We happen to be a part of. If you look at the old and the new testament there is a consistent and clear teaching that we are to exercise that citizenship in a robust and muscular fashion. To defend our rights within the government which of course in the United States means our rights under the constitution and the bill of rights. Two freedom of speech and assembly. All of those things that are birth rate and then secondly as a witness of our faith. In the context of the decision by the overwhelmingly majority of evangelical christians and prolife and profamily catholics to back trump those in 2016 and today my argument is that if you look at where he stands on the issues they would define as moral issues. Issues like the right to life. Moving the courts in the direction. Treating it as a legislature. Those are all issues that in my view and in the view of tens of millions of these voters are defining moral issues. That are central to their core as people of faith. Donald trump pledged to have their values and fight for them and advance them a pledge that he has kept and Hillary Clinton and i would argue now joe biden are on the opposite side of everyone of those issues. Not that they didnt had reservations about trump they did. And i document that in the book it was a struggle for many of the voters. They made the right call. Not just politically but morally and they had been vindicated. For making that call because he kept those promises. What are some examples of how he has kept those promises. I actually have a 30 page appendix in the book it details all of this. And whatever you think of trump it is an extraordinary record of achievement. On the life issue. It is the first it was the first one to not come in person. That is not just symbolism. It sets the tone for the culture. The first president for roe versus wade. The largest Abortion Provider in the world today. About a half a billion dollars per year in taxpayer funding and has taken steps to end that. He also moved the u. S. Embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem recognizing jerusalem as the capital of israel. And as believers in the idea that defending jews in supporting israel as part of our faith that is important to us and finally, in his Court Appointment its easy to forget this that he was the First Major Party candidate for president in American History to release a list of 21 names with a vacancy on the Supreme Court on election day and say if you elect me president and i can to pick someone like at least 21 people im going to choose one of these 21. Now when he did that in may of 2016. His critics accused him of being a liar. You cant trust him. We dont believe him. There was this snarky commentary he wasnt true in his marriages so hes not going to be true in this promise. They were all wrong. He not only kept that promise in february of 2017 when he appointed neil grotius he kept it again. They are both on the Supreme Court today. He is kept in another 200 times about 50 times with Appellate Court judges in the rest District Court judges. In bible believing christians. Those are important promises to keep because we think upholding our right to religious freedom ultimately it would be determined by the court. You had mentioned the prolife position of the president a couple of times and in your book for god and country you write i have heard a lot of formerly prochoice candidates explain how they came to their prolife views in my career but if you have more genuine stories than trump. I detail in the book. I detail the fact that i got to know the president in 2011 he literally cold called me. Never met him before in my life honestly did not have a high opinion of him. When he called me i told him that. I said the next time youre in new york. I did. I told him if he was serious about ready running for president he should come to one of the events my organization and get to know some of these evangelical activists. He did it repeatedly. And one of the times that i meant for him met him. He raised it. He said i used to be prochoice but let me type what happened. I do good friend of mine who became pregnant, and it was inconvenient or unplanned pregnancy and by the way most are. She didnt really know what to do her husband wanted her to have an abortion. And this woman who was a good friend of his and he and milani were good friends of this couple what do you think i should do. He literally did not know what to say to this person. Long story short she made the decision to keep the child. The child does not know that she was nearly aborted. She certainly doesnt know that trump knows that but he watched this woman grow up knowing that and in his telling to me she is an amazing woman. And a star. He said so i started thinking to myself she almost didnt make it thats when i decided that they were probably millions of people like that who are with us i cant judge his heart. I dont know whether or not that change of heart was genuine or politically calculated. But it sounded genuine to me. And whatever the facts are and only god can judge our hearts. He is the most prolife president we ever had. He kept his word and i can ive been i can get surreal. Think its real. You mentioned that you did not have a high opinion of donald trump in 2011. And you write that christians are not seeking a political savior so there is a political calculus here . There is