Numerous president s and reported on watershed moments in u. S. History, from the Civil Rights Movement to the vietnam war and 9 11. Now the 86yearold former cbs anchor has built a new audience online. He has millions of fans on social media. Rather also has a new book out titled what unites us, a collection of essays on patriotism. And dan rather joins us now. Mr. Rather, thank you for being here. Delighted to be with you. Well, this week senator al franken announced he will be resigning in the wake of Sexual Harassment allegations. Whats your response to that . Were at a tidal change in society, and im not sure every man has the message yet. But every man better get the message. I think this is, to use another metaphor, a sea change. Things going forward, not everything is going to change. But with all of this attention to wellknown men and the brave women that did take guts for these women to speak up. But this has happened at the upper tier of the socioeconomic ladder, if you will. My concern is so many women at the lower edge of the socioeconomic ladder, the waitress in the diner, the woman who changes the sheets in the hotel, these women are among the most vulnerable, and it may take a while for this tidal change, as i said, to reach down to that level. But this is a time of reckoning. And its a time of reckoning also in the media industry. Weve seen major media figures lose their jobs, matt lauer, charlie rose. Is there something within Major Network newsrooms that breeds that kind of behavior . I think somewhat is the honest answer. Basically the atmosphere in newsrooms reflects the atmosphere in society as a whole, that many of the things that were taken for granted and just, quote, thats the way it was in the 60s, 70s, and 80s are now, and rightly so, being exposed for what they were. But news tends to be 24 hours a day, seven days a week. People tend to work in close proximity to one another, and that has given opportunities for men to take advantage when they should not. During your time at 60 minutes, did you see instances of Sexual Harassment or what would now be viewed as Sexual Harassment . Well, the answer is yes. Did i see them . And i wish i had been quicker to speak up, and i can be faulted for that. What did you see . But i never saw anything approa approaching physical the ultimate physical. But did some men go around trying to snap the bras of young women . Well, mike wallace said he had a habit of doing that. I cant speak to wallace individually. First of all, hes now deceased so unable to speak for himself. Look, this was not the norm, but it did happen in putting their hands on women. Lets move on to your book, what unites us. In it, you do make the point that patriotism takes work. You say, quote, it takes knowledge, engagement with those who are different from you, and fairness in law and opportunity. As a nation, how do you feel were doing on that . Well, frankly i think were doing better than we sometimes think we are. We have so much more that unites us than divides us. We have to stop listening to those voices who, for their own partisan, political benefit, want to emphasize our divisions and think about what unites us. For example, were united in the belief one person, one vote. Now, were not perfect in delivering on that, but overwhelmingly we believe in that. We believe in inclusion, not perfectly so. We have our racial problems. Do we ever have racial problems. But patriotism is involved with humility. You love your country, youll die for the country, but you recognize that the country can improve, that were not perfect. Nationalism, a gospel thats being preached by many people in powerful political positions, is more about conceit and arrogance. So one wants to be careful about the difference between patriotism and nationalism. When i talk about what unites us, thats one of the things i talk about. But can patriotism be defined very differently by different people . For example, President Trump has invoked patriotism when he talks about the travel ban, building a wall, america first. Some people take issue with the nfl kneelers, saying that is unpatriotic. So is there such a thing as a unified view of what patriotism is . No. But we need a conversation about what patriotism is. You raised two very good points. Lets take the first about the nfl and the people who kneel. Dissent is a very important part of who we are as americans. Its made us what we are as a country dissent. With dissent, look, i stand to the national anthem. I stand with my hand over the heart. I at least the mouth the words. I sometimes try to sing them aloud. Thats whats within me. How do you feel about the kneelers . What i feel about them is i want to listen. A kneeler can be a patriot. Some patriots stand. Some kneel. Im not saying that everybody would agree with those who kneel, but theyre trying to call attention to racial injustice, specifically as they see it with law enforcement. We need to have a conversation about that. The idea that they are somehow against the u. S. Military, not patriotic, this is an old political technique. Its been used against dissenters since the beginning of the country. For example, those women in the 19th century who wanted to get the right to vote for women were called unpatriotic. They were called socialists, even communists, but they were on the right side of the issue. So we always need to consider what it is the dissenters are saying. So rather than cast aspersions on them, im prepared to listen to what they have to say and make a decision of whether i agree with it or not. Youve interviewed every president since eisenhower. How would you describe the presidency today compared to other president s that you have covered . Well, im glad you asked because this is unprecedented. This is not normal. Theres an effort to get us to believe, well, this is sort of in the norm. No. This is not normal. Increasingly i find people who see what President Trump is doing and just say, listen, we are better than this, and we know this. One example. No president in the history of the country, particularly a firstterm, beginning