WEBVTT - E-Day, One Year Later (w/ Norman Ornstein) 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:08.039 Hi, Brian, Hi Katie. So what do you remember from 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:10.799 election night two thousand and sixteen. You and I worked 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.840 there together covering it when we were both working at Yahoo. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.200 We were in the studio in Times Square, right, and 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:21.119 everybody you went into that night with the expectation the 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:23.439 Hillary was gonna win. The only question was what was 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.279 her margin of victory, how many Republican states was she 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.840 going to carry? And it quickly became sort of the 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:34.440 Baton death March as Florida fell, then North Carolina, Virginia 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:39.000 she eked by despite the fact that her vice presidential 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:43.239 running mate was Tim Kane, the Senator from Virginia. I 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:49.120 started wondering about the outcome when that happened. And then 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.760 she started showing weakness in states that had been won 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.800 by Democrats for a generation. States like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:02.520 Was it Wisconsin before Michigan, because wasn't Michigan? Really was wisconin? 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.000 I remember it was around ten o'clock, I believe, when 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.080 Wisconsin was called for Donald Trump. I wrote a note 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:14.240 to Jamal Simmons, the Democratic Right, and I said, how 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.200 bad is this? And he wrote me back. I put 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:21.040 it on my legal pad really bad, and he looked, 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:25.200 honestly sway he did. He looked so stunned, and I 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:30.320 think everybody was kind of thinking, wait, seriously, what is 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.720 going on here. I'll never forget that one moment when 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.480 a Donald Trump presidency became a reality. Well, I remember 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:42.000 the Clinton official I was texting with who earlier in 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.960 the evening, had said, Yeah, we can afford to lose Florida, 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.360 we can afford to lose North Carolina. He wasn't arguing 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:50.480 that they could afford to lose Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. They 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:52.840 just always assumed that those states were in the bag, 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.360 and as it turns out, they were not. Here we 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.800 are nearly one year since that election night in two 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.600 US in sixteen, and we thought this was a good 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.720 time to take stock of what happened and what has 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.280 happened since by talking to one of my favorite political analysts, 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.640 Norm Ornstein. Norm is kind of like the fourth branch 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:16.240 of government. He's been around, so that's what that's what 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.320 he tells us kidding. He's a very modest, wonderful guy, 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.000 and he's made a bit of a transition over the 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.119 last few years. He was kind of a centrist thoughtful, 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:30.960 very academic analyst of thoughtful but low key, and he's 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.160 gone rogue, to quote Sarah Palin, and and has become 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:39.520 just a ferocious, angry critic of the way Washington has 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.720 failed in general, and Donald Trump in particular, and the 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.520 Republican Party as well specifically. He's taken sides. You know, 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:48.880 he used to say, oh, both parties were broken. Now 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.800 he says very clearly no, no, the Republicans have gone 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.200 off the deep end. So we had a wonderful conversation 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.200 with Norm about election night, about what happened, about what 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.120 has happened since. We also talked to Norm about his 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:06.160 commitment to really removing the stigma of mental illness in 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:09.280 this country, something that is very personal to him, Brian, 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.440 as you know, because his son died in two thousand 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:17.040 fifteen after wrestling with mental illness for a very long time. 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:21.440 So this is something that's extremely personal to Norm. So 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:26.440 here's our conversation with Norm Ornstein one year after the 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:32.240 election of two thousand and sixteen. Norm Ornstein, Welcome to 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:34.960 our podcast. It's a joy to be with you. So 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.880 first of all, you know this podcast is is marking 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:44.160 almost the one year anniversary of Donald Trump's election. And 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:49.480 it's still actually when I say those words, I still think, Wow, 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.040 how did that happen? Brian and I were just recalling 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:57.560 norm what our experience was like on election day, and 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.800 I'm curious, what was it like for you. So when 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.080 you said we're almost there one year, I did a 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:07.080 spit take, of course, in the classic vein. Um so 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.360 I was not in the same room. Yeah, definitely, and 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:15.920 please wipe off the microphone. Uh. So I was up 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:21.120 in New York actually on air with BBC, and uh, 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.120 to my credit, I would say, trying not too hard 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.159 to pat myself on the back I had back in 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.520 two thousand and fifteen said uh, watch out for Donald 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:35.279 Trump to win a nomination. But I still thought, based 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.200 on what I was seeing in the polls and elsewhere, 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.480 that Clinton was gonna win, but by a narrower margin 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:46.120 than we had thought otherwise. And watching as the results 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:50.159 began to come in, uh from Florida, I got this 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.400 eerie feeling. I'll never forget that. When Frank Lentz came 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.720 to Yahoo where we were covering this, uh, he said 0:04:57.760 --> 0:04:59.480 to me in the green room, Oh, it's going to 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.120 be early. She's got this. You know all the exit 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.400 poline blah blah blah. And I was there when he 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.560 called Paul Ryan to tell him that that same information 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.200 and oh my god, I mean it's just insane. And 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.040 Kissinger right, he called Henry Kissinger too, and it was 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:19.000 sort of fun. He was showing off that, you know, 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.640 he had them on speed dial. But anyway, what in 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:26.200 a nutshell norm that's frightening in and of itself. But yeah, 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.080 we have we have so much ground to cover, but 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.720 in a nutshell real quickly. Just to remind our listeners 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.719 and help them get their heads around this, what happened? 