Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20160415 : vimarsan

You can see the lines they are on the screen. You can make a comment through social media. This is the inside page of usa today. York times onw the front page. Politico this morning, clinton and sanders for all in the brooklyn. They engaged in their most vicious debate yet. They delivered a two hour shouting match. Street,wled over wall tons, racism, the minimum wage, and fitness for the white house. Here is a little bit more of the debate. Secretary clinton have the experience to be president . Of course she does. Question her judgment. That voteda judgment for the war in iraq. The worst foreignpolicy blunder in the history of this country. Voted for every disastrous trade agreement that cost us millions of decent paying jobs. I question her judgment about running super pacs that are collecting tens of millions of dollars from special interests, including 15 million from wall street. Thats thebelieve kind of judgment we need to be the kind of president we need. That now the spotlight is bright re in new york some things have been said. Senator sanders did call me unqualified. Ive been called a lot of things in my. Did question my judgment good the people of my new york voted for me twice. President obama trusted my judgment on being secretary of state. We have disagreements on policy. Theres no doubt about it. If you go and read, senator sanders interview with the new york daily news, talk about judgment and the kinds of problems he had answering questions about even his core issues. Explain how that would be done. When i asked about a number of foreignpolicy issues, he could not answer about afghanistan, israel, counterterrorism. I think you need to have the judgment on day one to be both president and commander in chief. Host hillary has a 17 point lead. Wall streetbc journal poll. What did you think of the debate last night . Caller i think it highlighted that she has real policy. Bernie has a lot of passion and he has a good heart. You have to have a plan to move america forward. When she tried to provide ,etails on how to work policies if you dont have a policy, what can you say . Sanders is a bernie supporter. Caller thanks for taking my call. I wanted to say a few things about Bernie Sanders. Why he doesnt put this information out there. Era, hehe civil rights would handcuff himself to africanamerican marchers and if they got arrested, he would get arrested as well. I havent heard anybody talking about that. What did you think of the debate last that . Caller ive only seen clips of it today. I think he did pretty good. Host market is another Bernie Sanders supporter. Caller good morning. I enjoyed the debate. Little bit biased, but i think he did a great job. I think he can do a better job in talking about the revolution. Not beingabout him realistic. What i like all of the listeners to think about, it seems like every 40 50 years, the country needs to go big. The last time we went take it was with kennedy. He attacked multipronged issues. One was civil rights. Two were a program that we enjoy today. He went big. Nasa was paid. Pig. Its about the people. If the people do not amass more than 20 of the representation of voting, we will never get there. If that percentage even creeps up to 35 . Either way, this is a trump moment or a Bernie Sanders moment. Willu say that she you support her . Caller to be honest with you, i would be with kasich or donald trump. The incremental steps and the establishment process is not getting us anywhere. If anything else, its turned the clock back. I would encourage the millennials, do not listen to us older people. Vote your conscience. This is your country now. I encourage the millennials to do something they have never done, to get out and vote. This is the new york times. Vaticanaccepting the offer was a must. He said he could not refuse the invitation to talk about the World Economy and social justice. He said in an interview on thursday that pope francis has played an extraordinary role. We have a hillarclinton supporter in florida. What did you think of the debate last night . Caller it was great. She is an experienced lady. She was a president s wife. She knows whats going on. Be right therel to back her up. We need somebody like this is clinton. I send what little money i have to help her. God put him there for a purpose. May god bless her and be our next president. Linda is in miami, oklahoma. She is a Bernie Sanders supporter. Day. R this is a historic we are in for a big revolution of all kinds. I am 70. That people cant have one vote. I am all for 15 an hour for everybody. Female, gender is not the issue. This planet. I am for gods creation. If the creator made it, i love it. I think thats the world way the world should think. Go for it. Host that is linda in oklahoma. James is calling in from georgia, a hillary supporter. How did your candidate do last night . Caller i did not watch the debate. I know who i am going to vote for. It will be a democrat or than likely. Ive been much got no choice. They have been shoving Hillary Clinton down her throat. I just keep see myself voting for one of the republicans. So much hatred. Meanness. Being an africanamerican, what they say about africanamericans in the way theyve treated president obama, theres no way i can vote for republicans. I wish there couldve been somebody else. Thats just the way it is. Host a couple of reactions on our twitter feed include mrs. V ia. Bob is in jacksonville, texas. Did you watch the debate last night . Caller i watched it until i went to bed. I am a Bernie Sanders supporter. Democrat. Devout if he dont get the nomination, i will probably vote republican. I will vote for donald trump if he gets the nomination. Host whats the connection for you there between Bernie Sanders and donald trump . Caller its hard for me to my finger on it. With the last caller. Its hard to make myself vote republican. Is ii am trying to say believe Bernie Sanders and donald trump are trying to accomplish the same thing. I am excited about Bernie Sanders. Quickcan you give us a review of your voting history . Did you vote for president obama . Bush . U vote for george w. Caller i voted for obama. I was proud of my book. I dont want to make anybody mad. I voted for him. I voted public and for years until they had the impeachment of clinton. I was for the republicans all the way. Then they spent all those millions of dollars in him and they just threw it out the window. If thats the way the Republican Party is going to be run, im out of here. Im going to switch sides. Host thanks for calling in. Up next is betty in massachusetts, a Hillary Clinton supporter. Caller i watched every minute of it last night and i think she did a fantastic job. I think she is the most qualified candidate weve ever had running for president. She knows leaders all around the world. It she is extremely intelligent. 227 years, we are way behind other countries. Its time for a woman. For aeople would vote goat instead of a woman. My prediction has come true. Now we have an old goat. Old 74. He probably wont even live through his first term. He is a conscientious objector. He keeps crowing about he did not vote for the iraq war. He would not vote for any war. Host New York Post this morning, they end dose donald trump. We expect trump to it. President iale more and better informed on policy and more self disciplined. The promise is clearly there. He is leading the field as the finals near. The post says that his language has too often been amateur us and divisive. What do you expect from someone whos never been a professional politician and reflects common man passion. That is one of his great attractions. He is not one of them. It he is challenging the victim culture that is turning into a victimizing culture. Oped in the an wall street journal this morning. That is a little bit from Donald Trumps oped in the wall street journal. Here is a little bit more of last nights debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. I have said from the beginning we are going to protect Social Security. I was one of the leaders against privatizing Social Security. I am determined to extend the trust fund. We have to help people who are not being taken care of now. Women have been left out and left behind. Its time that we provide more benefits for widows, it of war says, caregivers. Go ahead center. She didnt answer the question. Go ahead center. That is my legislation that you just described. Heres the issue. Your answer has been the same year after year. Forth, itim ringing wasnt my idea. It was Barack Obamas idea in 2008 and he called for lifting the cap. That, youre going to extend the life of Social Security for 58 years. You will significantly expand 1300 a year for seniors and disabled veterans. Whats wrong with that . Are you prepared to support it . We are in agreement here, senator. Its important