j. edgar hoover, , this paragraph is reay going to hit you hard. dammit. and i hope you feel it when you read it because that's what i was getting at the time. >> jonathan, could you stand up? >> yeah. i'm so sorry, yes. hi, everybody. >> looks like when they were eagle in the back. >> --ee all 600 pages, i've been dying to start keying. did you ever anticipate so much was can happen now in the media with king welcome ex-revelation, alex haley now that's getting so much attention? >> so i discovered this about a year ago. one of the things i always do and they didn't do this in my first few books, i'm solar, is if i find a great interview with an important person in my book, i tracked down the archives of the journalist who did interview at the check to see if there are notes from the interview. if there are tapes or transcript an interview to see what that left out. in the case of all the iphone to sports illustrated reported it would probably 30 hours of tapes that he made with ali. he just kept the typical grenfell tower even when they're watching tv. s

it tells you the history of j edgar hoover who is the founder of the fbi.in the way he started the fbi was interesting. he started for the 1940s when fdr is when he really got powerful. what he would do is spy on fdr's edit me and then tell fdr about it when we get more resources so he could do more spying would help different centers, different congresspeople spy on their enemies and they would give him more resources that it's how the fbi suddenly grown. we have excellent federal law enforcement agencies. people like the u.s. marshall, the dea who do a better job of fighting child sex trafficking, frontal epidemic than the fbi. there are agencies of treasury who do a better job of fighting white-collar crime than the fbi. so what vivek believes we need to do is we need to shut down the fbi altogether. and take the 15000 actual front line fbi agents, the people who are actually fighting crime and move them to these other agencies that have not been corrupted. there's another 20000 members of the fbi who are in the back office of the j edgar hoover building

it tells you the history of j edgar hoover who is the founder of the fbi.in the way he started the fbi was interesting. he started for the 1940s when fdr is when he really got powerful. what he would do is spy on fdr's edit me and then tell fdr about it when we get more resources so he could do more spying would help different centers, different congresspeople spy on their enemies and they would give him more resources that it's how the fbi suddenly grown. we have excellent federal law enforcement agencies. people like the u.s. marshall, the dea who do a better job of fighting child sex trafficking, frontal epidemic than the fbi. there are agencies of treasury who do a better job of fighting white-collar crime than the fbi. so what vivek believes we need to do is we need to shut down the fbi altogether. and take the 15000 actual front line fbi agents, the people who are actually fighting crime and move them to these other agencies that have not been corrupted. there's another 20000 members of the fbi who are in the back office of the j edgar hoover building

that had a lot of experience because of his famous father that her presented and was one of j edgar hoover's. >> some of the characters are more protesters you mentioned ethat a bit earlier but along with the civil rights movement, did these groups have a common goal? >> yes. the black panthers the activists. they were much more interested in equality but as part of it they didn't want to see young black men get sent to vietnam for a cause that was so uncertain. mohammed ali famously said the media invented and then he said no vietcong ever called me the n word and i don't think i need to go over there and so there was an uneasy alliance and a segment in the movement that felt the protesting and marching and using first amendment rights wasn't sufficient but you had to do something more dramatic to try to end the war and they were inspired in part from the famous malcolm brown picture of the monk burning to death in the street and i think this inspired the protesters to get more serious. in fact they were hoping to bomb fort dix when it went off in the apartment and killed one protester and

have in place. 35,000 employees at the fbi, 20,000 of them are back-office bureaucrats and the j edgar hoover building, that is where the rot comes from, they will find on his work in the private sector. that is what that is going to take. 15,000 of them are cops inveigative agents on the front line, good people. they wl move them to the u.s. marshall'or to the dea which have been far better at fighting child sex trafficking rings or the fentanyl epidec in this company. the department of ecation will shut it down. i care about educationn this country, i want the $80 billion misspent by the federal government to go back to the pockets of parents who get to decide where they send their ki to school and how they are educated across publ schools, private schools, and homeschooling, that is a choice that belongs to every parent in this country. that is how we get this country back. most of those federal regulations, the regulations that affect small businesses, individuals across this country, they are not written by congress anymore, they are written by buaucrats. those are unconstitutional and c

