CSPAN - Washington Journal William Doherty

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April 22, 2025 12:52-13:13 - CSPAN

20:47

Washington Journal William Doherty

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john mcardle

cspan 03:18

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chris whipple

00:12

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unidentified		Have not even addressed this kind of issue.
		And so to think that all of a sudden, just because the court reaffirms a long-standing right, there will be a flood of new cases with absurd and extreme hypotheticals that don't happen in real life, is really just shows how desperate they are on the merits of their case.
		They don't have arguments to win substantively, so they make these fear-mongering type claims.
		When the case was submitted, did you still feel that this is an easier case than Yoder?
		I do think it's an easier case.
		And Yoda, the court talked a lot about students just being exposed in general to values about competitiveness, careerism, that were incidentally happened in a public school.
		Here we have teachers deliberately telling students things that they should disregard their parents' views on.
		And so we think this makes this case much easier than Yoda.
		And I think several of the justices seem to recognize that.
		And this is there's actual coercion going on in this case, not anything close to just mere exposure.
		Thank you, sir.
		Okay, thank you.
		Eric Baxter, senior counsel and vice president of the Beckett Fund for Religious Living Banking.
		You've been watching live coverage.
		We return now to our scheduled program.
		We joined it in progress.
		It could do no good that he's evil incarnate and that some people are even justifying violence.
		And so I hear that.
		It's deeply felt.
		And so that's what I'll do for now.
		But we do not ask that kind of partisan question of either side of justify your person.
		We invite, if this gentleman were involved, he would have a chance to talk.
		I would summarize back what he said, and I would invite him, I would invite him to listen to somebody on the other side who might acknowledge that some of what he's saying is accurate and then also speak about that person's deep concerns about Trump.
		That's what I would try to do.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And at the end of that, how do you know if you've accomplished something?
unidentified		Well, there's two ways.
		We ask people for what they've learned.
		You saw that on the screen.
		And we have an evaluation we do.
		We've also had academics study our workshops and follow with randomized control groups follow people for six months afterwards.
		And we have good reason to believe that it softens their attitudes towards the political other.
		Because what's happening now is what's called affective polarization.
		And that is not just about issues or about Trump, but how we view people who disagree with us.
		So we view them as strangers, as alien.
		We don't get them.
		We don't like them.
		And people nowadays think people on the other side are morally bankrupt.
		That's what we're trying to do.
		Not trying to change their minds about Trump or about issues or about Harris or anybody, but about each other.
		Can we disagree?
		Could this gentleman, who's a red, a blue, sit down, have a conversation that's structured, and see each other as human beings who want the best for the country?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me go to the line for Democrats to the Grand Canyon State.
		This is another Anthony.
		Go ahead.
		You're on with Bill Doherty.
unidentified		Good morning, Team C-Span.
		Mr. Doherty, I'd like you to address how politicians have gotten their followers to do this.
		And here's the statement: I believe everything you tell me, and I don't believe anything that you don't tell me.
		Please answer that.
		Well, thank you.
		Yes, you're making a profound point that we tend to follow our political leaders sometimes blindly.
		And there's one of the reasons for that is that policy-relevant issues are very complicated.
		Most of us don't have direct access to the science on climate change or how many immigrants have committed crimes.
		We don't have direct access to that.
		So we have leaders who we've come to trust, and then through the media, they speak to us either directly or through the media, and we tend to look at different media.
		So then we collect our information through those leaders filtered in various ways, and that's what we believe is true.
		It's very hard, unless you deliberately access multiple sources of information, it's very hard to not just follow your leader.
		It's a huge problem that this gentleman has identified.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A lot of people blame the media for a lot of different things.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How much do you blame the media for the problem that you're trying to address in this country?
unidentified		Oh, it's all of us.
		And the media are a piece of it.
		Some of it is that we've gone to a media landscape where revenue comes from outrage, from the more people will watch or click who get upset.
		And so I don't blame the individuals involved.
		I think it's how we've evolved.
		But media and social media in particular have become accelerants of polarization.
		That's the term the political science issue is accelerant, not the cause, not the root cause, but accelerating this polarization.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you recommend people get off of X or Facebook?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you use much X or Facebook or whatever social media?
unidentified		Personally, no.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		TikTok?
unidentified		Personally, no.
unidentified		Personally, no.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think people should get off it?
unidentified		Well, I don't say people what people should do, but I think it's become a real problem.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Would it make your job easier if people get away from that?
unidentified		Oh, absolutely.
		Absolutely.
		Absolutely.
		We've been learning through social media.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Mary, in Warwick, New York, Republican line, good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Bill Doherty.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Can you hear me?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
unidentified		I don't really have a question, but I am reiterating that I think that this is a very necessary conversation that individuals start to have.
		I came here from another country.
		My parents had to go to Canada first, had to come here through the natural processation.
		But I now voted Republican because I got so caught up in all this, and I've never been caught up in politics, but it was impossible not to.
		But what he's saying is it starts with the individual.
		I said to a friend of mine, when do we stop sitting down and talking to each other?
		Beautiful.
