Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal Robert Hartwig Discusses The National Flood Insurance... 20170830

Our fellow citizens what is taking place. We simply have no choice. Thats sunday night on cspan2s book tv. Continues. Host joining us from South Carolina, Robert Hartwig, a codirector of the center for risk and management, and previously the president for the Insurance Information institute of new york. Good morning. Guest glad to be here. Host we are talking about the National Flood Insurance Program. Can you remind our viewers what the purposes and why we have it . Guest the National Flood Insurance Program, in place 1968, provides coverage for people otherwise unable to obtain insurance against the disaster of flooding. Historically, a Flood Insurance has not been historically available to the private sector. This is not a new situation. It has been around for half a century. At this day and age, there is a debate on should the private sector play a greater role . It ensures currently about 5 Million People across the country and larger shares in places like florida, the texas gulf coast and other areas prone to flooding, especially on a regular basis. Host does the federal government take all of their risk for people who purchase these programs and how do they work in conjunction with insurers . Guest historically, it has assumed all of the risk. The policies are written through typically through your standard Homeowners Insurance company and you will work with your ordinary agent and you can work directly through the program. Many people use their local agent to purchase a policy but that is to facilitate the sale and make it easy to purchase or at the country in a way everyone is used to purchasing it. What typically happens is premiums are then ceded to the federal government and the federal government assumes the risk. If there is a claim, private insurers are typically the ones adjusting the claims and the reports to the federal government and the federal government ultimately reimburses insurers from many they pay. The important thing is the federal government uses the private insurance sector to sell the policy and to adjust claims on the back after a disaster. There has been a change recently, where for the First Time Ever, some of the risk in the National Flood Insurance Program was seated to pride it reinsurers, insurers for Insurance Companies, so historically, the u. S. Treasury has borne all of the risk, and this is part of the reason why in program is 25 billion debt. Recently, some share of the risks for severe flood events has been ceded to private reinsurers. Respect toth hurricane harvey, no Tropical Storm harvey, it appears that the private reinsurance sector, and that involves insurers from around the world, for the First Time Ever pay on the claims, a good move to protect taxpayers. Be specific, the National Flood Insurance Program has coverage in place and will cover the first 4 billion of loss and inality and then for losses excess, up to 8 billion and up to 26 of that will be paid for by private reinsurers. I expect for the First Time Ever, reinsurers will participate in losses related to get events. Host you heard him talk about andcurrent this go status the demand on it. You can ask him questions. Robert hartwig from university of South Carolina, so eastern and central time since, 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific, 202 7488001. If you are a texas or louisiana resident, 202 7488002. Robert hartwig, was it katrina that really caused the share of the current debt the program is seeing right now . Guest of the 25 billion in debt that it currently holds, which is the debt of the u. S. Taxpayer, yes, it was katrina that put the most deeply in the whole, added to by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The National Flood Insurance Program see was never able to retire its debt and there were many other storms that challenge their resources. And ike inta, wilma, texas, and sandy. What this means is that the National Flood Insurance Program is not collecting enough in the way of premiums to cover actual expenses in terms of claims. Y say is most dearest go well and they can pay with premiums that come in the door. In the world of insurance, just being close enough is not sufficient. Private insurers have to keep enough in the way of reserves and in the way of liquid resources to be able to pay claims, no matter their magnitude or how many there are or where they occur or when. The National Flood Insurance Program has fallen short of that for many reasons but if you want isthrow down to it, there that a lot of history that would support the idea that government run Insurance Programs typically run that well. Host would you say the government is offering this Insurance Program and it is then cheaply or are they too undervalued, is a typically cheap insurance . Guest there is no question that many individuals who receive their coverage throughout the United States through the National Flood Insurance Program are receiving premiums, are paying premiums in effect subsidized. In other words, they do not cover the expected costs associated with those properties, particularly repetitive loss properties. The only account for 1 or so of