good evening from las vegas. i'm tafs smiley. the house republican bill repealing and replacing oba obamacare is the latest development sparking calls to action across the nation to turn over the gop house majority in the 2018 midterm elections. but what are the best ways right now to maximize citizen power in the era of trump. tonight a conversation with eric lieu, the founder of the nonprofit citizen university and author of the new book "you're more powerful than you think, a citizen's guide to making change happen." then academy award winning dock men tear joins us to talk about her latest film about one of the most controversial and prominent citizens on the planet, wikileaks founder julian assange. we're glad you've joined us. all of that in just a minute.

demonstrations, marches and step up civic participation are what many see as a silver lining

to an election that tested our belief in america and at times let's be honest, humanity. but what are the best way to maximize citizen power in the trump air era. ear rick has been an advocate. his latest text is called "you're more powerful than you think, a citizen's guide to making change happen." great to have you on the program. >> great to be back. >> are we more powerful than we think in the present moment of crisis and catastrophe. >> especially. >> why especially? >> this is a moment where people stop taking things for granted. people might have been drifting along thinking things are fine or thinking that the game was so rigged and the system is so broken there's no point in getting involved. people are awake now and they're realizing that standing on the sideline is insufficient. you have to figure out how to get on the field and what to do when you're on the field. and i think one of the things that i would give donald trump credit for is that he alone has

cattized one of the greatest surges of civic engagement, civic participation we've seen in the country in half a century. i think people are waking up right now realizing what's at stake and b, by showing up, by developing some muscle and becoming what i say in this book, becoming lit rait in power. you can change the game. >> how would you compare, contrast the way the french used their citizen power in their election when they had two uneasy choices with the way we did or did not use our power when we had two uneasy choices? >> i think the simplest answer is the french people reminded us of the simple pow are of showing up. actually showing up. right? their turnout in the election was 74%, which by french standards is low. but the last time in the united states we had 74% voter turnout,

1896. >> ouch. >> one of the things i've always said is there's no such thing as not voting. not voting is voting. it's voting to hand your power over to somebody else whose interest wills be opposite to you and who will want to use the power against you even if they do it in your own name. the french people reminded us you to show up. even when you choices are distasteful. in the case of le pen and mac n macron, there's a clear menace there because she descends from the neo-nazi lineage and the threat that she pose to the idea of france and the idea of post war france was far more vivid for french people than the menace that candidate trump proposed. there are counter vailing things that people say he doesn't mean it. but in france they knew she meant it. they knew her father had meant it. but at the end of the day it's not so much about the candidates. it's remembering that when we as citizens throw away our power,

give it away, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. and showing us to vote doesn't solve everything. the vote is not the be all and end all. but if you don't vote you don't get a chance to influence the rest of the system. and the french people reminded us of the simple power of showing up. >> my read of history suggests on some level -- and you're much smarter than i am. but my read of history suggests on some level it takes a bit of being on the edge or going over the edge as it were in our democracy to pull us back to where we need to be. is that your read of history? and if so, why does it require that? >> because humans are lazy. humans are comcomplaisant. but it's the case in a society like ours it's not like things are going great and we're complacent. we're at the end i hope of a four-decade period where voice has been concentrated, clout has been concentrated. you can't have that happen for four decades without people on

the right and the left saying we're going to pash back and knock over the establishment that's been rigging this game this way. when i think of the era of citizen power. i rewind at least to the tea par party. occupy wall street. those things were different but they were very much the same thing. people saying this establishment that has rigged a game to concentrate power and monopolize it in fewer hands is something we need to undo and unravel. >> i hear your elongated period of time that you're focusing on for this particular text. but specifically in the era of donald trump, what does it mean to be a citizen? how do we best wear the garment? how do we most honorably wear the garment of citizen in this present moment? >> i love the way you put that. first of all when i say citizen power, it's worth defining. >> please. >> when i say citizen, i'm not talking about documentation status under the immigration laws. there are plenty of folks in this country who lack the papers

