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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but after my last interview

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Speaker 1: with George will I can't seem to get enough of

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Speaker 1: conservative commentary. This week, we're at Joe's Pub at the

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Speaker 1: Public Theater in Lower Manhattan for the Public Forum, a

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Speaker 1: series of conversations pairing someone like me. I've been connected

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Speaker 1: to the public in various ways over the years with

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Speaker 1: a voice from outside the world of theater. Today, I'll

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Speaker 1: be speaking with one of the leading public intellectuals of

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Speaker 1: our time. David Brooks is a writer whose political opinions

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Speaker 1: and judgment are so revered that he often gets calls

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Speaker 1: from the White House in anticipation of a column. At

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Speaker 1: the same time, he's also willing to say things like, quote,

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Speaker 1: every kid should take a course on how to choose

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Speaker 1: a marriage partner. Unquote. Few topics are off limits to Brooks.

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Speaker 1: He's been a New York Times op ed columnists since

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Speaker 1: two thousand three. He's known as a conserve bit of voice.

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Speaker 1: Brooks was a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, but

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Speaker 1: former Obama advisor David Axelrod described him as a true

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Speaker 1: public thinker. I was lucky to have David Brooks joined

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Speaker 1: me on stage in New York City. Joe's Pub is cozy.

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Speaker 1: It seats just under two hundred people who are eating

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Speaker 1: and drinking throughout the program. The pub sits right on

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Speaker 1: top of the subway. Sometimes you can hear and feel

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Speaker 1: the train rumble. Below. Take a listen to some of

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Speaker 1: my conversation with David Brooks, recorded last week on October

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Speaker 1: one at Joe's Pub as part of the Public Theater's

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Speaker 1: Public Forum series. Thank you all for coming, by the way,

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Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't have as much time to read

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Speaker 1: the op ed page of the New York Times as

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Speaker 1: i'd like to these days because of my schedule, so

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Speaker 1: I thought to make it easy, I would just invite

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Speaker 1: someone and hang out with someone right for the otbed

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Speaker 1: page and kind of get a whole kind of, uh,

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Speaker 1: the background of what I've been missing in political opinion.

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Speaker 1: But thank you very much to David Brooks, and I

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Speaker 1: haven't in thirty rock and months, so you better hurry

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Speaker 1: because we're off the air. Um Anyway, I just wanted

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Speaker 1: to begin by asking you just first to describe your

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Speaker 1: own background and where you grew up and what was

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Speaker 1: politics in your life when you were in a high

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Speaker 1: school and beyond as an undergraduate. So I grew up

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Speaker 1: here in Stivesontown, not too far away from here. I

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Speaker 1: grew up in a somewhat left wing background. When I

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Speaker 1: was five and my parents took me to a b

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Speaker 1: in Uh in Central Park, where it explains everything else

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Speaker 1: hippies would go to just you know, be Uh. And

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Speaker 1: so one of the things they did was they set

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Speaker 1: a garbage can on fire and threw their wallets into

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Speaker 1: it to demonstrate their liberation for money and material things.

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Speaker 1: And I was five and I saw a five dollar

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Speaker 1: bill on fire in the garbage can, and I ran

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Speaker 1: up and grabbed it and ran away. And so that

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Speaker 1: was my first step over to the right. And then

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Speaker 1: even closer to here, I my father was teaching an

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Speaker 1: n y U. I went to Grace Church School, where

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Speaker 1: I was part of the all Jewish boys doving in choir.

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Speaker 1: So we were about fifty Jewish and we'd sing the hymns,

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Speaker 1: but we wouldn't say the word Jesus to swear it

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Speaker 1: with our religion. So the volume would drop and then

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Speaker 1: it would come back up. And so I grew up here,

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Speaker 1: went to Philadelphia Uh. Then went to college at the

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Speaker 1: Chicago the school where Fund goes to die. Um, what

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Speaker 1: did your dad teach it? He taught English literature. We

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Speaker 1: were part of a culture in New York Jewish circles.

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Speaker 1: The culture was called think Yiddish, act British, and so

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Speaker 1: you were very anglophilic. And so he taught Victorian literature.

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Speaker 1: And actually this is true in my grandfather's generation. All

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Speaker 1: the Jews wanted to fit in, so they gave themselves

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Speaker 1: names which they thought were super English, so nobody would

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Speaker 1: think they were Jewish. Well, no, they picked Irving, Sydney Milton,

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Speaker 1: and so it didn't really work out. What did you

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Speaker 1: study at Chicago? I studied hit American history. The other

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Speaker 1: thing about Chicago was, if I can get this right,

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Speaker 1: it's a Baptist school where atheist professors teach Jewish students. St.

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Speaker 1: Thomas Aquinas and so. But actually I began to turn there.

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Speaker 1: So how did that evolve when you're in Chicago? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: So I was a lefty and I was assigned a

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Speaker 1: book called The Reflections and the Revolution in France by

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Speaker 1: Edmond Burgh. And here's a guy saying, you know, you

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Speaker 1: really shouldn't think for yourself the power of reason is weak.

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Speaker 1: Well you should do is rely on the just prejudices

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Speaker 1: that have survived the test of time. And I just

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Speaker 1: loathed that book, that idea, because that I want to

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Speaker 1: think for myself. I want to come up with my

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Speaker 1: own ideas. But as I got older, and especially I

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Speaker 1: became a police reporter covering crime, murders and rapes in

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Speaker 1: the South Side of Chicago, I began to see that

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Speaker 1: he's right. Our power of reason is weak. And part

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Speaker 1: of the core of my conservatism is a phrase epistemological modesty.

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Speaker 1: The world is incredibly complicated. We can't know much about it.

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Speaker 1: We should be very suspicious that we can plan. And

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Speaker 1: then I covered really a horrible housing projects in Chicago,

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Speaker 1: Cabrini Green and others and legendary. Yeah, And so to me,

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Speaker 1: they were part of the unintended consequences of pretty bad

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Speaker 1: welfare policy, which enabled families to break up and and

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Speaker 1: tore down good neighborhoods. What year was that when you

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Speaker 1: were That was the early eighties, And so I became

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Speaker 1: more conservative of a certain story. And would you say

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Speaker 1: that alone like kind of failed urban policy, I mean

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Speaker 1: it was part. I mean it was partly. I mean

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Speaker 1: it was a period incredible social decay. I mean you

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Speaker 1: look at all the social indicators they really starting a

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Speaker 1: seventy they just collapsed, divorced, drugs, crime, And so you're

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Speaker 1: growing up in that and you think what's going wrong?

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Speaker 1: But did you think that I'm sorry for spitting on you,

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Speaker 1: even from this distance. I'm used to it, and I

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Speaker 1: would never spit on you intentionally. I would just say

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Speaker 1: the do you think that people that are more left

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Speaker 1: leaning they're the ones whould say drugs, divorced crime, or

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Speaker 1: the results of other failed social policies, and those policies

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Speaker 1: proceeded that that those things are are symptoms of something

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Speaker 1: which has failed, of public policies in terms of jobs

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Speaker 1: and fairer taxes. And did you think that some of

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Speaker 1: the problems that we're facing our society in the sixties

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Speaker 1: and seventies and were the results of other bad policies

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Speaker 1: that might have some conservative things on them as well.

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Speaker 1: I've gotten more educated about it since, and I think

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Speaker 1: the sort of the classic more liberal position is William

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Speaker 1: Julius Wilson, the sociologist at Harvard. He said the real

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Speaker 1: problem was all the urban jobs went away and when

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Speaker 1: the jobs went wait for the working class, then the

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Speaker 1: social decay came, and I think there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: truth to that. I would say there was also a

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Speaker 1: breakdown in social Moray's they should stick around in hand,

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Speaker 1: and that's exactly my view now that they became a spiral.