claims that the nfip sees, and the account for 35 to 40 of dollars that go up the door. Those homes and businesses are not paying anywhere close to the premium and other policyholders and taxpayers are being required to subsidize them. It becomes a politically contentious issue in terms of what should be charged for Flood Insurance amy adams and coastal areas Flood Insurance coverage and coastal areas, and because they are an economic engine that supports construction growth, employment, infrastructure growth, but whether this district happens to be represented by democrat or by republican, generally speaking, they were support the continuation of subsidies in these areas. Host again, Robert Hartwig our guest, and if you want to ask questions, lines are on the screen. Lets start in fort worth, texas. Betty, go ahead. Caller yes, i am reading from republicanlegram, i a Republican Legislature has just instituted a new deal called 1774, and this new law will make it harder for people to get money from the forces of nature, such as light, hail, rain storms, wind, snow storms, tornadoes, wildfires hurricanes, and the new law also shrinks the penalty for Interest Rate Insurance Companies must pay if they make late payments. Legislaturepublican that controls everything. Host Robert Hartwig, let me take that question to ask her about what a Homeowners Insurance policy covers when the comes to flood versus what someone receives under a flood plan or insurance from the government. Guest that is an important distinction. Private Homeowners Policies provide damage against wind damage, soaked to the extent harvey caused wind damage, that would be covered. If it tore your roof off and rain entered and a tree fell on your house and rain into that we, that would be covered. Flooder words, if it is a or storm surge, that is not and has never been covered by your standard Homeowners Insurance policy. Hence, that cap needs to be filled, and for most people, through a National Flood insurance for small businesses. There is a small, private Flood Insurance market. T is tightly underwritten by that, i mean the insurers that offer that coverage would want to make sure that your property is able to withstand flood to a significant extent. It is going to be priced appropriately. It will cover fully the risk they are assuming. With respect to a bill in the texas house, i cannot say specifically, but there has been a lot of efforts to try to intentionally reined in the increasing costs associated with National Disasters in terms of the federal aid that is being rolled out after the events. We have had events postkatrina, or senator postsandy, where cruz wasurz was a opposing a bill at that time. I do not think he will stand in the wake of the bill in association with texas. Host 202 7488000 percent to an eastern time zones. 202 7488001 for mountain and pacific. Texas and louisiana residents, 202 7488002. In delaware, go ahead. Caller i do not understand why taxpayers have to subsidize these areas, where there are known problems we constantly have year after year that we know is going to be flooded out on a regular basis. I live in delaware, we have constant problems year after year, yet taxpayers always have to pay for the beach erosion to get fixed and they had these multimillion dollar homes on beaches we have to subsidize on a regular basis. I do not think it is there for taxpayers to constantly do this, but we know there are no problems. When we know there are problems. It is ridiculous. Identifies theer subject of debate. Many economists, as well as many in washington in congress, think the same way, but on the other hand, there are many that do not. Whereou have an issue, you see sort of a separation in thinking between localities, which are dependent upon growth, for instance, in the coast of delaware or the coast of texas, which are dependent upon tourism , upon bringing individuals and businesses to spend money. That creates jobs. In order to do that, you do Everything Possible to try to make growth possible in these areas. That means blacks building codes or in building codes areas that avoid a storm surge. What we do over time is rather than make the problem better, you make it worse. One way you make it worse is subsidizing people and businesses to live in these areas. There have been proposals, upon the one reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program as it expires september 30 of this year and one would require that the fema and nfip no longer be insurance offer flood to any structure on any structure built in a flood zone, built after january 1, 2021. The idea behind that is that would give localities, businesses, homeowners an incentive to think once, twice and three times about what sorts of structures they are going to live in and where, how they could be constructed against the peril applied, including storm surge, and with this threeyear leave, a wicked insurers an opportunity to study the situation it would give insurers and opportunity to study the situation to appropriately locate homes and businesses in this area. The idea would be to get the federal government out, the taxpayer outcome and the private sector into this so that this is a winwinwin situation because homeowners and landowners