. >> i am heartened, big moyers, by what i think, what i sense and feel is an increase, an untake in the conversation that we're -- uptake in the conversation we're having in this country about mass incarceration, i think i'm right about that. you're not new to this conversation so am i right about this? are there more people talking about it? i want to follow up about this stuff. >> you are right, more people are talking about it and realizing our mass incarceration is a scandal and a stain on the american character. and there is a conversation going on, particularly at the state level. not so much at the national level, yet there was one beginning before the election when several republicans and several democrats were discussing a bipartisan criminal justice reform program. and then of course the election and donald trump and jeff sessions are lock them up and throw away the key type. revive the drug war, put them away. and that is conflicting, clashing with the cinema that was developing in the country before the election. >> for those of us who know your history, we're on pbs, bu

no president since eisenhower, though all of the acknowledged that, wanted to untake it because the political cost of doing it was too high. the political capital required to pull to that off, domestically, politically, was too great. carter did it. he paid for it. he paid dearly for it. governor reagan when he was running against carter in the '80 election said -- he gave it away and it was ours. >> there's a story -- >> bought is, we paid for it. it's ours. >> we hadn't. >> there's a story that chris tells about jim baker and ronald reagan about saying, no, because the political costs are going to be -- he was driving -- being drivensomeplace -- this is juan case dramatic case when jim baker was on his way to -- in a car on his way to lunch at the madison hotel and got word that the president had somehow signed an order that would have the entire -- everyone in the cabinet strapped up to a polygraph and they would have to take a lie detector test about a leak. said turn the car around. he drove straight back to the white house, went bursting into the oval office. reagan was having lynch wit