Reflects on the Founding Fathers calls for unified america. She is interviewed by former Republican NationalCommittee Chairman michael steele. E pluribus one, this book is part History Lesson, part call to arms, part roadmap. Sophia, what was going through your mind, first, to meet you to write the book, and then as you were writing it to so take that approach where you were doing all these things at one time . Im going to teach you something, show you something, tell you something . Guest first of all thank you for being here. You are one of my back cover quotes so that means a lot to me. We have been friends for 25 years. I dont want to talk about how old we are. You and your question, two things happen in 2015 that working changes. The first one was the right in baltimore. Stephanie rawlingsblake was the mayor, good friend. I was in shock because im born right after the riots and everything. I never saw that in my lifetime. Seeing an American City burn was shocking. The second thing that happened was the charleston shootings. The issue over the confederate flag. Seeing nine africanamericans shot in this black church. The white supremacist here i was in shock that my country was in this state and i thought ive got to do something. So what i did was i write books for women. Normally womens inspiration, womens transformation. I thought im going to write a book to help the country, a selfhelp book for america. Host its exactly that. Guest thats what inspired you, those two events in 2015. I had no idea we would end up here. Host its really telling in the book, so lets deal with how we end up here and what do we do in the space, because the book really takes us into that space that you need to really begin to understand. And here you talk and this is one of the core arguments you make, you talk about reclaiming our founders vision. And in that section of the book you talk about three codes. The first code with the people must engage be engaged and keep vigilant watch over our government. Weve seen citizens begin to do that going back really the 200 20042005. People focus on tea party but we know this idea citizens being vigilant, keeping watch on the government really began to matter a few years ago. The courts are our most precious justice on many levels. We are seeing an american president as weve seen with barack obama child is the Supreme Court during the state of the union. This President Trump challenging the rules of a justice or judge. Three, we must educate our children and their children about the constitution. When i read this i was like this is core. This is the key part of this book. Walk us through how those elements are important too, not just this chapter about reclaiming our founders vision, but what we as americans from this moment forward must be doing and thinking about these types of issues. Guest thats excellent. Lets first at what our founders vision is. E pluribus one is me translate the word E Pluribus Unum. Out of many one. That was a founding motto. Our motto now is in god we trust interestingly so. Theres been a move to get it back to E Pluribus Unum at the founders vision comes critical we understand the importance of unity. Unity does not mean we agree. Unity does not mean we dont march, protest watch the government. It has never met that there was a Founding Fathers understood that if theyre going to defeat the british empire, the 13 colonies cannot be divided. I had to come together under this one ideal, liberty. The best defense against tyranny is to my fellow americans out there who are marching, upset on social media acting out, if you really think this president is going to be tyrannically if you think your government is headed in a true medical direction, unity is a way we beat it. Unity is how we defeat liberty. At the first thing keep liberty. The founders didnt agree on a whole lot of what they did agree with was this vision of unity of purpose, unity of liberty and udf reader. Those are the three things you brought up. Absolutely right. Core and essential to our government function as the three separate branches of government, the executive, donald trump, the judiciary, the courts, the final, the Supreme Court, then the congress which is your article one, article ii and article iii powers. I tried to break this book doesnt anyone could read it. I didnt want it to be too high maintenance. Its the constitution in america and to republic for dummies need being the biggest dummy of all. I spent some time, im a loner, i studied the constitution. Ive worked on capitol hill so, yes, i probably have a better understanding as to you because youre likewise an attorney in government. We kind of get this. We are nerds what it wanted to break this down to people so they understood that your kids have to know about their country and the government. And to the republic for which it stands, we take a pledge. Our money says certain things on it, in god we trust, E Pluribus Unum, the seal. There are symbols and things our founders put forth that it stayed with us for 240 years. Theres no other country on earth that is still a republic that is standing in the way. Rome was the last Great Republic and we know what happened to rome. This notion of the separation of powers and being vigilant. Paul revere i opened the book, i have heroes in every chapter and the reason i brought people to life into the book is because i wanted my fellow americans to connect with this notion of who and what made this country great. I dont think the country needs to be made great begin by way. I think it is still great. What im saying to you is that the vision of being selfgoverning and vigilant and watching is the most sacrosanct probably core thing we can have. Paul revere, i chose him, and Elizabeth Stanton and the first code, because our two people, they call the countrymen at a time to arms. There were watchers, rabblerousers. They were provocateurs. And so i think we have that