would be less likely to experience flooding and structures built to withstand floods, even within a flood zone. Then they would be required to purchase coverage in the private insurance sector and private insurers would require or would have requirements that would be more stringent than currently exists through the National Flood Insurance Program today and hopefully, the taxpayer would be protected because when a private insurer suffers a boss, there is never a dime that would be requested by private insurers from the federal government to pay the claims. Host in florida is ben, go ahead. Caller i was wondering if i were good for Nothing Congress would consider repealing tax breaks for the wealthiest americans and consider garnering in trillions of dollars in offshore accounts . Thank you. Host i do not know park as is specifically related to that topic, but i want to read from becauseashington post the idea that private insurers to take the brunt of this, it says democrats oppose those provisions and they would cherry pick beast risky properties, what do you think about pick the least risky properties, what do you think about that . Best i think insurers would interested in underwriting a large share of the market under in currently by the nfip entry insurers would be interested in operating in this market, as well. Over time to the extent that premiums are allowed to migrate, generally migrating upward, to a level that reflects the risk, that will encourage private insurers and reinsurers to participate in the market and each would be when this policy that could happen impact on the taxpayer. It provides incentives that do not exist today to order fight, hardin, and zone structures in areas prone to flooding in a way that does not exist today and provides incentives for saying communities that want to maintain subsidies in order to essentially about almost unbridled growth in these areas. It allows an incentive to create structures, such as pumping infrastructure, building seawalls, love these, drainage love these, push levees levees, drainage systems and that will help reduce the exposure to taxpayers. Host in this story i read, the headline of the one over says that counties hardest hit, four out of five homeowners say they like Flood Insurance. Is this something required aspires purchasing and should that be the case question mark nobody case . Tost nobody is required purchase Flood Insurance unless you have a federally backed mortgage. Sometimes they take it out and do not maintain it over time. If you own your home or have a and unless thee bank and forces requirements, you do not have to have it very many people have come to believe that Flood Insurance is maybe something they can do without because they have come to believe if there is an event, there will be a federalaid package afterward and packages from the state and charity, but particularly from the federal government. They believe the government will bail them out. There is evidence in events like this that people come to view that, the large, federal aid packages, and there is tremendous pressure on whoever is president , tremendous pressure on president trump, just as with president obama and president bush, to provide large packages after the events. That is what we do as a country and we need to reach out to our fellow americans to make sure they are taken care of in their time of need, but is it the most efficient way to handle the recovery . Wave, aith a huge tidal synonymy of federal money in the aftermath of the event rather than investing it prior to the event in terms of zoning, location of homes, and the many things we can do to prevent flood loss before the flood occurs . By making those changes to the National Flood Insurance Program now, as it is about to be reauthorized at the end of september, but we can do is slowly over time harden the infrastructure of the United States, make us more resilient in terms of where we locate homes, businesses, that prepares us for the ordinary runofthemill hurricane, flood, melting snow, and against levels,at of rising sea which we see across the United States. This is a peril that will not go away. Hurricanes all have been no matter what but sea level rise, the severity of frequency in the events, we will have to see but no matter what, we are having rising sea levels and hurricanes. This is an issue worth investing in because of this going to be with us percent raise. Host from houston, texas, carolyn. Caller i just wanted to talk about Flood Insurance in terms of the governmentbacked insurance versus private insurance. That i have owned for 35 years that i have had Flood Insurance on that house for 35 years. The insurance was mandatory. I think i had a federally backed mortgage. I do not remember. I paid the house up years ago, but i now live in houston and i tried to get Flood Insurance itn i bought my house but was unavailable. Even through private insurance. Now, that house does not have Flood Insurance. I would like to get a refund back to the 35 years i spent on Flood Insurance new orleans, where when katrina hit, my house was not flooded, it has never been flooded, it is in a zone that does not generally polite, so a lot of us are paying in but not getting anything back. Do talk