certainly a calculus as citizens and i walk through in my book and i talk a little bit about it in answer to a previous question that you have that we are called upon as citizens i believe the first of all to defend our rights and i talk about in the book about how when the apostle paul was arrested in jerusalem and this is all detailed in the book of acts. It was good to be a kangaroo court. They exercise the most precious rate of a roman citizen which was to appeal his case to caesar. It was unbelievable sacred right of a roman citizen and in the roman world very few people actually very few people were citizens. He was. And to caesar he went he did ultimately die but i thought it was interesting that while he was willing to i for the gospel he wasnt willing to surrender his right as a roman. Who was a notorious sexual deviant, pedophile, he murdered his opponent and had their bodies float down the tiber river to intimidate his critics. He was not a good man. But thats who paul appealed to. Thats the first thing we are called to do. The second thing we are called to do is to advance the common and moral good. And i quote Ronald Reagan in his famous address to the National Association of evangelicals in 1983, york at the checkout of citizenship and say both sides are flawed. You got to choose a side. He was talking about communism versus capitalism but it applies today in our own context. The third thing we are called to do is to resist evil. I believe abortion on demand is a moral evil and trump is offering to resist that. That in a sense is the argument. Thats the christian case, not that hes perfect because none of us are perfect not but he is without sin because all of us in. On these aspects of a true understanding of citizenship he is someone who we can work with and who is offered to defend these things in advance the common good. Mr. Ralph reeds longtime political strategist and activist and insider. Do you see this president as suffering more slings and arrows than previous occupants of the office . It seems to come with the office. If you studied and read American History as i have and you read the things that were said about thomas jefferson, he was an infidel and aafter the french government. That sounds a little reminiscent doesnt it . The things that were said about abraham lincoln, the things said about fdr that he wanted to be a dictator so it does kind of come with the territory but i think in trumps case at least in the modern political era, postworld war ii, ive never seen anything like it. I think part of it is because he takes on the media stuff he gives as good as he gets and they try to pay him back. Ive never seen coverage this negative, this unfair, this weathering and chapter 14 of the book is about that. Think about this. He was under investigation or at least his campaign was while he was running for president by the fbi and the Justice Department an investigation that continued after he was sworn in. Based on the false predicate that he might be an asset of russia. A hostile foreign power. We now know that was a complete lie. It was based on Opposition Research that was alive from the Hillary Clinton campaign i dont think anything like that has ever happened before in American History. Back to your book impeachment was a fools errand. Mr. Reed in our current political world a unfortunately, i was in the room so to speak during the clinton impeachment in 1998 99. Impeachment has always been a political weapon by definition. I think that was the case in 1867 with andrew johnson. I think the bar has really been lowered. I think he was lowered when republicans impeach clinton and i argued that at the time. I was in the room. I was part of Newt Gingrichs Speaker Advisory Group was that of the Christian Coalition and i certainly didnt agree with what bill clinton did. And having the affair with an intern and lying about it under oath. I question whether or not it was advisable, given the fact that that impeachment was dead on arrival in the senate to proceed. I think i was right there. There were many people felt that this undermined the rule of law and i certainly didnt disagree with that. Its been cheapened even more under pelosi. I think it essentially became a partisan tool and with the joke and i think that if you go out and conduct a poll today and ask people what they thought of impeachment i think its good to be viewed through a partisan lens depending upon who the voter is. I think thats unfortunate. It seems to be that partisan backandforth. What did you think of the president s walk with st. Johns episcopal . I strongly supported it. I released a statement at the time to that effect. I supported it for two reasons, because i think the president was making a strong and powerful statement by walking across Lafayette Park that we are not going to allow our cities or our streets to be taken over by criminals, by looters, and by domestic terrorists. Burn down businesses shoot Police Officers and in the case of st. Johns tried to burn down one of the most sacred ecclesiastical spaces in our country. Thats wrong, its over the line, it dishonors the memory of george floyd. Its contrary to everything doctor Martin Luther king preached, live, and talk, and its ultimately counterproductive to addressing the very real issue of racism, discrimination, and Police Brutality. The second message he was sending is