to point out we are having a discussion about the best way to raise money from wealthy people to extend the Social Security trust fund. Think about what the other side wants to do. They are calling it a ponzi scheme. They still want to privatize it. Their idea is to turn the trust fund over to wall street. That is something we would never let happen. If i hear you correctly, you are now coming out finally in favor of lifting the cap on taxable income and expanding Social Security. If that of his case, welcome on board. I am glad you are here. Comments from of facebook. Michael is in los angeles. He is calling on the Bernie Sanders support line. Caller i saw it. I looked forward to it. I want to say there is no similarity between donald trump and bernie. But there are is, big differences. I was a democrat and i come from a democratic family. I became a republican and now i am independent. One thing i disliked about hillary was she was always laughing. Something was always funny. Most of the debates, shes always laughing. You look at bernie, hes serious. Thats a big difference right there. Its no joke. If bernie would become president , he would be the first president paid for by private citizens. No big business, no big banks. Host we are going to leave it there. We are going to hear from perth in ohio. Caller good morning. I have a Bumper Sticker for you first. Thats sort of a side point. I am a 60s liberal. Yesterday i found my Gene Mccarthy button. I have some credibility there. I think the visuals told the story. Redfaced, waving his arms. Constantly trying to interrupt. Clinton was calm, detailed and president ial. This business of the speech transcripts were interjected by chuck todd way back when. He picked it up. I think thats a phony issue. I think there are a lot more important issues. I am for hillary. I was for obama last time around. Some bad she had staffing. I think she is on a roll and she is great. Charles krauthammer this morning in his column, clinton is him rest in peace. That is a little bit from Charles Krauthammer this morning. Now a little bit from isabella in massachusetts. I wasnt able to watch the debate last night because basic cable doesnt have cnn. Benow ccn cspan will broadcasting at some point. The debates should be available to every american. I heard a parts of it on radio and tv. I am glad that ernie is continuing to be relentlessly honest as he always is. He is talking about her allegiance to wall street. She has appropriated his entire platform without giving him any credit area i wanted to observe as a lifelong democrat is super delegates no place in the National Election for president. It shameful to me that the Republican Party does not have them but the Democratic Party does. I think we have to get rid of them. This is based on 1 one vote. , ierdelegates are one person hundred thousands of votes in equivalence. I think thats wrong. It feels like we need to reexamine our system. The republican side and the corruption and the party hacks on the democratic side. The you mentioned in superdelegates, as of now, Hillary Clinton has 1758 delegates pledged to her from the primaries. They need 2000 383 to win. Bernie sanders has 1069 pledged. The next call is richard in massachusetts. How are you doing. I like hillary because she and her husband voted for everything the republicans wanted when bill clinton was president. Prisons, these trade deals which helped me because i was able to helped me because i was able to get my suits cheaper. He deregulated the banks, which the republicans wanted, causing my properties to go up four times than what they were worth and i could trample my rent. Triple my rent. Host are we hearing sarcasm . Caller no. It has helped me a lot. I appreciate them. From richard, massachusetts. 740 three, donald trump. 540 five, ted cruz. John kasich, 143. Politico, George Pataki endorsed john kasich, the former governor of new york. Cruz at theing for gop gala in new york. As well as for the president ial hopeful ted cruz, he got the Cold Shoulder from 800 republicans at the new york city gop gala on thursday, receiving little interaction from the hisence as he went through stump speech. The media reported guests walking and talking during his address. Here is some from ted cruz. Cruz new york city is hollowed ground. It is the site of the worst terror attack on United States soil, yet in the 15 years since 9 11, many in washington have forgotten. ,oday, when we see an attack whether in paris, brussels, San Bernardino inevitably president obama goes on National Television and refuses to say the words radical islamic and instead lectures the American People on islamophobia. I want to be clear that come january 2017, our military will no longer be governed by political correctness. Every jihadist on the face of the earth should hearken to these words. If you wage war against the United States of america, if you seek to murder innocent americans, we are coming to get you. We are not coming to interrogate you, to read you your rights we are coming to kill you. Host we want to get your reaction to the democratic debate on cnn. 202 7488000 if you are Hillary Clinton supporter. 202 7488001 if you are Bernie Sanders supporter. Gary in north carolina, a Hillary Clinton supporter. Why do you support Hillary Clinton and what is your reaction to the debate . Caller she is the most qualified person in my lifetime. That is why i called. She was consistently one of the top 100 lawyers before she got to washington. Then she was a very active first lady. Then she was a twoterm senator. Then she was the secretary of state. Then she was the 20 time most admired woman in the world. That is better than thomas jefferson. I digress. The reason i called is because i remember one time somebody asked bernie, how are you going to get this stuff done . He said, and im paraphrasing, when Mitch Mcconnell looked out the window and sees one Million People telling him what to do, he said he will go then and do what i say. Something to that effect. ,efore that, two years ago barack obama had a blowout winning by 2 million votes. Winning as big as you can win. One Million People were at grant park. It was magic. 1. 8ent to his inauguration, alien i dont even know the number. Mitch mcconnell was in the. Asement with 14 republicans they decided they would not help that man. It was like magic, and they decided that they would rather dropdead than help this guy. Bernie sanders is an angry old man. Did anyone else see him wagging his finger . Next a newt is up jersey. A sanders supporter. Senator sanders supporter. Caller how are you doing . From washington square. It was a pleasure to be there. It was nice to see the young people engaged in the political process. I support Bernie Sanders because i believe as every other industrialized country we are entitled to health care. I think that is an important issue, and that he should run on it the way that he has and call out secretary clinton for not wanting to give all is that she gets. Host robert in new jersey. Tommy in mississippi. Go ahead. Caller i watched the debate last night. Clinton, it hillary think she is well qualified, but Bernie Sanders is making promises that he cannot keep. All those young people that he will do things free. Im ashamed of how he is ripping those young people love for their money. If you dont stand for something, you will fall for anything that is how he is how hes treating young people. Falling for anything. It is a shame. Thank you. Host the Washington Post trump and cruz have little popularity among the population at large. The public at large, according to a new Washington Post abc news poll did most republicans see them in a favorable light. 58 respectively. John kasich is less popular, 47 . That is despite receiving the best ratings among the broader electorate. 31 of americans have a favorable view of trump and 67 are unfavorable. Ted cruz is within a 36 favorable rating. 53 unfavorable. They are less popular than mitt romney was at this point in the 2012 campaign. They find a significant gender gap in republicans views of trump. 