin politics and also thest and the highest income, and the closer you get to the middle, the more the income dropsnd the more minorities there are. so there pic is of very educated, well-off people on each extre making a fair amount of noise with very strong convictions andvi not bel in

compromise or in looking for a middle ground, and the a lot of people in the middle who feel d igno the political system, not heard, and who wish there were more compromise and who alnd the trm of our politics depressing. >> do you buy this notion of tribalism? >> to some extent i do. i've always felt tt the is no secret majority waiting to vote for michael bloomberg for president. that's a myth that technocrats and people on wall street may cherish. there really are a lote of peo in this country who are polarized from each other, who don't know how to talk toach other, who look at the political opponent and see anar adve if not an enemy but the categories break down once you t examinm too closely. nobody is simply affiliated that neatly withgr one p. there are all sorts of ways in which it gets complicated web

you ask questions. for example, a lotf people believe racism is a serious problem in america, i think 80%n around the samber are opposed to affirmative action in higher educnion. so wou ask, you know, where are the racists, where are the white opremacists, it turns there's a lot of people who might make you think they're in that category on the basis of one question but are not on the basis of another.er in oords, people are more complicated than our politics gives them room to be. >> you wrote something that stood out to me perhaps because i'm the mother of a small child. peop who would never tolerate cruelty or lying or ordinary impolitene in their children cheer every excess of their leaders, none more so than president trump. >> i mean, i talk torump supporters who are kind, generous people who i would count on in a crisis, and whose children are exactly as i described in there, and i avoid the subject ofse politics, bec

i don't want to hear why they're for him, and i don't want to get into thathi argument, is a hopeless argument in almost every case. i'd rather think of them as the people who, you know, helped me build a fence or whose kids babysat for my kids, than the people who support a president who i think is morally the worst president in the history of the t country. >> w you say to those who hink that makes you complic in allowing what happens happen? >> we have to live. we're human begs. if politics takes over everything, we're all going to be destroyed by it. >> i think therere those who argue that is an argument that one can make from a position of privilege, that being white, that being a male in this moment are privileges. >> and yet, that survey found, th when it comes to, for example, things like political compromise, or taking personal responsibility, or things that maybe seem the middle of theen road orr right positions, the overwhelmi ly white

progressive activists are less likely to be for that than black moderates or passive liberals or whatever tribe comes from that survey. so it may well be that, yeah, i can t here and say i want to talk to my neighbors, even if they're for trump, but i think if that's really about privilege, then we're all doomed, because it means either you're privileged or you're going to disintegrate, you're going to descend into a maeldrom and be chep for it. everyone who wants to live has to find a way to talk to people they disagree with. ture, by air for our the way. i'm in the least bit optimistic, bury at least to have a marginic where polcan't infect every relationship. >> in your most recent articlee that cut today, you profile congressman ryan costello. why him? >> because he was willing to

lk to me. it's not easy to get republicans to talk to"the new yorker." at least it wasn't for i . ied what i thought would be the path of least resistance, retiring republicans, and even then, it was hard. he'sretiring, after two terms, because there pennsylvania s court redrew the districts of a congressional distrn pennsylvania, redrew the lines very unfavorably for him, a rather than try for re-election in a democratic districte retired. he will retire, but he's also open and interesting and spontaneous and fun to talk to, so i spent quite a bit o time with him. >>s will, it seemed, reading the article, struggling to reconcile his values,t and w his responsibility is to speak out against the president and his own party. >> right. he represents a suburban philadelphia district. it's a moderate district. he is a classic moderate

republican, tax cuts, deregulation, fairly progressive on social issues, cares a lot about climate change, guns, in other words, he has practically no future in thepa republican y, as it now it constituted. he's a nearly extinct creature, i think, and a lot of them are retiring, so there will be even less common on the battlefield. he is appalled by a lot of wha president trump does, but he's also a loyaloldier in the ivpublican conference in the house of represent. he is very admiring of paul r n ryan, speaker of the house, and you know, when iomes down to it, that's his team, and he generally votes with them, but he tweets, and speaks on news quite openly and critically of the president. so that makesim a fairly rare

republican in washington these days. >> right, and the was a time when standing up against your own party was lauded as brave, respectable. we're no longer living in that moment.em >> iber when i was younger, senators like howard baker from tennessee, daniel patrick moynihan of new herk, who were mavericks. that was the word that people used, and it was a compliment, and even if their party leaders were frustrated by them, and their party activists were pissed off they couldn't count on their votes, there was aud ng respect and sometimes of a deep respect for those two them, rs, and people like and now, you know f there's be one analogous t might jeff flake of arizona. >> frulirated repns and who democrats believe does not work fthem. >> if you're jeff flake you can give a speech, write a book, denouncing the republican party,