president , has been so much attacking american institutions. Hes attacked the institution of generalism. Hes attacked the judicial. Weve never had a president this way. Even president nixon, who had some tendency in this direction, was not this way. President trumps whole being, his whole way of operating, is to never apologize, never try to explain. Attack, attack, attack. And this is unprecedented in american history. President trump has made much of fake news, right . You are and many of us in journalism, even us here at kqed have been approached by difference forces trying to perpetrate fake news. You started a digital news site. How do you and your staff go about keeping journalism relevant during this very fragmented era and also, at the same time, trying to ferret out fake news and avoid being tricked . Well, its always a danger of being tricked, and im glad you mentioned the website, which is an internet site in which were trying to do quality journalism with integrity. We try to be on the alert. We try to check things out. Theres an old journalism adage. You trust your mother, but you cut the cards, which is a way of saying you check as much as you can. But, look, those who seek to perpetrate fake news have a lot of techniques, and nobody can consider themselves absolutely impenetrable. But we do the best we can. By the way, on the subject of fake news, President Trump talks a lot about fake news. He, himself, is the source of a lot of fake news. He is a fake news machine in many ways. So any news he doesnt like, he immediately calls fake news. He has to be called to account for these things. For example, he says, i had the biggest crowd for the inauguration in history. Its demonstrably untrue. It is, in his phrase, fake news. I have to ask you about this since were on this topic. In 2004, you reported that former president george w. Bush had received preferential treatment during the vietnam war because of the clout of his father. There were questions about the authenticity of the documents used in that report, and you lost your job as a cbs anchor shortly thereafter. Were you tricked during that time . No. Lets see clearly what happened. The story we reported about a young george w. Bush was true. Fact one, his fathers influence got him his socalled champagne unit of the National Guard. This is a fact. Fact two, after being in the National Guard for a while, he disappeared for a year. You dont disappear in the u. S. Military. Never explained. Now, to this day, neither george w. Bush nor anyone close around him has denied that those things are true. Realizing that we had a true story, we reported the truth, they attacked it for the process by we we got to the proof and centered on the documents. Whats the purpose of journalism . Journalism is to get to the truth or as close to the truth as humanly possible. You can fault us for the process, by which you got to the truth, but dont try to call attention away from the fact. And it is a fact we reported a true story. Lets look ahead. According to some polls Many Americans feel our best days are behind us. How do you feel . I dont believe it for one second. Our best days are not behind us. My own optimism and hope, which i try to reflect in the book, is theres plenty of reason to be optimistic if we do what we need to do as citizens, which is to be informed, to be involved, to be active, to organize, and to get to the polls because ultimately if you want to change the direction of the country, change the leadership of the country, revenge is best served at the ballot box. Well, you have been such a legendary journalist for so long. Thank you. Its been our pleasure to have you here today. Dan rather, author of what unites us. Thank you. In washington, the house and senate are working on reconciling the differences between their tax plans. Both include a big tax cut for corporations that Republican Leaders say will spur Economic Growth. But key differences remain to be ironed out on state and local Tax Deductions. The plans impacts on california is uncertain for now although tech giants like apple and google may stand to gain the most. Im joined by kqed politics and government reporter marisa lagos. And chris thornburg, the director of the center for Economic Forecasting at uc riverside. O welcome to you both. Chris, as an economist, what do you think the impact will be of these tax plans . Theres two sides of the impacts. Theres the distributional side and the overarching impact. In terms of the overresearchiar impact, what you have is a bill thats cutting taxes more than its cutting deductions. So on net, its broadly stim lative. Were not in a downturn. Were in a fully employable economy. It will heat up the economy a tiny bit but probably force the fed to raise rates. The distributional side is a little different. Of course most of the cuts occurring are for capital owners. So this is going to broadly benefit the top 1 , people who own a massive amount of equity within our economy. And of course in turn, theyre raising taxes on what i would call the upper middle class people who itemize deductions, things like your interest or your local taxes. These families will end up paying a little bit more, and everybody else is going to get a few hundred bucks because of the increase in the standard deduction. So basically the lower income class, the middle income class, theyre losing, and the top earners no, actually not. I would say the bottom 80 will see a small deduction in their taxes because the standard deduction is getting raised up. The people who itemize, those kind of folks who make their money off of human capital, doctors, lawyers, consult apts, theyre going to see their taxes go up. But the top 1 , theyre going to become fabulously wealthy because of a big drop in Corporate Taxes thats going to make their earningings that much higher. Its kind of a donut, if you will, where the 1 is taking a bunch of money for the next 15 . Marisa, democrat governors are worried about this. Mayor jerry brown calling the plans evil in the extreme, calling it basically a transfer of wealth from