64 of republican men rate him positively, 47 of gop women. P. M. , hartford, connecticut on cspan, donald 7 00s Campaign Rally at p. M. Eastern on cspan. How in randallstown, maryland. A Hillary Clinton supporter. Howard in randallstown, maryland. A Hillary Clinton supporter. The debate . Caller i thought it was good. I know both candidates have a desire to make america a better place. I believe in personal responsibility and im a democrat. I dont believe in Free Health Care. I want my family to have it and i believe that is my responsibility. Hillary clinton is smart, experienced, and knows how to execute a plan. Something i have not heard from bernie other than his belief that thing should be changed suddenly without anyone support anyones support other than the people that i suppose will march on washington at some point. s secretary clinton does not get the nomination, would you support Bernie Sanders . Caller absolutely. He is a fine candidate, but he is offering things that i believe are very hard to get considering there are two parties that are completely different. In norfolk, virginia. A Bernie Sanders supporter. What is your reaction to the debate . Caller i was able to watch part of the debate on cspan. I thought that Bernie Sanders made an effective case for rapid change. In fact, even radical change, due to the worldwide. Nvironmental crisis the United States has produced a large portion of the co2 concentration in the atmosphere. Norfolk, virginia just clarifying the debate was held on cnn. A Hillary Clinton supporter, ray in massachusetts. How are you . Caller very good. You know, i drive trucks over the road. Look at each state that i go to and can determine which state is run by whom. A republican or democrat. I was just in michigan. Hillary clinton knows what she is doing. I like bernie. If she doesnt make it, then bernie, but hillary is a genius. I worked from where she graduated from for many years, and she is a very smart young lady. Host you made the comment that you can tell which state is run by home by being in it. What do you see . , when i drive through indiana, struggling people. When i drive through michigan, i see people growing. When i drive through minnesota, i see people growing. When i drive through new york, i see people growing. When i drive through places like georgia, i see people struggling. I can tell you who runs a state by being in it. Consuming it is neutral and is huge. West virginia is a state that is growing. I can tell you who runs a state. Hillary will do well. Host that is ray in massachusetts. Year is more last nights debate talking about banking. Lenten mass it is always important to get the facts straight. Against the behaviors of the banks when i was a senator. I called them out on their mortgage behavior. I was also willing to speak out against special privileges they had under the tax code. When i went to the secretary of state office, president obama led the effort to pass the dodd frank bill. That is the law. This is our ninth debate. In the prior 8 i said we have a law to review dont just say, we are upset. I am upset. You dont say, go break them up, we have a law because we are a nation of laws. I support dodd frank, but i have said that is not enough. We have to include shadow banking. Secretary clinton called them out, my goodness. They must have been crushed. Was that before or after you received huge sums of money by speaking engagements . They must have been very upset. Here is the difference, the clear difference. The banks in my view have too much power. They have shown themselves to be ,raudulent organizations endangering the wellbeing of our economy. If elected president , i will break them up. We have legislation to do that, and the discussion. That the hill say clinton and sanders appeared to skip the postdebate handshake. Columbus, ohio, the Bernie Sanders line. I did not get to see the debate, but i have been watching the political run. I know whats going on. Host political run . Caller the democrat political run. Democraticernie, the political run. I am supporting Bernie Sanders because i am a lifelong democrat. I voted for my president twice, and i appreciate the good work he has done and is still trying to do. That there are things that i found out in the second election that he was elected, how he was elected. Not just the voters, but he took big money from the banks. That stirred me wrong. Change, andfor a im hoping Bernie Sanders will bring the change i was hoping to get the first time. Host what do you do in columbus . Caller im a nurse aide. Host thank you for watching. Cleveland. Hillary clinton supporter. Hi. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. You know, a lot of the remarks that they made last night, they said them differently. I feel that they agree on some of them when it comes to education and the tax break, and Social Security trust funds. I am an independent, but if the democrats want to win, if one of those candidates is the president and the other is Vice President , we will win. Republican convention is coming to your city. Would you think about that . Caller im glad. That is money we are going to make. [laughter] host are you going to be a member of the welcoming committee . Caller no. Host do you think youll check it out . Caller they are not going to let me in. I will not be able to hear what they discuss. There is no point in going down. Host thank you for calling. The Washington Times this is the beltway column. President ial candidates are circulating in new york with the exception of Hillary Clinton who will be an outlay on saturday for a public appearance at an , thisoon fundraiser follows a fundraiser hosted by George Clooney San Francisco where ticket prices reached 353,400 per couple. The nature sanders will remain in new york city, except to go to the vatican. He has campaigned with his own celebrity following that includes danny glover, spike lee, and tim robbins. ,enator cruz is in binghamton appearing on a forum hosted by fox news, following appearances in rochester and evansville. John kasich is in watertown and utica. Donald trump in Hartford Connecticut and syracuse. He will have a trio of his signature jumbo rallies. The hartford, connecticut rally will be live at 7 00 p. M. On cspan. Mike, a Bernie Sanders supporter in fort meade, maryland. Go ahead. Caller im not really a Bernie Sanders fan. I love that he is genuine and seems to want what is best for the country, but i cannot stand the 40 increase in government. Hillary, you know, she doesnt want to release the transcript of bush you said to goldman golly. He will shows says his tax returns. We will see if that happens. Cruz sounds like a slimy used cars those men usedcar salesman. As a serviceman, most of us are republicans there is no one out there. Paul ryan or mitt romney, hoping someone saves the day. It doesnt seem like it will happen. Host you say that you are in the service . Mike . Caller yes. Host how long, which branch . Caller 18 years, army, diver. Host thank you for your time. Mississippi, Hillary Clinton supporter. Hi, clay. What did you think of the debate . Caller i enjoyed the debate, but there was one very important issue missing that Hillary Clinton could use to win. She should pray for peace in america. Have peace in america. A Strong Military and peace in america. Breaking of the banks, transcripts, it is relevant at peace in america, a strong shouldy, Hillary Clinton advocate peace in america. Thank you for taking my call. Delegates,ering the this bush and the washington saying the supporters that support donald trump gathered on thursday to hash out his path to winning the republican nomination before the july convention, including that with their help the Real Estate Developer could secure the forestall aeded to. Ontested Convention Representatives Chris Collins of new york and Duncan Hunter of california are leading the effort on capitol hill to deepen the coordination between the Trump Campaign and republican lawmakers. Inernie sanders supporter athens, alabama. You are onon host washington journal. Think we do too many debates. Running for president lasts too long. I would have preferred to have had elizabeth warren. I think she would have been an excellent candidate and the best female first president we could have gotten. Toight have been inclined support hillary, because i would like to see a woman president , but i have the issue with her that i do not understand, and i would like someone to explain, what is with the pants suits. Why will she not dress more feminine . I dont know the right term, but the pants suits make her seem militaristic and richard. Jongil. Rsion of kim a female version of kim jongil. Host my guess is that you will hear from people about that remark. The judgment on the pantsuits. Ken in randallstown, maryland. Hillary clinton supporter. Caller most candidates are fine. My issue is with Bernie Sander idea. Candidates a long time ago, 50, i worked hard to get to where i would am where i am. Someone has to pay for health care somewhere. There is no system that is free. Theyre talking higher than what we pay. Numberaxes, but that is one. We have a twoparty system. They keep saying when i am the president i will break up the banks, it is not that easy. They have to go through the legislature to get anything done. I promise these things, they have to be careful. Understandtrying to the mission. We are not north korea, we are not a country in africa. That is my issue. Thank you for calling. In the fights gaps battle for the black vote. Like her husband, mrs. Clinton has been dogged by your support of the 94 crime law that led to an increase in africanamericans being locked up for nonviolent crimes. Mrs. Clinton acknowledge the legislation lead