about people wanting to talk aboutage you people wanting to take advantage of the federal Flood Insurance program, but there are some of us who feel they have been taken advantage of for paying in when there is still need in areas we live. Host can i ask a couple of questions . Caller of course. Ift how much did you pay, you do not mind saying, in new orleans, what were your pain as far as the premium . The the preview the premium i paid her 30 years was 400. When katrina hit, the premium gradually creeped up and is about 700 now. The house is a very little value. It is a house i bought out of college with my low salary at the time, and the value of the down, but the premiums of the homeowners funds haveas well as gone up since katrina. Host for your houston home, you said you could not by Flood Insurance. Are you in a safe area, is it currently damaged . Caller as god would have it, i came to new orleans for a family event, so i am still in new orleans and not houston, so i do not know the status of my house. I am hoping and praying it is not flooded area it is in an area close to the reservoir, where water is being released into buffalo bayou. I have been trying to get notices from my neighbors to find out whether or not it is flooded. Regardless of whether it is, i do not have Flood Insurance and never received anything from fema in terms of refunds of any kind and i plan to take care of repairing my house, if needed, on my own with life savings. I do not rely on the federal government for things. However, i believe the federal government should play a role in taking care of people who cannot take care of themselves in terms of repairs from storms. I agree with potentially having zoning depending on where there is flooding. I think there should be zoning in areas where there are earthquakes. I also think the farm subsidies that occur across the country should be reconsidered. I also agree that the wall that mr. Trump is talking about building, use that money to help the people affected either storms. Host thank you. I appreciate your perspective twig, when it comes to what she talked about, what did you hear . Guest a couple of things, first, in terms of why she would not be able to get Flood Insurance where she currently lives in texas is not clear to me. Much of the houston area is in a flood some. Flood zone. Many of the areas that have flooded are not in flood zones. That is one of the reasons part of the nfip reforms we are remapping, but coverage is generally available, even outside of flood zones through your Insurance Agent or writeh the governments your own program. It would be rare youd be refused a policy domestic unity was not compliant with the National Flood Insurance Program regulations and stipulations. Again, i cannot get to the bottom of that. In terms of the caller says she paid for 30 years on a Flood Insurance premium in new orleans, obviously, new orleans is one of the most flood prone cities in the United States given the experience of katrina and other events. The Flood Insurance, like all insurance, she spoke about a refund for the fact she paid 30 years and never had it flood. I hear that people will say they paid for 10 years or 20 years on their Homeowner Insurance policy, never made a claim and would like to get some of the money back or same thing on an automobile policy. That is not the Way Insurance works. You are making a bet in some sense, an annual bet, and you are betting by paying 400 a year, in terms of the caller, and the insurer is betting it will not. That restarts each year when your policy renews. Theres no account that accumulates the fund. The funds not used to pay your claims are used for others. That is the concept of insurers. It is based on pooling. That is how insurance works, by spreading risk over a wide Geographic Area in the case of the nfip, the entire country. Does make a few good points and she did underscore the things i said earlier about she agrees with the need for perhaps requirements are restrictions and zoning in terms of where homes and businesses are located. I think everyone can agree on that that it makes little sense to continue to locate structures in harms way, when we know it certainty, at some point, they will be flooded and potentially flooded in a severe way. That is one of the definitions of insanity, to keep doing the same thing and expect Something Else to happen. That is what we have been doing with the Flood Insurance program for fit the years. Ething has got to change for 50 years. Something has got to change. We have heard once, there is resistance to that. There is bipartisan resistance to this on the democrat and republican side. There will be severe resistance to eliminating the subsidies in areas most prone to flooding. Host our guest from the university of South Carolina is Robert Hartwig. He is the codirector previously and president and economist or the Insurance Information institute. What is that . Guest it is a property casual Insurance Agency association. Most of the industries are our members across the country. At the university of South Carolina, i am a professor of finance, risk and management insurance, where we work to help stimulate learning in the area and research in the area of Risk Management and