I would like to welcome everyone, there might be big news today in american politics, but it aint nothing compared to this, which is so much bigger insignificance, and opportunity for us to celebrate eric alterman. With his new book lying in state why president s lie and why trump is worse we are going to spend, my name is Leonard Bernardo by the way, Vice President of the open society foundations, hosting this event, i should say that we are going to talk for around 45 minutes, give or take, then we have enough time for another 45 minutes of questions, those questions that you would like to share with eric and maia and me should be sent to questions opensocietyfoun dations. Org. You can also do this via twitter and you can also if you really need to, do it via facebook. We are recording this event. Its being live cast and its going to be quite a show. We have someone i have known and admired for a very long time, maia wiley with us as a discussant. Meyer, who is been a very long time civil rights lawyer and activist, former chair of new york citys civilian Complaint Review board to form a Corporation Counsel to his honor, william de blasio Current University professor at the new school and ongoing legal and maoist at both nbc news and msnbc. A great pleasure to be with you here. The person of honor, eric alterman, a distinguished professor at Oakland College in the english faculty, a person who has had a fourth nightly column in the nation since i think i was in diapers but continues going. On liberal media, eric has been the recipient of a s of fellowships and awards over the years, testament to his important work as a journalist, historian, has written many books from Bruce Springsteen to liberalism to the perfidy of American Media and then this question of president ial lying that we are going to interrogate today. Welcome, eric, welcome, maia and welcome everyone who has joined this live cast. I thought, eric, i could begin by a pretty general opening question to you about why it is that you wrote this book, what you learn from this because for the dissertation online some years ago at stanford that became the book some 15 years ago online what made you return to the theme of mendacity looking across the gamut of American History and, what did you get out of this . Thank you so much lenny, thank you maia, im deeply honored for your presence here, i mean that. And thank you to the foundation. I appreciate that question because its a meaningful question. I actually was under contract to write a different book when the talk of donald trump selection took place. And that january i went away for my birthday with my daughter for a little vacation and i was reading ron terminals book on the whataburger family, a very important wealthy German Jewish family, a significant number of whom remained in germany throughout the hitler years and ended up dying one way or another. I wasnt in my mind comparing trump to hitler, still am not, but i was amazed that all different signs that they were able to ignore and commit the family and convincing everything was good to be okay when it was not going to be okay. I had this thought then that i wanted to account for myself in this period of trumps presidency because it was something so unusual and no one knew where it was going to go. I thought, what do i know . I know president ial lying because i wrote my dissertation and my previous book on which was case study of abit begins with George Washington through donald trump. I thought, thats the contribution i could make and that way when my daughter, who just graduated college, no pressure, once she has children one day they say, daddy, what did you do during the Trump Presidency i will hand them this book. Thats how it happened. Now im back to work on the original. Some second part of your question. I have a phd in American History, ive written a lot of books that are mostly history book, even the springsteen book. But, and most of my writing has been about the media or u. S. Foreignpolicy. The cold war and abthe way it made president s lie, battered and shock me, i was ready for that. What shocked me is the neutrality of White Supremacy in the history of the need for president ial lying. If you asked me in the pretrump period what are the two main drivers of president ial lying, number one is White Supremacy because we are not in a nation where all men are created equal much less all women, we are a nation where a lot of people have to be put in certain places so that other people can feel superior to them and thats been a constant theme of American History from slavery through the expansion into latin america and the philippines etc. , it all had to be done in that context that for president he couldnt tell the truth about how the people nonwhite were being treated because it was in direct competition with the fundamental myth of this country. The second driving force which changed over time and may be changed fundamentally under trump. Begins with the need for constant expansion that began very early with jefferson and lewis and clark and so on. And becomes when we run out of territory to expand in north america, Frederick Jackson turner is a great thesis which i believe was 1896 we start expanding overseas and become an empire. Then following world war ii we get this definition of National Security which encompasses our empire but completely limitless. That idea of constant expansion of empire of the fact that other countries are not allowed to take their own form of government because it conflicts with our idea of National Security, that also conflicts with the myths that we are taught and expected to believe in politicians. All of these things come together and track president s into lives. Let me just push you a little bit on the question of lying specifically. What you just described in terms of manifest destiny, in terms of at least the implication the 3 5 clause in the constitution, this of