booktv, television for serious readers. up next, on afterwards, rhode island senator sheldon whitehouse officers his thoughts on how the government is impacted by corporate money and special interest groups in his book "captured". senator whitehouse is interviewed by new york times investigative reporter ache lipton. >> i want to start off by asking why did you write this book. simple question. >> i was getting disturbed at the frustration about the republican government.

the real problem isn't the government but the corporate forces. if we can get them where the founding fathers thought, which is out of elections and politics >> you want to go way took to your beginnings. your dad went to jail. he was a diplomat in laos and thailand. tell me about your upbringing and the process of living through the experiences you lived through you developed these ideas. >> growing up in foreign service i saw two things, we were always in dangerous places.

growing up, you cannot go to the hospital if you are sick, or go to the movies, if somebody got bit by a dog you had to go through the rabies series because it was probably rabid. people didn't talk about it as much as we do now. then i saw in all these different countries, although my father liked to say we were a big player and every once in a while they had to push back. behind that was respect for and admiration and confidence in america that created, i think, a beacon for many, many people and many countries around the world. so, it kind of came in by most of this has been a lasting

lesson from my childhood. >> and looking at your career, you have been in government service since graduating from the university of virginia law school and worked in the attorney general office to start and went to work for the governor, then u.s. attorney, then attorney general yourself and ultimately elected to the senate. why do you think this is had life you have chosen these in

>> i think government right for america is a special thing to do even at the state and local level. it has given me the chance to see government from a lot of different perspectives and it is that array of different perspectives that have helped inform this book. >> so the core argument of the book, captured, is there is this unseen ruling class, corporations and their army of super pacs and 501c 34's and other entities, and in some coordinateed way they are working to try to influence the american political system and congress and successfully doing it. so, you know, why is it

different now than it was decades go. what has changinged so much about the control this octopus of players over the american political system? >> some of the elements of corporate influence has been around for a while. the extent to which corporate lobbying dominates in congress is about 30-1 over everybody else by recent studies. that has been so since the 1970s. and the problem of regulatory capture in regulatory industries where the regulatory industries moves in and exerts control over the agencies has been around since woodrow wilson wrote about it. some of this is a constant theme. the new things have been

citizens united and the entry of corporate power and front boots that exert corporate power into our elections in a dominate way. when you have one front group spending $700 million plus in the last election and threatening, planning, to spend 400 million in the next election in the mid-term that is just a huge footprint and there is a lot more going on behind it. they are interest in protecting corporations to the point where there is a pole not too long ago that asks people whether they

thought a human being could get a fair shot against a corporation in the united states supreme court and i think 9% of the people who answered -- no, i take it back. 6% of the people said yeah, we think an individual can get a fair shot against a corporation and 54% said nope, the corporation is going to have the advantage. when you have a 9-1 spread about whether a human being can get a fair shot against a corporation in the united states that is a signal we have a problem. >> the book talks about the impact of citizens united and sees it as a real turning point and the influence of money in politics. i guess i wonder how do you reconcile that with the fact we have president trump who defeated 17 gop candidates and hillary clinton, most of whom races were much better funded by pacs and interest groups than trump. and similarly you had the tea party which disrupted congress before trump came along.

the chamber of commerce and koch brothers are certainly not friends with the tea party. i wonder how you reconcile your beliefs that citizens united brought this upon us. how do you reconcile those thing snz >> i don't think they need all that much reconciling. it is a longer conversation than we should have here today but they went to the fda and wrote a book called poison key to which the tea party was closey cunicted with the fossil fuel crowd and tobacco and it developed in sync with the deregulatory agenda. i don't think it is out of sink

and one of the reasons that people were attracteded to somebody with who worked it up. they saw a government that started to bog down corporate interests. he in some respects, trump, may be the product of what i am talking about. >> i want you to explain more

about the flaw in the way the constitution is addressed and a weakness with congress and the courts. can you explain what your view is on that. >> the constitution was drafted and balanced different conflicts of interest and the key interest they were trying to balance was the right of the people to not be overwhelmed boy the government so they divided it up into different branches that could protect one another and the protection from the creation of a new royalty or air. so they had a specific set of concerns they were trying to address and i think they addressed them well when you consider how long that document lasts. they wanted to make sure they

were protecteded. there was not a lot of concern about corporate precipitation in our politics and they understood this was going to be a human being citizen operation. the ones that there were tended to do things like build canals or schools and that was it. i don't think it ever crossed the founder father's minds that they thought corporations would have a role in the institutions they established.

