. good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley. tonight, our conversation with ralph nader, with everything in the news lately the gop lawmakers have been busy in the last couple of weeks in part trying to unravel the regulations, including the epa, ralph nader has had a long-time rallying cry. there can be no daily democracy without citizenship. and we'll talk about how people can fight for their values and win actual gains. we're glad. a conversation with ralph nader coming up right now. ♪ ♪

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. this is the week federal lawmakers return home from d.c. for their recess and traditionally for town hall meetings. several of those have been

disrupted as protesters have shown up. one strategy that ralph nader has called, breaking through power. easier than a lot of us think. he has a all right lot of thoug resisting the administration. and first of all, in los angeles, in green los angeles, the rain has made it look greener out here, good to have you on the program, man. >> thank you. >> let me start with you, i follow you in all of your writings and in all your work and you have taken to calling donald trump the for-profit president, tell me why? >> well, first of all, he can't separate his business duties within his presidency, his presidency, to enrich himself, the dues at mar-a-lago $200, among other things. but that is a side show compared to what is really going on,

while the media is distracted with trump's braggadocio, the playbook is clear, he has invited big business to completely take over the u.s. government. and so it's a government of big business, by big business, for big business, like never before in american history. the corporatists, militants, and racists are pouring into washington, d.c. what is interesting, he wants to recreate in washington the kind of libertine, anything goes, corporate capitalism that he represented when he was in business, in the gambling business, and other enterprises. for example, he wants to reshape the labor department to be against labor, get rid of our reshape the consumer protection bureau that deals with fraud on consumers, credit card mortgage. he wants to get rid of that and

develop a massive military budget and cut taxes for corporations. in other words, he is betraying the very people who sent him there under the guise of helping. so what i see is finally like the ultimate showdown between whether our government will be wall street dominated, militant dominated, racist dominated or the resistance is going to result in not only the defeat of this brazen effort, but also the ushering of a new government that responds to people's necessities. >> when you say ralph nader that donald trump has betrayed the people who sent him there. i hear your point loud and clear, two questions, one, do they see that yet? and if they don't see that yet where will they cross the line where they say this is not exactly what i had in mind.

>> they're already saying, give him a chance, goldman sachs is in charge of the white house, he campaigned against goldman sachs, right? it's amazing, he is doing the opposite of what he promised. the first call will come when he blocks the minimum wage increase. in cities and towns around the countries you know the minimum wage is going up, but federally frozen to $7.20, which means many voters, many trump voters are making less today, inflation-wage jumps, less than in 1938, second, if he tries to get rid of obamacare and not going to replace it with full medicare for all the republicans and the congress will not let him do that. that will strip a lot of people and produce human agony in human misery stories, for the media, it is already starting in terms of fear. third is if he deports the kind of workers, the immigrants, who

clean up after us and take care of our ailing grandparents and harvest our fields, no matter how plutocratic, so i see all the resistance that i must say exceeds all of my expectations. the key thing that i work for in the book "working through power," in the streets, focuses on many men and women, that is where the showdown has to start. that is where we know their names, that is where they have to go back and face the people and if they try to have telephone meetings, they're already saying, no way, you don't have a town meeting senator? we'll have a town meeting and you better come. now that focus on the senators and representatives is the beginning of the resistance.

it's not just mass rallies where the energy goes into the ether on the weekend. it's what the most successful lobbies do in our country, you ever see the nra, or a-pack do mass rallies? are you kidding me? they focus on the senator and representatives, they know everything. their staff, who their doctor is, accountant, who they play golf with, what their weakness is, how much money they want for their campaigns. so this is the beginning and i'm really very, very pleased with where it started. >> and i hear your point loud and clear, you're absolutely right about that. i'm glad you raised it and said it the way you did. you don't see the nra holding rallies, they work behind the scenes and that is where it gets done. i think our mutual friend, the great damon judge in detroit said democracies die behind closed doors. you can go in the street all day long and that is legitimate, but

where the democracy gets killed off is in the closed door meetings. and you know democracy better than anybody i know, as well as anybody. it is fits and starts as well. if gerrymandering cannot ever be addressed what difference does it ultimately make? because unlike the lobbyists, we're not trying to buy them off, we're trying to hold them accountable, but how do you hold them off? >> gerrymandering is a shift of 10 to 15% of the vote, from the incumbent senator and being defeated. once the wave starts it's going to be a left/right wave, conservative liberals bleed like liberal workers, they get ripped off, they get minimum wage,

their pensions are satisvaged b wall street, once it starts it doesn't matter. it will be just a wave and a sweep. there is only one danger that can stop this from going on. and this is the big american showdown for the 21st century as to who is going to run this government. we, the people, with the hired hands getting orders in congress from the people or big business. and that is a major stateless terrorist attack. and then everything is off the table, right? it's all hysteria. trump is in his prime ability to crowd out everything. that is the main thing that we have to keep our cool. and realize that 5,000 people a week die in hospitals from mishaps, hospital-induced infections, bad diagnosis, and so forth, according to john