insurance. Host from massachusetts, rich. Caller go ahead. I hate to tell you this but from what you are saying, it says Risk Management codirector. I think with the people, you are and in Texas Hold Em massachusetts, a lot of people do not take Flood Insurance. Wantt to the backup i you to back up and tell us the difference between your state of massachusetts. Guest if i understand the caller correctly, what might be the difference between texas and massachusetts, which happens to be my home state, it is true that many people in massachusetts, although this is the case in many states, to not have fled coverage, even in areas prone to flooding. Those will be coastal areas, the islands, cape cod, you name it, and then along some rivers, the Connecticut River in those areas. Massachusetts is at lower risk than a state like texas. The coastal areas are flagged as a pancake flat as and have seen tremendous Economic Growth. It pales in comparison massachusetts would pale in comparison to the Economic Growth we have seen in coastal areas of texas and other areas, such as coastal areas of florida and along many of the rivers and seacoast of the southeast. That is part of the issue. One of the biggest problems driving these losses. A lot of people talk about Climate Change and rising fee levels, and there is some role there up some proportion of losses that may be attributed to this. However, it is the rapid population growth, the rapid Economic Growth, the unbridled construction and building that we have seen in many areas that have helped foster Economic Growth that is faster in the southeastern part of the United States, including texas, relative to the northeast. That is going to continue going forward. That is the big difference. In both states, we see few people, homeowners and businesses purchase Flood Coverage. Host if the person pays the premiums for Flood Insurance, what is the cap on what they should get back, should they get a claim . Purchased a policy through the National Flood insurance policy, the most you can get is 250,000 in coverage. That will cover most but now with home prices rising in many parts of the country rapidly, it will not cover all of it. There have been proposals to raise the limits to Something Like 500,000. That would run counter to the notion that the federal government should not be involved in Flood Insurance. In fact, perhaps more should be done to encourage private insurers to have access club coverage on top of what the National Flood Insurance Program is currently offering. If you are increasing the limits to the National Flood Insurance Program and you do not adjust the price, you are therefore increasing the subsidy available. The coverage is meant to be limited. Despite the fact that it is available, affordable, the fast majority of people prone to floods, except in a few counties in the United States, do not purchase it. Host here is melanie from new orleans. Go ahead. Caller there was a country, i forgot denmark or the netherlands, that 16 feet low sea level and they flooded. The people got together, built a dam and they have never flooded since. I do not know why in all this time they have not learned with that country did to stop the flooding. If we can walk on the moon, why cant we solve this problem . Thank you. Guest the caller brings up a good point. The country she is referring to is the netherlands. The netherlands, much of the land there is reclaimed from the sea, and netherlands decades ago to basicallys sums seal itself off from the flooding that typically came from the sea and destroyed villages, homes, farms and so forth. A big differences the netherlands is a very small country. Its coastline is relatively small. The coastline of the United States is many hundreds of times, including inlets and so on, thousands of times larger than that of the netherlands. Trillions of dollars to build the equivalent infrastructure in the United States that they see in the netherlands. Even then, i do not think it would be practical from an engineering perspective. That said, what the caller is saying is that what she sees is value in the investment of infrastructure that would help reduce the severity and frequency of flooding. That is an excellent point. Currently, given we have a policy of subsidizing homes, as in. In coastal businesses coastal areas, we do not zone to discourage this. We need to adopt a consensus, and there are some reforms proposed that would do this, that would provide incentives to invest in the kind of infrastructure on a smaller scale, but along the lines of what they have done in the netherlands. Talked earlier about seawalls, drainage systems, which they have in the netherlands, as well, in order to handle times when water accumulates. We need investments in all of these. At the same time, the people of the netherlands are not building major cities feet from their seawell. So they are building in a way that would be viewed far more sustainably then we see in the United States. In countries like the netherlands, they have a long history of talking about the issue of sea level rise, even before people talked about it in the context of Climate Change. Curvere well ahead of the in that country. We should learn from them. You are right. And we should