to consequences that needed to be addressed. She said that she was wrong in 1996 to characterize troubled youths with criminal records from low income neighborhoods as superpredators. , mrs. Clintonffes has pulled strongly among the africanAmerican Voters. Leaders of the africanamerican community, including u. S. Representative jim clyburn and the Congressional Black Caucus have been among her most for vocal supporters. Good morning. From florida. I am a Bernie Sanders supporter. I am a retired africanamerican professional. I think that what he is saying. Bout not free medicine nothing is free. No one is going to get stuff for free. Somehow,ll a for it but it is not free and no one free. S for it to be that has been a big thing for me, everyone saying that it is free. Host from what are you retired . Caller nursing. An r. N. To be a policeman, teacher, and travel out of the country. I have a decent view of what is going on in the world, i think. I think that bernie is the guy. I was going to vote for clinton onore president obama was the scene and he won me immediately. I was going to vote for clinton until bernie came along. Host if senator sanders does not get the nomination, will you go with Hillary Clinton . Caller unfortunately, i will have to. Host what is your take on donald trump . Personally, i cannot think of any good words. They are all disparaging. I cannot figure him out. I dont know why he is running. Heres a billionaire. He is not going to do much for us. He has fooled people. Why would a billionaire be concerned . For thet he concerned last 40 years about medicine and education . I dont believe him. I dont know what his angle is. Host what is your take on ted cruz . Up in i will get caught libel laws if i say what i feel. I do not think that he is honest. I think he is sneaky. I think that he is in the pocket of billionaires. That is lonnie in florida. Is next in south city, wisconsin. How are you . Caller good, thank you. Basically, i want to say that i agree with the last caller. Berniething, saying they will have Free Health Care and college, that everyone deserves college but he doesnt have a way to pay for it, it would be nice to see a woman president. On the other side, if hillary i do not it know if i would vote for bernie. I do know that i am intrigued by donald trump, you brought him up. He has taken companies from the ground up. In the he can do good economy, but i dont know that he would be able to run it. If he could delegate people around him, put them in the right areas, that might work. I think the lesser of two evils would be hillary. It would be nice to see a woman president. I believe she has credentials and is definitely educated enough. In south city, wisconsin. The Washington Post outlining the foreignpolicy doctrine out heartysith the president ial standardbearers. Speaker ryan laid out his vision for how a commander and chief should engage with the world. Contrast to sharp the policies promoted by republican president ial frontrunners donald trump and ted cruz. He declined to directly criticize either candidate, reserving his sharpest arms for president obama. His views show there are fundamental differences between ryan and the leading gop president ial candidates come in who have derided trade partnerships, advocated aggressive military tactics, and shrugged off longstanding geopolitical alliances. Ryan said. Neocon, what you need to do is have a limited view on the projection because, a limited view these things are never clean and easy. A little bit from the Washington Post. You probably saw there was a new docudrama on hbo about the Clarence Thomas and anita hill saw that of 1991 anita of 1991. The saga george h. W. Bush Council Launches website to fact check hpls confirmation movie. Played a role in the 1991 Senate Confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas to the supreme court. He is playing a new role when it comes to the upcoming movie starring Kerry Washington as anita hill, a law professor who accused thomas of sexual harassment. Aoletta is leading an effort to fact check the flick. On thursday, he launched a biased. Com, a site he things will combat what he calls prohill false narratives in the movie. In florida. Thank you for holding on. A Bernie Sanders supporter. What did you think of the debate . Caller i did not see the debate, but i am a Bernie Sanders supporter. It seems like he has good programs for the people. He has a good vision. I think there is mischaracterization about how everything will be free. He has laid out how you will be paying for things on his website, from what i understand. H medicare for all everyones health care is paid for by everyone already. What that does is it cuts out 20 insurance people, saving of the cost of health care. To be paying for everything that he talks about. It would help. What we have done to take care of the Great Recession is to pad the accounts of the big banks. They have been at the trough of the Federal Reserve ever since the Great Recession. That is what has been slow about the recovery. The new deal, he had all kinds of federal spending to get everyone back to work. That would actually build an economy and have less than 1 trillion in debt by 1980. Host we will leave it there. Massachusetts, a Hillary Clinton supporter. You are the last word. Caller on glad to get in. That hillary is the most accomplished person, including the democrats and republicans. She belongs in the white house. I am very angry with the media that has been actually pushing Bernie Sanders and donald trump in our faces. Ive seen very little of hillary on the media. I even saw a Bernie Sanders wife on Joe Scarborough yesterday. She started by saying, thank you for letting me on. Thank you for being so fair and nice. They are painting themselves as victims. People that have been kicked around. The whole time it is Hillary Clinton that has been kicked around plenty by the sanders people. They joined in with the republicans. It is disgusting. I will not vote for dean sanders for that reason. I will for Bernie Sanders for that reason. I will vote for donald trump if for any chance hillary is not the nominee. Host cambridge, massachusetts. , theg up, Rick Shenkman author of political animals how our stoneage brain gets in the way of smart politics. He will be joining us from our new york city studio. Cityweekend, our cspan tour continues as we take booktv in American History tv to alabama, the home of the university of alabama. We will feature the history and literary life of this other and city all weekend. Here is a preview. The mayor of tuscaloosa talking about its civil war and civil rights history, and the city today. [video clip] in the centrals part of alabama, 50 miles west of birmingham. Hub of what happens in the black belt of alabama. When you look at the tuscaloosa war history, we were accidental intervenors in the war. We could have played a larger role if the capital would not have been moved in 1846 because of an unfair economic incentive that people in montgomery offered for the capital. If it had not moved, tuscaloosa could have been the cradle of the confederacy. During the civil war, Business Leaders were opposed to tuscaloosa being a part of the war effort. When we resisted we were punished. University was turned into a war college. Parts of the city and university were burned down as a result. 100 years later, when we get to the civil rights movement, ascaloosa decided to take different path. We think of tuscaloosa civil rights as the schoolhouse door. One university wanted to integrate. We had a governor who wanted to for politicaly purposes. It did not reflect the feelings of most within tuscaloosa or the university. We tried to escape that shadow. The business and community leaders, and elected officials, said we have to begin the steps toward integration. You can argue the steps were the stepswe begin where most southern cities continue to light fires that could only serve to burn down their cities, both literally and figuratively. Tuscaloosa took steps forward. Washington journal. Rick shenkman is the History News Network founder and author of political animals how our stoneage brain gets in the way of smart politics. Henkman, do shark attacks affect elections . Guest 100 years ago in 1916, the worst fear of shark attacks struck southern new jersey. That everyones had seen was based on the story of what happened then. Weeks, four people were kill in shark attacks. What does that have to do with politics . Woodrow wilson was up for reelection. But in thejersey, small beach towns devastated by the shark attacks, people heard shark and everyone went home. He was a devastating Economic Development for that area. , the peoplee vote in those towns voted against Woodrow Wilson in overwhelming numbers. In the same proportion that those people voted against Herbert Hoover at the height of the great depression. Why . Woodrow wilson could not have done anything to help those people solve their shark problem. That was beyond the powers of the president. People are irrational when they vote. Particularly, political scientists have found, when bad things happen to them they take angst on the incumbent party whether they are responsible or not. The book is about how our brain works. 