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.839 Why did Trump win? Uh? Some of this goes back decades. 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.279 The new book I did with E. J. Dean and 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.440 Tom Man, One Nation After Trump. We spend the first 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:48.480 third of the book looking at the roots of Trump 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.800 is um and it goes to the decline and community, 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.560 the kind of atomization and society that Robert Putnam wrote 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:01.760 about in Bowling Alone decades ago, the sorting that's taken 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.240 place in the society that Bill Bishop wrote about in 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.919 the book The Big Sort. And then it moves to 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:12.320 the tribalism in our politics that Nude Gingrich really generated. 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.400 Starting in the late nineties seventies when he came to 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.960 Washington into Congress, and it goes right up through the 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.679 young Guns as they called themselves, Eric Canner, Paul Ryan, 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:28.279 Kevin McCarthy, and Mitch McConnell in two thousand and nine, 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:33.840 using that populist anger flowing from the Troubled Assets Relief 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.880 Program or the bailout TARP as we know it, that 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.880 brought this enormous level of anger on the left with 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.000 the occupy movement and on the right with the Tea 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.960 Party movement. And by the time we get to the 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:52.760 Republican nominating process, the likelihood that some establishment figure was 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:56.760 going to win a nomination had declined precipitously. They were 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.000 going to go for an outsider, and especially one who 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.400 played on the unease caused by the stagnant economy and 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:09.680 the atomization that included this focus on race and on immigration, 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:12.960 and somebody who would say, I'm not going to be 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.280 like those wosses in my party who cave to Obama 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.000 and the Democrats. I won't take crap from anybody, and 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.760 you play that turbo charging all of those factors that 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.360 you haven't mentioned is the siloed media environment where some 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.840 people get a different set of facts from people following 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.280 the mainstream. Well, I think it further exacerbates the tribalization 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.000 or tribalism that nor mentioned. Absolutely does, and if you 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.680 if you look back, of course, the fairness doctrine was 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:46.520 repealed in seven. Rush Limbaugh then went national with a 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.600 radio show and it was rocketed to stardom with a 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.160 populist reaction against a big pay raise for Congress and 0:07:54.200 --> 0:08:01.400 public officials. In nine then we have uh Matt Drudge 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.440 discovering that the web was a force that could be 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.480 used to promote his own ideology. He gets an intern 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.360 named Andrew Breitbart who takes it to the next level 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:14.880 and then moves to Bannon, and along the way we 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.880 get Fox News and the rest of talk radio and 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:22.720 a tribal media that thrives on division, on apocalyptic views. 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.440 And along with that, let's just throw in that deeper 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.720 anger at people in Washington, the sense that when Donald 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:31.600 Trump says, what the hell have you got to lose? 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.040 That resonated with a lot of people who didn't realize 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.640 what we have got to lose and what we are losing, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.640 and the effects of all of these factors that you've 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:46.079 described were pretty striking on election night. You mentioned Florida. 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.240 Florida is an interesting microcosm of what happened because a 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.360 lot of people assume Clinton would carry Florida because she 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.199 did as well or better than Obama and a lot 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.680 of the swing counties. But then we started to see 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.480 what happened in Republican areas, and Trump just blew the 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.079 meter off. You know, if Reagan won sixty or seventy, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:10.000 he was winning, and so here we go. But I 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.440 think that's the first sign that any of us kind 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.880 of recognized that something really different was happening that evening. Yeah, 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.920 absolutely true. And of course, let's face it, we thought 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.800 there was a blue wall in the final stages that 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:27.360 she'd eke out some narrow victory, uh by winning in Pennsylvania. 