course is nothing new, tell me what you feel is new or novel or distinct about this master category of lying that is going to add to the broader understanding even if synthetically, of American History. First of all i want to say this is alcohol, this is a vodka martini and this is supposed to be for me a celebration of this three years i put into this book, for years, im grateful that no other Important News was produced today so everybody can focus on it. [laughter] i was worried, its okay, i havent looked at my computer in a while. When a president lies, people lie a lot, people have no idea how common lying is. Most people dont think of themselves as liars but almost never belies. Shocker here, men lie more often to make themselves feel better and women lie to assuage other peoples feelings. As a rule, obviously there are exceptions. When a president lies, its different than any other kind of lie because president s rhetoric creates its own form of reality. When a president lies people react to it. And instead of reacting to what the president is lying about they react for the lie. So they end up dealing with the problem that perhaps has been lied about whereas the initial problem goes unaddressed. You create a dynamic where you have to keep lying and lying because you let the problem fester. I dont want to jump all the way to donald trump but im going to for one minute. What i found interesting last week about one of trumps countless lives was when he was asked about the exposure to lebanon he said he talked to great generals and they told the him it was probably an attack. Debunked. Everybody ignored it because nobody takes them seriously, even though hes president of the united states. Did anyone stay we have to investigate the terror attacks. There are a lot of problems associated. Different problems when we face with that, any other president said that it would be a crisis. , if i could, thank you for that. Let me turn to maia and im wondering, maia, if we do think about trump for a second, i dont think any of us here believe in the great person theory of the tom brokaw, i think we all recognize there are huge structural preconditions and structural pressures that enable somebody like donald trump to exist, awful as some may say he may be, im wondering if you can talk a little bit about those enabling conditions in terms of what created the opportunities for someone like trump to be, as it were, prevaricate her and chief. Thank you lenny but i also just want to say congratulations eric, as someone who is writing, ive always appreciated and enjoyed and learned from this is an important and Exciting Book an important time, thank you. And thank you lenny, its like a homecoming to be part of one of these events and i wanted to say happy birthday george sorrow. Someone who has been the victim of lying and particular lying thats embedded in antisemitism. When we talk about the structures, i think its critical that we talk about and, by the way, this is something that is in erics book so im not going to tell you all the things it says so you go out and buy it but theres really Important Information in the book around some of these structures and some of them include the fact, we just saw it recently play out in the impeachment hearing of donald trump that we have a party system that is essentially failed to hold its own accountable. That deal that weve seen is really a degradation of a democratic process that was unlike what we saw say with nixon the tremendous liar in watergate. Where the party was willing to say we have to protect the institutions of democracy, not the person of the president. The shift that weve seen and the book speaks to some critical components of the shift was less about whether the republican establishment loved donald trump, it was the willingness to embrace him, despite not liking him because of the fear of the base that very much voted for and accepted a donald trump as a liar. Factual statement. That is an astounding thing for a news room editor to stay to staff around facts, and how important it was to have someone in the media willing to make that kind of statement and stand by it when it got publicized beyond his newsroom. And eric really points to the way in which even some long time very conservative commentators like charlie, like george will kind of pamona the fact that there has been a rise of an echo chamber that has become part of a disinformation system of quote unquote news reporting. As if there is something called, neutrality in the context of boldfaced lies. And that the difficulty that newsrooms have had in calling them out. So i think there are multiple things to look at. And i also went to underscore what erica said about racism. Because there has been no question that in my view the core of the white supremacist model, that is helped enable donald trump to the white house. Which includes a Voter Suppression by the way in very intentional efforts to undermine the vote, which may explain why it is even in the white house to begin with. Certainly undergirded by his rank from southern strategy. The customer the southern strategy, part of the lying in history around White Supremacy was we are going to uphold it but we will uphold dog whistles part only those phrases and terms that folks who want to hold White Supremacy want to hear. Those offended by it wont hear it. And wont get away with it. And donald trump, really broke that model. What he did his he said im going to be upfront and inyourface with my racism. But i will be an economic populist. And that was the break from the tradition republican model , we will be covid in appealing to those with supremacy, but we will also be fiscal conservatives and we will be globalists in the sense of free market economies. That was the deal that donald trump broke and it worked. Can i ask, you touched on the question of journalism you mention ben smith. In erics book as you say, you start a number of