j. edgar hoover building that people walk into every day for work, shutting it down, but in a way that isional, in the way a ceo would could shut them down in a way that leaves us better off not worse. larry: another one, vivek, you know, the misuse of foreign intelligence for political purposes. >> yes. larry: we single out the cia, not only the cia, but the whole defense and intelligence community, if you will. stuff has happened in last bunch of years that should never have happened. i don't know who has been doing this whether the buildings or swept and replaced but this is the back of people's minds, i think it will affect their voting. >> i think this is what american revolution was fought for. i don't use that hyperbolically, in a real sense for most of human history, including old world europe, world view is people cannot be trusted to self-govern. today in back of three litter government -- letter government agency buildings that the decisions get made. we said in 1776 is no, for better or worse, we the people decide that at the ballot box wherever citizen's voice and vote counts

midnight, the great war of the forgotten crisis and then there's the fascinating biography of j edgar hooverf course he was in this era so whatu does this open up for us and where to use your book entering the broad conversation going on in our country today about the great war and its echoes today. you use it as a mirror. >> we are still living with the legacies of world war i when we think about what it is like when it's still an ongoing reality where the threat of the ongoing war continues to loom, still reckoning with the legacies of white supremacy and violence, reckoning with really the failures of democracy itself. in some ways i think that's why world war i as a moment continues to resonate because this moment where people at the time believed democracy was going to be remade on a global scale. we are still trying to make it reality in this country. and even the issues reckoning with i think there's still the issue we are reckoning with today. in some ways it is going to take comfort from the struggles and commitment and perseverance to try to address these issues that shaped his lif

j. edgar hoover's targets. >> host: some of the characters are war protesters, you mentioned that earlier. along with the civil rights movement, did these two groups have a common goal? >> yes -- well, the black panthers and anti-war activists had an uneasy alliance, the black panthers were much more interested in equality for black people, but as part of it, they didn't want to see young black men just sent to vietnam for a cause that was so uncertain. muhammad ali famously said, i don't think he actually said it, but he started at first, but the media invented it and then he started saying that no viet cong ever called me the n-word. i don't think i need to go over there. and so there was an uneasy alliance, but there was certainly a segment in the anti-war movement that felt that protesting and marching and using your first amendment rights was not sufficient. that you had to try to do something more dramatic, and they were looking at the monk and the famous malcom brown picture of the munk burning to death in the street. and i think this helped inspire the protesters to get more serio

j. edgar hoover's. well, in killing gray of the the characters are war protesters you mentioned that a bit earlier but along with the civil movement did these two groups have a common goal? yes. well, the black panthers and the anti-war activists had a very uneasy all the black panthers were much more interested in equality for black people. but as part of it. they didn't want to see young men get sent to vietnam for a cause that was so uncertain. muhammad ali famously, i don't think he actually said, but he started at first. but the media invented it, and then he started saying that no viet cong ever called me the n-word. i don't think i need to go over there. and so there was an uneasy alliance, but there was certainly a segment in the anti-war movement that felt that protesting and marching and using first amendment rights was not that you had to do more dramatic to to end the war. and were inspired in part by the buddhist monk who immolated himself on the street during the buddhist protests in 1965.

j. edgar hoover are going to use him as a wedge? >> colman: absolutely.t imagine, 19623, everyone tries to think that everyone is so cool by all and we are doing this together but no. there was all these leaders with fiery thoughts and ideas on how to get this done and it took an outlier like bayard rustin to coalesce everyone in form coalitions and see how we can move forward together. i think the outsider part of him in every single way was also his superpower. >> stephen: do you enjoy playing a real person? >> colman: i do. i do. >> stephen: are there people who are still with us when intimate connection with bayard rustin that you could use as reference or that you would worry about their judgment? >> colman: yes, there's one in particular who i am on a text feed with pretty much every day. she has become my jewish mama. her name is michelle horwitz and she is depicted in our film. i wanted to do her and walter nagel byard's partner justice. i wanted to make sure they were part of it. i wanted to get the soul of the character. >> stephen: has a very s

j. edgar hoover, g-man. and of course, hoover was ascendant in this era. yeah. so what does?setting the boys of world war one open up for us and where do you see your book entering, the broader conversation going on. in our country today about? the great war and its echoes today. what is, you know works you find an 100 years ago and use it as a mirror as analogous to tell an allegorical story about what's happening today right? yeah i think that's a great question. thank you for that. i think in a lot of ways, we're living with the legacies of world war one when we think about, as i said earlier, what it means to live in wounded world where war is still an ongoing, where the threat of ongoing war continues to loom, still reckoning with the very real legacies of white supremacy, white supremacy, reckoning with really the the failures of democracy itself. in some ways i think that's that's really why world war one as as a moment, i think, continues to resonate, because this moment where people the time believed democracy was going to be remade on a global scale, we are still tr