. >>. >> i grew up in australia. and then to physically blend into many paint places but never with the intention that i could move around a little bit. >>host: no turning back is the name of the book. rania abouzeid is the author. [inaudible conversations] . >> good afternoon. please take a seat.

i am here at miami-dade college with the 35th annual miami book fair. [applause] first thank you to our premier sponsors please waive to acknowledge or support. at this time please silence your cell phone the authors would be available to the right of the elevator it is my distinct pleasure as national

security advisor president barack obama from the national security communications public diplomacy and engagement programming. 2007 through 2008 with a senior speechwriter for import policy advisor ben rhodes. [applause] . >> also dan pfeiffer one of barack obama's longest-serving advisors white house director of communications under president obama and senior advisor to the president he is the author of politics in the

age of obama. [applause] and finally to be simulcast and then with the cnn crossfire including the obama hate machine. the top 100 reasons to dump trump. [applause] . >> just a few opening comments you can see the titles of our

books where the temperature is up a little bit. [laughter] but my book i started and try to make sense of what happened and then at the conclusion he turns to me and says what if we were wrong? i didn't know what he meant i've been wrong in a lot of things. what if we pushed too far? what if i was 15 or 20 years too early? he was raising a much more profound question about the direction of the country.

but i wrote this because when i went to work for the obama campaign i was 29 years old. so that vantage point over the course of a decade i can let my experience be that entry point how our perspective on american politics could show what happened the way they did. it seems almost impossible that the very first major speech i wrote for president obama was summer 2007 he talked about getting osama bin laden and diplomacy with his

foreign-policy as president however he was attacked by all of his opponents over the objections of the pakistani government. and then my girlfriend at the time and then i wake up to what a lot of people with e-mail chains about something in the news. but the pakistani president declared opposition those burning a flag in the streets i get a e-mail from the deputy communications advisor to say

this could be the worst thing that has happened to us yet. but i remember being terrified but the focus is how to make an argument about what we believe? that the direction that we got is to know why we wouldn't go to pakistan but we should be doing this. but then i remember in the debate if you weeks later he doubled down on all these positions i will not be lectured on experience. but there is something unique

about obama that that is a good recipe and that colored my experience coming into the white house i describe the speech in berlin that ultimately was one of the things that we did we showed you could occupy the presidency the whole speech culminated in a german phrase that we found that meant we are a community of saints the german women went into the street as they were doing the air drops that we are a community of faith so you keep trying to find new ways to say the same thing so this seemed like another way to say that in german. the idea was him to say this

in german. and then i got a call from the interpreter to tell me that that word was that the of one of hitler's first speeches. so i had to go up to the democratic nominee for president that part of the speech he really loved was echoing hitler. he said that is not what we are going for here. but it was a moment i didn't know if i was going to get fired but then he paused then he descended into laughter and said he better get working on amending that. but the politician and the

person the politician who was authentic the down to earth could laugh at the absurdity of the circumstances that is a great experience to. i will not but in writing the book to relive extraordinary highs so focusing on national security when we took out osama bin laden. but remember that speech that turned out okay. the many, many years of painstaking diplomacy to get a nuclear agreement in place personally i ended up feeding

the secret negotiations of cuba that never i would've thought the beginning of the administration two years flying off to meet the cuban government and then you have those populations with cuba? although the cubans did not know why but that was actually smart policy. [laughter] that when i went in there he looked at me and said who are you? [laughter] but then it was given to me by president obama thinking the world was a better place.

but that feeling we were moving in the right direction and trying to do the right thing. and with the spread of nuclear weapons with a more reclusive citizenship but the projects felt right but at the same time at how obviously the backlash describes that entire decade that i describe. the campaign forwarded e-mails from people we would have to debunk that became sarah palin as a vice presidential candidate then the apology to obama than then gauzy that became all of these different forces that would paint obama as the other but obama was

much more forthcoming about race in private and public ace to have to prep him and to get him to say we will walk them through you will ask this you'll be asked about race what would you say? he said yes. next question. . . . .

becoming a husband and father in the time i will close by saying returning to that question what if we are wrong. they tend to often think that progress as we would define it is inevitable and with more rights for americans and global cooperation abroad. what we see today is these things are incredibly contested and it's a good segue ticket to hell to do that and they are smarter about it. i will just say that president obama also used to say to me i used to get a lot of grief from the republicans because i have a background in fiction writing.

it becomes suci become such a pt against them that one of the times during these storytelling was the ability to tell a good story about america is our entire job. what we see today if there are two stories about america the declaration of independence took place at the time that there was slavery and has always been the story is moving in a certain progression and reaction against that and how the two stories are clashing and this will answer my question was if we are wrong i think the future of america is going to look like the direction barack obama is pursuing.