predominantly democratic states to predominantly republican states. When we look at this, what will be the impact on city and State Government . I think like a lot of things in this plan, its the longer term impacts that are more troubling. In the short term, you might see, as chris said, some people lose, some people win. But theres a few things here that i think it will hurt. Were in a housing crisis in california. Part of the at least house bill is to eliminate a housing credit that is used for low income development. Thats going to hurt a lot of things already in the pipeline. Then more generally as we know, whats upper middle class in another state is more middle income on the coast here in california. So i think that those are people that might get hit, and that means that when local and State Governments go back maybe for tax increases in future years, the electorate might be a little bit more hostile to that. Then we dont know what the outcome will be in terms of what kinds of welfare programs, other social programs the republicans then try to cut to make up for this huge deficit theyre going to create in the out years. Chris, give what we know right now, theres been a lot of talk about, you know, deductions on state, local, and property taxes. You seem to be saying that for the average california family, though, thats not going to be as big a hit. Oh, absolutely not because, look, most californians dont itemize. So it doesnt matter to them. Theyre going to see an increase in their standard deduction, and thats going to lower their taxes. Theyre going to be better off. Some of those family who have health care expenses, theyre going to be hurt. There are specific pockets. But, again, i go back to this idea that, you know, politics is really the 1 versus the next 19 and the other 80 are kind of irrelevant. This is that kind of battle between those two groups right now. And really overall, what this is, is really sticking the finger in the eye of what they would call the liberal coastal elite because there are so many programs from alternative energy tax credits just getting thrown out to even taxing tuition waivers for graduate students at universities, which was in the house plan, which is mindboggling that you would actually do that. But its about political payback. This is not about fixing our broken tax system because it is broken. But it also seems to be about giving a gift to corporations. Thats a huge tax cut to 20 . Absolutely. Is it going to boost the economy and have the stimulating effect that the republicans claim it will . Its not. Heres the reason. Youve got to take a step back and realize while it is true the statutory rate on corporations is 35 , the effective Corporate Tax rate is 21 , which is the lowest it has been in 40 years outside of recession periods. When you say the effective thats what theyre actually paying. The problem in our system, we have a tax system that is now patronage system. We have a 35 top rate, and then your company goes out and pays a lobbyist to go and give your industry special perks. This is why Companies Like g. E. Pay no taxes. So in a sense, as opposed to reforming the tax system to lower the overall rate but get rid of glaring loopholes to make it flatter and fairer, instead their willynilly cutting the taxes and going after the upper middle class along the coasts in order to pay some of that money back. Its not going to increase business spending. The relationship between effective taxes paid and actual Corporate Investment is there, but its tiny and nowhere near enough to create enough economic sort of growth to pay this back. Were not going to get that 6 Economic Growth that trum cla trump claims. Lets talk about the political ramifications as well, marisa, because we have 14 house republicans. How did they vote on this bill, what are the pressures on them at this point to try to get some changes in there that might benefit california . So we had three republicans vote against this, Tom Mcclintock from sacramento, darrell issa from down in san diego. Im forgetting the third. Rohrabacher from orange county. These are all folks who are seen as very vulnerable or at least issa in particular. So i think that they looked at some of this stuff, the deductions for state and property taxes, the issue of course of writing off your mortgage payments, and looked at the political leaves and went its not in my best interest, especially for issa and rohrabacher to vote for this. Now were seeing a splintering among the other 11 members who did support it. Steve knight from palmdale, for example, has asked for an increase in some of these deductions. I think that, you know, they seem confident that they can get there. I mean ultimately as chris is saying, taxes are complicated, and on an individual level, this may not hurt as much as democrats are painting it to for individual families. So i do think that there is some risk, but, you know, theyre not going to feel it before next years midterm election. Well theres a lot of scrambling to be done over the next week or so. They want to get this to the president s desk by december 22nd before everybody goes home for the holidays. So i know that you both will be watching it. Marisa lagos, and chris thornburg. My pleasure. Turning now to sacramento where theres continuing fallout over Sexual Harassment allegations. This week, state assemblyman Matt Dababneh was named in a formal complaint of Sexual Harassment. Lobbyist pam lopez filed the complaint. She was on our show a few weeks ago describing what happened to her. I was walking into a public restroom, thought i was alone, opened the door to walk into the restroom, felt a body rush up behind me, slam and lock the door, and i spun around. And by the time i had turned around, i was face to face with a a sitting legislator who had unzipped his pants and exposed himself and was masturbating. And i remember thinking, oh, my god, what do i do . Dont dont make a dont make a scene but be very clear that i dont want to be here. And so i said over and over again, no, i will not touch you. No, i will not touch you. We talked to