hopkins, 5,000 people, never talked about. a quarter of a million americans a year and that is the bottom rock figure according to the john hopkins physicians. so the whole terrorist thing is an attempt to concentrate power in the hands of the few, empower the military industrial complex and distract attention from key necessities of the american people. >> there have been many, many movies made in this town where you sit today, l.a., hollywood as you all know many movies made where that plot line was the story. that somebody in power started a war. especially to distract people from what was going on. >> wag the dog. >> wag the dog, exactly. i'm not going to accuse donald trump of being about the business of starting a war to gain power for himself, i'm not going to go that far, but what i am going to say and i'm not the first to say it is that the policies he is advancing, and the rhetoric that he is putting out there and the moves he is making clearly play into the

hands of those who want to do america harm. so to your point if the only thing that can stop this movement, this wave from taking place is a terrorist attack on our soil, i got money that says that is coming sooner than later, sadly. >> well, you can see he is talking about it, national security, we have a lot of enemies abroad. >> it's my point, he is inviting it. >> it depends on his level of provocation. he is putting tough, war-mongering people in charge, these guys want to pick a fight with russia and iran, the rest of it, who knows what. but what they're not banking on, see the people have been asleep for so long and discouraged for so long that over a period of 20 or 30 years, being in a democratic party commercial to the same interests that they're

drunk with their own power. they're coming to washington drunk with their own power. which means they're going to over-step, they're already stumbling, they will over-step their power, it will boomerang. don't underestimate the power of the courts, which means the democratic judges and the judges are not going the like it. the campuses, coming alive again for civil rights so decisively. we have a lot of people power ready to rise up. and it never takes more than 1%, tavis, i point out in this book that every major social justice in the united states, including the civil rights mass movement never involve more than 1% of the people. and some of it like the environment, going after the auto companies, a handful of people. but there are two criteria, one they have to know what they're talking about and second they

have to reflect public opinion. and there are major changes in this country that conservatives and liberals agree on, civil liberties, criminal justice reform, they agree on minimum wage increase and agree on breaking up the big banks that are too big to fail. they agree on protecting pensions. and a lot of them agree on a bloated military budget and the waste and corruption that is involved there. and they are also like 85% against corporate welfare, which the right wing calls crony capitalism. and when you have this kind of budding convergeence, you give it a cutting edge, a media face, unstoppable politically. >> your comment, one conversation i had with greta scott king, of course the widow of dr. king, she said tavis, i

don't know where all of these people were when martin was marching, and everywhere i go people always tell me i marched with your husband, i marched with your husband, she said these negroes were lying, because they said i marched with your husband, she said somebody is lying here. >> that is like people saying they voted for me. i must have met everybody. >> i voted for you, mr. nader, i'm glad you went there, because that was my next question, i know you have a response to this. there are people now who are still mad at bernie sanders because they think he inflicted some damage on hillary clinton that she could not recover from in time to beat donald trump. and there are people still mad at you all of these years later and blame al gore's defeat and george bush's victory on ralph nader, what do you say in defense of yourself and bernie

sanders. >> first of all, al gore doesn't agree with him. he knows why he lost and he said as much. not only didn't he get his home state of tennessee alone would have put him in the white house but it was stolen from him 100 ways in florida, from tallahassee to the judicial coup de tat. if we all have a right to run for any election, then we're all trying to get votes from one another, then we're all either spoilers or non-spoilers, because it's a bigoted word, it's as if the two major parties own the voters, get lost. and yet historically tavis, the women's right to vote, labor,

farmer, professional, all of these reforms, 40 hour a week progressive taxation, social security, medicare, all of these were foreshadowed by tiny parties that never won a national election. so those are very valuable viewpoints and energies to protect instead of controlling the political process with two parties, increasingly one corporate party with two heads, with different appearances. you know? different makeup. military industrial complex, the same. wall street, pretty much the same. again and again, money brings the two parties, republican and democrat, closer together so they deny people voices and choices and half of the people stay home and don't vote. >> i want to get your thoughts, ralph nader, on the state of the union movement in this country. now the union movement raised its back just a few days ago and to their credit did some things

to help defeat mr. trump's initial nominee to meet labor secretary, so they showed up for that. >> thank goodness. >> but by and large many of us are just concerned if not disappointed of the state of the union movement in this country, what say you about it? >> well, first of all, they're down to about 12 and a half percent of union workers, it is more by automakers taking jobs, by trade agreements, shifting jobs to kmichina and other oppressive regimes, and more than a few labor unions, they don't have a retirement age, so they don't have a farm club. they don't have young people coming in. you talk to a thousand students at a public university, you say how many of you want to go into