[applause] i think all kinds of things are on our site including the history, demography. but to get there and we didn't plan this but i will hand it over to dan to tell us how we are going to win that fight. [applause] very excited this year because he has been my friend for ten yearyears one of the smartest pe i work with and feel like i can defend myself against this attacker against panicking. i would say in my defense i woke up this morning to a piece on good morning america that said i will invade pakistan to get bin laden which if you are running as an opponent of the war, that is suboptimal to say the least. so finally the truth comes out. the best way to explain the book

is to tell the story about how i decided to write it. when i was leaving the white house in 2015 i went through the normal checkout procedure for any senior white house i turned on my badge and blackberries and put all of my stuff in a box and what happens in the white house if someone from the industry agreed to you at the gate and says will you write a tell-all book and obviously i wasn't going to because unlike people in the current white house and my colleagues and boss and also the skeletons in the white house were filled with fewer skeletons but i had this front row seat to history and i had been struck by all the books that had been written about the obama white house by people on the outside bob woodward and jodi kantor.

these books were all true, like they were accurate but it's what we went through and s if so the only people who i think can help the true story with all of these biases in the room who were actually there for but i can't figure out what story i would tell what would be my take on what would happen. my friend has just written a book that talks about the campaigns in the first couple years at the white house, treasury secretary about how to save the economy and a position by former friend wrote about the foreign policy and forth with my story be and of course barack obama is going to write a story to tell a lot of these things. it wasn't until despite the literary agent every three months i was able to come up with a book i would write until the morning after donald trump was elected.

after trying to drown my sorro sorrows. don't worry, hillary is going to be fine. but she wasn't and what i got from and what they missed about politics and what they missed about the country that elected barack obama as the first african-american decent inclusive person would also elect donald trump a few years later how was that possible. and it kind of hit me all at once if you've seen the movie unusual suspects, but at the end of the cop looks at the bulletin board is all makes sense kevin spacey that is how i solved the

obama presidency. the things that made me most frustrated was the ability to get the popular agenda through, so difficult for the three forces that contributed to the environment where donald trump when. and that was a story that i wanted to tell about how politics changed during the obama presidency. how the republican party became radicalized at how facebook and twitter changed how people communicate and the media itself have changed and how we became a country that could believe in conspiracy theories and promulgated and how all of those things. i wanted to tell that story not just to revisit the worst parts

of my job becaus my top pick ofm for me to write, but with the hope of possibly learning lessons to extract some things. not just donald trump, but the idea of trump. the fact that obama was forced to go to the briefing room at the white house and hold a certificate and say i am an american citizen and how it is that even after he did that, a strong plurality of republicans still believe barack obama was born in kenya and how twitter changed the way that we think about politics and how the media interpreted politics.

i thought that the stories haven't been told necessarily from a different perspective than the more historical but also because we are at a moment of crisis in american democracy and in my belief is the only way we are going to get out of the crisis is for democrats to take power. the actually understated the threat that exists. i can tell you from someone who's seen it first-han it firss

worse than you think it is. puré donald trump is up in two years. it's not a disease that plagues politics. it's followed by the propaganda it is what is going to be there after he is gone and so we are in a long-term struggle against this dangerous force in politi

politics. it's to tell these stories how i ended up in politics and what it was like to end up making politics the career choice to dedicate my life to to make the sacrifices that come with working around campaigns working all the time. but i wanted to tell the story that it could be a worthwhile endeavor it is a fulfilling career because we need young people to believe in politics and we need them to get involved in politics, and that is not just the idea. we need people to think politics is a good career. we need the best and brightest to come to washington instead of going to wall street.

we needed them to bring those abilities to solve the problems of my hoping the book is telling my story as they present older. the morning after, i woke up and sat at my desk and started pounding and e-mailed my literary agent, the poor guy i'd been ignoring for a while. they thought it was questions about i choose not to engage in so i sat down and pounded out an outline i wrote an outline for this book and i said it to them

and he said it back to me at a time that was pretty quick and said i will look at this but you need a title. that's how you get paid the big. so i was like what am i going to call this thing and in a moment staring down the barrel i wanted to be hopeful and not think that this was the end. so i called it yes we still can and i say that because even now two years later i am still hopeful, but it's a conditional hope. i'm not telling anyone not to wet the bed anymore and things are going to be fine, but we as a party do the right things over the next few years he can make it so that when we look back at this period it will be an aberration.