		That's what Brave Rangels is about.
		Talking to each other, which means listening to each other.
		So I love what she said.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How much is it that people don't have enough time to listen?
unidentified		No, it's not time.
		We have enough time for what we prioritize.
		People have enough time to be on social media.
		It's just that we have either not had or lost the ability to engage around political differences.
		You know, in 1960, only 5% of Americans said they would be unhappy with their son or daughter marrying somebody of the other political party.
		5%.
		Now it's up to 40 to 45%.
		So partisan politics has gotten in, it's gotten in our families.
		So it makes it very hard to argue.
		Not about, you know, in the 50s, Stevenson or Eisenhower, right?
		But our political leaders, our issues, everything is existential.
		Every election is going to end America.
		And then it makes it very hard to have the conversation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned your background in family therapy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is this country on track for a divorce of some kind?
unidentified		Well, my interesting, my specialty is couples on the brink of divorce.
		And we are in bad shape, but we cannot divorce.
		It can't have half of the country move to Canada, for example, of course.
		And, you know, who knows what the future is with Canada.
		So we have to figure out how to get along.
		In a democracy, the only alternative to keeping the conversation going is violence.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Greg, Florida, Independent, good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		This question is for Mr. Dougherty.
		I like the idea of what you're doing, bringing Democrats and Republicans together to have discussions about it.
		One suggestion I was wondering what you would think about.
		I'm an independent.
		I've always been an independent.
		I have voted Democrat and Republican over many years.
		And having an independent view, I think, might be a nice bridge between Democrats and Republicans, because I like to believe that the independents see both sides.
		They see the good and the bad.
		And would that be something that would be a benefit to the groups that you create?
		Yes, thank you for that.
		Yes, we do have independents and leadership.
		And a majority of our workshops, you do not have to identify as red or blue.
		You can identify as independent.
		There are a couple of workshops where we want that, that kind of a sharp divide.
		But independents are welcome.
		I will say the political science research in this shows that the number of true independents like this gentleman is very small, probably 5% of the population.
		A lot of people say they're independent.
		It's because they don't like either party, but they basically vote one way or the other.
		So we need folks like this gentleman, and we have them as leaders in Braver Angels.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What makes a good facilitator of one of these discussions, whether it's in person or on Zoom?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What do you look at training them to do?
unidentified		Well, a lot of people know how to do this, actually.
		They're teachers and sometimes people who have been in business and how to run meetings.
		And so basically be able to hold the structure, to be willing to do what I see you do here sometimes, sort of gently cut somebody off or redirect, but to maintain the ground rules, hold the structure.
		If you can do that, you can lead one of these groups.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What are the ground rules?
unidentified		Well, ground rules are that we take turns.
		We speak for ourselves, not for any political party.
		We don't interrupt.
		We don't tell somebody what they think, but we let them say what they think.
		And we follow the structure so that if we're having a conversation where we listen to each other, then the question is, did you see anything in common?
		That's all we talk about at that moment.
		Not, okay, I didn't like what you said there.
		I'm going to make my other point.
		So you follow the process as it's given.
		You create a container.
		It's much like couples therapy, okay?
		It's your turn.
		I don't let your spouse interrupt you at that point.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To James in Waynesboro, Georgia, Democrat, good morning.
		Thanks for waiting.
		Just a couple minutes left here with Bill Doherty.
unidentified		Yeah, I was wanted to ask him somewhere in there maybe a question.
		I have been listening to C-SPAN for a while now, and every time somebody gets on, they talk about the way they treated President Trump at the time he came down to Escalato.
		But I wanted to ask him his opinion.
		Is there any difference in the way they treated President Obama when he came in the things they said about him, his wife, his children?
		That was a man, a congressman from my area down here.
		They called him a lie on national TV.
		I'll never forget that.
		But what I'm saying is, is there any kind of, what are these people thinking about?
		And Mitch McConnell and a few of the other ones promised to make him a one-term president, not to work with him at all, even if he came up with ideas that they once supported.
		Now that he supports them, they don't anymore.
		I was just wondering his response to that.
		Does he see any what's the difference?
		Well, when somebody gets in political power on the other side, nowadays we savage them.
		Every opportunity, how they look, their family, not just their viewpoints.
		And that's a real problem.
		That is a real problem.
		And it's keeping people out of public life because we do workshops all over Minnesota and around the country for elected officials, managing difficult conversations with constituents is what we're doing with them.
		And the nastiness is so high and attacks on them, their character and their families, that good people are not going into politics.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever had to kick somebody out of one of these group meetings, these Zooms, these no, no.
unidentified		People come almost always willing to follow the ground rules.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		They're showing up.
unidentified		And then you head it off early.
		Somebody doesn't get escalated unless you've let that happen early.
		So you don't let them hijack it at the beginning and people more or less settle down.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A question from Paul, Cleveland, Ohio.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Want to get your thoughts on town hall meetings, members of Congress Town Hall meetings, and specifically members not doing in-person events.
unidentified		Oh, glad for that question.
		Town hall meetings are like a 19th century design for a public event.
		Open mics, nowadays in this era of polarization, people grandstand.
		We need new designs.
		And we've done some meetings with members of Congress and their constituents that are designed in a braver angels way, where you just don't have the open mic for people to pontificate.