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Speaker 1: And so now you know, I had a conversation with

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Speaker 1: I always have conversations with, let's say, senior administration officials,

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Speaker 1: and I say, you know, the breakdown of the family.

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Speaker 1: Kids are born out of wedlock. Right now, if that

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Speaker 1: remain it's true, and every we all know people who

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Speaker 1: are born with single parents and they're doing great, but

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Speaker 1: the odds are higher. And so I say with if

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Speaker 1: that remains true, then thirty years from now, we'll have

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Speaker 1: more inequality than we do now, and the skills gap

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Speaker 1: will be greater from that fact alone. So why don't

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Speaker 1: you take on family policy? And if you're gonna do

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Speaker 1: it right, you got to do it in two ways. One,

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Speaker 1: you've got to encourage people to get married and stay

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Speaker 1: married or not have kids until they get married. But

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Speaker 1: you also got to make give men money so they're

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Speaker 1: worth marrying. And that's basically the problem. You've got to

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Speaker 1: give them earning come tax credit or some other wage

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Speaker 1: subsidy you gotta do you mean also give women money

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Speaker 1: so they're worth married. Not well, now see, yes you

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Speaker 1: did mean that. You just don't know it, but you

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Speaker 1: did mean. We're here. Don't try to make me popular.

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Speaker 1: I'm just trying to make you more popular than when

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Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons why the marriage has

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Speaker 1: fallen apart it's mostly I think on the male side.

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Speaker 1: When you talk about, you know, the decay of the

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Speaker 1: family and stuff, and then you talk about I mean,

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Speaker 1: do you have any particular opinions about birth control? So well,

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Speaker 1: I might have a little different view. I mean, first,

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Speaker 1: on social issues, I'm still as left wing as the

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Speaker 1: day is long. On the I'm I'm not only for example,

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Speaker 1: well so I'm not only for supporting gay marriage, I'm

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Speaker 1: for coercing gay marriage. I mean, I think we should say,

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Speaker 1: are you guys married yet? Are you married yet? You

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Speaker 1: guys can get married, but say on in Africa. You know,

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Speaker 1: I was at a village in Mozambique a couple of

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Speaker 1: years ago where there were no adults. There was grandparents

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Speaker 1: and kids. All the adults were dead from AIDS, and

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Speaker 1: so you asked the grandparents, are the kids replicating the

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Speaker 1: behaviors that killed their parents after they nursed them to

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Speaker 1: their deaths? And they said yes, they're doing all the

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Speaker 1: same stuff. And so the question becomes, how do you

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Speaker 1: change that behavior? And the short answer is you give

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Speaker 1: contraception and you try to change behavior by lectures at

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Speaker 1: the same time. But who's been most effective at changing

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Speaker 1: behavior in my experience, it's not us Westerners with our

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Speaker 1: technical expertise, it's the Church. And the Church will say

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Speaker 1: it's about your soul, here's how you should live. And

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons so many the religions there, the

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Speaker 1: Protestants and the Catholics are so incredibly conservative, is because

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Speaker 1: they need that ammunition to change behavior. And if you

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Speaker 1: don't follow these rules, your souls is damned. That I

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Speaker 1: find pretty persuasive as a way to get people to

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Speaker 1: change their behavior when you're living with a life threatening disease.

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Speaker 1: But they haven't been successful. Well, it's when the Catholics

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Speaker 1: are opposed, I mean the Catholics in terms of the brass,

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Speaker 1: if you will, of the Catholic Church. They're opposed to. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's yeah, I think you're absolutely right about that. I

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Speaker 1: guess my point is they're opposed in theory. But you

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Speaker 1: go into a Catholic mission in in the maybe or anywhere,

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Speaker 1: and the rubbers are sitting right there on the table.

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Speaker 1: They don't have the luxury of being abstract about this,

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Speaker 1: and they say, if you gotta thirteen year old kid

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Speaker 1: who comes in, you preach abstinence. If you had an

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Speaker 1: eighteen year old, you can hand him a rubber. I

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Speaker 1: want to make out that check. I want to pay

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Speaker 1: to the Order of the Vatican ten thou dollars and

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Speaker 1: in the memo for rubbers, and to see to see

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Speaker 1: what happens now from Cabrini Green, where do you go?

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Speaker 1: What happens? How much longer? So we all have these

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Speaker 1: weird things that happened in our lives. While I was

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Speaker 1: in at college, I wrote a humor column, which is

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Speaker 1: hard to believe if anybody reads my current column, I know, uh,

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Speaker 1: I think you still write a humor college? Yeah, thank you,

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Speaker 1: thank you. So I'm just pretty funny, yeah that. And

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Speaker 1: then I was trying to be funny, and so William F.

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Speaker 1: Buckley came to campus and I wrote a piece calling

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Speaker 1: him a name dropping blowhard basically, And so I said,

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Speaker 1: you know, he wrote the first three volumes of his

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Speaker 1: memoirs in the day of his birth. All of human

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Speaker 1: history up to Buckley was glorious dawn. And then he

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Speaker 1: in college, he founded two magazines, one called The National Buckley,

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Speaker 1: one called the Buckley Review, which he emerged to form

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Speaker 1: the Buckley Buckley. And so it was all just one

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Speaker 1: joke after another. And he came to campus and he

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Speaker 1: gave a talk to the student body and he said,

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Speaker 1: David Brookster, if you're in the audience, I want to

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Speaker 1: give you a job. And so that was my big break. Now,

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Speaker 1: sadly I wasn't in the audience, and I and I

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Speaker 1: and I wasn't that conservative. But three years later I

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Speaker 1: was drifting a little bit up the right and I

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Speaker 1: called him up and I said, is that job still open?

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Speaker 1: And he said yeah. And so literally, from twenty four

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Speaker 1: hours I was covering a murder on the West Side

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Speaker 1: of Chicago. Twenty four hours later I was up in

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Speaker 1: his Park Avenue apartment having dinner with finger bowls. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and I, you know, I thought it was a watery soup.

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Speaker 1: And but so when you get when you became his

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Speaker 1: associate editor, you became a pseudo sung for a year

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Speaker 1: and a half. So he took me yachting, he took

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Speaker 1: me to bout concerts, he asked my opinion, and so

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Speaker 1: it was one of those magical experiences where a guy

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Speaker 1: who's a real mentor and so I worked in National

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Speaker 1: View for a year and a half and he was

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Speaker 1: would you admire most about him? There's many people who

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Speaker 1: worked with have worked with him, have speak glowingly about him.

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Speaker 1: But by the way, incredibly diverse group of people, Joan

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Speaker 1: Diddy and John Leonard, a lot of people, and so

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Speaker 1: his greatest capacity was his capacity for friendship. If you

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Speaker 1: went over his house for dinner. First of all, there

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Speaker 1: were not that many conservatives there. There were not many

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Speaker 1: political people. It was writers mostly. Anatol Broyard, a literate critic,

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Speaker 1: was yeah, and so we we never talked about what

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Speaker 1: the tax policy was. It was what Dostoevsky had written

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Speaker 1: about this. One of his biographers estimated he wrote more

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Speaker 1: personal letters than anybody else in the twentieth century. He

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Speaker 1: was one of these guys his brain just couldn't stop

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Speaker 1: output had to become and he wrote all these letters,

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Speaker 1: cultivated all these friendships, and so it was an intoxicating

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Speaker 1: experience to him based in d C or here here.