[applause] it will be a very damaging speedbump on the path that looks more like lisp or obam what obad about, thoughtful, inquisitive. thank you so much. [applause] good afternoon. let me start with a few quick comments. i've got to tell you how exciting it is to be at this miami book fair as a voracious reader and book collector and author defined hundreds of people who love books and read books and buy books. thank you. and they've also got to say how honored i am to share the

platform with two of the smartest and most decent people who ever worked in the white house, and i'm sitting there thinking remember the day when we could because of the people e that worked in the white house. [applause] and remember the day when the people that worked in the white house could be proud of the president they worked for. [applause] so quickly, i' i inhere about to books. one of them is a person that you will read in a person that you will learn to love. me. my memoir is bill press from the left of life and crossfire all of my days at cnn with bob novak. there were five of them and i was the only one on the left. i beat them every single night. [applause]

and about my political career starting with some people i got to know and work with starting with gene mccarthy in 1968 and i was the policy director in polin california and went off to do some media and came back in washington and was honored to be able to be part of the press corps through the eight years of the obama administration and briefing room and all the way to buy helping senator bernie sanders get organized and launch his campaign for president in 2016 so it was a fun run. it's someone you really can't love, trump must go. [applause] i call it the top 100 reasons to dump trump and it may be one to keep him.

i consider this like the companion to bob woodward's book fear. he painted the disarray in the white house and what i tried to do in the book is laid out the reasons trump has done so much in just 20 months, damage that i think will take us decades to repair from that anonymous op-ed if you remember "the new york times," and my book all show the same thing. it is totally unfit to govern and i believe the happiest person in the planet were used to be on the planet today, the heaviest american ever today is willard fillmore because in every blessed of the worst presidents -- [laughter]

stonewall was always at the bottom. now he is number 44. number 45 is number 45. so, obviously trump has got to go but the question is how, when and why. she could be impeached or run out of office were forced to retire because donald trump junior is i would say this, we got off to a good start on tuesday, november 6. [applause] sadly not good enough in florida but when you look across the board at almost 40 seats in the house, when you look at seven governorships and seven state legislator chambers and the

legislative seats flip from red to blue we are talking about a blue wave and i will give you one example. in california the former democratic chair of california orange county was the heartland of the conservative movement in this country and there were seven congressional districts in orange county california and today they are all represented by democrats. [applause] [cheering] i consider that a good start. so how it goes, i don't know. all i have to say is the sooner, the better. my own feeling is 20 months is

too long. we have certain inalienable rights of that are governed and anytime they go too far or they are in for an inaudibly have the right but the duty to stand up and replace them and jefferson said the first thing we've got to do is write from the declaration of independence let it be submitted to a candid world and that is what i tried to do in this book to lay out the facts of what's wrong with the presidency of donald trump and with damage he's done to america.

when you search with donald trump the person, you've got to come to the conclusion he is a totally obnoxious human being, which is why i start with the personal reasons, the first number one, he's a pathological liars. number two, number three, he is woefully ignorant, he's an overgrown toddler, he's a racist, he's a sexual predator, it goes on and on. and i also talk about the policy differences.