learn from other countries dealing with this issue now and find the most efficient ways to spend taxpayer dollars in the dollars of the private sector to make the investments necessary to prevent events like a harvey or katrina from happening again in the future. I will note that while the flooding is occurring, there are some comparisons made the katrina, but the one i want to make is important, 1800 people died in katrina. Essentially all of them unnecessarily. In harvey so far, we are looking at a 99 reduction in terms of the number of deaths associated with that event. Changes have been made since katrina, a lot of changes to the emergency, response and morning infrastructures in taking events seriously so that the death toll is basically 99 less, somewhere around 20 relative to 1800 compared to katrina. That is a separate issue in terms of how to strengthen buildings, but if we had had the wherewithal for the last 12 years to invest in the Public Safety infrastructure and save lives, that means we could have the wherewithal as a nation to invest in infrastructure necessary to protect property forward, as well. Host lets hear from brooklyn, new york. Adam, hi. Caller i won it to make a point when you talk about the nfip and the costrized of homeowners, during sandy, i think they found private insurers make multimillion dollars in profits, 400 million off whatfrom skimming the homeowners should have been paid and they put their own money in their own profits. When you talk about the cost of hard for i think it is people to be paid that Flood Insurance and they did not get the payer or were shortchanged and did not get to rebuild their homes. There is going to be Flood Insurance reforms, surely private insurers who skim the money out the top should be part of the equation. Regardless of that, there is a lot of homeowners that do pay Flood Insurance and they are inually getting high spikes the amounts they pay now, and i feel like those people, and many of those, where in risk zones but no higher risk zones because remapping, change, and they are being forced to pay a lot more money, thousands more, and potentially tens of thousands more, and being forced out of their homes. These are people who have been living in homes or 100 years that did not flood and are now flooded. Host thank you. To the point he made about mapping, who is involved in that process and what forces have a play in crafting where the fled zones exist and areas of risk exist . Guest to address one thing the caller said about insurers disagreemoney, i would with that. Insurers earned a fee for adjusting claims and billions and billions of dollars are paid to the people of new jersey, new york and connecticut in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. In terms of mapping, nfip the dead the nfip does have a mandate to update maps that show degrees of Flooding Risk throughout the country and that is a daunting task because it is not static. We have found many of the areas that flood now days did not flood historically. They be some is due to weather patterns and Climate Change but a lot has to do with patterns of development in communities. After sandy, many of the flood maps or 20 years old and many of the areas that once used to be fields or estuaries were now buildings. That means the water has to go somewhere and it went someplace else. New jersey has a notorious flooding problem. Which of brooklyn and queens is lowlying, even parts of one hatton vulnerable manhattan vulnerable. There is a debate on how to harden the infrastructure against a teacher sandylike event. We will see. Against a future sandeelike event. We will see. The reauthorization of the nfip would push it to accelerate its remapping program, currently underway, and that is needed. The good news is when the nfip was developed in 1968, we did not have satellite technology, supercomputers. Nowadays, we have all kinds of technology that allows mapping to proceed in greater detail to be analyzed and shared. Just nfip internally with not just internally with nfip but to be put online. They can analyze that risk and to help the federal government understand what the risk of not just flooding for rivers is, but the increase risk associated with storm surges. We are seeing efforts through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a lot of privatesector modeling Companies Get involved because the data can be shared and online for next to nothing. That allows private Sector Companies to get into this and there have been Great Strides in understanding flood risk relative to what we do 30 years to 50 years ago. That means this is the reason we see private sector insurers and reinsurers more interested in getting into this market. Cannot compete with subsidized premiums. Insurers will need to operate in an environment where there are allowed to charge a premium that truly reflects the risk and homeowners and Business Owners will hopefully be able to coverage seamless coverage, like they had currently, for perils wind, and many other things they would file a claim for. I think many homeowners and Business Owners would love that opportunity and insurers above the Business Opportunity to provide that. Host one more call from deborah in new york. Caller good