the labor movement, where? oh, yeah, one guy in the back. so that is a bad sign when it can't recruit the young. having said that, tavis, the whole minimum wage movement started with sciu, the retail union, putting about 50 bucks in with about 50,000 people picketing here and there, burger king, walmart, mcdonald's, fewer than a number of people put this issue on the map four years ago. so it shows you how essential the union's movement is if it has the right energy. and it didn't have the right energy or the right strategy in wisconsin. and they lost the state to governor walker. smashing the public employee unions, busting up pensions and running the state into the ground. why? because the aflcio in wisconsin invited barack obama and joe

biden to come and address, remember those big rallies in madison, and there was one coming with 100,000 people. and he invited joe biden who could not wait to come. scranton, pennsylvania, joe, right? he asked for permission in the white house and they denied him. and they paid the price in november of last year. so the could is, that the labor unions headed by the aflcio and richard trump former coal miner, lawyer, always waits for the white house for the cue. i remember i was sitting in his office once and i said make a big thing on the minimum wage you know because obama promised to hire memory wage in the 2008 campaign and he stands up and points out through the window, the white house, he said why should i start this? he has to start it first. hey, that is not the early history of the labor movement waiting for a politician to give them the cue? the go ahead signal? so it's very sad, because so

goes america as goes the union movement. and it's sinking. >> and your friend laura was on this program not long ago. and she made the point since you referenced the defeat that the democrats took in november because they miscalculated. she made the point on this program that it was not just the miscalculation that the white house had places like wisconsin, going for wisconsin, still pushing for the tpp, hillary had done a 180 on it and they were still doing an independent push on it and that came back to bite him in the you know what. >> actually the democrats pushed all of them, nafta through under clinton, they pushed the trade agreement through under clinton and the tpp was even worse, it's called nafta on steroids. but this whole resistance, they hear the rumble from the people in washington, you know, nixon

signed into law bills that we pushed into congress in the late '60s and '70s, consumer bills, air, water pollution bill, he hated them and signed them with a flourish, right? because he hated the rumble of the people coming out of the '60s. that is why i wrote this book, it's for short attention spans. this, i hope is a book of the resistance because it gives a lot of examples where a few people changed the whole country. and that is very important for the morale of the people, because once they march and hit a wall they can get discouraged, which happens and it's deadly. >> you don't want people to engage in resistance fatigue. but since you made a couple of comparisons between the movement then and the movement we are starting to see grow and expand

today you talk about the parallels, do you see any differences? are there any major differences between then and all of those consumer protections you were pushing through then and the moment we find ourselves in right now? >> well, a little bit more on economics now. is what martin luther king jr. wanted to shift to, yeah. it's going -- and obviously there is problems that -- what we foresee is weakening the civil rights enforcement. we see a go signal from more prisons and from unaccountable police violence. and we see immigrants, a lot of whom should not be deported. now you can see the economics of it. health insurance is coming up. minimum wage is coming up. the antipathy to these corporate-management job agreements trade killing is on the table. now, i think if they strengthen

the economic base and emphasize civil liberties as well as civil rights they're going to get a left/right coalition, conservative liberals. i already see it around the country, tavis, big rallies in west virginia on the pipeline, big by west virginia's standards. and there they were, conservative people and liberal people who never were on the same side before. >> as you well know, you have been at this a long time, ralph, to win you have to field the right team. you can't win if you ain't got the right team on the field. do the democrats in washington have the right people on the field? >> no, and 2018, congressional elections they got to recruit the right people. because you can't beat the entrenched republicans with people who sound like republicans. i mean, you hear the debates in 2012 and 2014 on the radio, you don't know who is a republican and who is a democrat for maybe 20 or 30 minutes until they

identify themselves. the other thing that is very important. the political commentator, bill curry, who is really brilliant and insightful, a counselor to bill clinton and turned against the clintons, he said the democrats had the most efficient transition of all. nancy pelosi to nancy pelosi, the worst transition, if you compare the cruel ignorant vicious war mongering republican party today to taft in the u.s. senate it's like night and day. and they can't landslide the worst republican party in history. not only that they lose to it in 2010, 2012, 2014. 2016. and she gets revoted in as a minority leader of the house. now, in other words, when there is no penalty to losing you're not going to self-renew the

party. >> ralph nader, never one to hold his tongue and i love that about him. the book is called breaking through power, it's easier than what we think. i highly recommend it. mr. nader, thank you for joining us. that is our show tonight. and as always keep the faith. for more information on today's show, visit tavis as pbs.org. >> hi, i'm tavis, join me next time for a conversation with the architect, on his master class, that is next time. we'll see you then.

accountable. yurks. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you, thank you.

good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley. first a conversation with california's top public health official and the impact of health disparities and why it's essential we achieve health equity. then we'll pivot to amma asante. we're glad you've joined us, all of that coming up in a moment.