pulling out of the paris climate accord and crashing the iran nuclear deal on and on. she was obsolete the moment it was published because there are more than a hundred reasons. if you show of hands you could all show your reason and i just started down this morning just in the last ten days if i could start adding reasons to this book. one of our allies committed cold-blooded murder of a journalist and donald trump has done nothing about it. he flew to paris and was afraid to even go out in the rain to honor our american dead and refused to go to the cemetery the first president in modern history to do so. she told a reporter this week to sit down and african-american reporter to sit down and shut

up. he told another african-american reporter that she asked a racist western and here's another one of asking a stupid question. it just piles on and on. he yanked the pass and blamed the california fires on the firefighters for not clearing enough wood from the forest when these were not forest fires and in the two weeks he stressed not one word for the victims of lost lives of the family members she named him attorney general and then turned around and said i don't even know him. he accused the people of coming to vote and then going out and getting in their car into

changing their shirts and putting on a different hat and going to vote again. [laughter] anybody here want to fess up to that? the worst things i believe, to me i am someone who republican or democrat because that person was the leader and someone we looked up to and might disagree with and we told our kids to look up to the president of the united states. you can't look up to donald trump or a person who calls african-american baseball players sons of who's been accused of sexual assault for 20 some women. he isn't someone we can look up

to. we are better than that and we deserve better than that. [applause] final word. i believe donald trump is the worst public official since the roman emperor caligula since he appointed his horse a concept of rom. people were lucky at least they got the whole force. [laughter] that's hard to follow you guys have already figured this out you know the drill better than us. why don't we start here with this gentle man an and then we l take as many questions as we can.

>> i didn't change my identity. anyhow, my question for the three of you given the recent revelation of the frontline documentary how should we handle, what are your thoughts at handling the problems with social media and getting that under control? i described in the book becoming aware of the scale i felt like i understood it better essentially what happened after is russia figured out if they created enough of the information in fake news whatever you want to call it, propaganda, and they flooded social media in the target location, they could bend

the narrative. i remember speaking to the spokesperson who said there would be a social media story about the refugee and their huge protests and then they find out that it never happened. but by the time they figured that out, it was they couldn't turn it off so you come into the united states and what they did is they found new lines of argument. they would look at what the right-wing media was doing spending a lot of time so we will invent enormous volumes of frequent annoying are having some disease and literally flood the american algorithm. 50% get their news on facebook. they have no way of knowing whether it is from a credible or verifiable source. it could be russian fake news or real news and what was so

frustrating to me is we have a very deliberate and long conversations and how to work with them to pull down certain content but i think the scale of the problem was too vague in their approach for the last several years it has been to downplay the problem is handed to deal with it and that is completely irresponsible because if they are going to be a platform on which half of americans can get their news than they have a responsibility to let people know where information is coming from so at a minimum i do think that congress needs to take a hard look at what additional regulations need to be in place and if the companies have decided a plant from hell they are regulated and what the requirements are. i think beyond that there needs to be a dialogue because it

could be china to the market or anyone else on board if we have an open platform that can be manipulated so i look at this and i realize that russia has essentially found a weak spot in our democracy. they found that they can follow the poison of the rights may be with the direction of the trump officials and often times on their own they can plow information on these platforms and thus far the reaction has been to avoid doing something so that people know where they are getting their news from. [applause] first is theoretically stoppingg china daily china or russia or iran is a mostly solvable problem. the problem much later than that

asking facebook to fix his problems is a little like asking the nfl to solve a concussion problem and at the end of the day the business is still the business and that is why i think a new administration need to look very carefully at how we regulate but how we deal with the fact two companies control 95% we would never allow them to sell 95% and we need to look very carefully at this. the second point i would make its benefits republicans. republican politics and outrage and that facebook algorithm is why the content is some of the

most seen in the country and democrats we are not going to get facebook to fix their algorithm but we have to find ways to get our content and our message to go die roll .-full-stop just becoming a pale shade of orange suits going to require new ideas but also new messages and you think about the kind of content you see they get a lot of attention one is something that this is the law of some terrible headline people commented that the other one is the things that inspire you whether it's a dog that found his way home o where the videose see all the time of military parents surprising their kids at school were a basketball game so that is the arena how can we have messages that hit the core.

i don't know if you saw a video of the candidate talking about defending the rights to protest this video was seen 50 million times within less than two weeks so not that we can do that all the time, but that is a model for how you get a democrat can get a hopeful message out in this environment. >> to this day despite all that we know and despite the fact robert mueller is indicted some 25,000 russians with evidence, donald trump is yet to has yet o acknowledge that they try to undermine the democracy in 2016 and i think until we have that kind of leadership in the white house something is going to happen. first to make sure i'm going to

go in some basic it's hypothetical but based on the assumptions are correct. there's going to be a lot of investigations, he's going to be weakened, he's not going to be impeached, he won't get kicked out of office because of the senate. going into 2020, you had rick wilson on here talking about the sort of ideal to the candidate that could win and i would like to know from each of you define a hypothetical candidate each of you and then tell me person in the public eye who closest needs but if you can do that. >> that is one hell of a question. here's what i would say.