it has been exploited in the run up to the progressive era when teddy roosevelt took them on and then they reboot and we have the problem of just way way too much corporate power in places that the founding fathers never c contemplated they would be. >> i find it interesting in the book the extent of examining the non-profit rules and groups that present themselves as philanthropic but are part of an alliance that which funders that allow them to influence the political process without registering as lobbyist. as a reporter that writes about this, i see this a great deal myself. it is not registered lobbying but all the work on the side that is perhaps the greatest role in influencing the process

and the lobbyist walks in and points to the handy work of the affiliate groups. talk about what it is like as a u.s. senator to see the handy work playing out in a they wat creates this appearance of a ground swell nationally and when it is coordinated by a small group of people. >> let me give a small example. i was united states states attorney in rhode island back when the department of justice sueded -- sued the tobacco industry for behaving in a fraudulent fashion in denying tobacco called health harm to human beings. i remember that. the government won the case and back then they were looking at

climate denial and the fuel industry. i wrote an op ed the "washington post" published and i'm not a prominent senator and no one paid attention for a while but after a couple days, one thing about being a senator is you keep track of your press, so i noticed over the next couple weeks there were more than 50 op ed pieces that appeared around the country attacking me and this idea and they all came from the same more or less grade cookie performance. in every single tell tale idea

like that was the first amendment right of the companies that commit fraud and that is wrong. the first amendment began when they started. what was the taste or implication of that and it was like a tall tell sign that this would have a common thread to it. it happened again. you could ring the bell of the network and watch it respond with multiple dozens of independent legitimate expressions of opinions that are in fact doing it.

what is wrong with that setup? >> why does that threaten democracy? >> people don't know who it s. if was exoon mobile saying this is our opinion and this is koch brothers and this is what we believe and what we stand for which is we should be able to defraud the public until our heart is content about whether climate change is real. the heart land institute, which nobody knows what it is, or you set-up an institution named after james c marshall, steal his name and march it out as your front group and do that 40-50 times jow independent up with this array of screens that deceive the public.

it really helpshelps the public out on democracy. >> your book doesn't really talk about tom stire or george labor. tell us about their operation. >> i am very close to the environmental communities and what i would say about them and i am not speaking out of school hoor is they are pathetically organized. it is really rare to get any organization or strategy on an issue. whereas on the other side they

are not legitimately different organizations. they are tentacle tips of the same creature. they are deployed to create the illusion it is a lot of different things but that is not so. the other big big difference is the four environmental groups and labor unions are spending down a scars resource with they are engaging in this work. on the other side, this is a money making proposition for these big industries. the international monetary fund has said that the fossil fuel industry gets a subsidy in the united states of $700 billion. billion with a b. it is profitable for the other side to play the game and our side has to try to find friendly and sympathetic sources to

replenish the coffers. the corporate side is miles ahead of us. >> but they are using some of the same tactics. i wonder why you are not more critical. >> not really. when lcv, the league of conservation voters does something, it says who they have and everybody knows who they are and there is nobody behind them other than a bunch of donors who believe in the cause. they are not a front group. where as the george c marshall institute behind it is five big companies and five big foundations and it is part of an array they maintain. you really don't whoa when

somebody writes an op ed. >> they describe you as knee jerk, anti-murdock, spewing out conspiracy dribble that makes you sound like some hard attack dog bloger from the center for american progress. you are a conspiracy theorist, knee jerk, anti murdock type. what is it like to be on that end? >> this is that kind of wild invective. they don't arg ue on the merits.

they just attack me as an attack dog or whatever. i think anybody who reads the book will see i have taken a thoughtful approach following leaggal principles and clearly understood history and looking around to what everybody sees and drawing conclusions from that. ch this isn't suggesting jfk and marilyn monroe are in the salt caves in utah and justin bieber is their love child. this is very, very, i think, sensible and developed stuff. they just don't want to hear it because they are gaming the system and they put people out there to smear it up. >> i read that you are

influenced by your wife and they point out she is a biologist. >> she knows about ocean and the fact the fossil fuel industry is polluting the ocean in a way you could demonstrate in a science lab by combining co 2 and salt water and watching the ph drop and acidification go up, i kind of hope that not only by wife, but a lot of other scientists have influenced be in the way that argue about this. the ocean is acidifying at a faster rate than people have been on the planet. our co2 is at 400 parts per million and it was at 37 as long as human beings have been on the planet. we are rolling dangerous dice

and going to places we have never been in the history and they go off the coast of oregon and measure 53% of the sea creatures have shell damage and acidification of the sea laz an important role in that. >> there is stuff going on and i could not be more proud to stand with the american academy of science and my wife in pointing all that stuff out. >> we use the term of money laundry when you talk about things like the donor trust.