40 years ago we did not have an idea of how the brain works. Today we do because of nero silence numeral science neuroscience, anthropology, and that changes how we think our brain operates on politics. Host what do you mean by stone age brain . A lesser for 2. 5 million years. The human brain mainly involved. It evolved to help hunter problems address the that they faced as hunter gatherers. Evolve to help us in the 21st century address problems that we are facing. Our problems are different. And you live in a Small Community of 150 people, you know and work with everyone. You know your leaders. You are living with them. Today, there are millions and billions of people. We do not meet our leaders. We see them on tv. We often read them wrong and do not understand when they are lying or manipulating. The book is about how you have to protect your self against your own brain. It will trick you into thinking youre living in a Small Community and you know these people. You dont. Host in the introduction you write that im going to tell you the stories of people that have been paid in ways that seem absurd. Beingcus on behavior disengaged from politics and apathetic. Not correctly sizing up our leaders, punishing politicians that tell us hard truths, and not showing empathy in circumstances that cry out for it. , is there a general impression that you can give of what voters are like in america . Guest i dont know what to do with that question. Give me more. Host are voters curious . Guest good. Voters are curious about what is happening in their immediate circumstances. That is what the human brain is designed to do, be curious about things that you can see. Half of the brain is devoted to visual tasks. We are responsive to what we can see and what we can feel. When youre in a group of people, you can size them up, read their body language, get a sense of who they are. The ability to have an assess that of who they are and what they are like. You cannot do it in the modern political world, because most of the time you see them on tv. Not coming system is into play and you are not focused. If you cannot see someones eyes and how they are really looking at you, it is hard to read them. In any case, our brain is playing a trick on us. In the stone age, when we read peoples emotions if you are going on a hunt and you wanted to look toward the leader, you could tell in a particular moment if he was feeling courageous or frozen by fear. You could read that a motion. You had a deeper understanding of that person because you lived and worked with them. In the modern world, we do not have that personal experience with our leaders, but our brain makes us think that we know them. Are we curious . There has never been an example of hunter gatherers not curious about who was leading them. What the human beings do all day . We gossip. Whosps us to understand up, down, if someone has made a mistake. Motives. Ng about their we are engaged as human beings in our local politics. In the multicultural world that we live in with millions of people, we do not have that natural nervous system reaction to people that live far away from us. You are in washington the c, washington, d. C. I live in seattle. That is far away from washington. And things happen there, it is hard for me in seattle to get excited. Do he hadandidates out in a political debate, i can get excited momentarily, but that feeling quickly evaporates. I am a political junkie, so i am paying attention. Most americans are not paying that much attention. They seem to display in difference and a lack of curiosity. That is because of the way the human brain works. It is an indictment of human beings. Our brain was not devised for television politics. It was devised for small intimate groups. We are good at those politics, not so good about things happening a long way away. Host should we trust our instincts when it comes to politics . Caller no. That is the main part of the book. In our daily lives we trust our instincts because they prove they are good. If you are walking on the tireslk and you hear screech, your instinct is to look around and pull back to make sure you are not about to get run over. That is the same as if you were a hunter gatherer 100,000 years ago and you heard a tiger in the woods. He would have a flight or flight response. In our personal lives, often, our instincts work. Argue, you can almost never unquestionably go with your instincts, because they are not suited to the problems that we face in the modern world. Host you look at the work of psychologist drew weston. You write about some of his work. Here is his explanation of what goes on in our brain when we turn a blind eye toward explanation we find objectionable. When confronted with potentially troubling political information, a network of neurons becomes active that registers the conflict between data and desire and searches for ways to shirt off this big it of unpleasant emotion. Notice what we do not do. We do not expend Cognitive Energy to digest the information. We immediately try to reconcile partisanur preferences. Can you give an example . Guest lets take the example of what drew weston was talking about. In 2000 four, john kerry versus george w. Bush. He put kerry voters in an mri and told them information about john kerry that was not laddering. Was not flattering. What happened . They briefly registered a reaction that was shock and disfavor with what they were hearing. Immediately, their brain shut off that information and the neurons went quiet. The same thing happened when you mri. Ush voters in the they had an initial reaction then went quiet. Scientistst social refer to as our immune system. We do not like to find out that a belief that we hold about someone that we like it turns out that here is contrary information to what we believe. Hat creates dissonant it makes us feel anxious and bad. It quickly tries to figure out a way to get rid of the information. It does it by closing the door on the information so that the. Eurons go quiet our psychological immune system improves and we restore our feeling of wellbeing. When youre talking about trump voters, donald trump has been called out by politico and all of these other Fact Checking organizations for telling one lie after another. Like, when he debuted his campaign and started talking about how thousands of muslims were dancing on the rooftops of apartment buildings in new jersey as they watched the twin towers fall. That was not true. What did trump voters make of that . Their brain, just like other voters it is true of all of us, we do not want to hear bad information. They ignored it. Their brain shut off the information. This is how the human brain works. That is what drew westons research shows. Host political animals how our stoneage brain gets in the is themart politics book. The numbers are on the screen. Democrats, 202 7488000, republicans 202 7488001, independents 202 7488002. You can dial in and we will take your calls. You can participate on social on twitter. Panwj lets begin with robert from massachusetts. He is on the democrats line. Caller i do not know at this guys talking about, but the average person does not know. Politicians know that the average person is almost ignorant. Tide commercial on tv, and it says it will take the ring off of your husbands neck, the next day that same woman will buy that because of that powerful commercial. People are not voting with their heart. They are voting with their head. You have to put them together. You have to have a head and heart. When you let the politicians speak on the pulpit, that is the sentence. Never let a politician walk into your church and speak on the pulpit. This is for all of you black people from down south. Host lets get a response. Rick shenkman waited to hear . Guest the cholerae is right that the American People do not know a lot of fat the caller is right here that the American People do not know a lot of facts. We have 100now that u. S. Senators. The majority of the American People do not know that we have. Hree branches of government a lot of them believe on the eve of the iraq war that Saddam Hussein was behind 9 11. That the reason we were invading iraq was to take revenge for him having destroyed the World Trade Center and attacking the pentagon. Are a low information voter, which is unfortunately the majority of the American Voters low information are more easily manipulated because they do not know enough. If a politician is articulate, enthusiastic, can make a case and connect with you as one person to another person looking through a tv camera if