This is lovely to get to interview on a book that i think its fantastic i read in one sitting in founded of silly fascinating so my first question to you is how and the world could you write this so quickly because you are referencing things that happened april and may and the book just came out. It is great to speak with you im glad you enjoyed the book. At was a bit of a frenzied. I publish a new book about every seven years and i give myself a break between but i just wanted to get it out as quickly as possible there are a couple of chapters focused on what we should expect if there is a crisis in the United States of an economic crisis or a major security crisis. And i felt so passionate that there needed to be a political disaster prepared this around progressives that i just wrote what i had never written before also working with a publisher that was committed to getting it out very quickly that Publishing Industry nearly finished the book then it creeps along the process in all of these stages for another four months. But in this case everybody works so hard to get it out in recordbreaking time i very lucky to work with the publisher that is as committed to the political moment as i am. A feet is a great contribution to millions of people situation to say what do i do . And obviously from the title no is not enough but i also see the book as the amazing coming together of your work that starts with no low go and the of branding into the shop doctrine even with your climate work of this changes everything you are the quintessential antitrust that is the opposite of what trump stands for so maybe we should start with how you start the beginning of the of book looking at trump as the quintessential printing. Yes. And as you know, medea , medea, many of us has been on this journey and before i published any books that all that i would describe as the underside of branding was behind those beautiful logos as the marketing got better and better in the 90s turning into art in the airbus of nike but as they would up the ante they divested from the of world of work with the web of contractors and subcontractors who ever was willing to produce of product even cheaper because of course, even in your work was part of the process to expose those horrific conditions that were the most invaluable branson the world so i look at trump as a hollow brand that we hear not in the product business theyre really up through the 80s that it was the iconic brand in the a marketplace where they branded those products and logos but it 90s he started to see companies announcing they were in the a. D. Is business to project that idea on his many extensions as possible and disney opened celebration florida to live inside your favorite plant in brand and trump did this with realestate starting off traditional but quickly going into the stratosphere where it was less about building buildings and more about building his brain and then selling his name for very high prices to other developers who wanted to have the name on the side of their tower or resort. So this cable often at the expense of workers we have heard a terrible conditions for workers in the Trump Properties or their branded clothing around the world. So here you have a guy who can put millions of dollars of one building just by putting his name on it then he becomes president and as you say is a possible to separate out trump and his family and the Family Businesses with the clothing line now as the president. Because i dont think they can separate pact i dont know of his personal identity and said commercial brand begins. You cannot disentangle the man from the of brie and they do have to entities. Every time these sets foot in one of his properties the White House Press corps allows says company to sold more memberships or rent for ruth lazore increase of feet so how can you possibly separate this man from the brand . That particular challenge with trump he enters politics nut plate played by the traditional rules but the only rule of brandy is stayed true to your brain and so in the 1990s many activist exposed those Companies Like the promise of their brand like a Family Friendly itos because of products were made under conditions that were abusive to young people so they were vulnerable and they had to be responsive but he is said different kind of grant because it was the idea of absolute power that was the promise of the trump brand since the 80s publishing the art of the deal selling he uses the word killer in doesnt mean that literally but when he describes the art of the deal is about screwing over other people with nothing with the mutual beneficial agreement so he gets away with it. So he has a Consumer Base that has as aspirational identity that they have lost power on many fronts and that attainment of the of power that they want and that is hard to hold him accountable you catch him lying or cheating horror being nasty and the thing that could hurt a traditional politician even the of brand identity had more aspirational components truck is not hurt by any of this because it confirms his identity as a guy who gets away with anything because he is so rich pro. The only way you could hurt the trump rand is he is not as powerful as he seems to be. That hurts the brand identity. This word emoluments that most of never heard of before. They think it is a moisturizer. [laughter] now there are lawsuits in court to say he is making money illegally from the presidency is it just foreign entities to take rooms as part of those illgotten gains . Is there anything to that . It may well be it is interesting timing with the release of the book the data book came amount the news came that the general had launched this lawsuit alleging a violation of the