why do you describe them as money laundering? >> they they can money from whomever. let's say you are exonn mobile and you want to make a big contribution to to the marshall institute. if you don't want the institute to be tagged by a member of the press as somebody who takes huge amounts of money. then you go to a place like donors trust which is setup to have exactly one purpose and that is to make money and i think it is more just where it wants it to go with the name and identity of the source scripped stripped away so the donations now just say donors trust. it is an extra layer of

defeating the corporate interests from what is being done and this is their hands at work and it has a nefarious role and it severed the link so the money comes from the neutral place called identity trust. it washes away the identity of the donors for that exact purpose in my view. >> how serious do you consider the problem the way non-profits used as a way to influence the political system even though they are under law a non-profit organization? how serious do you consider that

issue? >> i think by being a non-profit there is a bonus. they can speak when they are independent when they are the glove over a particular indus y industry. they are capable of gathering enormous amounts of resources so they can become immensely powerful and third they are allowed by citizen's united to get involved in politics and to spend enormous amounts of money in politics. when americans for prosperity says it will spend -- send the

message to stay out of our way and don't cross us. >> americans and puppies for prosperity and you don't know who the group is. that segues into the the final and really deadly problem of these groups which is that if they spend the money everybody knows the americans for prosperity is spending the money and you can look back to see what on earth -- use investigative journalism techniques to figure out who they are doing this for. if they are just saying listen pal, you will vote these ways on

these things or we will spend 10 million on your primary opponent in the next election and you will never see it coming and you will be gone before people can identify the front group. that is a serious threat and nobody will every see that. it changes the way politics work if not visible in the public space it is wrong. >> i am going to read from the book and i am sure your republican colleagues don't like it too much but think of the republican senators in a chorale fenced in. think of the fences as high and barb barbed. think of the gun towers and the signs warning political peril. imagine the voices nobody leaves the corral. try to leave and you will be severely disadvantaged.

there is a lot of inmates that are restress. nobody likes to be threatened and bossed around. nobody likes to play the fool or go against respected voices and their own conscious. your point is the republican senators feel compelled to do so and let's talk about that. >> talking to republicans about climate change is like talking to prisoners about escape. they may want to do it but they are really anxious about being caught. so we probably have 6-10 republican senators woo probably would like to work on a good climate bill. we have ones who have sponsored climate bills before citizens united. we have ones who ran for

president on good climate platforms but nobody will budge. on the other side of the fence, the get away card, what we could do about climate change is a carbon state. we just had three republican former secretary of the treasure endorse this. the former chairman of walmart and george bush's economic advisor chairman. there is a distinguished group of republicans who came up with this. so between an actual solution that republicans support and a bunch of republican senators who have a record on supporting this what is the problem? the problem is the kill zone that the citizens united

decision allowed the fossil fuel industry to setup where they say look, we have unlimited fund and will crush anybody that crosses us. they have been clever about just trying to nail all the republicans to the ground knowing it makes it hook partisan as opposed to traditional special pleading and they commend you to the republican party to prevent things from getting done. they don't torture us on the democratic side but they threaten the republican. to be a republican and come out on climate is an extroidinarily brave thing to do. >> have any of your colleagues come up to you and say they are offended by the suggestion they are held hostage by money and denying their true beliefs?

>> yeah, i get both that and then i get look, i know i'm stuck keep doing what u you're doing. we've got to get there. i know it's the right thing. but you know right now -- they just can't do it. so i get a little bit of both. and when i get the first comment what i try to do is go to the home state universities of the colleague who expressed their disappointment or frustration with me and say look, here's what the universities in your home state say about climate change. so if they'll say this, maybe -- you listen and we go on from there. i try to be polite about it but we have a real problem on our hands in fossil fuel industry of misbehaving in exceptional ways. >> maybe we could just i want to go back to talk to a little bit more about tom steyer and his role in democratic party an trying to promote -- measures for climate change, i mean, that's, you know, you say that -- looks like, you know, the environmental funded by small dollar amounts an they aren't -- why again i want to get become to why his role is not as -- you would argue is different from role that exxonmobil plays on the other side because his -- dollar amount that he's putting in are so great an may have factors that are influencing him