im excited, passionate, and you are impressed with my passionate enthusiasm, and what im saying makes sense, you do not have the toependent basis evaluate my argument and information. You are going with your gut. That is what i argue in my book is a mistake. Host tweeting to you that i respectfully disagree. You cannot read politicians from watching them on tv body language is all telling. Guest body language is important. No question. How fast do we make evaluations of candidates . Eyesight in the book i site in the book that we make up our minds about politicians and anyone we encounter in 167 milliseconds. Faster than you can blink your eyes. If you give people more time to make an evaluation, they double initialtheir impression. Your brain is playing a trick on you. In the stone age, when we were making superfast evaluations, it was important. If you encountered a stranger you had to quickly size them up. Most of the time, that meant this was a person that was a hostile threat to your life. That you should probably run or kill they guy. For a hunter gatherers and their communities sizing people up, it was not on the basis of body language or facial expression it was on the basis of deep knowledge. You are living and working with them. You have an overreliance on body language and you think you can tell if someone is lying to you or telling the truth based on body language, you are deceiving yourself. I may go one step further. When a politician is telling you something, and they believe it you youre cheater that connecting system doesnt work. It only works if those telling the lie think they are buying. Politicians are like used car salesman. There good at telling you something. In that moment they can convince themselves that they believe it. You cannot rely on body language. If they are sincere, and politicians are always sincere, your detection system doesnt work. Democrat,ara, marthas vineyard. Caller thank you. This is the best news ever. The first day of the new era, which i am christening paleo politics. Theres is our brain on the drugs of politics we dont understand how the brain works. I have a home rigged assignment. A homework assignment. You need to assemble evolutionary biology and psychology, get them together with richard, and you assemble them at a book fair somewhere. His is the story the other thing to do, i want to look back at an email i sent her democrats only in the last segment. It has no text, only visuals. The subject line is just vote blue. This is my message to how the democrats have to unify. It has a visual pun that i want to see if richard config throughout. This man is walking the walk and talking the talk. Last thing, keep using the emphasis you are using. Just like im deliberately using it now. There is a penetrative quality. O assertion we are not thinking or hypothesizing, this is the dawn of the new age. Host thank you. Rick shenkman, in a response to barbara . Caller well. She was very complimentary and i will not disagree. Lets talk about another aspect of how our brain works. Neuroscience we have learned that we have two ways of digesting information. System one and system to areas with system one you are taking in information. Your matching it with other information that you already have. If there is a close match, your brain doesnt think hard, it just thinks the new information is like the old information and is treated the same way. System to is higherorder cognitive thinking. Guess what we want to do with politics. Politicians do not want you to use system to, higher order cognitive thinking. Wordsill use red meat that will get your system one juices flowing, so you are not thinking just reacting. Republican audience, they will see they they will say things like scary muslim terrorists. Orn you are acting fearful angry. Youre not thinking, just reacting. Democrats do the same thing. Story to tell a sob get you to feel empathetic to go with their program. You are not thinking about it. You are reacting. What i am arguing in the book is that the only way to safeguard yourself against manipulation by politicians is to always secondguessed your automatic reaction. You have to secondguess your automatic reaction. Do not trust yourself in politics. That goes against what we learned in the 1960s when it yourself. And personal life, trust yourself. In politics, and dont. Connecticut on our democrats line. What is the name of your town . Connecticut. Ic, i wanted to call and say that i called the debate. I dont think that there should be any more debates. I hate to see things deteriorate to the level of a gop side. I was very proud of her performance. I think senator sanders did very well also. I hate to see them hurt each primary. The im disappointed in senator sanders. I think that him running as a continues tohe criticize hillary to the extent, or each other, that it could hurt us in the long run in a general election. Host lets leave it there. Rick shenkman, given that there was a debate last night, i dont know if you watched it but i know that you have watched some, how would your book guest let me tell you what i recommend in the book, which is when you are sitting and watching a political debate, basically you are in the same role as somebody who goes and attends a broadway show. What you wind up doing is evaluating the performance of the candidates who are arguing with each other. I do not think that is terribly helpful. What is helpful even if you are not a political junkie like most americans, you do other things so youre not really following politics all that closely. You can still gain tremendous, real insight into what is going on in these candidatess campaigns by monitoring your own emotional reaction. Pull out a pen and paper when you are about to sit down and watch one of these debates. Every time you feel a strong emotion of some kind fear, anger, enthusiasm, patriotism, whatever you are feeling. Jot it down next to the candidates name. The debate,f instead of evaluating their performances, look at how you emotionally reacted to what they were saying and you will now have a roadmap to these candidatess campaigns. You will understand how they are trying to manipulate you by the emotional buttons they were trying to push during the debate. It is no accident when they take a certain line at the debate. They have a lot of Advisors Ahead of that debate telling them that if you say this, the voters will have this reaction. If you say this, the voters will have this reaction. Study yourself and you will have a very keen understanding of what the politicians campaigns are about. It is much more helpful than sitting back like you are at a broadway show and saying this person did well in this person didnt. We play the game, but it is not very helpful. This approach that im outlining is more helpful. Host springfield on the republican line, go ahead with your question or comment calle. caller i have a comment the guest something made about donald trump saying he saw muslims dancing in the street after 9 11. He is not lying. I have seen this with my own eyes. Host mr. Shankman . Guest you did see it with your own wise, because in the middle east, they were dancing and there is videotaped. After 9 11 muslims in the middle east and other parts of the world, people were happy to see the United States, the big, bad superpower, as it is viewed in some parts of the world, getting knocked down a little bit. People were dancing in the streets, but it was not muslims in america and it was not american muslims doing this, but our brain confuses visual information that it is taking in. At that time, you are seeing this, a registered powerfully on your brain. One of the big shocks on 9 11 besides the attacks themselves, the other big shock was that people hate us to the point where they are happy to see us killed by the thousands. Impression powerful on your mind, but you do not see american muslims dancing in the streets. That did not happen. Host pardon me. The next call for Rick Shenkman comes from suzanne on the independent line. Go ahead, suzanne. Caller hey, rick. What you just said about the politiciansadvisors telling them how to go ahead and say what they are supposed to say instead of really answering the question that sort of not really in the stone age. Everybody is in the reality tv age. What the advisers are telling them to do is how to get the out of theesponse viewers. Aboutd of really thinking what the politicians are saying on all these different programs, we are being taken to the reality tv world where everybody kind of floats along and we dont care about real stuff. We just care about what we think is happening. I dont think the stone ages here. We have progressed a lot from the stone age because we are at the state where we can sit there with a completely empty mind. Host all right, let us get a response from mr. Shenkman. Guest we are not living in the stone age. We do have the stone age brain