constitution on those grounds and 100 lawmakers filed a lawsuit to of their own because what the constitution says is the president cannot do this without the permission of congress so there already was a lawsuit by a d. C. Restaurant and restaurant workers bet the significance of Congress People that they should have been consulted. They have the most legitimacy of the party to make this challenge and we may well discover trump is not as immune as eating says he is and i would just also add that the examples that we have heard how he is receiving gifts for foreign governments and i think there is a case to be made to have defense at the Trump Properties to ingratiate themselves to the president but there are other things to what gatt as well that the Chinese Government is granting a waiver of trademarks to sell their products in china but i am most disturbed that hasnt got enough Media Attention is the Chinese Government has detained laborer monitors that were investigating one of the phone does ivanka factories. But they see this president has not divested and they believe these are the favors into good graces of a president who is very concerned of his personal and Family Wealth soties six is on the phone to say rest to those people that the Chinese Government would think that it would be helpful to do to get rid of those whistleblowers. One of the points you make in the book that this isnt anything new talking about the clintons using Bear Foundation as a place that people could curry favor so could you tell us how that stage was set . My over arching goal was to ruth tried to challenge this because he is so unlike any president before there is the idea that if he could only be in peach that everything would be fine. Im not saying one way or another but if he has impeachable offenses that he should be impeached but that is where we were before trump that was not a safe place to prevent somebody else who could be even more dangerous with these qualities from taking power once again. So with is a bipartisan process the table that was set for trump. This is just politics but media and News Coverage that all he needed to do was just show what we are already treating elections like reality tv shows that was maurer interested in interpersonal drama but we already have democrats using the tools of corporate branding obama was a fantastic rand using those cutting edge marketing techniques to be behind the claims with change and transformation that there was not enough. Something else that set the table of the of the liberal idea that the clintons were central to was all about how billionaires to use that great wealth they amassed didnt deal regulation to fix the problems that we look at that Global Initiative with that currying of favor that its even more significant is the of model with the initiative would do and even get the notice from Richard Branson that he would profit from his airlines and as it turns out he did not make good on the promise of the money for public there was no accountability so to have a tremendous power over africa to play a role that is similar that they people argue that this idea of this complex help to create for trump to stand up with the American People to say trust me because i am rich because already as a culture asking as if the ability to make money in one area with that infinite wisdom and how was that pitch . But volume so rich that you need me to fix america. Also talking about setting the stage to Ronald Reagan that government is part of the problem rather than the solution then you talk about the clinton era and then the failure of president obama to hold didnt hold the bankers accountable setting the stage for the Economic System to allow the transfer of wealth to be so skewed in society. For those that enter into government maybe you could talk about how the Trump Administration has taken that to extremes to eliminate that middle million you dont have to wine and dine. This is of the process that trump started but taking into New Territory and though the ceo of exxon secretary of state the first in history with ties of Corporate America that is a significant example. It isnt a new process but in cheney very significantly it was one of optics and halliburton is something people have not heard of before cheney it was hugely important but not high in the branded. So appointing the ceo of excellent one of the most controversial in the world under investigation by the states attorneys general that they had misled their shareholders because the scientists were researching back in the 70s and that each 80s but exxon was under lot of pressure when trouble pointed the co he worked there his entire working life never had worked anywhere but so it is a continuation of all of that to date cheney and at least to listen divested from exxon before becoming secretary of state. But as you talk about so eloquently in the book now is deal to give away to Corporate America so maybe we should talk about, not even six months into the administration and what has been doing to go through the top wish list of the of fossil fuel companies and the bankers of the of militaryIndustrial Complex . Letter those items that we already see the seeing Corporate America . I do think they should be getting more because there is a lot of focus on exposing what they believe is a conspiracy and surely that should be investigated but there is the systematic and orderly transfer of wealth from the lower and middle income it really is the connective tissue of everything that Trump Administration is doing to get the 50 corporate tax. That 15 percent is the massive gift also getting rid of the estate tax that only benefits the very wealthy and has been on the wish list of major republican donors for