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.640 And remember the Philadelphia Boss Brady uh said, you know, 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.319 if we can get our turn out to four hundred thousand, 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.720 were golden there, and they did better than that and 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.000 still lost because it was in those areas in the 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.839 you know, the middle of the state, uh, the Alabama 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:50.040 part of Pennsylvania. That once again just what you said, Brian, 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.840 numbers that would have been fifty five, sixty six for 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.640 a Republican went to and I think some of it 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.520 was colored by just antipathy toward Hillary Clinton, to which 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.680 I don't think you really mentioned as you were going 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:09.360 down your laundry list of reasons that Donald Trump wont 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:14.400 some deep seated sexism and discomfort with uh I think 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.240 the Clinton brand, if you will, but also with the 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.400 notion of a woman who many, unfortunately did not find 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.200 very appealing. And you know, there was a thirty year 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:28.959 campaign to demonize and delegitimize the Clintons. You can add 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.319 to that the misogyny. You're absolutely right on that front. 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:37.040 And it made her a figure who was marginally more 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.760 likable than than Trump, but not likable at all to 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.600 sizeable swath of the electorate. And that did make a difference. 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:50.400 And let's face it, the campaign against her, the monomaniacal 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:55.240 focus on emails by the New York Times and other places, 0:10:55.840 --> 0:11:00.120 including stories that were hyped and went way by on 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.240 the facts, and some that relied on sources that were 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:08.840 less than reliable, didn't help any well, less than reliable, 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.040 like i e. The Russians, right, I remember a friend 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.600 of mine. I remember a friend of mine, not to 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.640 mention sort of, you know, giving Donald Trump endless media 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:24.640 access without oftentimes without any critical analysis attached to it. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.200 But I'll never forget a friend of mine sending me 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:31.600 a video about Whoma Aberdeen's connection to the Muslim Brotherhood 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.559 and her family, and it was actually a very quote 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:39.440 unquote well done, professional looking piece of video. And I 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.400 remember this was somebody who was very smart, worked with 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.120 me in local news in Washington. And I wrote her 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.520 back and I said, Dana, this is bullshit. And yet 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.960 I thought, gosh, if she's receptive to this kind of propaganda, 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:58.440 you know, propagated by the Russians, who else is watching 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.920 this stuff and buying at hook line and sinker. Anyway, 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:04.120 we could talk all day about this stuff, and we're 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.760 going to well at least for an hour. But Norm, 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:08.959 I just want to backtrack for a quick second and 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:12.000 tell people a little bit about you. I suddenly have 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.880 turned into Oprah, But um, Norm, tell us about your background. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.480 You graduated from high school at fourteen. We hadn't worked 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.640 together at CBS News, and I never realized you were 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.960 quite the child prodigy. Apparently you are, but then you 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.199 went on and got a PhD. You were born in St. 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:33.840 Louis within an area close to Tom Friedman, Al Franken 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:36.040 and the Cohen brothers. What the hell were they feeding 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.640 new people? You know? It was St. Louis Park, the 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:44.679 Jewish suburb of Minneapolis. UM, and I actually had a 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:49.440 a more checkered background than that. Um. I was born 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:53.640 in Minnesota and uh grew up largely there. But I 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.400 also my father had originally been Canadian, and I actually 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:01.240 went to high school in Winnipeg with Neil Young, among 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:05.160 other things. Uh, and then we moved back. If only 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:11.280 love could break your heart. Sorry, I sing once. I 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.040 try to sing once during every podcast, so thank you 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:19.480 for that opening. I think once would be good. Um. No, 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:26.680 once is good, It's really good. Uh. Any And actually, 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.479 you know, Neil would perform at all of our assemblies 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:32.439 and around and he had a little group called the 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.360 Straight Gators and they played a coffeehouse and we all 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.160 thought that he would be able to make it as 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:42.160 a sideman uh somewhere. And but the band we had 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.080 playing with us UM because we needed a band for 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.800 all of the dances and proms, also decided to go 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.280 to l A when he did and change their name 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:54.679 to the Guests Who. So we had to rock and 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:59.680 roll Hall of Fame Max and high school time. Okay, sorry, 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:04.160 I in health it Okay, you're mentioning the artists from 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:11.920 my past. Norm How can I resist the role done 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:18.120 Randy where I was headed for. Don't forget American Woman. 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.200 Uh I love, I know, I like America also done 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.280 well by Lenny Kravitz. But anyway, we digress. Well, given 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:28.120 the company you kept and your experiences growing up, what 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:32.280 made you want to earn your living working with politicians 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.280 and hacks and really as an observer of our national 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.720 political scene. So I think some of it went back 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.120 to when I was younger. My grandfather, who had come 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.840 from Russia, became a labor leader in Minneapolis and was 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.480 one of the group of people, a kind of kitchen 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:53.080 cabinet that recruited Hubert Humphrey to run for mayor of 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.360 Minneapolis and then to get involved with politics. And I 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:59.520 had an uncle who was in the state legislature and 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.520 ran for attorney general in Minnesota, and just uh, I 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:08.040 was really