and live like citizens. and plenty who have the papers and don't. i'm thinking of an ethical sense of are you a member of the body, do you take responsibility for what's going on around you, do you understand that at the end of the day there's no such thing as someone else's problem. that's being a citizen. power i define simply as the capacity to ensure that others do as you would have them to do. right? and so to some folks that's a little bit like that's menacing, kind of dpark. don't like that. you have to get over any qualms you have about this because power is simply a universal human capacity and yearning. when you apply that yearning d capacity to questions of public concern and questions, that' civic power. in thinking about what the responsibilities of a visit are, tavis, i think number one, it is to be lit sferate in power and ground the literacy in character. power plus character equals citizenship. if all you have is power

literacy and you know how to get stuff done, you know how to pull strings and work the system but you don't have any moral bearings, you don't have any kind of ethical sense, then all you are is a really finally skilled sociopath. but if you have in idea of how to get anything done, how to move people, ideas or crowds, social norm to effect change, then you're fill los fiezing over there. you have to combine the two to make civic change possible. >> i'm trying to juxtapose your definition of citizen with the president who now sits in the oval office. it being a citizen, a good citizen, an honorable citizen is your definition, power plus character equals citizen. power plus character equals citizen. this guy is the president but one could argue that equation is slightly off. there's a component miss in that character. is it possible that the president could be a selfish citizen? >> it is not only possible, sit

the case that the president is no role model for citizenship. and i'm not just talking about the fact that he and his family are incredibly self dealing and corrupt in the way they're operating the white house as an extension of the trump organization. i'm talking about rewinding to stuff that people have discounted and forgotten in the campaign. his demeaning of disfavored people, whether it's muslims, people with disabilities. and since he's become president his actual menaces threats toward the institutions of government, saying the contusion is an impediment to getting done what he would like to get done. these are the kind of things that you might say in the comments thread of a website or you might say on facebook or if you're a commentator on a far right tv network. but if you're saying these things as president of the united states when you recognize that your example refresh rates all over the world. you're powerful. >> how do we at large have a

conversation about citizenship when you're telling me that if person who leads our nation is no model of citizenship? >> because this country is and always has been bigger than its president. whether you like that president or not. right? and by the way, when i'm talking about the deficiencies of the man currently occupying the oval office, i don't assume that all of the people who supported him share those deficiencies. i think there are millions of americans who chose that candidate because they felt that the game was so rigged that they needed to knock the table over instead of moving the pieces around. i get that. i get that instinct and yearning and i think there are people on the left and the right and people who don't put themselves in those categories who want change for good reason. but we have to remember and our times remind us that this country is so much bigger. that the idea of self government in a republic is so much bigger than one man alone either promising or threatening to do certain things. >> i'm so glad that your book talks straightaway about our responsibilities as citizens.

because seems to me that we always get stuck talking about the rights but never the responsibilities. i'm not naive in asking this but why do we get so, you know, enamored with one and lose sight of the other? >> i agree with that 100% and i think, you know, a lot of it has to do with the origins of the country. the origins of the country were about throwing off tear any. and if that is the default for your operating system, even though in today we don't live under tyranny. but that language exists. anybody who tells you that we've got to do stuff together, we've got to help each other out, that's tyranny. don't tread on me. get off my rights, right? i think we have a deep habit here. and one of the things that we've forgotten and the founding generation understood when they had conceptions of visitship and responsibility was that if all you think of being a citizen is let me do whatever i want to do, then you're just basically dressing up a toddler, right? you're not being an adult.

you're not -- being an adult means understanding we're woven into a fabric of obligation. and freedom is saying we're bound together. we've got to help each other out. and i think that notion of freedom, not just as don't tread on me but how are we going to raze a born together, raise a family together, make a community together. that's the other strand of the american dna that we forget. >> i mentioned all of the protests and the demonstrations, you in your own poetic way which i cannot repeat, you made the point that donald trump gets the credit in his first 100 days for brings this to the fore. but i've seen this signs, you've seen these signs everywhere, this protests. resist. if there's one word that the left or democrats are using right now, it is resist. i'm a resister. all all for resisting what i don't like. i'm all for fighting for those things that i believe in.