a long time. He may get that through because so much attention is focused on what he called the the trump show. It sold out everywhere with he turned his extra marital affair of marla maples into a live action in soap opera he has always understood the power of destruction. Now some of that is orchestrated by those who like to leave information so that is put on him like the Russian Investigation but all of this draws our eyes away from the economic front climate is a huge giveaway to the oil and gas industry with deregulation one of the first things he did was rolled back field on the initiative to increase fuel efficiency standards one of those decisions was to a better document of methane in the gas industry we actually dont know the extent the gas industry in particular that fracking is doing. So there are new measures to abide by in these are one of the first things also we will not have Accurate Information about how much she missions are going up under trump. That is a few examples but the Health Care Plan celebrated in the rose garden was used as the back door redistribution of wealth. It is unfortunate we did not focus on this enough with Social Security and health care because it goes against what he promised on the campaign trail i do think he and his free and is vulnerable the make America Great brand had a particular promise to bring back jobs. I think we will see that with trade he promised to renegotiate that it was better for workers with a new era of fair trade meanwhile the commerce secretary says they will be negotiate nafta for that partnership that went through the United States. So this is where i think he is much more vulnerable and getting a fraction of what he deserves and the trump show is always sold out. One of those statistics of 190 executive corps the first three months in office but then what they decided to do is for those who visit the white house anymore. The focus on russia takes the eyes of so many things of the military Industrial Complex he already bloated pentagon budget wants to be increased with 54 billion in the weapons industry shot up but there was no attention paid for that. But it is more than that that, ed medea. He is a traveling weapons salesmen. The sum total of his Foreign Policy with saudi arabia, he praises them because they purchased a bunch of u. S. Weapons. He sent a message this is how you get into our good graces. So now potter has done the same thing with their weapons increase this is how they try to cool down tensions with saudi arabia and he lectures of nato members not to pull their weight i am a canadian american citizen but then they went home to announce a massive increase in military spending purpose of this is how the world unfortunately sees that this is the way to get into the good graces of this administration to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons. But also set the stage to recognize under the Obama Administration countries like saudi arabia became the number one weapons purchaser under obama who brag they sold 110 billion to those regimes so there we see the said stage by those democrats to proceeded trump so here you set the stage talking about getting prepared for the shock to combat also what theyre doing to resist him now and the whole premise of the book no is not enough, look at what has been done in the first several months of the trouble administration. So maybe we should spend some time on that then why that is not enough. We have this incredible wave of resistance and we see that it can win with that travel ban and that amazing surge of people going to airports across the country to say no end rejecting this to embolden local officials and Congress People to go to the airport, lawyers or even church judges to stand up. Everybody who i know is involved in political organizing says they have never seen that lovell of interest that whip recordbreaking numbers of women at the march they want to understand democracy better and educating themselves in people trying to voodoo internal work with their own internal racism showing up for Racial Justice. And this is inspiring with a collective memory of september 11 and a lot of people described being in shock but also of to use deep in solidarity to make us shock resistant this is important because if heaven forbid there is an attack in the United States we already know how a trump will respond. He really believes immigrants even though the bomber was born in the United Kingdom and then trump treated this is why we need the travel day and. There is a lot of things on the trump agenda some have been stopped some they have not even in tried to do but the education agenda is extremely radical. So i a. M. Concerned about a security shot but also the economic crisis. The ways in which people came together very courageously to reject what they saw as being a force to pay for the crisis with the bankers and lost wages. They said no at the polls and on the street, but there wasnt really enough of a vision for what kind of economy they wanted instead. I make the case for us to do the work for a forwardlooking vision and racial and Environmental Justice thats really bold and can inspire people. I think that is our best defense against demagogues who are tapping into real pain and mixing it with some insidious ideas and to hold up that promise of a better life. When he issued the manifesto which is a very bold document about fully funded Public Health care thats about getting rid of tuition fees and a bold transition to Renewable Energy, that is really what inspires people, particularly young people to turn out in record numbers. I think also the fact that he took on the form policy issues and after there were those attacks in england, rather than just saying