. >> reporter: the butterfly ballot had punch holes for al gore, an ultra conservative pat buchanan,se to each other. just asking for mistakes. >> i go tell you that the people came out of the voting booth, in the hundreds, knowing, realizing, that they had punched pat buchanan's number, thinking it was al gore. >> had the butterfly ballot not happened, al gore would've been president of the united states. no doubt in my mind. period. >> reporter: a big glitch that, after election day, left gore scrambling to fix the unfixable. >> they had a real argument to make about that ballot, but only before the election. they didn't have it afterwards. the democrats signed off on it. the republicans signed off on it. it was designed by a democratic elections director in palm beach county. >> he had very few options to fundamentally change the outcome, after that. >> so how and how hard to fight? questions that would dog and divide the democrats. >> when you're in a fight, the first person who stops fighting always loses. and now your co-pilot. still a father. but now a friend. still an electri

we're going to go back to marcus sitting in london pat buchanan an author i often cite on this program it came out with another brilliant column a couple of days titled america alay and complex and he ruminates about the evolution that some people have in the political class media in the united states is that once trump's gone everything is going to go back to normal will get everyone will be quiet and even you know joe biden said on the campaign trail nothing will fundamentally change these people do. i don't know what they're talking about because the rift that is going on in american politics and culture is so deep the obese the abyss is so deep that i think that you know what happened in the trunk ministration is this reflection of those divisions that he didn't create those divisions irrespective of how you feel about from so going back to normal that's an illusion marcus what do you think. america is not for want of a better word a new whole country firstly it was born out of genocide and secondly and the fact so i'm going to side now might be distasteful to a lot of people any p

i listened to pat buchanan give a speech about how gays and lesbians were not welcome in our party. i vowed then that i would stay in the party and i would fight. every four years, it got a little bit better and a little bit better. in the 2000s, i was meeting a lot of republicans who would say privately, i am with you. i am totally with you. greatwould say, that is private support. we need it publicly. and we would challenge people to move from private support to public pronouncement. that was a long road to the 2000's. i was completely humbled in 2016 when donald trump became the nominee and completely changed our party. not only did we become focused on working-class people, but the whole idea that the lgbt community would be begging for a seat at the table was gone. the gay left love to do this rainbow table down the hallway where they make us walk down the long hallway and every four years there is a picture that they take at that rainbow table. donald trump said no. i'm am going to hire the best and if they happen to be at the cabinet table, that is exactly where they will be.

and then in 2000, pat buchanan was the nominee, the presidential nominee for the party. you was a firebrand conservative, but also a populist. what he certainly could not, you know, motivate we reform party people like perot did. and the party was sort of awe ... it initially was established with the same kind of priorities that perot had set in his first campaign. reducing the deficit, term limits, some of these issues that ended up being in the contract for america. so i think there definitely was an impact and you saw the republican party co-opt some of those issues. term limits was never passed, it was part of the contract. so i think that with buchanan in 2000, the party was struggling to find its core. what was it all about? and a lot of people thought that perot, not perot, i mean buchanan did not really represent them. he did not represent their interests very well. i think what has happened since then is the party has really sort of fizzled. there are a few state affiliates that are trying to be active, maybe half a dozen or so. but their presidential candidate

in early 1992, pat buchanan was going after president bush as having a silver spoon in his mouth and was an elite, out of touch -- there was a populist revolt within the republican party. also that spring you had another insurgent, jerry brown, coming in and trying to reattract them, and then bill clinton gets the nomination. so you have the democrat bill clinton and george herbert walker bush, and suddenly ross perot goes on larry king on cnn and says, look, i'm going to run as an independent if i can be on the ballot in all 50 states, if i'm drafted. i'm not going to run the typical campaign, the -- but the people want my ideas. once we talked about it at the outset, particularly balancing the budget and the stopping of outsourcing of jobs. also, he was opposed to the gulf war in iraq, because he thought that it was going to be a mistake. and that special forces should have gone in and killed saddam hussein. he launched this amazing third party run. he started soaring in the polls and became the darling in the summer of '92, and then we'll pick up the rest of the story in a little