but i also understand that resist is just a part of citizenship. what's the flip side of that coin? >> it is create. >> okay. resist and create. >> look, i think the reality is it is always easier to mobilize in a negative and resist is easier than saying to get people together around an affirmative agenda. but you can't sustain on resist alone. that the idea of citizenship in the trump era has to be about creating an affirmative sense and story that people want to be a part of. and that story isn't just about demeanors on the left. i think there's a moment right now where you've got people in cross etiological ways saying that donald trump and his election is a symbol of a deeper illness in the body of politic. there are people in the tea party and the black lives matter left who will agree right now that we have to push against a state that is just treating people as cogs. we've got to treat ourselves as having power and responsibility. >> but politically do democrats

get that? there have been all kinds of conversations about whether they really get that. do they get it and get it well enough to make it resonate in 2018? do they really get that? >> you mean the official democratic party? >> that's what i mean. and its leadership. do they get that? >> i think it remains to be seen. i think the reality is -- and this is not just about hillary people versus bernie people. that's one way that it plays out. there are so many people especially in the younger generation right now who want affirmative change, who believe in a vision of inclusion, who don't think that we're going rewind to some idea of america as a white nationalists, white christian preserve and island. but simply saying we resist that vision is not enough. you actually have to be able to tell people here's the story of what we're going to be together. and it's not a zero sum story. it's a story in which we're all going to be better off when we're better off. people don't believe that right now. one of the things that i talk about in this book is the way that anybody who wants to make changes in civic life and

exercise power, you've got to think about changing the game, changing the story and changing the equation. right? a good political candidate does that but so does a powerful civic movement. changing the game -- let's take the muslim ban for instance. when donald trump issued his first executive order, he thought i control the game here. i'm the president. i can issue an executive order and make this happen. and the people of this country said uh-uh, no. we're not going to let you play the inside game with executive orders. we're going to turn this into a game in which the court is involved and the court of public opinion is involved. we're going to expand the field and arena where you can't win. then the people in the country changed the story. the way that the ban was drawn and overdrawn, people say no, this is pure and simple a muslim ban based on things you've says in the campaign and continued to say. right? and the opponents of this ban framed successfully the story within which is unfolding. and then on the equation piece,

you look at the way in which on the day that ban was issued, people spontaneously swarming to airports, right, to defend immigrants and refugees and then swarming to courthouses. citizen lawyers, citizen activists, people saying whatever skill i can bring to the table i'm going to bring to the table now. they changed that equation where sf folks in the administration said this was something they would rig and the people in the country said not so fast. that i think is where it helps to have again an sto positive story of what we want. >> bill clinton is a wordsmith and part of that is because eric was writing his stuff. >> i take zero credit for that. the learning went the other way around. >> you better say that in case the president is watching tonight. he's a wonderful author. new text is called "you're more

powerful than you think. a citizen's guide to makingnextr for her film on julian assange. stay with us. pleased to welcome laura back to this program. her latest documentary risk follows wikileaks founder jewel julian assange. the reach of the first amendment and the overreach of corporate and government power. before our conversation first a clip from "risk." >> just to be sure that you understand the details, the entire of unredacted u.s. state department cables will go on the internet. so a grave situation and people's lives are at risk.

but when i say they're about to go, they are about to go. i don't think we have very long. so -- that's giving as many details as i think is appropriate to do it at the stage. mr. assange would like to talk to hillary about that. okay. well let me start by giving you -- one moment, please. more details other than the entire unredacted table set is about to go on the internet. literally it's about to happen. i don't understand why you're not seeing the urgency in this, which is in the past been a large issue for you. >> put him on. who is he? >> hello. good day, chad. this is julian assange.