now and i think thats a good thing. I think this notion to move to the second part of the course so that anybody understands, the court in my opinion is probably the most powerful branch of government. Because they interpret the law and they enforce the law. So this traveling issue that we have right now, its going to be a rolling very soon. The appeals court, it will go to the Supreme Court because it is a classic separation of powers issue. Does the president at the authority under article ii in section eigh eight of use code . Or does the power rests with the congress to create some type of legislation or make it more clear and change it, or does the court have the final say that this is unconstitutional or mr. President we will send a backup you need to tweak this and fix it . I dont have the answer for you what i do know is that we are living at something that happens rarely, whether this kind of fight between executive and judiciary in a classic separation of powers. Host lets stay with that a little bit and tie it into this id of unity. You touched on unity. The book is all about unity, started not just from its title but throughout the book. That is the underlying we being the theme that this works because were unified we disagree but were still unified. How does that play out in this environment that weve seen, particularly in this recent president ial election . This book if i won the best books in america because as i said not only is it a History Lesson to help you understand constitutional principles and values and ideas of the Founding Fathers, but it relates into what exactly is happening to you right now right before your eyes realtime. How does the unity piecework when there is so much disunity on the day after the president inauguration, hundreds of thousands of people protesting that president . The womens march and many others. Two weeks later we are still protesting. You have a president who agitates, who will go, on twitter and go after his opponents if you will. When does unity come into play and how does this book provide prescriptions for turning that important corner to recognize how important unity is . Guest what i tried to do was give us a roadmap, great words. You can read this book if you are in high school, in college, you know, starting life, middle age, older, whatever. This book is a refresh of civics but i rode in a way as you know, we need a little help. We are a little messed up. Americas great country but we are a little bit confused right now by who we are and what we want. Thats what were wrestling with. Disunity piece we have to break this down because this last election, half the country feels one way and another half of the country feels another. The people who live in rural america, workingclass, bluecollar people who have been hit very hard over the last couple decades with poverty, with loss of our jobs overseas, that is largely White America of a certain class. And then you have urban america which lives a whole different experience of unemployment and crime, and Donald Thomas talked about the murder rate. The first thing went to get you is we live different experienc experiences, and thats key because we dont talk about that. They unity comes in and that we love our country. Now that we agree with each other, now that we experience life the same pic doesnt make sense . Host it does but how do you reconcile that historically in the context of history . We can talk about the condition of African Americans in the United States today and related back to 400 years. We can talk about the mindset of White America today and relate it back to the same. Period so can you say the Founding Fathers actually gave a damn about unity when they owned slaves, when they treated women the way they did, the women could vote, and participate in the economy, couldnt participants typically. Guess what i talk about all that. Host you do. Help us understand how that is a foundation, move this into guest the Founding Fathers, again it so important. Im excited about this discussion because the Founding Fathers are often seen as white men who were rich, landowners, many of them let me finish. They owned slaves. So we know that that is true but also a hold of the context. Look at jefferson. Talk about an evil genius. I love the man but the men had a slight that had a relationship with for decades and that children, and it took 200 years before we could solidify and validate that it happened. Ththomas jefferson was the man o route we hold these truths to be selfevident that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain and eatable rights, among these life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How do you write those words and do what he did . Ill tell you now because they were men of their times. At the time these men lived, lets do with history as it is. Slavery was rampant across the whole entire globe, not right, immoral, wrong ultimately got abolished by the way that they so you, particularly here was were unified against that crown. Weve got to be unified we dont like this taxation without representation. We believe our rights come from god. We believe we have a right to freedom and liberty. How do you believe that for you and take it away from somebody else . I dont have an answer for you. What i do know is their vision was correct, and ultimately what i love about my country is that that vision gets perfected over time. Women eventually do get in franchise with the right to vote. They owned property. Ladies like Elizabeth Stanton and others fighting back, rosa parks fighting for civil rights. Doctor king. Ultimately these provocateurs in the book, these agitators, they provoke and pushed us to live up to who we say we are. Host but market tours, that statement that, because id love when you talk about that in the book you sort of lay them out and give examples of it and you really kind of hold it down the vineyard ask yourself, those