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Speaker 1: How long were you with him? About eighteen months? And

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Speaker 1: what happened? So then he sends me off to start

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Speaker 1: my career and I went and became a movie critic

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Speaker 1: at the Washington Times, and then I came became a

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Speaker 1: book review editor at the Wall Street Journal and then

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Speaker 1: a movie critic for the Wall Street Journal in the

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Speaker 1: Washington Times. When you were doing the movie criticism and

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Speaker 1: the Messiah, yeah, the Reverence, the late late he was

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Speaker 1: a big movie fans. I'm young Moon. Yeah, like we

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Speaker 1: were like a Jennifer Anniston fan. When was his ill,

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Speaker 1: it was more Hunt for October that Actually he funded

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Speaker 1: a movie. He funded Pearl Harbor. He funded some movie

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Speaker 1: that bomb, And so I was in Pearl Harbor. I

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Speaker 1: did bomb. But thank you, thank you well if you

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Speaker 1: asked me for Reverend, what was it like writing movie

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Speaker 1: criticism for for I mean, the Washington Times is a

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Speaker 1: is a very very conservative paper. Yeah, I must say,

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Speaker 1: when I was there, we had a very talented staff.

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Speaker 1: So Malcolm Ladwell was one of my co authors. And

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Speaker 1: so when you weren't touch you you were free to

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Speaker 1: write whatever you would And I had the best interview

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Speaker 1: of my life until this one. It was with Jackie

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Speaker 1: Gleason and he was just about the funniest person I

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Speaker 1: ever met in my life. When when you wrote movie criticism,

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Speaker 1: was it the classic thing where like the movie critic

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Speaker 1: died and you were writing the gardening column and somebody said, kid,

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Speaker 1: you're the movie critic. When that happened to me at

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Speaker 1: the film well, I kind of resent right now that

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Speaker 1: you were a movie critic for the Washington Times because

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Speaker 1: what was your background in film? You're recovering murders in

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Speaker 1: Careeny Green? I had a PhD in film from USC

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Speaker 1: and no, I didn't because of my rich social life

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Speaker 1: at the Chicago I saw a movie almost every night.

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Speaker 1: Uh and so I recall in one eleven week period,

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Speaker 1: I saw seventy seven movies, and I for kidding, I

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Speaker 1: would do my homework from seven and nine to go

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Speaker 1: to the move of the student thing with outstanding film thing,

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Speaker 1: I'd go and then I'd go to the bar. That

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Speaker 1: was my life and friend, Yeah, I did that lasted

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Speaker 1: eight team was why did that end? Because I got

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Speaker 1: a hired by the Wall Street Journal to come up here. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so how do you how do you How do you

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Speaker 1: go from the Washington Times writing film to the journal

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Speaker 1: Because I got towards a good piece of advice. And

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you followed this. But never say

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Speaker 1: no to anything. Say yes everything, at least at a

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Speaker 1: certain point in your life. I said yes to Pearl Harbor,

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Speaker 1: and I have to beg to different. I said yes

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Speaker 1: to a lot of things I shouldn't said yes. Yes

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Speaker 1: were the creato with my businesses? Say no until you

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Speaker 1: have to say yes? Who never said no? One who

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Speaker 1: rang your bell for the Wall Street Journal? Who came

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Speaker 1: after somebody asked me to do a piece on economics,

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Speaker 1: And because of my deep background and film, I wrote

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Speaker 1: an essay on economics. Uh and and the editor of

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Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal saw it and liked it and

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Speaker 1: and called me up and said, we need a book

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Speaker 1: of your editor. So I edited the book of your section.

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Speaker 1: And then I went out from from New York. And

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Speaker 1: then I went out and covered the decline in Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: For five years. I was in covering half the world. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I lived in Brussels, but I covered the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: Um and Della coming out of prison married at the time,

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Speaker 1: I was married at the time. You have a very

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Speaker 1: patient wife. If I told my wife we were moving

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Speaker 1: back to Brussels, she would put an axe in my head. Right,

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Speaker 1: so you're at the Journal for how long? For nine years?

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Speaker 1: And then where do you go? So then I go

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Speaker 1: to the Weekly Standard of Conservative magazine owned by Rupert Murdack.

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Speaker 1: At that point, what was that like? That was the

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Speaker 1: best experience A lot like Buckley. People say, people who

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Speaker 1: know Murda personally, and they all say that he's like Buckley.

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Speaker 1: He's this very charming, very you know, uh, devoted to

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Speaker 1: his friends, you know very was he that way when

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Speaker 1: you work with him? I confess I never talked to him,

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Speaker 1: and the one time I did was at a party.

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Speaker 1: Any mumbled. I couldn't understand what he was saying. But

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Speaker 1: you know the problem with writing, especially my current job,

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Speaker 1: it's solitary, and so at the magazine it was all

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Speaker 1: my friends getting together, right a magazine. I was here

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Speaker 1: for a panel about a year or two ago, and

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Speaker 1: we were backstage and it was like I was my

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Speaker 1: little glimpse of the theater world. It was like group

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Speaker 1: hugs and I remember there was even tissues out on

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Speaker 1: stage here in case we started crying and and and

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Speaker 1: and believe me, if you go to the Brookings Institution

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Speaker 1: and you're you're doing a panel on tax policy, there's

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Speaker 1: not a lot of group hugging. Uh. And so I

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Speaker 1: sort of at the magazine was my closest experience to

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Speaker 1: being part of a team, putting on something together as

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Speaker 1: a group, And so I really like that. Well, being

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Speaker 1: on a team that way and being and having that

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Speaker 1: kind of collegiality with people is really Um, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: come and do a play in New York in February

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Speaker 1: only because it means like I'm literally starving for the

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Speaker 1: oxygen of being part of an ensemble and being part

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Speaker 1: of a work where the best work is done when

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Speaker 1: we all do it together and integrated together. Now, if

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Speaker 1: you're in the theater, can you put on a good production?

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Speaker 1: If people don't like each other, do they have to do?

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Speaker 1: People have to purse genuinely like in the theater because more,

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Speaker 1: presumably more thought goes into the piece. Like whether we

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Speaker 1: did street Car on Broad Bay and Greg Moser said

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Speaker 1: the great line, he's it, but we know the material works.

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Speaker 1: If we bomb, it's us it's like we know, like

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Speaker 1: we did revivals. If you do original pieces, it's different.

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Speaker 1: But then from Weekly Standard, what happens? We're there for?

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Speaker 1: How long? I was there also for nine years? Nine years?

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Speaker 1: What do evolved you during that We were you traveling

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Speaker 1: all around the world at that time. I'm mostly a

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Speaker 1: little I did a lot of Middle East stuff and

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Speaker 1: I wrote a book called Bobo that was nineties six

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Speaker 1: to two thou three or if I've got the numbers right,

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Speaker 1: ninety Weekly Standard when nine eleven happens, Yes, you're a

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Speaker 1: Weekly Standard. At the end of the Clinton years and

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the Bush years and nine eleven and

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Speaker 1: the war, Yes, you're turned. When I was just joined

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Speaker 1: the Times somewhere, we were there doing the Clinton if

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Speaker 1: I mean think about that, You're there doing the Clinton impeachment.

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Speaker 1: Bush is elected nine eleven, the war in iraqis declared.

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Speaker 1: How did your politics evolved during that time? Well? I

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Speaker 1: married Ken Starr's daughter, and no I didn't. Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna say this, and it's not to curry favor, but

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Speaker 1: it's on the record if you go back. I was

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Speaker 1: doing a show called The News Hour on PBS, which

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Speaker 1: I still do and on NPR, and all things considered,

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Speaker 1: I was not a big impeach Clinton. Guy, I'm basically

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Speaker 1: a believer. I'm sort of an older style of conservative

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Speaker 1: that human nature is extremely complicated and flawed and a

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Speaker 1: lot of people do a lot of horrible things, but

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Speaker 1: they can still be served their purpose in society. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: um um. Having said that, to turn it the other way,

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Speaker 1: I definitely supported the war yellow Cake, all of it.