that while we need to fight the evil of racism and while we need Public Policy responses to racism and Police Brutality and i support all that, my organization faith and Freedom Coalition lobbied for years for criminal Justice Reform so that africanamericans who we believe had been unfairly incarcerated under mass incarceration would get a Second Chance at life. Not just africanamericans but disproportionately those of color. Ultimately the answer to what ails our country including the original set of racism can be found in the repentance, the forgiveness, and the redemption that is found to the gospel. By going there, trump was saying that. I strongly supported. Ralph reed another topic you cover in your book for god and country as Vice President mike pence in pence, trump gained what all president s want but if you get, and effective loyal advocate who has no agenda other than to advance and protect a single client, namely the president. Right. I am biased because mike pence is a friend of mine and i talked about it in the book. I got to know him when he came to congress in the early up. We became friends. We would have him speak at faith and Freedom Events around the country when he is a congressman. I think very highly of him. I talked about the book some of the behindthescenes stories about how he ended up on the ticket. Stories he shared with me and i think that mike pence is one of the finest vice presidency ever had. I know the president is grateful to have him and another president loves him, thinks very highly of him, and values his counsel tremendously. I couldnt tell all the stories i know in the book about the role hes played in the administration but i share some of them. Even though mike pence is obviously a person of great ambition of his own, i personally think a godly ambition. I think his main and only consideration is to serve the president and his country and i think hes and done an incredible job including heading up the White House Coronavirus task force. He is one of the finest Public Servants have ever gone to know in my career and im glad hes there at another president is too. Whats been your involvement with the Trump Administration as an advisor, etc. In front of the president in front of the Vice President , and obviously afraid of a lot of people who have served there or serve there now. Thats my main role. I support them. I do everything i can to work with them to make their job easier. Its a very tough job. In addition to that, i serve on the White House Faith Initiative and in my capacity as head of faith and freedom we will work closely with the white house and a lot of Public Policy matters including the life issue, criminal Justice Reform, immigration reform. Many of the issues we work with them. Ive got a great team at faith and freedom and they are in the white house on a weekly basis working on those issues to advance that Public Policy. When you look at the hard numbers, what percentage of evangelical support donald trump over joe biden . In 2016 they supported donald trump at the highest level ever recorded in modern american political history. He got 81 percent of the vote. Hillary got 16. I dont know ive seen a ballot test yet that had an evangelical sample considered reliable yet. Right now the president s job approval, which is a fairly good indication, depending upon the poll is somewhere between 65 and 75 . Thats about where he was in the polling in the summer of 2016 and i think once we get past the pandemic and have more reopening we can have a Real Campaign and biden picks his running mate and we have the convention. I think it will be the high 70s to mid 80s and i predict that evangelicals who will vote for the president and even larger numbers than they did in 2016. And for good reason. Given all that hes achieved is richly deserved their support. Are there enough evangelicals to help bring donald trump over the finish line in 2020 . Not by themselves but they are a very critical constituency. They are 27 percent of the entire electorate. When you combine the number of mainline christians who dont identify as evangelical but consider the bible to be the word of god, they pray daily, the go to church weekly, they wouldnt subscribe to that term born again but they share the faith and frequently mass attending roman catholics, roughly 36 percent of the electorate. Its bigger than the africanamerican vote, the hispanic vote, the union vote combined. Theyre gonna turn out in big numbers and they really matter and particularly those prolife catholics. They are going to make or break the president ial race in the upper midwest in those critical states of michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania. They are really important and they are not the only constituency but they are the largest, the most dynamic, and the most vibrant constituency in the entire electorate. One of the things you do in for god and country, at the end of the book you look at 2020. You do it through the lens of 2016. 6. 