morning. President trump has signed executive orders deregulating businesses, and under that type would people on the coastal areas of the United States want to have more zoning, when in fact, to have probusiness is to have less regulations . I would like to have the professor speak to that. Guest it is a very good question. You are right. The Trump Administration has talked about being probusiness and rolling back regulations but also about smaller government, reducing deficits and those sorts of things. The way to achieve these goals simultaneously is to the National Flood Insurance Program reauthorization is if you require businesses built after 2021, for instance, he for bid them from being able to purchase Flood Coverage and they have to purchase it from the private sector. This would protect the taxpayer in the long run. Because you protected the taxpayer, you have put it on the of thoser buyer buildings. You have put it on city councils. If they want to continue to attract economic development, they will have to rely on something other than federal subsidies to do that. It is a winwin situation. The Trump Administration could achieve a goal of scaling back government involvement in these areas that would reduce regulations that the communities face. The same communities would face an incentive that it a want to grow business, population, jobs and wealth, they will have to make their communities safe and sound. The way you make it safe and sound is to invest in flood related infrastructure that will help a business and community feel safe. I think by scaling back subsidies over the long run, we achieved the goal of more private sector produce a patient, scaling back government participation, protecting the taxpayer and creating a more was a infrastructure and Community Across the United States. Host he spoke about reauthorization. What happens if some resolve is not met amongst legislators before the september 30 deadline . Ign. T confusion will re banks would require that Flood Insurance be purchased. You will probably see a slowdown in mortgage origination, mortgages that are federally backed, which is the majority in the United States, and i would expect banks to take a wait and see attitude, so we may see a slowdown in terms of sales of homes in flood prone areas for an amount of time. I think congress will get past this. It seems there was an up agreement on a bipartisan basis to come up with a solution. Not that there will not be arguments, but i do not think this will be along the lines of a health care debate. Host Robert Hartwig with the university of South Carolina, talking about the tonight, political analysts discuss the future of the republican party. A consultant looked at the recent rise in White Nationalism and how it is threatening to alienate younger voters. Heres more. Not to be cynical, but if White Nationalism would cause the death of one of the Major Political parties, then one of them would already be dead because both of them have had experiences of highlevel people who harbored white racist views. Thats one way of answering the question. Another way to look at it is when Hillary Clinton made her basket of deplorables remark in late september or early october, it was instantly regarded by her own camp her own campaign as a gaffe. The group that really embrace that designation is the group that we now refer to as the altright. But the idea that there was some sort of thing going on there was known to voters when they entered the voting booths in november of 2016 and donald trump still got elected. I dont look at this and think the party is going to die because of that. If they were going to, it would have already happened. Just some of the recent discussion of the future of the republican party. You can watch the entire event at 8 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Other prime time programming includes book tv on cspan2 with authors currently on the reading lists of members of congress. The cold war tonight and American Culture of the 1950s on cspan3. Book tv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading the summer. Tell us about the books you are reading this summer. I would be delighted to tell you that. Im going to try to undertake something im quite fond of literally. There are three books about , the earlysevelt years, middle years and the prewar and postwar years. To be my project for the summer, to try to read all three of these volumes. Is ank Eleanor Roosevelt extraordinary influence on our public policy. In her way, and what she espoused, and the differences between herself and franklin roosevelt. Theres another one, i dont know that i will get to it, its about the firebrand and the first lady. It is a big undertaking and im excited to be able to do it and learn from a great role model. Next book tv wants to know what you are reading. Send us your Summer Reading was the atwitter at book tv or book underscore tv or post it to our facebook page. Book tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Today, aflcio president Richard Trumka spoke about the future of the Labor Movement and its relations with the Trump Administration. He looked at how his group feels about nafta renegotiations, the future of wage growth and the reasons he left