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Speaker 1: And even even with all the valerie, all that hocus pocus,

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Speaker 1: is still supported attacking Iraq. Yes, so, I basically, and

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Speaker 1: I covered the Middle East a bunch. I basically thought,

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Speaker 1: you drive through all towns in Jordan and Egypt and

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Speaker 1: it's just deadly dull, and these people have no lives

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Speaker 1: and no prospects because they live in stagnant societies overseen

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Speaker 1: by oligarchs or worse, dictators in the case of some

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Speaker 1: were absolutely true. But I thought, if that part of

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Speaker 1: the region is ever going to be healthy, they have

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Speaker 1: to have normal societies where young men and women can

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Speaker 1: rise and have normal lives. And do you believe that

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Speaker 1: in pursuit of having that normal society, in pursuit of

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Speaker 1: because whenever anybody says they want to uh, this was about,

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Speaker 1: you know, exporting democracy to an area and so forth.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I support that in theory, but I think

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Speaker 1: that in practice with the Bush administration, that was complete bullshit.

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Speaker 1: Um they they had they I mean, I just for

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Speaker 1: one I never for one second, I bet everything I

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Speaker 1: own that Dick Cheney doesn't roll over in bed and

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Speaker 1: his wife says, Dick, what's wrong, Darling, And Janey says, God,

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Speaker 1: I can't sleep. I just I've got to export democracy

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Speaker 1: to the Middle East. We just got to get this

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Speaker 1: thing done. I really, I care so much about these

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Speaker 1: people like Lee and I'm sorry, let me get up

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Speaker 1: and go get a glass of water. I've got to

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Speaker 1: think it is uh So, I mean to me, Iraq

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Speaker 1: was about what we ultimately got to and this was

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Speaker 1: you know, now the war had moved on to Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: and the press had moved on to Afghanistan, but was

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Speaker 1: under report it was they lifted the ban on the U.

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Speaker 1: S Oil companies coming in and pumping oil there, which

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Speaker 1: was their ultimate goal. Right, So first of all, you

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Speaker 1: disagree that that happened, you just agree that was the

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Speaker 1: goal that I didn't agree that was the goal. I

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Speaker 1: don't know anybody in the oil business who wants instability.

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Speaker 1: Saddan was pumping oil. They had a stable market. That's

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Speaker 1: what they wanted. I never heard of any oil company,

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Speaker 1: anybody in the energy business lobbying, and it was a

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Speaker 1: oil if. If Saddam was pumping oil, and we knew

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Speaker 1: that he wasn't making weapons of mass destruction, you still

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Speaker 1: don't think he might have been. I think we thought

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Speaker 1: that at the time. So here so I would say

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Speaker 1: there were multiple schools within the bushop and sustration. There

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Speaker 1: was the Cheney Rumsfield school, who didn't you're right, did

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Speaker 1: not care about democracy. They were afraid of the weapons

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Speaker 1: of mass destruction. They were afraid that he would pass

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Speaker 1: them off to some terror group and they bought They

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Speaker 1: both yes, that that that he might he he wanted

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Speaker 1: to do it. He wanted to pass them off, and

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Speaker 1: so did the Clinton administration, by the way, and so

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Speaker 1: that was their reasoning. They did not want to establish democracy.

430
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:26,160
Speaker 1: They wanted to get in, take him out, get out

431
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 1: of there. The other people, I think, mostly including President Bush,

432
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 1: but a lot of other people like wolf Wits, they

433
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,719
Speaker 1: wanted to do the human rights and democracy thing. And

434
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,119
Speaker 1: so I think those are the two factions and the

435
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:41,200
Speaker 1: problem was faction democracy and human rights champion the war faction,

436
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:44,760
Speaker 1: let's get out, fought the war or planned the war,

437
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 1: and as a result, it was a big screw up.

438
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:49,520
Speaker 1: You know, the war has had a huge effect on

439
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:51,760
Speaker 1: me in the year since. And so I mentioned Edmund

440
00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 1: Burke earlier to be careful, you can plan because societies

441
00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:59,440
Speaker 1: are extremely complicated. And so I'm sitting there, I'm torn.

442
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:01,479
Speaker 1: Before the war, I'm thinking, I really think we need

443
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:05,240
Speaker 1: to help promote normal societies, not democracies, just normal societies.

444
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: But then Edwin Burke teaches me, don't go in there.

445
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 1: It's way more complicated than you think. And so I

446
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,159
Speaker 1: have this little internal debate, and I wrote a column

447
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:16,320
Speaker 1: at the time said all these concerns. Burke wouldn't like this.

448
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: Burke wouldn't like this, and then the last paragraph I said,

449
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: but we got to do it anyway. And so I

450
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 1: think that last paragraph was probably wrong. And I know

451
00:23:24,119 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 1: this is a bogus question, but I'll ask you winning

452
00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:27,680
Speaker 1: because I think you have an interesting answer to this.

453
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:29,639
Speaker 1: And then if we had it to do over again,

454
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:32,120
Speaker 1: what would you do differently? Would you go to Pakistan instead?

455
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 1: I know I would, Yeah, I wouldn't go there. Now,

456
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:38,720
Speaker 1: I don't say from the beginning back in three, I

457
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 1: would have gone to Pakistan first because that's where the

458
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 1: old were. Ultimately we were going to get Rock is complicated.

459
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: Rocks was not behind nine eleven, and Iraq was not

460
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:51,359
Speaker 1: a training ground of al Qaeda for what the stated

461
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,359
Speaker 1: purposes of the attack in two thousand three were, Pakistan

462
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 1: would have been the better place to go. Correct that

463
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 1: that's certainly potentially yeah, I mean it's worth pointing out

464
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: that more Iraqis died in the ten years before the

465
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: American invasion of Rock than the ten years after. It

466
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 1: was a pretty horrible regime. Uh, if we're gonna be

467
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: worried about horrible regimes, we could be. But it was

468
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:11,679
Speaker 1: a horrible It was an exporting regime. I mean, it

469
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:14,160
Speaker 1: was monstrous. What do you think it needs to happen?

470
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:17,200
Speaker 1: You know? So I've been humbled since then about what

471
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: we can achieve, and I you know, it took me

472
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:22,119
Speaker 1: some multiple stages. Even in Afghanistan. I've been there a

473
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:24,119
Speaker 1: couple of times, and you would go there and the

474
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,439
Speaker 1: people in the n g O S at the u

475
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,960
Speaker 1: N they really believed in the nation building part when

476
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: I was there, and even that hasn't worked. It's just

477
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: cultures are really hard. I was interviewing a Bush administration official,

478
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 1: and I can't tell you who she was because we

479
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:43,160
Speaker 1: were off the record, but I once asked her, uh,

480
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:44,680
Speaker 1: you know, did you guys got to get the culture

481
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: of a rock wrong? And she said, I don't really

482
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:48,879
Speaker 1: believe in culture. I think you changed the institutions of

483
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 1: a society, change the society. But that's wrong, that's wrong.

484
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: Cultures are really hard to change. One of my favorite quotes,

485
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,639
Speaker 1: by the way, it's by Daniel Patrick moynihan, which was,

486
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: if I can remember correctly, this central conservative truth is

487
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: the culture matters most. The central liberal truth is that

488
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 1: government can change culture. And I think that's generally true,

489
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:11,719
Speaker 1: but you have to do it very slowly and cautiously,

490
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:13,640
Speaker 1: I think in my lifetime, and I could be wrong,

491
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:16,120
Speaker 1: because I want to switch to the current election. What's

492
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: your assessment of what do you think the American military

493
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 1: there are are military policy should be in what you

494
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,639
Speaker 1: predicted might be in a Romney administration if he wins

495
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 1: in a couple of weeks, or if Obama continues changed.