5 billion was spent overall in all the 2016 elections and you say its going to be an increase that the democrats in the left are registering voters at a faster pace than the republicans. What does the landscape look quick to you today given everything we are going to . Obviously, peter, i wrote the book prior to the pandemic. That kind of forced both campaigns to go all virtual and online. For some period of time. The president announced he is about to begin his rallies again and i believe the first one will be in the next 10 days to two weeks. I understand its gonna be in oklahoma. We will see what happens but prior to this, the educated projections were that the two sides would spend 10 billion between them. I dont know whether we will hit that number now or not. We are continuing to register voters at faith and freedom. The overwhelming majority of churches are closed but in those states where we can, we are doing it doortodoor in doing it online. Im sure the left is as well. I think we are going to have the biggest turnout in American History and a president ial race both in raw numbers and in the share of the electorate. The biggest share of the registered voters that weve had since 1968. Its going to be big. Its going to be close. Its going to be hard thought. Because theres going to be so much alliance on absentee voting early voting and mailin ballots, because of the pandemic, candidly i cant predict but because it takes longer to vote cast those vote in the can be postmarked as late as election day depending upon the state, we may not even know the winner in some of the states for days. Its gonna be Something Like weve never seen before. Ralph reed, some people dont know you have a phd in history from emory university. What was your field of study . My field of study was the focus was the south. It was American History since 1855. Focus primarily on the cell. I studied under the some of the finest historians in the country at that time, dan t carter and jim rourke who were on my dissertation committee. How did you come to your politics . I think the best way i can describe it, i was raised in a republican household that was kind of always made background. The way i really kind of got fired up and engaged was a guy from california named Ronald Reagan i was a student at the university of georgia he ran for president in 1980 nothing against carter personally like have great admiration for him as a christian but i did feel his policies and leadership were given my generation the brightest future for us in the country. I got really excited about Ronald Reagan and went out and worked my tail off for him and i was a reaganite and that was really the beginning and then i really never looked back. You have an image of Ronald Reagan is a happy warrior. Would you describe donald trump in that way . I would say yes with a heavy dollop of queens new york. He is coming from a little bit of a different soul social and cultural location than i am. I have Great Respect for that. I think we are all unique based on our upbringing, our experiences, our background, our family needs a very unique individual. Had the privilege of sitting in his office on a lot of occasions and every now and again people would just walk in and talk to him or he take a phone call and i couldnt believe he would let me just sit there and have a birdseye view to how he operated but but i got quite an education on what it was like to be in the Real Estate Industry in manhattan just listening to him talk and be who he was. I think hes a happy warrior. I think he believes in the country, hes a patriot, he thinks the best yet to come. He very much believes that things that other people dont think can happen can happen. He dreams big. He thinks big and he acts big. He is a counter puncher. Everybody knows that. He looks for the best and he believes the best and i have to say, i talk about this in the book, that even though i didnt have a high opinion of him going in, and i told him that, i found him to be impossible not to like. I connected with him from that very first phone call. And i really grew to like him and love him and his family. Its an extraordinary family and he is an american original. Amazing what hes done. As a historian, do you see parallels to 1968 . Yes and no. Where in the middle of the longest war anyone had ever been in at that time. I think it was more divisive then by far. You had chicago, the Democratic Convention just completely turned upside down i dont think we have anything quite like that. Each time you make it unique each time its different. What about the president running as a law and order president . I say yes and no. I think its a very different time. It remains to be seen whether or not the protests related to the george floyd episode ever rise to the occasion that we saw in terms of the riot and the demonstrations that rose out of the tragic assassination of Martin Luther king and then later the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in april and june 1968. My own hope, its my desire, i dont know whether it will happen, but im hopeful and praying that it will that the democrats are going to pass some kind of a Police Reform bill in the house. I think tim scott working i hope on bipartisan basis, tim scott the africanamerican republican senator from South Carolina will offer what i hope will be a bipartisan bill in the senate hopefully we can get to the Conference Committee and resolve those bills and the president can sign Bipartisan Legislation sometime this summer. Ralph reed is the former chair of the Republican National a its competitive, no question about it, it was in 2016 it was in 2018 it will be hardfought, we have two u. S. Senate races that are on the ballot in two senate races because