on our shoulders. Really very good at helping us understand the problems that we are facing. Daily, onee, almost of the political problems that we will face involves the faith of millions of people, whether we are talking about tax policy or whether we should go to war against terrorism. It is always a policy involving millions of people. Designed brain was not to address the problems of millions of people have i. It was designed to address the problems of a small number of people. That is why we have difficulty when we hear, for instance, that we are going to drop bombs in syria on a bunch of towns. We have a very great difficulty imagining the human beings who may be at the other end of the bomb site, who maybe are innocent civilians who are going to get killed. We see that as abstractions because the human brain is only capable of really seeing people as humans when they are standing in front of us. Then we get them as human beings. The thought of, wow, this mother walking with a child is going to be blown up by a bomb we find that horrifying as human beings. Talk about bombing people who dress differently than us, look differently than us, who live in a part of the world that we cannot even find on a map, than they are not human beings at all at that point. They are just abstractions. It is far easier inapplicable debate to say like ted cruz saying, just carpet bomb them. That is being careless with other peoples lives. It is not being sensitive to the fact that some human beings who are innocent might get killed. But our brain does not work that way. We do not think that way and that is a problem. Host wild and wonderful tweets into you, mr. Shenkman. Basically youre saying we are pavlovs ho have lost dogs. Just ring the bells and we salivate. Guest im not saying that at all. I am saying that if you stimulate acts, there will get a white response. Human beings with higher order of cognitive thinking. This is a story that i tell when i go on the road and give talks because i did this this past week on a couple of occasions. I tell the story of Jesse Washington. 100 years ago in 1916, the same year as the shark attack that we start of the program talking about, in 1916, Jesse Washington was a black man accused of a crime down in waco, texas. The authorities put him in jail. Came, broke them out of jail, put them on a tree, castrated him, cut off his fingers, set them on fire, and they killed him. We all heard about lynchings. This one took place before a crowd of not 10 or 15 people but of 15,000 people. There are pictures of this crowd and they are not horrified but what they are seeing by what they are seeing. They are cheering or pleased by what they are seeing. 100 years later, we find this horrific. Repulsion findsle this hard to conceive. What is going on here . This is because our culture has changed. Pavloviant have loft dogs. In politics most of the time, we are not thinking. We are simply reacting. We have the capacity to think. This is the wonderful thing about human beings. We are not slaves to our instinct. We can actually think our way thinkh our problems if we to take the active actually thinking. Host back to your book, political animals, you write that in mainstream politics, anger undermines democracy. People who are angry cannot see others points of view. Angry people dont compromise. Guest this is the big problem facing the United States right now. Look, when a small group of people want to create change in america, often there are people who are very, very angry and they want to see some change happen. So this was true, for instance, of the civil rights marchers in the 1950s and 1960s. When connor down in alabama let loose these dogs on crowds of civil rights protesters, you can be sure though civil rights protesters were really in a popping hiding hot angry mood. Those groups need anger to achieve Group Cohesion and to get anything done. Against them are so powerful that they need anger to keep them going every day and fight the good fight. When the majority of the American People turn angry, democracy stops. Anger is like grit in the gears of democracy and those gears cannot grind properly if those people are angry. We know this from science. That is what my book is all about. It is learned from what science is telling us about our brains. What happens when we are angry . The insula in the brain is activated. When the insula is activated, we dont compromise. We become close minded and not open to fresh viewpoints. When the amygdala is activated in the human brain, that is the seat of emotional power. We can get anxious. While we do not like to feel anxious, anxious people have an open mind and are more likely to compromise. But angry people dont. We are in a situation today where a majority of people are angry. It is very bad for our democracy. We have to get the anger out of our politics or we will not couples anything. Host alan in maryland, democrat. Go ahead with your question or, comments. Caller good morning of thank you for taking my call. I want to ask your guests to questions guest two questions. You mentioned during the kerry scandal that certain parts of the brain fire off signals and then they shut down. What would you recommend for individuals who hear that false and that is a shocker for us and they shut down and do not believe it anymore . What recommendation do you have for them . Belief in one is this our current elections that people are angry. They do not want to believe they are angry, but they are angry. What is your solution for that anger . You said it is hard to shut down an angry mob. I really would like to hear your comment on that solution. Host all right, thank you, sir. Rick shenkman . Guest i struggle with this just like everybody does. We are human beings and we are going to have our instant reactions. I have a partisan brain just like everybody. When i hear favorable things about the candidates that i like , i really listen closely because of confirmation bias. Thats a really good point. When i hear the information about somebody i like, i think thats not true. That cannot possibly be right. I just dismiss it. How do you get around that . How do you get around your own brain . If you become aware of how your brain can undermine your search for truth, and that is what i argue in the book, we are not really after the truth. We are after the truth that reinforces our version of reality. How can you get around that . There is no magic formula. You just have to be aware that this is how your brain works. You have to question everything. You constantly have got to subject your own opinions to a real, sober, honest assessment of why you believe what you believe. The caller was asking about anger. How do you get around anger . ,hen you are in an angry mood if you are married, every once in a while, youll get angry at yourselves. At that moment, you really cannot think straight. Youve got to wait until yukon down and then you reflect. That is when spouses decide they will make up. You have got to have that same approach in politics. Not keep listening to the same sources that just qqq revved up and in an angry mute keep you revved up and in an angry mood. If you are watching a tv show or listening to some jockey on the radio who has got you all read done all the time, tune him out for a while. Take a break from it. Take a week or two weeks off. Con down to the point where you can think a little bit more clearly. When you are in the grip of anger, you cannot think straight. That is just the way human beings are built. Understanding how our brain is built is what the book is all about. Host in february on this program, we got a call from somebody named kino in lakeland, florida, who suggested that we have Rick Shenkman on the program. I believe this is kino calling and now. Caller good morning and praise be for cspan. Most definitely i read mr. Shenkmans book. Let me make him aware that people have the Bipartisan Working Group in congress. I recommended they take your book and have a book report for all of congress to be aware of your book. The other thing that you talk about where we dwell on anxieties that bring about cooperation, i recommend that this Bipartisan Working Group, with the 10 most Serious Problems facing the United States before they try to seek solutions. They define what the problems are and what needs to be addressed. I want you to be aware im being a citizen advocate for that group and im using your book as one of the main thrust. I also want the president ial candidates to come up with the 10 most years problems they think e facing the country. The president ial candidates to go on book tv and recommend books people can read for a more intellectual approach rather than a emotional approach. I think cspan for what it does for our nation and im so glad they had you on today. Theware that ive asked bipartisan Congressional Working Group to come up with a definition of 10 most Serious