496
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: I wouldn't romanticize how popular we were Nixon whe he

497
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: was vice president to Latin America and they had a

498
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 1: riot and nearly killed him. We were nine. I think

499
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 1: we're popular pre nineteen sixty. I'm saying during this during Vietnam,

500
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: it all sort of all the wheels, sort of people

501
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: never like number one. I was at Camden Yards where

502
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 1: the Orioles play, and there was a Yankee head in

503
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: the parking lot, and on the way out of the game,

504
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: the fans started kicking the Yankee hat and a crowd gathered,

505
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: all of them kicking and chanting at this Yankee hut.

506
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: If you're the Yankees, you're not going to be popular. Um. Nonetheless,

507
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 1: I I happen to think we're in a period of

508
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 1: relative bipartisanship on foreign policy. No matter whether Obama wins

509
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 1: or Omney wins, we are unpopular. You're right about that.

510
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:15,239
Speaker 1: We're usually less unpopular than whoever the local power is.

511
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: So the Japanese and the Koreans definitely want us around

512
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 1: a world off the Chinese, the Central Europeans definitely want

513
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: us around a world off the Russians. And so I

514
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: think our role will be to you know, we're not

515
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: going to be going abroad and doing a lot of

516
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 1: stuff our self confidences and there are exactly. But I

517
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: do think we still have a role to just try

518
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 1: to stabilize the world and to keep various regional hegemon's

519
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: from taking over. So let's let's talk about the election.

520
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 1: Um uh. And I wanted to ask you, you know,

521
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 1: for me, in my lifetime, I remember and this again,

522
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:51,439
Speaker 1: this is my recollection of it. I could be I'm

523
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: not saying this is a fact, but in my lifetime,

524
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 1: there was a way that the Democrats behaved, and there

525
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 1: was a way that the Republicans behaved during the nominating

526
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: process and beyond they seem to have switched places of

527
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:05,160
Speaker 1: the last ten or twelve years. Why are the Republicans

528
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 1: now like the Democrats and they're just fumbling the ball

529
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: inside the red zone here? What the hell's going on?

530
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: Because Obama was there is for the taking? Do you agree?

531
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: I completely agree. I mean, if you ask people as

532
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: a country head in the right direction, thirty six percent

533
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 1: say yes, should Obama be reelected? Say yes? Should have

534
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: been able to beat this guy? What happened may still well,

535
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: you know, I I do think the people who happen

536
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 1: to be hired by Romney or not the a team

537
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: and that's that would be the consensus in Washington. There

538
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: was an A team and he didn't want them. Why

539
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: do you get him lolco he didn't know? I think

540
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: he didn't generally didn't know who the A team was.

541
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 1: But I think you could take Carl Rove, Michael Deaver

542
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 1: and Nicola mckiavelli put him up in Boston. They still

543
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: couldn't run a good campaign with this guy. It's always

544
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 1: the candidate. Reagan knew who he was, Romney knows who

545
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: he is, but he's not running as that guy. And

546
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 1: he's not that great an actor, so he's uh, and

547
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 1: so he's faking. I think he's genuinely a non ideological

548
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 1: guy running and it look like Marlon Brand, you know,

549
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: by the way. You know what. One of the really

550
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 1: interesting conversations I once had with Bush w was, you know,

551
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 1: when you do a press conference, you walk out of

552
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 1: the hallway and then you walk up to the party

553
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: about thirty yards and you're on national TV. That walk

554
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:25,159
Speaker 1: And he once spent about five minutes describing to me

555
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: how you do that walk, where you put your hands,

556
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 1: how you stride, had taught it all through and there's

557
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:36,120
Speaker 1: just some level of acting. I guess how you present yourself. Um,

558
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: Romney is pretending to be much more ideological than he

559
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: really is. He don't think he really engages himself. He's

560
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: pretending to be much more that he's just not being

561
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: true to himself, and that's coming through, that's leaking out.

562
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: I genuinely think you can't fake it. I once got

563
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: to have dinner with Tom Clancy when I was Book

564
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: of Your editor, and he like him really I this

565
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 1: was my one and only meeting, okay, and my memory

566
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: of that dinner was he just got on a battleship

567
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: and seeing a new weapons system and he was really excited.

568
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: He was it was fascinating to him. And as he

569
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: was enthusing about it, I was thinking, you can't fake

570
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: that unless you feel that, you can't write Tom Clancy novels.

571
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: And so Mitt Romney is pretending to be a tea

572
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: party guy, just not who he is. And so as

573
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: a result, sometimes he gets too hard core, he steps

574
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 1: on it too strong. Sometimes he pulls back. You know,

575
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: I would just wish. I think he'll spend the rest

576
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: of his life, assuming he loses UM, regretting that he

577
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: didn't run as himself. Now, the interesting when you talk

578
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 1: about running as yourself. And this may be a very

579
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 1: naive question because I don't I really don't know how

580
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 1: these things work. Why don't people who are running with

581
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: the and the GOP. Now, I mean, Bush is a

582
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: born again Christian and he operated from that vantage point

583
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 1: as such. Romney, of course, is not a born again Christian.

584
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: He's have a different faith. I think that there's a

585
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: there's there's a critical element in our society who they're

586
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: not so clear about Obama and they're waiting to be wooed,

587
00:29:57,840 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: but they're not going to be wooed by an ultra

588
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: right wing observative crowd, especially on social issues. And I

589
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 1: think that that the Republican candidate who would come in

590
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: This is just an opinion. The Republican candidate would come

591
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: in and tamed the conservative right wing, who got the

592
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 1: heads of six or eighty of these groups in the

593
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: room and said, you gotta shut up and don't be

594
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 1: behind me squawking like some kind of a course until

595
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 1: I think this thing is over. I gotta get out

596
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 1: there and I gotta play this a little more moderately,

597
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 1: and we're gonna win. As long as you just tone

598
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: it down, we're gonna win. They don't do that. But

599
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: don't you think it's going to cost him the election? Yes?

600
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: Well I think it's already cost him a bunch of

601
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: Senate seats and could cost them a bunch more. And

602
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: so you know, of course, from where I stand, i'd

603
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: much rather they ran am much more. What's the guy's

604
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: name in Missouri? Why isn't he gone? How the hell that?

605
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: You may win? You may win, he may win. You

606
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: think he'll be Claire? He's about right now? Yeah, um

607
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 1: is there is a funny state. It's it's going the

608
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: other way funny. That's an interesting word. Legitimate. One of

609
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: the odd things about why he's losing right now is

610
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: that he's losing like two nationally, but by ten even

611
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: in these key swing states, which is why he's really behind.

612
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: So why is that? Why is there a dis junction?

613
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 1: It's because the Obama administration has gone brilliantly after they

614
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: know they can't win white working class men, but they've

615
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: hit white working class women. They've run these brilliant ads

616
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: on Judge Judy, on Dr Phil and it's all this

617
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: guy is rich, he does not get you. And they

618
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: started with Baine, they unfolded with Medicare and so if

619
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: you look at the polling white working class women nationwide

620
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: maybe about UM support Obama in the swing states where

621
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: they're seeing these ads, it's and that's the margin right there.

622
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 1: And so his problem, I think it is not so

623
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: much ideology. It's that he's just a rich guy, doesn't

624
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: get you. I've defended him on this because people say that,

625
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: you know, he's got a house in San Diego where

626
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 1: he has a garage with elevators, and I've tried to

627
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 1: point out that he has many other houses where the

628
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 1: garages do not have elevators, and it's not fair, but

629
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: but he needs. But you know, I think it's essentially

630
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 1: it's he would be running more right than me. But

631
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: I think he'd be winning if he were a candidate

632
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 1: who related right. Um the what's your opinion of campaign

633
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: finance reform? As you see the numbers pile up now,

634
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: it will be a record again in terms of spending

635
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: in a presidential race, what's your opinion of campaign finance reform?