of the retirement of Johnny Isaacson and the appointment of Kelly Leffler as his replacement by governor brian kemp. That will be an open primary on november 3 that will then be resolved by runoff. Then the other senate seat, david produced senate seat, we now know that john also is either likely or certain i cant remember where that was resolved with the democratic primary. In the president ial race i think in 2016 was three, four, five percent and probably will be again. Its a battleground state it will be hardfought remains to be seen how much money democrats are willing to put in here, how much can they invest . Hillary came in here but not with the huge amount of money. Donald trump won it and i think donald trump wow waited again. Lets finish with this from your book for god and country you asked this question, as a christian i believed god was sovereign in the affairs of nations. Good prophets have ordered this moment, the trump presidency, contrary to our own ambitions and expectations. If you believe as i do that god is sovereign in the affairs of men and women and nations the answer is yes, contrary to what we expected and i document in the book, two thirds of evangelical voters supported somebody else on the republican primaries. He was not their first choice. He did win the evangelical vote but in a crowded field. The united behind him after he became the nominee. They did it expect this to happen. I think its fair to say that most pundits, most pollsters, most socalled experts and certainly the media didnt expect it to happen. But that would be equally true as a christian for me with george w. Bush or obama or clinton or anybody else. Gods ways are higher than our way. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and he has plans of reason that we dont completely understand. When someone is in leadership or authority they are in that position either providentially or within the larger design. Even when we may disagree with them, even when they might be equal ruler, thats just my belief and what my faith teaches. Thats why ultimately our hope, i make this clear in the book, we are not looking to donald trump or any other president or any other politician to be our savior or to be our deliverer. Our hope and our ultimate hope is in jesus christ. And for now we may vote for politicians but we dont give them our ultimate loyalty, that belongs only to god. Did you ever consider seminary . [laughter] yes but not seriously. I thought about it. I dont think i missed my calling i think i was called to do what im doing now. Ralph reed is the author of this book for god and country christian case for trial. This is book number what for you . I believe its 7. Thanks for joining us on booktv. Thanks peter, its always an honor and pleasure to be with cspan. Here are some of the current bestselling nonfiction books according to new york city strand bookstore. During the Virtual Program hosted by the library of congress. Heres a portion of that event. The striking thing the press wants to give a certain amount of attention to the conflict based stories of people who are calling for reopening of america. On the whole the population people have been fairly compliant with the need to take actions to protect the common will, not just yourself but the larger community, love your neighborhood, your city, your town. I think there actually has been a lot that has already happened. Some that edges out the political gridlock, hyper polarization of recent American History since 2008 really. The trends in polarization are different. But it would take a lot of leadership at the National Level for Economic Reforms that could over much greater tragedy than what we are experiencing right now. A lot of leadership at the congressional level. I wouldnt exactly call that an opportunity but there is absolutely a call for a kind of political courage and political will that has largely been absent from the american seat for quite some time. To watch this and all of our coverage of jill lepores book on American History visit our website booktv. Org and search for her name in the box at the top of the page. Good evening, every saturday night throughout the summer booktv is putting on several hours of a wellknown author. Kind of our twist on binge watching. Tonights featured author s historian David Mccullough the author of a dozen books including bestselling histories on the american revolution, the invention of manned spaceflight the settlement of the Northwest Territory and the creation of the brooklyn bridge. He is a two time winner both Pulitzer Prize and National Book award and appeared on booktv and cspan over 75 times. Coming up over the next several hours we will show you some of those programs. First up in 1992 he appeared on cspans book not programmed to talk about his biography of president harry truman. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and hope to change the view of the truman presidency. Here is David Mccullough from 1992. David mccullough, and your last chapter called citizen Truman Truman had held to the idea of the mythical roman heroes cincinnatus. Whats that all about . Cincinnatus was the mythical hero who left the plow, left the farm to go to the aid of his country in time of war and became a great general and it was victorious and then he renounced all of his
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