journalist britt he talks baker to task. So to your mind, lying is not just about intentionality. In so many journalists as i think as you correctly notes, feel that they have to maintain some notion of neutrality. Because they cant necessarily prove intent. And so in your book, you take a more capacious. You have disinformation and the like and not just intent. I am wondering if you spoke to some of the selfrespecting journalist that my head just mentioned, would they accept your more capacious sense . What were they think about your approach and why . Of the journals in the main stream media have been rejected outright. Thats one of the reasons i wrote the book. That inability to point out that the president just spoke a falsehood, at the time the president is speaking it, that is what empowered not only trump other president s. The fact that, i would say ive made a lot of important points that i like to speak to as well as answer your question. If you look at the first the First Century and half of the history, the lies the president told were kind of consensus like. You are mentioned earlier manifest destiny. Even some of the most consequential liar of that. The man who try to hold them to account, and trustingly, abraham lincoln, to turn congressmen who lost his job for that reason. I did not run for reelection because hed become a dissident by trying to hold him accountable the mexican war. Most of this manifest destiny and this expansionary. And keeping the world safer for democracy, there is a dissidents but there is consensus on behalf of the lies that were told. Things began to break with ronald reagan. I would say. Because nick sim was held to account. With nixon the system works. With ronald reagan, he would speak nonsense all the time. I dont to give it hat tip, that is not a sexist term, to my a on the races dog whistle. Remember the town he announcing . Philadelphia and mississippi. Thats when they were murdered. Civic he happened to announce in that very speech as if he wasnt saying anything. It was obvious what he was saying. And that people in that media for a variety of reasons are so cautious about holding the president to account for they respect the office, they are afraid of the crab they get from the right wing working they dont get blamed. But the president has historically had an incredible wide birth to live into use this racist dog whistle, which amount to lying. So in the case of oregan, he would say all of this nonsense. He had liberated the concentration camps and he never left california. And the excuse was a well, he makes up these stories and he believes them. My friend came up with the distant grade entering reagan got away with all this. Because people, the media were not willing to take on a president say this is nonsense. He would call a lie or Something Else but it doesnt matter pretty have to at the moment, the president said something thats false call it out as false. Otherwise it becomes true because the president said it. So reagan began by speaking nonsense. And the media was shocked by reagans election very much they were shocked by trump selection. I would say that the current moment, began with ronald reagan. Then took anna normas jump forward with Newt Gingrich who recognized that if he was going to use the most outlandish language and craziest accusations that i want to recommend my friends new book. On this topic that just came out two weeks ago. That again the press would do what they always do. What they did to joe mccarthy. They would say that homosexual whatever. What you say . And you say i am not any of those things. And they spoke as both sides and left the readers side. Its clearly not useful with donald trump who says running for president saying the president was not born in this country. And that Global Warming is a plot to destroy American Manufacturing made up by the chinese. He lied about having said that. Set it hundreds of times. On the ask the media with they decided to do about these lies is either print both sides, trump says this. Obama says no i was born in this country. Or they print somewhere else. Newspapers, and those in broadcast basically get away with it. It doesnt work unless you point out its not true at the point and presidency. Because the president says it takes on a life of its own. I give donald trump credit. He is a lying genius. Even recently people in time but the great interviews Chris Wallace did. I could go to those interviews and point out dozens and dozens of lies that went on answered. Because no one could keep up with this mans ability to live. In his lies are so embedded in our culture, it is like a swamp to break through them. Steve and eric, lets calm if i could, no know its great. Lets just zoom out for a Second Period because in swimming in the sea of lies. Misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, at every level, at every turn. And so the thoughts on how do we get out of this . Because my feeling and ive said this before at the foundation, is that there is no silver bullet. We are not returning to some ideally kera that never existed. Its a matter of how do we deal with, tamp down where necessary, miss information and disinformation. We are not going to transcend it. We are not going to overcome it. I am curious, maya, where you see all of what eric is talking about and terms of fundamental lies by executive officeholders. In the world of disinformation that we inhabit right now. What you see the future looking like . I think it looks like my cat. [laughter] and all roads lead to my cat. The very important question prayed a lot of the analysis that eric is pointing to and is in the book. Is can be translated also into a roadmap. Meaning it is certainly encouraging. And we should be encouraged by the fact that we have a National Discussion about what is truth and what are lies. Unfortunately is the context of donald trump who lies so frequently. But the fact that we have Wa