636
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: So I'm for for reform. I think our system. What

637
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: style of reform would you favor of what you've seen? Well,

638
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: I I've grown tired and exhausted by changing the rules

639
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: here and there. I think you either got to go

640
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: to full disclosure, complete disclosure or full public finance, just

641
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:49,479
Speaker 1: one or the other because where we are now and

642
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: to me, the you know, say, for example, on tax reform,

643
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer we have to simplify the tax code.

644
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: But if every little provision in the tax code has

645
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,520
Speaker 1: some special shows who can drop five million dollars in

646
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: a congressional district, There's no way we're going to do that.

647
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 1: I would you simplify the tax code. I would eliminate

648
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: essentially a flat tax. Well, you know, there's a consensus

649
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 1: I would do what Simpson Bowl suggests get rid of.

650
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: I would cap the mortgage in deduction, a lot of

651
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 1: the deductions for people learning, say above one fifty and

652
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 1: then lower what is it now a million? Well, what

653
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: I do is, I'd say, if you say you're in

654
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: over two dollars, you can only take so many deductions.

655
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 1: And how you want to partial out your deductions that's

656
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: fined by you charitable deductions. Yeah, I might. I want

657
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: to preserve that one. I've believe in that one. But

658
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 1: but having said that, I think that Bush tax cuts

659
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: should be repealed top to Botta, the middle class parts

660
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: all the um because you can tax the rich to

661
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: forever until this island is empty and you will not

662
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: raise enough money to pay. People always threaten they're going

663
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: to leave, but they really don't leave it. They say

664
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: they're always about to go to Canada. Maybe they moved

665
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 1: to Brooklyn Um. What do you think of term limits?

666
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: Definitely against them, you are y they empower staffs. It's

667
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:18,240
Speaker 1: also politics is really hard, and legislation is really hard,

668
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: and things take a long time to learn. One of

669
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 1: the things I'm in favor of term limits. Now you

670
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: are in the Congress, I am man if you're in

671
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: and out in four years. First of all, you're thinking

672
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: about your next job right away. Second to permanent staff

673
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 1: just takes over. I don't think anybody should serve in

674
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,360
Speaker 1: the Congress for more than twelve years. More importantly, you

675
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: have to have one of the other. You either have

676
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: to have the campaign finis formative level of it's meaningful.

677
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 1: You have to have the term limits because right now,

678
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 1: my friends who work in Washington, the old I mean,

679
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 1: this was nauseating enough right when you think it can't

680
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: get any more disgusting, My friends who will work on

681
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:50,840
Speaker 1: the Hill told me that these men and women in

682
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: the US Senate has been one full day, one full

683
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: day out of five days on the phone raising money.

684
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: All they do is they don't do any Senate business

685
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: one day out of the week. Our friends said to me,

686
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:04,720
Speaker 1: in the last six years, it's become two full days.

687
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: They're on the phone two days out of five. That

688
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: to be any work that you sent them to do.

689
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: And then they're raising money for their campaigns. That's a

690
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: cent that's a crime. That makes me six So I

691
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 1: think that to me two six year terms and get

692
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 1: him out of there. And I'm a liberal. Yeah, I

693
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: think the problem is more tribalism than money. We haven't

694
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:29,280
Speaker 1: had tax reform, we haven't had complicated legislation with hospible

695
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 1: exception of healthcare, because we don't have the legislative skills

696
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:34,279
Speaker 1: of a Lyndon Johnson. People just don't how to do it.

697
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: Like I cover tax reform, there was a guy named Packwood,

698
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:41,320
Speaker 1: Bob Packwood, Dan Rostenkowski, Uh, both of whom had accursed

699
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,280
Speaker 1: to me either went to jail or resigned in disgrace.

700
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: But but but they knew how to legislate. They were

701
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: really good at Bill Bradley, and that takes time. You

702
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: gotta learn to do that. And by the way, I

703
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 1: think the people in their first year are just as

704
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 1: money grubber as the people in the thirty second here.

705
00:35:57,520 --> 00:35:59,319
Speaker 1: But I wanted to just finish by asking you that

706
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: you also, UM, you wrote a book, or you wrote

707
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:03,839
Speaker 1: a segment of your book about marriage. What was your

708
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: I wrote a book called The Social Animal, which is

709
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: really a compendium of the research on unconscious processes and

710
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:11,959
Speaker 1: what leads to happiness. Motivated you to write that book? Well,

711
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: the short ans the official answer is that I wanted

712
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: to know why kids drop out of high school. And

713
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: it turns out the factors are determined very early and

714
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: within the first eighteen months of life. You can take

715
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 1: a look at a kid who's eighteen months how the

716
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: kid relates to mom and predict with seventy seven percent

717
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: accuracy who's going to graduate from high school. There are

718
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 1: certain emotional attachments, so kid who can form an attachment

719
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 1: early on is going to know how to form an

720
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,280
Speaker 1: attachment with teachers and peers, life is going to be okay.

721
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: If you can't form attachments, UM, life will be very frustrating.

722
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean you're determined, you're sentenced it to life

723
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 1: of eighteen months. You can have a mentor later on

724
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: that will change you, but those early formations are really important.

725
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: You've been married to the same movement for how many years? Uh?

726
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 1: Twenty six years? What's the secret? Uh? And it's got read,

727
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 1: got real. I'm not smart on this, but I did

728
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: read a really good blog post on this. H My

729
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 1: wife would kill me if I started giving advice on

730
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: how to do this. Marry someone really patient. But I

731
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 1: read this blog post and one of the pieces of

732
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 1: advice was brag about your spouse and let them over

733
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:22,440
Speaker 1: hear you. That seems like very good advice. Another one

734
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: to be so advice she gave was sometimes they tell

735
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 1: you, you you know, never go to bed mad. Sometimes you

736
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 1: just got to go to bed, go to sleep, sleep

737
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 1: on it, cook breakfast for the other person. Sometimes you

738
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 1: just go to sleep. And this struck me as very

739
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: realistic advice. But you know, the part of what the

740
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: book was about was the first time we find our mates,

741
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: and so a lot of it, a lot of his

742
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 1: uncome what a critical decision he was saying, because I

743
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:47,399
Speaker 1: feel the same way. I mean, I wrote a book

744
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 1: about that. Was a critique of the family law system

745
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: and the divorce system when I got divorced, and how

746
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 1: it was just being thrown into this quicksand it was

747
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:59,359
Speaker 1: just so painful and so agonizing and I and I

748
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: say that to but all the time, I say, this

749
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: decision is it is fundamentally the most critical decision you're

750
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:08,839
Speaker 1: gonna make in your life. Who you I mean, if

751
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 1: you're of that mind to marry and and and to

752
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:13,399
Speaker 1: and to make that kind of a home with someone

753
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: and make it legal, and and the and the and

754
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: the criteria with which people use to get married. Now,

755
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 1: my dear friend who left the country for several years.

756
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 1: He's a he's an artist, and he and his wife,

757
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: after running an art gallery in New York for many years,

758
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: they just took off and they went to the Italian

759
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: countryside or something. He was gone for like nine years.

760
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,359
Speaker 1: And I said, what's one thing you noticed? He says,

761
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,839
Speaker 1: all these kids were these devices in their hands. He said,

762
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: I came home and they have all these devices in

763
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: their hands. And I said, yeah, that really is alarming,

764
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:45,359
Speaker 1: is And he says, he says, these kids will never

765
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 1: get to know each other in real time. He said,

766
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:51,879
Speaker 1: they're never going to stare into each other's eyes over

767
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: a table with a checkered tablecloth and a candle shoved

768
00:38:56,200 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 1: into a bottle of mattouse. He goes, he said, eating

769
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: a really shitty Italian meal, but over the course of

770
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: a couple of hours, really get to know each other

771
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,359
Speaker 1: in real time. Everybody's so hurried. Is such a hurry

772
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 1: to get to the fast? No, he said to me,

773
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: that's created this horrible mechanism for intimacy in our society. Well,

774
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: so the I go go to college. As I tell kids,

775
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: if you have a great career in a crappy marriage,

776
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 1: you'll be miserable. If you have a crappy career in

777
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 1: a great marriage, you'll be happy. So every course you

778
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 1: take in college should be about who to marry. So

779
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: like you should take literature courses, theater courses, science courses.