pat buchanan may be. maybe. what was it about trump, did he incorporate these issues in the broad fabric of traditional conservatism or was it his personality? why did he succeed when these other third-party people had failed failure at this level? >> guest: i already mentioned pat because he was unreservedly an independent figure, irrespective of his political preference. the difference for donald trump is he was beholden to none of the establishment. this is a clash of so many influences in our society what we are contended with now. but fundamentally it is a clash in the establishment that controls both political parties, or dead, until the arrival of donald trump. donald trump broke through and said i will take on the orthodoxies, i will be in the disruptor and represent the forgotten man and woman in this country. he pledged to do that and within days, he was doing that. he has -- he is one of those surprises and delights in politics. he is a man who said what he meant and kept his promises and that drives

the '90s is the moment in addition to what you mentioned with pat buchanan having a serious primary challenge to george hw bush and floating the idea of the border wall construction. i think what happens is even if from the '90s forward, hispanic republicans are at greater pains to explain continued support for the republican party, that's when they start pointing to others as being even more important to immigration like jobs, healthcare, education. it's always been the case of course that latinos were not a single issue voters and they always cared about issues beyond immigration but it's from the '90s forward when they had to really stress the importance of other issues like jobs, education, health care as a way of justifying their continued support. the other thing i try to wrestle with and i don't know how successfully i do this, but it's important somehow is the creation over a long period of time the partisan loyalty. it's just the fact that by the 1990s many hispanic republicans had been voting for republican candidates for decades and they don't switch in the same no americans which

i remember covering pat buchanan in the 1992 primaries there and they loved him.ember, if you're looking for -- you know, there's a line between george wallace and pat buchanan to trump. so there is intensity there too. but georgia is a great question, can you turn a red state purple? my state interestingly, tennessee, is in no danger of that. i asked a former very senior elected official -- state official about this and one of the things that's happening in the south is the states that are doing well with jobs, pre covid companies moving in, you know, you'd think -- and georgia is a great example because atlanta was such a magnet for jobs particularly after world war ii it would bring folks to the south more left of center but it hasn't happened in tennessee as much. i asked this man why and he said he thought that instead of center left people coming and changing the state, a lot of people in other states who were possibly closeted fox news people would come and then they could basically be who they wanted to be. and so that's an interesting detail and also yet

that is because he and george bush have turned over their party to pat buchanan and phyllis schafley who have endorsed him to make a platform that makes all abortions illegal under any circumstances regardless of what has led to that decision by a woman, even in cases of rape and incest. their platform requires that a woman be penalized, that she not be allowed to make a choice if she believes, in consultation with her family, her doctor, and others, whoever she chooses, that she wants to have an abortion after rape or incest. they make it completely illegal -- >> what about a waiting period? >> let me finish this briefly. now you want to waffle around on it and give the impression that maybe you don't really mean what you say. but, again, you can clear it up by simply repeating, i support the right of a woman to choose. say it. >> let him say it himself. go ahead, vice president. >> thank you. talk about waffling around. this issue is a very important issue. it has been debated throughout your public life and throughout my public life. and one thing i don't think it's wise to do, an

i am the pat buchanan type of republican.'ve got to be honest with you, he promised us a border wall. he had the house and senate for two years. he has built about 400 actual of itof the wall, but 197 was already there and it is just rebuild. he had plenty of time and he spent so much money between spending$6 trillion, $8 trillion, he could not get $20 billion out of a republican house and senate when obama basically got everything out that he wanted. he did not get rid of obama care. he even took the tax offer to make obamacare stronger. how that was going to get rid of obama care, i still don't know because the tax is what made it illegal. it ones that are paying for or paying about 27% increases a year on our health insurance. it has gotten more expensive. as far as the budget, it has been blown all tohell. the amount of money spent and debt run up. as far as these trade deals, i have not seen any facts or anything. i know we are supposed to have these rate trade deals, yet farmers, he had to bailout with 28 billion dollar