first of all we know there's going to be like 25 people on the first stage will be a wide-open race and let me start by saying that is a good thing because we need to figure out what the best messages and to get out of that you have to have a message that resonates and can withstand good and bad days on the campaign trail so i don't think people should be bedwetting about the deals. second, i will say if you look at when democrats when come it's usually when someone can cast themselves as a reformer and change agent and outsider, all three of them have fashioned themselves that freeware is now when we nominate the inside establishment person, hillary clinton, john kerry, al gore, walter mondale is harder for them to galvanize. so i do think my personal bias

towards someone who can cast themselves as an outsider and reformer i think that is to the benefit of mobilizing the type of movement for obama buil throa built in 20 of eight and trump is very good at running against candidate the second point is we need somebody that can fit that bill and you need someone who is compelling enough and inspiring enough that they can shape and control their own narrative about who they are because donald trump will try to turn anybody into a cartoon character so you need someone who has that authenticity they cannot be cast as someone they are not because they are so comfortable in their own skin and they are who they are and it's immediately apparent to people so they can create this moment of inspiration. what does that leave for people?

i think it should be wide open and i would like to see who has the message at the moment i think frankly no democratic candidate did that better. he built a movement and got small dollar donations and got people to vote. i think if he runs he should get a careful but there's a lot of people they will get their turn in the spotlight but i would like to see how some of these outsiders hold off on the campaign trail with her that is new comers were a couple of mayors running for governor is running or people that can claim that outside of their mental if there are three lanes essentially the establishment people and they are running at the progressive end, i'm interested in okay who in the third category of people might

be able to come out of nowhere and building movement that can overwhelm trump, that is what i will be looking at for the first few mom. i would say it's a fools errand to try to reduce it to a courageous engineer. after john kerry lost the consensus of all of the smart people in the washington elite crowd is the only way democrats could then in 20 of eight was to nominate the democrats and the red state and then two years later from the south side of chicago so what we now know is going to seem pretty foolish 114 months from now when people cast their firsher first vote in the. what i would say all the things that say i agree to work for the same candidate in a large field the democratic party is currently engaged in its biannual but eternally stupid debate of should we be

progressives who turned to face al gore moderate to reach out to the centrist voters. the reason that the debate is stupid because until we abolished the college and the only way to bring together the electoral votes us to do both. you have to give massive turnout among the new voters and periodic voters who don' don't turnout of free time, and you have to win over independents. that is how barack obama won and the democrats won in the east districts and the districts between the main reason barack obama won florida and won independence so it is my belief that it's the best way to do that is with a progressive message you can be progressive and as long as you do it in a way that is an inclusive

progressive is on its populist in acknowledges some of the voters may not agree on everything that we are open to the point of view and if you can do that in a non- condescending progressive way, we have the model. before this electoral disaster we did when the two consecutive landslides with barack obama who is ablwas able to put together t coalition is next candidate whoever that is. >> you put us on the spot. first, i'm looking for some republican with enough to run against donald trump in the primary. [applause] i doubt we are going to find that person but i think jeff flake will flake. second, i agree i think the

governor's two best by a rule was until he got to the midterms i wasn't going to talk about 2020 but now i don't have that excuse anymore. i'm sorry. but i do believe that governors are the strongest candidate because they come from outside of washington and have some executive experience. somebody that can speak to the heartland and represent issues that are importan important to e middle-class working americans which democrats always used to speak to and failed certainly somebody that authenticity that was one of his great strengths in 2016 and i heard somebody that's good on television because god knows donald trump is. on my show thursday morning we sat down and went through a list of all of the potential candidates in every category,

senators, governors, outsiders, celebrities and came up with a list of 29. today i don't see a definite front-runner clear winner that i want to get behind right now so i am waiting for somebody, waiting to see how things shake out. in a word or a phrase i would say i would love to see a younger bernie sanders. even a female younger bernie sanders. [applause] you talk about how difficult politics is and it's going to be harder. my first job out of college i worked every cycle since and i've never been on a winning campaign. i feel like it's getting harder