system that are -- that are self-interested as well. show less text 00:33:24 unidentified speaker >> there may be. but i haven't seen that. i mean, i think tom meads an enormous am of money as a big investor out in -- california. and he's now -- out of that business and he's spending his fortune and one way to put money into trying to counter the fossil fuel effort by putting some money up on the environmental side of the issue. and if i don't know exactly what he spent but news reports last time around about 50 million dollars. welt, americans for prosperity alone spent $750 million. so he's up against forces that are way, way bigger than him and

although he has a considerable fortune there are only so many billionaires who want to spend it on trying to protect the earth and trying to fight back against this industry. and on the other side the industry has an endless desire to prevent any kind of regulation and continually spend money at those levels and you know run these -- front group operations out in front of themselves. so -- you know, i admire what tom is trying to do and i think you can say okay you've got big money. billion mare on one side ands fossil fuel industry on the other but not equivalent certainly in the politic of this by people who, you know, live and die by the politics of this, nobody really sees it as equivalent. show less text 00:34:59 unidentified speaker >> uh-huh.

one of the things again that book does is it walk through a range of levels of activity. but you know, interested corporate funded organizations, and so for example, you know, you talk civilly lit gigs and jury in a way to influence outcomes so i wanted to ask you to define term bulk jerry commandering and what it means and what effect it has on democracy in the united states. show less text 00:35:33 unidentified speaker >> sure. 00:35:37 unidentified speaker >> old days it startedded started when had governor gary of massachusetts had a legislative drawn in such a way that he couldn't possibly be defeated because he was a key political ally of the governor. and the newspaper made a cartoon

of the shape of the district that looked like a salamander they called it it gerrymander that's where it came from. well it didn't take lock for people to figure out if you can do -- protection gerrymander and also do attack gerrymander so people drawing districts to ruin the chance of -- opponent politics that they didn't like. but republicans did in a thing called the red map project was to say wait a minute, this is not about the individuals. this is about a delegation so what they did was they took states like wisconsin, ohio, and pennsylvania -- swing states, and they drew maps in which democrats were concentrated into very, very heavily democratic preserves basically sucking democrats out of the general population into these high concentration districts. and that allowed them to go through the of the rest of the state to draw with a comfortable 55, 58% margin, and so the

result was situations like in ohio in 2012, president obama got reelected in ohio. statewide -- my friend senator brown democrat got elected statewide back to the senate. but ohio set a congressional delegation that year with 13 republican to five democrats. so they sent a huge countermajoritytarian delegation because they packed democrats together this in five districts that aloud them to carve up the rest of ohio into 13 republican districts by doing so they were able to win the house then. and they took pride in that. they sent out a memorandum that said guess what guys we lost congress by over a million votes. but we won it by 0 congressman because we had carved up the districts in this way.

and unfortunately five republicans on the supreme court had given green light to do that and no matter how bad behavior was going to be they would never quarrel with that kind of political jerry commandering. show less text 00:38:17 unidentified speak -- gerrymandering. >> if republicans have taken control of the majority of state legislatures in the governors, in the united states, you know, why is it not then their right to create congressional district they see fit from your perspective? >> because there's a constitutional principle of one person, one vote. and the theory of that is that everybody's vote will more or less counting the same. and any deliberate attempt to take people who vote a certain way and isolate into highly concentrated districts so they don't have the effect statewide that they should have in a regular democrat system so dealing with the house supposed to be majority rules place, you're basically turning upside down one of the most basic democratic principles which is them that win the most votes,

wins the election, and i think that's the tough game to start >> uh-huh. so you talk about, you know, going to the supreme court and you feeling that it shows a pattern that is inconsistent with with a disinterested neutrality. and you know, what is -- the supreme court do you feel it has become more plit sizessed in recent decades, and what are consequences of that from your perspective? >> look, i've argued a case in front of the supreme court and spent time in appellate and state supreme court, and it is