i want to make it clear, we don't have a problem. you have a problem. >> ouch. we don't have a problem, you have a problem. it was arresting for me, as you work tends to be, to watch this particular scene where they're trying to get in touch with our secretary of state to let them know, as we just heard, this stuff is about to blow. and they're talking to the emergency line at the state department and they still can't seem to make any headway. what did you make filming that scene? >> that was like -- there's a few scenes in my life that i'll never forget and that's one of them. a really remarkable scene. and then the next scene after this, actually the state department does call back -- the lawyer from the state department calls back to talk to them. that's julian and wikileaks. and what's happening in this scene is they've just learned that there's a password for the state department cable for 250,000 state department cables have been published by a journalist and was now

potentially going to be released online. they were warning the state department. >> for all of those persons who have been and for that matter still are hillary clinton supporters who think that julian aang is the enemy, the devil incarnate, you say what? >> okay. what they publish from the dmc and podesta was published by the "new york times," the "washington post" it was clearly news wore think. not everything they published but what was going on with bernie sanders' campaign was kn news worthworthy. i think what's conflated is another issue that has come clear that there was a hack in the dnc that -- according to the government. they haven't released a lot of

information, evidence. but according to the government there was a hack into dnc and rnc and they used an intermediary or what james comey calls a cutout, somebody else pretending to be somebody who released it to wikileaks. >> what do you make of the love/hate relationship that the trump administration has had, donald trump the person and his administration has had with julian assange? donald trump has been quoted more times than i can count, 64, i think i saw somewhere, where he said in one way shape or form i love wikileaks. because he was loving wikileaks when wikileaks was putting stuff out about secretary clinton. now his cia director, mike pompeo has said that julian assange has no first amendment rights. his attorney general jeff sessions says his arrest is a priority for the u.s. government. what do you make of the love/hate relationship with julian assange? >> trump ran with an anti-press

platform. the fact that he's targeting leakers and publishers like wikileaks is not a surprise. what i make of it is how scary it for all of us, all journalists that you're targeting -- that you have the justice department targeting a publisher. so i think it's troubling. i also think it's deeply ironic that trump has flipped on this one. and i'm terrified by donald trump being president. it's not like i, that i'm a supporter of that. i think it ears terrifying for journalists, for muslim americans, for a community of color, for immigrants. this is a really scary president that we have in office. but i also think that's a different question from what our role as journalists is to inform the public. and there was newsworthy information in those e-mails. >> do you have any sense of what his, what his, what his end game

is here? we see very clearly how the u.s. government is now moving to press this. but what's his desired result in the end game here? >> there's a scene in the film where he talks about the powerful institutions have information that affect all citize citizens. and that he thinks that should be released. he has been consistent about that in terms of his end game. he's interested in transparency when it comes to powerful institutions. and so -- and he makes a lot of enemies doing that. and i believe in part of what -- you know, i think they've published some really important information and then i have big disagreements with other things that they've published. i think in many cases they should have been redacting things, redacts for instance the names of people that shouldn't -- that aren't newsworthy. so i think there's a need for debate about you know, the

publishing that they do. but in general it's towards transparency. that's his end game. >> i agree with that. some of the stuff gets out within it's not newsworthy and at that point you can't redact it. there's a debate with that. when i asked what's his end game, the other part of that is you can't not come outside forever. what does the future look like for him? >> that's a question really for him and his lawyers and they wouldn't probably share that strategy. i think they're trying all different kinds of ways to see if there's a way for him to leave and have safe passage so that he could leave the embassy and go to ecuador where he has asylum. but right now with the recent -- you know, what you said about the director of the cia and the attorney general, i mean there is a real threat in the u.s.

that -- which is -- you know, that he takes seriously. >> you always pick fascinating subjects, snowden, assange. thank you for your work. >> thank you. >> director of "risk" a new pron front about julian assange. that is our show tonight. as always, keep the faith. ♪ ♪ for more information on today's ow, visit tavismiley on pbs.org. join me for a conversation with two united airlines pilots about the barriers that african-americans face in the airline industry. that's next time. see you then.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

good good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley. president trump won office on appeal to working class voters. how well is his administration working for them. tonight a conversation with rana foroohar. she joins us to talk about the economic realities in the trump air remark who is benefiting from his plans and who is losing. then trombone shorty joins us to talk about his debut album for blue records, it's called parking lot symphony. rana foroohar and trombone shorty in just a moment.