Problems facing the nation. What might be your reaction . Guest well, first of all, thank viewerstelling cspan that they ought to read my book. An author always wants to hear that. Im really delighted that cspan listen to you and that his wife sitting here today. That is really great. Can we talk about anxiety for a moment . A lot of what i say sounds so negative. Turns us into unthinking partisans. We get angry and we cannot evaluate politicians. We are subject to manipulation easily. I want to talk about something that is positive and what the color just mentioned anxiety is one of the positive things. When you are anxious as a human being, it is a very unpleasant feeling, isnt it . It is something that we do not want to feel anxious. Anxiety is a wonderful thing. It is your brain telling you that you need to reevaluate your impression of something. If you have a view of the world and the way the world works, and you now have some evidence before you that says the world is not working the way i think it works, or i have a belief about a particular candidate and now i just got evidence that that candidate actually is behaving in a way that is contrary to what i thought about that candidate, i thought i understood them. Maybe i did not really understand them. When we get that anxious feeling, we reevaluate our opinions. Most of the time, we do not bother to reevaluate our opinions. The reason for that is that takes effort. That literally takes brain energy. Your brain consumes 20 of your bodys energy every single day. What that means is your brain is constantly looking for ways to not overwork because that requires more energy. Back in the stone age, it was hard to get protein and a lot of energy. The brain evolved to be extremely prudent and looking for shortcuts all the time. That is why we do not do harder cognitive thinking and politics most of the time. Our brain does not want us to think hard because that means more new runs are literally firing and that will consume more energy. Rather than think hard, it goes to the default position and we are just going to go with the flow and go with our normal reactions. With anxiety, our brain is telling us to stop. You cannot just go with the flow. Youve got to really think hard. Yup got to use higher order cognitive thinking. Brain telling you, time to engage and think hard. When you are watching a political debate and you feel a little anxious, do not try to shut that anxiety down to Pay Attention to it. That is your brain telling you there is a mismatch between a belief and what the facts are. Ime to reevaluate saying he isller back in this Bipartisan Group in congress, that is wonderful. That is what is needed if we are ever going to get anything done. This is a democracy. It only works when people in both parties are at the very minimal talking to each other. Betweenput up walls them and they only talk to their own supporters, democracy wont work. York. Client is in new please go ahead, clyde. Caller what you are saying is fantastic. You need to get together with ted weiss and you need to go on a tour. Journalismellow because i was a broadcast student. It mightve been psychology. I like to use a different word than what you use. I like to call it probably troglodytes. Amazing. Racism it is amazing. That is why i said you need to go on a tour together. Host who is tim weiss . Caller i think you had them on last sunday. No, it was free speech tv. He wrote a book, black like me. He speaks about white privilege, systematic racism, so forth and so on. With these guys both teaming up together, i think they can do a lot of constructive stuff in this country. Host all right, thank you, sir. Rick shenkman, any reaction . Wants to payebody to send me around the country and talk to audiences, i am all in favor of it. Run thee a day job and History News Network website where historians are putting the news into Historical Perspective , but i can take some time out to go on the road. Host helen in winthrop, maine, democrat. Please go ahead with your question or comment. Caller good morning. I was struck by a comment that author Michelle Goldberg made the other day on chris hayess show about policy currents and how generally speaking, the population is really a verse two people who are blatantly policy occurred. It is magnified when the power seeker is a woman. Some ofhis to explain the antipathy people have toward candidate clinton, im wondering if your book addresses the whole issue of gender and how this plays into the current political field. And also, the role of religion, where we know that many subjugation ofe women has been part and parcel of our history. I hope you would care to address those. Host go ahead, Rick Shenkman. Guest i think those are great points. I chose not to focus on gender. Was that a lot of books have been written about the importance of gender and politics. I do not want to throw another book on that pile. I wanted to draw attention to the four problems that i identify in the book, which is problems with curiosity, the problem with truth and our biases, the problem with empathy, and so forth. I do not really focus on that. I do agree with everything that you said. Those are all very, very good points. Host Rick Shenkman, you quote Thomas Bailey. Every foreignpolicy crisis in u. S. History was shaped decisively by Public Opinion. Guest Thomas Bailey was a stanford historian for 40 years. He was the author of the textbook that i and millions of others used in high school. It was called the amazing touch pageant. He also wrote a book called streetn the Public Opinion. The course of human history, youll find that politicians, congress, the president , they were creating policy around Public Opinion. It makes sense because we are a republic or a democracy, whatever you want to believe about our system of government. There is a big raging debate on the internet about that. Public opinion is key. Woodrow wilson said if you got the public behind you, you can accomplish anything. The problem is that if the public does not know that much, but the politicians are letting Public Opinion guide their foreignpolicy, we wind up making blunders. The iraq war is just a classic example. A president was able to gin up support for this war by playing on peoples fears about 9 11. He was able then to turn around and launched this war without even a congressional declaration of war. Did get a resolution of support, but it was not a fullblown declaration of war. That is a problem. Crisisany foreignpolicy , you will see that is a problem. Sometimes in world war ii, pearl harbor gets attacked. The public says we have got to take revenge and do something. That was the right policy. Most of the time, the public does not have an independent basis grounded in fact upon which they are making their opinion. The politicians, whether it is basic fact or not, are usually following Public Opinion. They are usually slaves to Public Opinion. That is a problem. Host rene in houston, texas, we have 15 seconds. Caller thank you very much. I wanted to address spirituality. I do not think i heard you mention anything about that and what a person believes in their mind is right. You are speaking so much about Public Opinion and what is what and what is right and what is wrong. What is people feel right is based on their spirituality. Host Rick Shenkman, you 15 seconds to answer that question. Guest i believe along with social scientist Jonathan Hiatt from the university of virginia that our moral values are in nate and we believe what we believe about it. Just subject your moral findings to rational, higherorder cognitive thinking. Author of shenkman, political animals. He is also the founder of the History News Network. Thanks for being on washington journal. Guest thank you very much. To stone age brain. Com to find out more about my research. Host this weekend, first of all, tonight at 7 00 p. M. , donald trump is live from hartford, connecticut for a Campaign Rally. This weekend, cspan2 and cspan3 become book tv and American History tv. 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors on cspan2, american , 48 hours of history on cspan3. Thanks for being with us today. The house is coming in and just a minute and it will be looking at Broadband Internet access and the rates that are charged for that. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] rayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroifment conroy. Chaplain conroy let us pray. Gracious and merciful god, we give you thanks for giving us another day. You bring forth blessings from just deeds. Listen to our prayers for the members of this peoples house. Give them the wisdom to meditate upon your revelation, your law. Help them find confidence in your love, especially in times of difficult. Difficulty. May their efforts reflect the mindset and gracious manner revealed in your loving commands, and may their work contain the depth of justice and