and harder you all grew up on idealism in the west wing and i grew up where everyone was watching the cynicism of house of cards. i looked at the way that you approach media and the nontraditional ways that no other communication department statuhad this with the two quess is really what advice did you have for me to keep the faith and keep going but also what tools do you think i should be using in the next few years to polish my craft and move to san franciscmoved to sanfrancisco tt i'm asking for and -- >> i worked on a lot of

campaigns and james carville famously worked on 40 campaigns before his first one and a so there is -- you've got to keep at it and what i would tell you is this is probably how you ended up in the situation. the best advice i try to get is when you are choosing who to work for him to campaign for politics, choose the person you want to win, not the person you think is going to win. they feel so much better even though he lost because they are part of something larger than someone who took a resume building job so just know every campaign sets up the next one.

we were lucky to have someone who will continually dust themselves off. i've been involved in a more losing campaigns than winning campaigncampaign starting with e mccarthy and jerry brown for president, bernie sanders, hillary clinton for president. and i learned as much if not

more from those losing campaigns banned from the winning campaigns you learn about and build each time. it feels good to win one. i am to-0 in the campaign. >> this is the story i was going to tell. we were early in the cycle in 2008 luckily for both of us i

always wanted to work for barack obama and they've got to tell you there is no better advice in politics then if you care about the person you work for it makes everything worth it. you will be better at your job. the reason to go into this line of work is to be passionate about what you are doing and if you care about the person or the college you will be good at it and the thing is you can learn a little bit of everything. i went in as a speechwriter and i'd never spoken to a member of the press in my life. i'm writing talking points and position papers and it's a great way to learn a little bit about everything and find what you are good at so you can work with the people and causes you care about

and find what you are good about and that's an enormous opportunity. there's nothing better than coming out on a book tour i'm sure dan gets this meeting people like you is the single most rewarding thing that's happened since i left the white house because it tells me that there are people out there that are going to pick up this work and carry it forward and if they don't people get terrible outcomes but if you are setting the pace it makes me hopeful about the future. >> thanks. appreciate it. [applause] question. during the long afternoon and night that the american consulate was besieged what did your team do to try to rescue the american ambassador before he died?

>> i tol told the story in great detail in my book part of what people have to understand is how chaotic the circumstances are. if you look at the conspiracy theories that was kind of a supposition we could convene and immediately deploy an army to deal with the event taking place. the reality of that day as it's the anniversary of september 11 and there is a violent protest that begins actually in egypt so i am in a bunch of meetings throughout the day where we are seeing scary images, people scaling the walls of our compounds waving black flags basically losing and trying to break into that embassy where we

have a lot of people. that's playing itself out during the day. then that afternoon, we hear there's something happening and already there's a bit of an asymmetry because you've got international news media, we have a man to be the embassy. then they'll see us off the grid we have a very strong diplomatic post in benghazi there isn't the media presence. all we have are the reports we're getting from people who were there which immediately go dark and in a chilling moment, i knew the ambassador. i met with him before he'd gone out and one of the ways we could get information was from him and me here in this initial report there is an attack and then we hear nothing and then there's a

phone call from the hospital and for a moment we were hopeful but then it turns out it's from some of the old saying he is greatly woundehe's greatlywounded and pg to make it so we are dealing with a situation where we had little information coming in other than that it's under attack so president obama was coincidentally meeting with the secretary of defense and the joint chiefs of staff when he learned of this so he says to them find out what other resources we can get to defend our people and so you essentially convene meetings of people who did this and we determined how far away and what can we move from tripoli and then from outside so from europe and to fortify the mission and this is taking place over the night. the reality is that there wasn't

a military capacity to essentially deploy forces from europe like to benghazi we had to support them forces from europe into tripoli and the tragedy takes place and it's a horrific event is one of the worst days i ever had in the white house but i wake up the next day thinking this is among the worst things i'm going to be a part of in the country we intervened in it has been from dramatically off course. even the next day we had incomplete information. it takes a long time to figure out what happens and again what i trace in the book is my deep regret how this issue over many years became more and are toxic in our politics because again the series that would come out

were intended barack obama was sitting in the situation room on a train whistle and a choosing not to do something where we could have deployed the military resources. the premise that all of these things is that somehow if you take a step back the premise is that we could have saved americans but chose not to and that is beyond anything. there was something so ugly about the fact that there was a basic presumption of what had happened and what i saw over the years is the conspiracy theory would move we could litigate that until the end of time but all i can do is tell you we gave the information we had when we had it.