interested and intrigued by how politics works and 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.280 how the institutions work, and then working on the hill 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:15.000 was just really interesting and exciting. And you know, I 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:16.600 must say at a time when there were a lot 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.880 of people you could look up to as heroes, people 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.240 who were in it for the right reasons and courageous 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.560 and doing the right things. And then I found, uh, 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:27.520 you know, as I started to teach and I began 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.280 to write for journals and things. It was frustrating because 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.000 you write a piece and send it to a political 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.160 science journal, and maybe a year later you would get 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.240 word back on whether they were going to accept it, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:41.200 and then it would get published a year after that 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:45.520 and be read by a couple of thousand people. And uh, 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.440 then I just stumbled into writing a book review for 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.840 The Washington Post that came out two days later and 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.640 was read by many, many thousands, and I even got 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.160 a little money for it. And all of that. The 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:01.320 intersection of politics and the public how the Institution's work 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.440 really kind of intrigued me. So, norm, I think a 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:08.920 lot of people are surprised given your political bent, given 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.640 the tweets you've written not just against Trump but against Republicans, 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.600 that you've been based at the American Enterprise Institute for 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.440 all these years, which is a right wing think tank, 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.600 former home of the Chineese etcetera. You know how did 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:24.200 you end up there? I mean, are you kind of 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:28.080 the skunk at the garden party? Uh? So in the 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:33.000 nine UM, my dear friend Tom Mann, who had gone 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.480 to Michigan with me and came to Washington, and I 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.080 decided that we needed to try and find a place 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:43.760 with more resources than a university would provide. And we 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.360 went to a EI, which was then you discovered all 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:49.920 the Republican money. Uh. You know, back then it was 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.520 more sort of little center right, but more center than 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:58.080 anything else. And we pitched the idea of doing what 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:00.960 we call the Congress Project, kind of acting Congress as 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:04.639 an institution, all the changes, how it affected policy, and 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.119 they bought it and we did it part time, and 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:12.119 then in four uh, I quit teaching and went to 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:16.159 a e I full time and I've been there ever since. Uh, 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:21.120 and I didn't change much. I was basically a moderate person. Um. 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:27.919 And uh the institution, as the politics of the country evolved, 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.280 became more sharply conservative on the whole. But the most 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:37.160 important element for why I stayed there, and uh, it's 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.520 interesting that they allowed me to stay there was that 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.640 I had and continue to have complete freedom to do 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.159 anything I want and to say what I want, and 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.720 nobody's ever said to me you can't do that, you 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.680 can't say that, And if they did, I'm fortunate, especially 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.320 at this stage of my life, where um, I could 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:02.960 leave without a second thought. We're gonna take a quick 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.600 break now and we'll be back soon with more from 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:27.600 Norm Ornstein. So, Norm, at the American Enterprise Institute where 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.800 you work, which is a conservative think tank, Mitch McConnell 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.440 came in one day as a speaker and you had 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.160 a pretty sharp exchange with him, and I just want 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:39.800 to play a little bit of that. I've enjoyed dueling you, 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.920 Norm over the years. You've been consistently wrong on almost everything, 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.639 and h I've always wondered, you know who each lunch 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.960 with you over here at an organization. I got more 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.080 friends than you think you're And actually, some of the 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.120 worst things have been said about me over the years 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.040 have been staid of a normal Arnstein and you and 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.119 you've been entirely wrong on virtually every occasion. I'm glad 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:08.320 to see you. What's on your mind? Ouch? Awkward? That 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:12.520 was where that must have felt pretty uncomfortable, Norm, uh So, 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.480 I had to think at that time, how am I 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.199 going to respond to this, and my first inclination was 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.280 to say, not only will people have lunch with me, Senator, 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.239 they'll even have a drink with me. Um. But I 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:28.720 didn't touche. So you got into a big fight with 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.439 Mitch McConnell over a campaign finance reform, among other issues. 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:36.000 But you helped write the McCain fine Gold bill, and 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.040 he was the principal opponent of that. Can you describe 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.879 a little bit about about that fight and why since 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:48.080 that legislation was passed and signed, the campaign finance system 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.360 is still a mess and big money is still so 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.879 powerful in our system. Well, of course, the answer to 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:58.400 the latter question, Brian starts with two words, citizens united. 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.240 It goes to another two words, a decision that followed 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:06.080 speech now by the Appeals Court that led to super PACs. 