saying things any liberal democrat would becheering, it's not enough, because he still votes for tax cuts and r toeal obamacare and for brett kavanaugh, and so for democrats, it's just words. for republicans, he's a traitor and his approval ratings are i think close to the single digits, and h had to retire because donald trump and the party base went after him. so he, too, is a nearly extinct republican. you wrote inhe same article, moderates are seen as more expendable tha nservatives. why can't those members of congress that grapple with the president find their voice?ho >> well, thoseo are sort of isolated. there is a caucus or a group called the tuesday group, abouti 50 repns who meet on tuesdays, and are somewhere near the center, they jt don't have much clout in congress, because e party leadership, paul ryan,

speaker, and the people around him, have to keep their eye on their right wing, which is the freedom caucus, the same numbero 40 50, but they have the power, because they can threaten the leadership with a block vote to get rid of them. theyid that with john boehner, the predecessor of paul ry, and they have the activists and the media and really the heart of the party on their st'e. >> so is w limiting them then a fear they won't be effective or fear they'll be voted out? >> the latter. i mean fear, i ask charlie dent, why aren't more -- sorry,i charlie de another moderate republican from pennsylvania, who is already retired, in the t middle o term, so he's out, but he was probably the most outspoken congressional republican since trump got elected. costello voted f trump. dent did not, so there's a bit of a distinction between them. i asked dent, why are so few

republicans speaking against tht president, whe grounds for doing s?are just overwhelmi he said, my answer in one word is fear. so fear of not getting o reelected, fea a primary challenger, fear i of guess being shunned, being ex-communicated. >> so would you call costello a victim o tribalism? >> yes, in a way, he is. he's someone who, no party affiliation, you kind of want people like that in congress. he takes policy seriously. he studies the issueshard. he is sort of old-fashioned in t believing our committee assignment is really important, and rding the bill is important, and making your way up the hierarchy is important. he started out as a town supervisor, and then a county commissioner. f that kind of politician goes away, and everyone is a loud

mouth on cnn or fox, and becomes nationally known for having a quick and nasty thing to y, then that's a pretty poor resentative government. >> we're in a moment where much of our partisanic pol is also commingled with identity politics. that not new. >> no, it's ancient, because people vote and believe and act sometimes in accordance with who they are. who am i? the groups of various kinds that you belong to. for a long time, republicans claimed to rise above that, that they were speaking toan amer and they were speaking to the middle class and the heartland, and it was the democrats who were a bunch of special sts based on identity it turned out that all the while, the republican party was moving toward their version of identity politics. you don't see it clearly, but i think newt gingrich is the beginning of this, because he

introduced a level of partisanip that was so intense and sort ofds no h barred, so disregarding of norms and ethics that it turned washington into sort of a kind of world war i style trench warfare, and over e the s, the republican trench, because it was so fixed and static and so willing to do anything to win, became more more the white working class trench. that became the republican party's base, and once that was their ba, they kept pushing both language and issues in tha direction. sarah palin is a good sexample. a line from gingrich to palin to trump. trump is full-throated unapologetic expression from tho very t our government, but it was beginning a long time ago, 20 years ago with, gingri and gingrich now and surprisingly is a big fan of donald trump, becauun they rstand each other.

they speak that same tribal language, which is both partisan republican and also it's the interests of white americans, white christian,f kind oural americans. that's the republican party today. >> democrats certainly have their own identity politics as well. yes, yes. i mean, hillary clinton's campaign always singled out and kind of called out the differeps grn her coalition, and this is sort of a normal democratic thing to do, gay americans, straight americans, black americans, white americans, hispanic -- to name every identity group, and then to kind of say but we're all in that together, but really what some voters hear is just the names o the groups, and so they don't think this is all of us. they think no, she's actually talking about certain groups,th an didn't work very well in 2016 because she was both i think handicapped by that focus and also by being a traditial

establishment politician in a year when a lot of americans wanted to blow the establishment up. so it didn't -- i think it's a dead end, and i think a o,ndidate who tries to make, for example, me into the rallying cry of the 2020 campaign is not going to be able to escape the trap the democratic party sometimes sets mur itself. >> thank you so, george. >> my pleasure. >> daily politics and tribalism are indeed a dangerous trap, as we see in the surge of nativist candidates all across t world. that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour" and company on pbs. join us again tomorrow night. uniworld is a proud spo or of "amanpour and company. "when bea tollson found a collection of bouotques

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