whether there is a standout of obvious things that i thought it was useful in the buck to chase whafuture racethat happened in s because it does show something about where things lead. this became more and more toxic. people didn't even know what it was other than an accusation. i described the experience of getting death threats because i was a player in this drama and i described the experience of knowing that there was a whole system out there that i didn't know about then there are these spikes and thousands of people would be talking about me in one day. the hate speech the next day i

was part of a funding conspiracy and it was my first kind of interaction in this media ecosystem ginning the finger and twinto end i think it is importt for us to understand how that felt manipulated for political purposes. the thing that needs to be corrected as we need better security facilities and wants to see any of that that happens around the world as a cause to launch a conspiracy theory that the motivations of people serving government. [applause] i just want to ask about venezuela a lot of us are

immigrants. what about the policy messaging how can we do the right thing but also -- >> there is the deteriorating situation but first i would say in the humanitarian crisis that is taking place, that includes support of the ability to come here that is something that they should get behind.

why would we deal with a crisis like that in our own ever heard they can do a lot more to raise the human side of this issue which is connected to immigration and assistance i think the military and the languages and helpful but i do think what is needed is a truly full court diplomatic efforts to this issue.

to build a consensus hell do we break this cycle of collapse to get to some kind of a government that can begin to allow the community to put the systems in the country and put things back together because they won't accept support from the community we've got to get to the type of government that can. but that is a negotiation supported with the countries in the region as well. i think this is an issue that has become a more prominent in the next two years and i think that it's incumbent upon the cracks to come forward with their own ideas and issues no matter otherwise it is a rhetorical thing about who can see more bad things like that is not constructive and they will always figure out the worst words you can say about them. this is a regime that has been terrible fo for people to the question is how we are going to help people and i think that the democrats into the house in particular can focus on those

issues. [applause] >> this is another place donald trump as evidenced his profound ignorance of latin america the history of the united states and latin america which is a history of invasion and staging coups against the elected leaders and assassinating elected leaders and when this is presented we should invade venezuela. why don't both o don't you ask s back-to-back.

[inaudible] in florida w received within 206 seems to have been lost on us where 1% of the vote can go to third parties and green parties and we must do election because of that. 1.5% of the vote went to about four left leaning parties.

it could be with more votes than he lost. >> that is a hard question. but that would have mattered had they not taken enough of the vote. [applause] there is a theory if we could convince there was some truth to that for sure. instead of a message that is centered around the 1.5% of floridians who voted for the four left leaning parties, we need a message that is a broadly appealing as possible, and we try to turn out as many voters

as possible. there will always be people to vote for these and a vast number can always creep up between winning and losing but that is why we have to register more to turn out voters and democrats and we can't do that because in florida and everywhere else in the country as a whole, there are significantly more people who if they voted with vote for democrats and republicans. they just don't vote for whatever reason. so it should be about solving that problem as opposed to trying to get why they would support a supreme court justice to overturn citizens united absolutely should do that but broadly i think the strategy should be to increase turnout as

much as we possibly can while still winning and that is a viable strategy for winning this state come in across the country >> i have to say i try to get along with everybody, but i cannot look at kristin gillibrand without saying you cost the seat in the united states senate. [applause] and i saw ralph nader the other night at the press club and i can't look at him without saying al gore would be president of the united states, but at the same time i'm not shutting down the creation of other parties we have to make sure the message is stronger and we work hard for. rick scott talkrick scott talksr

fraud and voter suppression in georgia and florida. [applause] that has to be a top priority of these efforts on the part of state after state after state to either get rid of early voting or shorten the early voting for letting one point for felons now get the right to vote. the case before november 6 for the governor of florida and bill nelson in the united states. that is the perfect note and today's conversation.

thank you for a wonderful panel. [inaudible conversations] the political editor for fox news and the author of this book every a short history of american populace. you write andrew jackson was probably the first celebrity president. why do you say that? >> the battle was a pretty big deal.