-- it's hard to believe and it's hard to it say that a court has begun to put its thumb on the scale. but when you look at the big business lobby group in the country winning by 2-1 incase of nowadays, and when you look at the predictability of the case that involve either the ability of republicans to win elections, or the balance between corporations and human beings being directed in favor of corporations or some of the far right wing social issues they seem to tip that way. it is like that had needle has always poingtd magnetic north and then you get good correspondents who have covered the supreme court for in some cases decades jeff toobin. linda greene house and they've all basically thrown up hands and come to agreement to say

look this is -- this has gotten political. and it's blatantly political in many cases 4-5 decisions with all of the republican appointees lining up to do stuff, and the four democratic saying wait a minute, this is not right. this isn't consistent with precedent. this isn't consistent with origin mallism. this isn't consistent with the text of the constitution. this is a doctrine that you just made up and it doesn't matter because time after time after time 5-4 reliable is clock work there they go. and the pattern i think this is becoming demonstrable that is one of the reasons that i think the public december enchampment with the court is so significant. the court can't enforce its orders people have to believes in the court and when 6.of people polled think that a human being will get a fair shot in the supreme court against the

corporation, and 54% think that they won't get a fair shot in the supreme court against the corporation, something is wrong that goes beyond just, you know, one senators observations. >> wufnts i one of the things is extent to which there's awstles these sprees and interveners an often come with names that are academic or, you know, trade associations but their playing a role in moving forward cases that seem king thely aligned with the corporate interest that are also, you know, litigating the same cases. hold up of that is happening and grown in the role that is playing in federal court matters that they move forward. >> it has grown. it has new and it is dirchts and it is weird and i don't think -- many americans are aware that it is going on. i think most people believe that what happens in a case that gets to the supreme court is that a litigant has a grievance so they go out and hire a lawyer and the lawyer then takes the course to trial seeking to win the trial for the litigant and eventually the case if it continues to be

disputed works its way up to the supreme court. that's not the way these cases work. very often you have a -- group that is paid for by corporates interest to scan the country looking for litigation opportunities to try to bring cases up to what they perceive to be a friendly court and then the lawyers go out and hire the litigant. they found a case in rhode island when i was the attorney general a group called the pacific legal foundation came all the way across the country to rhode island to find gee gentleman say look we like your case and like to come and take to the supreme court because we think we can prove a point with it. so he went along with it, obviously, and got free lawyering and then nec thing you know i'm in the supreme court arguing this case. but that has been turned completely backwards, and then there's this additional added echo chamber ofbrief from the front organizations that are telling the republican appointed judge of what it is that they

want. so when the republican appointed judges then deliver back to them what it is thebes that they want i think it creates the very unfortunate impression that -- there's basically a machine being cranked on the court where -- special interest put up and supreme court listens to brief and benefit goes to special interest, and on back to the front group around and around. that's not what a court is supposed to be. >> one of the players that has been participating in litigation which has a lot of these briefs

and -- groups that are funding, you know, the writing of memos and trade associations -- attorney general scott pruitt had lawsuits against environmental protection agency who just last week was confirmed to serve as administrator of the epa what you voted against scott pruitt what is your concern about having him running the epa? >> well, he has -- never given any indication that he has the slightest concern for the environment whatsoever. predecessor in oklahoma i was rhode island attorney general and i served with drew and he had environmental protection unit that he ran in office not only that set up a statewide environmental prosecution task

force with other agencies and environmental groups and so forth scott pruitt came in he shut all of that down and opened up a new appellate unit designed to basically sue on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, so this was a big step up for the fossil fuel industry that used to have to go to front groups to follow the brief and now had attorney general who would loan them his bandage and go into court on their behalf. so if you wanted to obscure hand of industry and add a have legitimacy to argument what better thing could you do than to get attorney general and come and do this for you so with all of that going on i think the prospect for assistant environmental enforcement happening in this epa under its any administrator are really, really small and i think people around the country have to look very, very carefully if you like clean air and water watch what's going on up there. because i think he'll be up to no good.

>> one of the things you don't focus a great deal on in the book is how do you get out of the situation you think we're in and path way forward and take some time to take four or two to three or four ideas is how did we emerge from this place that you think we've ended up in? >> well, the simple way would be to pass the disclosed act that has been in the senate for years now.