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.560 I could see in the mid nineteen nineties that we 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.760 had a real problem emerging in the campaign finance system. 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.680 I convened a little group of people who knew a 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.320 lot about it. We sat down and hammered out some 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:23.200 pragmatic solutions. I went to John McCain and Russ fine 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:27.360 Gold and somehow convinced them to take a different approach. 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.840 Um and uh then with some adjustments, we managed to 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:36.120 get a bill through and I was one of many players, 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.959 but I was proud of helping to shape it. And 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.000 then I saw Mitch McConnell at the Supreme Court when 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.639 the oral arguments were there with McConnell versus F. E. C. 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.400 Which was the case challenging this law, and the Supreme 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.560 Court rebuffed him. He was not at all a happy camper. 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.199 And then Sandra Day O'Connor left the court because her 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:02.520 husband had Alzheimer's and that not the Constitution, but O'Connor 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:06.439 leaving and sam Alito coming in set the seeds for 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.080 a Supreme Court to blow up all of the campaign 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:13.640 finance regulations that were actually working pretty well, and now 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:18.119 we have the hell of dark money and billionaire dominance 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.159 of our process. You've written a book called One Nation 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.320 After Trump norm and since we are at the one 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:30.760 year mark of the election, how would you assess this 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:34.840 last year in terms of Donald Trump's accomplishments. Let me 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.399 ask you kind of turned this question on its head. 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.120 Do you give him credit for anything? I give him 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:47.680 credit for poisoning the discourse in America, creating a kleptocracy, 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:53.480 defining deviancy down to use Pat Moynihan's term uh and 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:57.600 UH not doing much of anything to either drain the 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.800 swamp or help out those working p bowl. He said 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.520 he would much less as he addressed African Americans, what 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:07.600 the hell have you got to lose? Uh? Showing them 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:12.120 very bad things. I have a hard time, Mrs Lincoln. 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:17.200 I have a hard time, Katie, finding anything positive there. 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:20.520 During the course of a year, Um and Tom Man 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:22.400 and I wrote a book in two thousand and six 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.440 called The Broken Branch, How Congress is Failing America and 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:27.840 How to get it back on track, and we lamented 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.720 what had happened to the institution, but we blame both 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.679 parties for it. Two thousand and twelve, we wrote a 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.360 book called It's Even Worse than It Looks, and that 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.320 was heralded by a Washington Post outlook piece from the 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:43.760 book that our editor called UH, titled UH, Let's just 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:45.720 say it the Republicans or the Problem, And it was 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.040 a Republican party that had gone off the rails and 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.600 become an insurgent outlier, and we saw the seeds of 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.199 Trump is Um emerging. At that point. We revised that 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:57.760 and didn't one called it's even worse than it was. 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:02.160 And now we have this and what Trump has done 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:06.119 is in some ways the logical extension of a party 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.439 that had turned from a conservative problem solving one to 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:15.320 a radical one, and a party that opened up the 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:20.280 doors with its uh desire to blow up government and 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:25.479 to give enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest um for 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:28.439 a guy like Donald Trump. And now they're putting no 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:32.520 checks and balances on him, and that is maybe, in 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.480 some ways the most depressing part of this story. The 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:39.200 political system was set up by our framers to build 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:44.640 some boundaries around the possibility that and a moral uh 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:51.040 kleptocratic sociopath, if somehow that person got elected, we would 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:53.679 be able to put boundaries around And it started with 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:56.960 an independent Congress. And now you look at what the 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:00.400 Speaker Paul Ryan says, what the Senate majority, the leader 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:04.280 Mitch McConnell says, and what they say is, well, never 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:06.280 mind that we're going to get our tax bill through. 0:24:06.840 --> 0:24:12.439 All of that has to leave you alarmed, um. But 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.159 also what we are seeing is so many people are 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:17.960 alarmed that maybe we're going to have a jolt that 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:21.600 gets the public more engaged and gets the possibility of 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:24.960 bringing those boundaries back. Before we talk about that, I 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:26.920 want to ask you about your tweets. I mean, you've 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:30.320 called him a seventy one year old, lifelong narcissist, sociopath. 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:34.160 You've called him a congenital liar blowing up American ideas. 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.840 You've called him an ignoramus. Is it his personal behavior 0:24:38.920 --> 0:24:43.399 that you find so offensive or are you equally um 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:47.159 incensed by the policy proposals he's put forth and the 0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:51.520 way he's actually conducted the real business of governing versus 0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:56.240 the personality of his presidency. Uh So it's all of 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:59.959 the above, but more. And Uh, you know, the Twitter 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:04.120 has become a catharsis for me as I watch things deteriorate. 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:09.960 The biggest the biggest problem that I see is the 0:25:10.119 --> 0:25:15.159