780
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:35,719
Speaker 1: Think hard about this one. They look at me like

781
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 1: I'm crazy, But that that is absolutely true. So if

782
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 1: you want to know what correlates to happiness, money correlates

783
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: a little, but when you hit a certain point it stops.

784
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 1: Age correlates to happiness. So people in their twenties are happy,

785
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: and then they go through a shallow you shaped curve.

786
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 1: And the native of happiness for the average person who's

787
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:57,799
Speaker 1: aged forty seven, and that's called having teenage children. And

788
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: then and then they hitched it on the spot on

789
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: the peak happiness is the first ten years after retirement.

790
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 1: But the people who are happy, marriage is equal to

791
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 1: doubling your income. Having a good marriage produces the same

792
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 1: happiness gains doubling your income. I tell people that the

793
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: rule in marriage is the rule that I failed to

794
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: apply in my movie career, which is just say no

795
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:23,719
Speaker 1: until you have to say until you meet that woman

796
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: where you seeing your stuff, she's out there and the

797
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: idea that she's out there and I don't have her,

798
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: it just drives you in. Say you have to have

799
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: right then you marry her. Until you feel that way,

800
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: then maybe you just have to take your tom We're

801
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 1: going to take some questions. I think yes. One audience

802
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 1: member asked about the gridlock in Washington and wondered about

803
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,760
Speaker 1: a pathway to resolve that problem. This was brookes response.

804
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: You know, say, when you were at g W if

805
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 1: you ask people do you trust government, you're the right

806
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:53,239
Speaker 1: thing most of the time in those days said yes,

807
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: said yes. Now if you ask people. Do you trust

808
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 1: government to the right thing? Most of the time it's

809
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:02,319
Speaker 1: or nine percent, and so there's just no trust that

810
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 1: government can do the you know, the big things. And

811
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 1: so I'm in favor of doing some big things. I

812
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 1: would if you know, my tru others, we would have

813
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: just this big human capital agenda where we do a

814
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: lot of our early childhood alternative energy. Would that be

815
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: one of them? Well, I think that would be one

816
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:21,280
Speaker 1: of them. I'm you know, I happen to think fracking

817
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: is a good thing. Why why Why? Because I think

818
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 1: it provides us cheaper energy that's much cleaner than coal

819
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:32,719
Speaker 1: and oil. Let's talk about that, because fracking where and

820
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 1: you can. I love to hear your your opinion and

821
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:38,239
Speaker 1: or your facts for that matter, because everybody seems like

822
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 1: I've got my own set everybody has their own set

823
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:43,439
Speaker 1: of facts about fracking, because I'm very anti fracking, because

824
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:46,399
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, the natural gas being cleaner than

825
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 1: coal thing is is? Is it given? But I mean,

826
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: we can't have a Price Anderson Act for the natural

827
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: gas industry where if they spoil all the water in

828
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 1: the southern tier of the state of New York in

829
00:41:56,920 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 1: these designated zones, I mean, Andrew Cuomo is going to say,

830
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: here's a zone, and I'm being very good about it.

831
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: But it's basically like everybody raise your hand and wants

832
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: to have fracking down in the southern tier of New

833
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,600
Speaker 1: York and those Binghamton adjacent areas that wanted, He's gonna

834
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: probably let them have it. And then when all that

835
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,000
Speaker 1: water gets screwed up, if it does, if all that

836
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: water gets contemnated, who are they going to come to

837
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: to clean up that water? Who are they going to

838
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: hand the bill to to clean up that water. You

839
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 1: want to say that burning natural gas is cleaner than oil,

840
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:29,360
Speaker 1: I agree with you, But the same argument goes with nukes.

841
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,720
Speaker 1: The nuclear industry will sit there before Night eleven, before

842
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:35,439
Speaker 1: we got into the terrorists target issue, they were sitting

843
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: there going, well, you know, you're like a mountain. We

844
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: don't know and the stuff's just gonna sit there in

845
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:41,399
Speaker 1: a pile and we're gonna haven't figured it out. Yeah,

846
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 1: but co nuclear is cleaner than oil, I mean coal.

847
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 1: Everybody just keeps saying it's cleaner than coal. But I'm saying,

848
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 1: what happens if the water issue becomes a big let alone,

849
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: all the stuff that Bobby Kennedy riffs on about the

850
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: roads they're gonna build and who's gonna be They mean,

851
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: they got trucks going up there now that are smashing

852
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 1: all the roads to pieces. And you think those natural

853
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:03,240
Speaker 1: gas companies are gonna pay for it. Here's the ps

854
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: I don't mean to mug you here now, but here's

855
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:07,720
Speaker 1: the But here's the ps L n G is building

856
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,040
Speaker 1: all these sports right now on the East coast, and

857
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 1: is that gas? I mean all these companies that are

858
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: fracting saying we're gonna go down into the southern tier

859
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:16,839
Speaker 1: of New York and up in Ohio and northern Pennsylvania,

860
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: and we're gonna blow all these holes in the ground

861
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:21,839
Speaker 1: and maybe risk having some earthquakes and maybe spoiling all

862
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: these trillions of gablets of war because we're gonna get

863
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: this gas, which is going to lower the price of

864
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: natural gas and fuel here in the United States. Bullshit,

865
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: they're gonna pipe that stuff to the coast and put

866
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 1: it on tankers and put it on the market and

867
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 1: go sell it to the Chinese or sell it on

868
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:38,399
Speaker 1: the open market. It's not going to lower the cost

869
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:40,719
Speaker 1: of energy here. So why are you in favor of

870
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 1: fract Let me get my pad. I guess I want

871
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:55,279
Speaker 1: to hear your opinion first. No, but I just I'm

872
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 1: burning on this issue. So I'm where President Obama is,

873
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 1: So I'm a good Democrat on this issue and where

874
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: I think the Republicans. And so basically, there's been a

875
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: ton of research done on this, and like every single

876
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:11,240
Speaker 1: energy source, it has costs and it has environmental costs.

877
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: The benefits to fracking that I saw a Yale study

878
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:17,240
Speaker 1: on this are measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

879
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,360
Speaker 1: The costs, including what you just mentioned, are measured in

880
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: the hundred millions of dollars. So you can take some

881
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 1: of the benefits and regulated. And the report that calculated

882
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,280
Speaker 1: those courts was written by who it was Yale University,

883
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: I don't know, some scholars, so a very fine institution.