now. that would require the dark money that comes into our elections, the money that nobody knows where it is from to actually be reported. it is pretty simple if you contradict more than 10,000 dollars you've got to report it and if it ends up this politic doesn't matter how many front groups you lander through on the way through to spending it in the election, you've got to follow it all the way through. so takes fun out of hiding behind all of the screen groups because you end up having to disclose anyway. that would be very important. i frankly think that corporations should not have a political role in this country. founding father sets up nothing for the corporate america to have a political role. they assume that america and the

elections that run will all be decided and run by u human beings and -- corporations committed this landscape and they're very, very successful creatures and predators against regular human beings. so backing them out i think more or less completely, would be significant. they're various campaign finance ways of doing that. but ultimately as you look around at all of the alternative facts and fact news and propaganda ultimate thing for us in the past has been for the american people to step up. you know, when we took a look at the river burning, we decided okay enough on the pollution stuff. and we change the whole way we looked at it with a big inflection point and passed a bunch of laws but mostly we changed the way we thought about pollution and environments and we've had a similar thing with diets. i grew up with tv dinner and canned vegetables all supposed to be great stuff and learned wait a minute. in health foods stores have gone from being weird places that you have to be a member to join to being whole foods with trillions of dollars in business. so we've had another inflection point there. and when so much of our public debate is now -- the information equivalent of pollution and junk food i think we're, we need to make that step as a people and when we do we'll be a better educated citizen and more active

and more aware and knowledgeable citizenry to push back against these powers that nobody really invited into our politics but are now dominant. have you considered reach aring out to donald trump elect on campaign talking about trying to, you know, decrease power special interest in washington. is that something you thought about doing and tried doing it? is it possible to attempt to do that? yeah, i don't know. i don't know the people around him. i've written some things and said some things publicly that i hope might, you know, trigger a response if somebody is -- listening in the white house. but it has been really are discouraging here was a guy who came off a populous disruptive campaign, and he could have easily been a force for really good change in washington. but instead, if, you know, goldman sachs a treasury, polluters, at epa it is the for profit education industry, at the want did of education, over and over again -- the most quite a few nefarious interest in the area has actually been given control over the the regulator, and it's about anti-populous as you can get, so seeing that signal has been really discouraging because i hope that we could have had conversations like that and we're still looking forward to doing things that he promised on the campaign trail like getting rid of carried exception with huge hedge fund billionaires lower and figure out a way to bring down cost of pharmaceutical when it is nutty we pay highest price in the world and they say they need to charge us more to the their research. .... ....

>> >> and expecting to have an agenda for the american people instead we are dealing with the very unusual president who has created the alarm but did congress and among democrats and those who were of protesting in the streets and as people look to america for leadership what did he mean by that? is an

here time rainouts to take confidence in the fact that if it comes out in the 2018 elections with those expressions that we are hearing from the public right now we will have a democratic speaker of the house and we can push back. >> host: practically speaking living part of your life in rhode island how did you manage how to figure out to write a book issue do your job as a senator and has been dead father is a little harder than i thought that the other the of the different chapters and then

those speeches on the role and the extent to which that tendency seems to run toward interest so the stuff that i learned and gathered the weekends and late at night before going to sleep and then it just seems if you work at it you get quite a bit dead. >> host: have you ever talk to the senator from i love that she was the creation of the coke brothers about was her response?. >> i have not it is used that as an example. it is less about her then

that series of those fronts to groups that have afforded her a lot of the way. she is not the focus of the story. but the focus of the story is there was an elaborate set up that they basically handoff these stages so they can keep themselves under water and not be visible and that is the heart of the story. >> end what kind of advice? frustrated your powless?. >> i would say first of all, everything comes back to the

voters. >> watching is that the space book post to be yes citizen then be a consumer are not the same thing. and that we should not lose faith in the democratic government and then to survive and those depressions in centuries protecting a so the government itself but the fact the corporate force has intruded. in to solve such a small signal from corporate america and corporate money that they really are not heard so don't lose the faith of the system figure out why it is it is not hearing you.

so then you come to the conclusion if you pull them back out and put the men to the economic role and not in the political role if you being a star running that democracy again it would be better for every betty. >> host: they give for spending time talking about the book. we will watch to see how that plays out

. >> for so long women's military stories have been discounted or appropriated by others. so she felt the timing was right. it was time to give these women a voice. >> bentley ended up in iraq and afghanistan and coming home to a country that does

not recognize that with the same physical injuries. >> cement to make that case is in urgent matter with real-world the applications -- implications. >> if you do the judges for the sake of winning elections we can do that but as conservatives to enact conservative policy did you have to treat the election how do we stop this up for governing to move forward?

. >> we didn't have aligned. they pulled me aside and said i'm going but if we know we're going to die why? size said we're not going for fame or bravado but drop your kids off on at school on a tuesday morning amid jump-start her death from a skyscraper.

. >> republican senator from nebraska us thinks for joining me to discuss your book "the vanishing american adult" at what i find striking the atf for this long before it is buried on political.