provocateurs were provocative in the way that was consistent with the underpinnings of the country. Can we say that about malcolm x. Ive always found in modern American History to figures that while diametrically opposed were intertwined and that was king and malcolm x. My philosophy is sort of a combination of the queue. Im always about getting it done by any means necessary. Guest absolutely. Host king was about getting it done. Mr. President he said to Lyndon Johnson, no, you need to do this. He wasnt prepared to go by any means necessary. Guest dont you think malcolm made his role in easier cracks. Host he made it a heckuva let easier. Guest that im going to pick one of these two ongoing with the change. Host but again even in that provocation, as you lay out in the book it was related back to our history. Who we are. Can we say that about provocateurs today . Guest absolutely. Host show me how the provocations that we see, say what we hear about guest i dont like the burning or the looting. Guest host not just the agitators, the agitators in positions of power. How does that relate to e pluribus one . Guest i think that there are two points in our history of 1860, which is where we are about to go into a civil war. The country is really at odds. And i would say the civil rights movement. Ironically always evolving about race in this country which is an interesting discussion for another time. We dont have to have. I bring this two points in history to say there were times when the union and republic was in real trouble. We were being ripped apart by the type of provocations that we saw, whether it was hosing people are whether it was brother turning against brother in the field of gettysburg. We saw a real ugliness, but we ultimately survived it and we rose above it, because we were unified, maybe not in what was then, a region or have you wanted to do life, but we were unified in that liberty, liberty is at the core of everything about america. If you get nothing else i say today, liberty is at the core of who we are. It makes us different from any other place on earth. This unity is, when the president gets onto it and says the socalled judges, all of us get upset because something in his nose thats not right. That is a judge, a duly sworn and come from judge. So lets not undermine our powers. Lets not undermine our branches. I was upset last night and got into an argument on social media over the whole people dont want to go to the white house, the new England Patriots won the super bowl. Some of them dont want to go because i dont like trump. The presidency bigger than troll. Its an institution. I didnt think was right when brady didnt want to go when obama was president. I dont think its right when people dont want to go because its troll. As americans we respect and honor our institutions. When theyre out of fine we challenge them again. Thats what makes us different. Host thats true, but you still have the issue of how come and did you get two good examples, brady doesnt want to go because obama is there and some new England Patriots dont want to go because trump is a bear. Thats still a mighty undermines the core principle that we set out here. Going back to guest 50 years ago, you and i both, 25 years ago. Ronald reagan host and wouldnt have happened during the bush era. Guest i agree lets go back to present make in which a lot of people were concerned about him because he was so conservative. But at the end of the day when president reagan, when Karen Scott King had to get the Martin Luther king holiday, Ronald Reagan signed the bill that she didnt care who signed it. She wanted to get the bill signed. Michael, think your point is great that we are seeing a smooth away. Thats wanted to write this book. Im trying to reel us back to understand, we got to like things, well have to agree but were losing respect for each other when losing respect for institutions and what i found on social media in particular because as you know that changes the game. We didnt have social media 15 years ago, much less 25, 50, 100 years ago. People were not educated about the documents. This notion of fake news and all these things were talking about, people get onto the dont know what theyre talking about. Thats my big pit p. Know your documents, know your history, know how your country is formed. Thats when your arm for liberty. At your best defense. Host you talk about in bukit into some of the topics that your book raises that are contentious on so many levels today. You say some believe that the framers of the bill of rights sought to balance not just political power but also military power between the people, the state and the nation. As Alexander Hamilton explained in 1780, it circumstances should a vignette obliged the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be permitted both to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens. Little if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms. We stand ready to defend their own rights and those other fellow citizens. Guest thats what he said. Host that is a Second Amendment argument that is made consistently, and yet as a nation we still struggle, and i think in some sense without understanding this principle, how it relates to liberty. Walk us through your discovery there into how you write about that. Guest in this code which is the last of the citizens code, its the one place i have raised my own personal voice. Host right. You say, you do say that. You said look, this code is a one place in this book that im going to raise my voice and attempt to sway you as my fellow americans to come to some fundamental agreement. What is that . Guest its because i understand as you understand, as we should all understand. Lets go back to 1770, okay . Sam adams, paul revere formed the sons of liberty. They are tired of the way theyre being treated by the crown. They got this undergroun undergg going with a can communicat