884
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:38,360
Speaker 1: And so basically, if you are if you think the

885
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 1: there is one price of gas in the world, there

886
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: is one price of oil in the world. So it

887
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 1: will if we lower the if no matter, if we

888
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: increase the supply tremendously, which is what's happening. The cost

889
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 1: is going down. If you're making twenty five dollars a

890
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,399
Speaker 1: year or thirty five thousand dollars a year. It really

891
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: actually kind of matters to you if you're sitting out

892
00:44:56,640 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 1: there in western Pennsylvania or South Dakota or North Dakota

893
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:00,920
Speaker 1: without a job, it kind of matters to you that

894
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 1: there's a fifty buck an hour job to you if

895
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: you want there to be a working class But but

896
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: but it's but it's proven that it's a fifty buck

897
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: an hour job up in the southern tier of New

898
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:12,759
Speaker 1: York and up in northern Pennsylvania for people that are

899
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 1: coming from Oklahoma, in Texas and Louisiana, none of those

900
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: people that are getting the high paying jobs are from

901
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: that area. They're bringing gas people down from the South

902
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 1: and bringing them up there. You go up to the

903
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 1: fracking zones in New York and all the license plates

904
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:25,880
Speaker 1: are from down south, and they're gonna take that job,

905
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 1: and they're gonna take that money. They're gonna spend it up,

906
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: they're gonna spend it on to cigarettes up there, and

907
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 1: then they're gonna go home. There are a a lot of

908
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:38,399
Speaker 1: condom but coming to condoms, the big if you if

909
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,720
Speaker 1: you go to the North Dakota, you're pulling on McDonald's

910
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 1: and you push the button in the drive through, you

911
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:47,919
Speaker 1: are talking to somebody from Texas because they cannot find

912
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: anybody work at McDonald's in the drive through because everyone's

913
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 1: out in the oil fields or in the gas fields,

914
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 1: and those places are becoming I don't care, but but

915
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,879
Speaker 1: I'm saying that this is sure, they're costs, and sure

916
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 1: it has to be regular. And by the way, the

917
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:06,240
Speaker 1: responsible gas companies want to regulated. They don't want their response.

918
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:07,840
Speaker 1: But the many you talk about them, I mean, and

919
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: then again, and I know that there's a there's a

920
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: there's a good uh cover for this. I mean, I've

921
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 1: heard it before, but the many you talk about, well,

922
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 1: the it's hundreds of billions and benefits and its hundreds

923
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 1: of millions in costs, and it's cleaner than cold. And

924
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 1: I want to say, I go, then why are we

925
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 1: going renewable? All my friends who work in renewable say,

926
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:27,240
Speaker 1: if you build Derek's on the Great Lakes for wind turbine,

927
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: we have enough power for wind turbines on the Great Lakes.

928
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:32,760
Speaker 1: On Derrick's. They would build on the Great Lakes, floating

929
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 1: Derrick's on the Great Lakes and would power one third

930
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: of the country. And if you put photo voltaic elements

931
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 1: in the southwestern United States, you power another quarter of

932
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:45,799
Speaker 1: the country with photovoltaic. And if you want to get

933
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 1: serious about cutting costs to the Americans energy independence, we

934
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: need to have the Apollo project of renewable energy. Why

935
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: don't they spend any money on that? Forget about cylindro,

936
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,760
Speaker 1: What do you think about that? Because I think gas

937
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 1: is gateway to those renewables. We are not there yet.

938
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: It is just simply not competitive. Where will we be

939
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: there and how do we get there? Which we have

940
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 1: to have more technological advance so they're economically competitive. They

941
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 1: are simply not economically but the government has to. China

942
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:16,239
Speaker 1: is now closing down their renewables because even they with

943
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: the massive subsidies, cannot exploit They've run out of place

944
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:22,320
Speaker 1: the export two. They just can't afford it. These renewable

945
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 1: industries are growing, They're going to be the future, but

946
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 1: it's gonna take a little while to get to there.

947
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: When until we pumped the last drop of gas out

948
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 1: of the ground. No, well, it'll it'll probably be a

949
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 1: tooth course thing. As renewables get cheaper, they'll come down

950
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 1: to a market price and as gas becomes Dear little Rosa,

951
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:39,760
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, I think that the government

952
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:42,400
Speaker 1: has to make renewables cheaper by investing that money themselves

953
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,359
Speaker 1: to to kick start that program. Um, the last thing

954
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 1: I want to say before we go is that you know,

955
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: one thing I'm mindful of is as Obama's term uh

956
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 1: may end. I mean, who knows what's gonna happen. We

957
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 1: really don't know what's gonna happen. We live in that

958
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 1: world now where you know, if the election were called now,

959
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: they're sing Obama would win, but they don't know what's

960
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: going to happen. And if Obama we're gone. What I

961
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 1: didn't want to ask you is what do you think

962
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 1: would have been different in Hillary clinton administration if she

963
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:12,440
Speaker 1: had been president? And what do you think will will

964
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:16,839
Speaker 1: become of Hillary Clinton now in her career? Henceport let

965
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: me ask the answer the second one. I think it

966
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 1: had to first. Um, First of all, I think the

967
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 1: Democrats have a reasonably weak bench for no matter who

968
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: whether he wins or not, so I think there would

969
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:31,799
Speaker 1: be a big draft Hillary movement. I don't think at

970
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 1: the moment from what I understand that people who really

971
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:35,440
Speaker 1: know her that she's of a mind to do that

972
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:38,280
Speaker 1: right now, she's tired, but a few years of resting,

973
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: I think the opportunity will be It's tough to not

974
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 1: be the first woman president, so I would I think

975
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 1: she still has a future in Parkers. They're just aren

976
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: a lot of Democrats who are sort of obvious candidates.

977
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: As for the difference, there's some who view themselves as

978
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:58,840
Speaker 1: obvious candidates every Democrat in the U. S. Senate, but

979
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,359
Speaker 1: that but as for the difference is one of the things.

980
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:05,839
Speaker 1: I'm a big personal admirable Obama. I've known him for

981
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 1: a long time. I have covered him and spoken him

982
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 1: a lot. But one of his weaknesses that I think

983
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,680
Speaker 1: she would have done a better job is personal relationships

984
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: with fellow Democrats and so antiseptic. They say, you know

985
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:22,759
Speaker 1: when you um, you know, most politicians they you know,

986
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 1: they grab you, they rub your cheek, They just they

987
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 1: invade your personal stay to him. Um that you know,

988
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 1: you've spent a lot of time around them. They're just

989
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: animalistic in there. But they connect Obama, you know, with

990
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:39,319
Speaker 1: the staff. They'll they'll say, you're going to such and

991
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 1: such a city, why don't you call the mayor up

992
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 1: and invite him to ride with you from the airport downtown.

993
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:46,319
Speaker 1: Let's say I don't want to do that. I don't

994
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: want to do that, and the friends and then but

995
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: he really, but he really won't He just in my view,

996
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:02,719
Speaker 1: he has a writer's person lity. He likes the solitary

997
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 1: time to think, and so he just doesn't do that.

998
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 1: And even going up to the Hill. There was a

999
00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:10,239
Speaker 1: call that was made to the White House and a

1000
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:12,480
Speaker 1: couple of years ago they wanted to send him up

1001
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: to lobby for a peace of legislation. The centators called

1002
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:18,480
Speaker 1: up and said, don't send him. He doesn't like us.

1003
00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 1: We know it's it won't help. That's a bad place

1004
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: to be when it seems when you're told premptively that

1005
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:27,600
Speaker 1: it's undoable. So I think she would have been a

1006
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:29,319
Speaker 1: little bit, don't She wouldn't have been as great as

1007
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 1: her husband that one of the people in his administration.

1008
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 1: Obama doesn't make the call to the hill. Clinton would

1009
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 1: make sit there and make thirty two calls in a row.

1010
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: His problem was his position on call thirty two was

1011
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:43,960
Speaker 1: eighty degrees from where it was on call one. But

1012
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,319
Speaker 1: but he would make the calls. And so I do

1013
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 1: think she would have um done the inside She's done

1014
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: a good job in the position she's in them, Yes,

1015
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 1: I do. I think she's been a great Secretary of State,

1016
00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 1: great secretary. I wanted to end by saying, and I

1017
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:01,960
Speaker 1: mean this sincerely, not only are you the most likable

1018
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:04,840
Speaker 1: when charming conservative I've ever met, here, by far the

1019
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 1: most likable when charming writer for The New York Times

1020
00:51:07,120 --> 00:51:13,840
Speaker 1: I've ever so thank you very much for coming. Thanks

1021
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:17,000
Speaker 1: to the Public Theater and to Jeremy McCarter of the

1022
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 1: Public Forum. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to

1023
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:21,959
Speaker 1: Here's the thing.