		So it's a bad design.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's the better design?
unidentified		Better designs is you have people with a particular issue in question.
		You have people in small groups.
		You have filtering through the small groups of what people think is most important to say.
		You have somebody, that's just an example, not the only way.
		And then you have some people from the small groups who have some balance, who can articulate those things.
		You just don't do a stand-up mic.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		When you hear, when some people hear the word, some filtering there, they might get a little bit nervous about whether their words or actually their opinions are going to be transmitted.
unidentified		Well, what I'm actually thinking is you have a member of the small group.
		You have a regular citizen.
		So who wants to represent this group?
		Joe, why don't you do it?
		I'm not talking about some staff member doing it.
		And that's just an example.
		But we need 21st century designs for group dynamics in order to have responsible and good town halls.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		One more call in the time we have left.
		This is Bill in Billings, Montana, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, guys, and thank you for the program.
		I'm just wondering how much our national media is to blame for the divide.
		I'll tell you why.
		In 2019, I bought a Trump 2020 hat.
		The day I bought it, I wore it into a fellow's house, and he looked at it and said, my God, we got to make sure he doesn't get reelected.
		I was taken aback, so I said, well, what Trump policy do you disagree with?
		His eyes got wide, his mouth dropped open.
		After about three seconds of silence, he said, he's too arrogant.
		Over the next about three years that I wore that hat, 63 people disagreed with it.
		I ask all 63 the same question, and I never got one policy.
		I heard Trump called every name that a drunken sailor could come up with, but not one policy decision as the national media poisoned our country.
		Thank you very much.
		It's a lot bigger than the national media.
		National media plays its role.
		I think what this gentleman is talking about is how we personalize so much.
		And it would be interesting if somebody was wearing another hat and what their story would be when people would say, what are you doing?
		He's making a very interesting point that we decide on the person often at that level and not the issues.
		And whatever that person tells us, then we tend to go along with.
		So it's a very interesting thing.
		But here's a final thought.
		A Braver Angel's perspective is to acknowledge and honor what he experienced.
		There's learning in there.
		He counted the number.
		It would be interesting to hear somebody on the other side, the blue side, and to hear what they experienced.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		One more question, because it was written in during our conversation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Kathy in California saying, what do you have to say about the old idea that there are certain subjects that you just don't talk openly about at work, religion and politics and others?
unidentified		And that's an option.
		That's an option.
		However, politics has become so important in our lives now, for good or bad, that to have a ban on it, I don't think, is doable.
		So we've been doing more workshops with companies because the workforce now, you know, the day after elections and debates, people are going to talk about it.
		And so how do we do it?
		How do we upgrade our skills and our attitudes for having the conversations we need to have?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You say you like to end the workshops by asking, did you see anything in common in what we heard today?
		It's been about a little over half an hour.
		Did you see anything in common from the people you heard from today?
unidentified		Yeah, I heard them all worried about the country and worried about the divide.
		And so that's the big takeaway.
		I also heard people feeling, a number of people feeling, particularly on the defense for their own people, their own elected officials, their own side, which is, again, very understandable.
		That's what I heard in common.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me make one note for viewers who are interested in this topic, C-SPAN's coverage today.
		We are going to be covering an event later this afternoon.
		It's at 3.30 p.m.
		It's on the treatment of civil servants.
		It's a town hall meeting, a discussion about incivility and mental health and the treatment of civil servants and elected officials.
		It is being conducted by the National Association of Counties here in Washington, D.C. You can watch that on c-spancan.org and the free C-SPAN now video app.
unidentified		I'll be on that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Mr. Doherty will be there, so you'll hear more from him.
		What are you going to be talking about on this panel?
		What's going to be your recognition?
unidentified		Well, I'm going to be talking about the audience is going to be elected officials.
		And so I'm going to be talking about what they are going through because we've been doing a lot of workshops with those folks.
		I'll be telling some of their stories and telling the public we have to treat these people better or talking about their city council people and county commissioners, school board members.
		They're not getting much money on this and they're getting a lot of grief and we're not going to have good people in those jobs if we don't treat them better.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You can watch that event at 3.30 Eastern Time today on the C-SPAN networks.
		And also you can go to braverangels.org and learn more about Mr. Doherty's group, the co-founder of that group.
		Thank you for your time this morning.
unidentified		My pleasure.
		Had a live look this afternoon at the White House briefing room where Press Secretary Caroline Levitt is expected at the podium in just a moment.
		She'll likely face questions on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's alleged involvement in a second signal chat in which he reportedly shared details of a military plan to attack Yemen with his wife, brother, and personal attorney.
		Also later this afternoon, President Trump is hosting a swearing-in for Paul Atkins to serve as the new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
		This as the International Monetary Fund predicted today that the outlook for the U.S. economy has worsened, with economic growth predicted at 1.8% this year, while stock indexes experienced a day of sell-off on Monday.
		While we wait for the briefing to get underway, here's a look at some of today's Washington Journal.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now is author Chris Whipple.
		His new book is Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History.
		And Mr. Whipple, you call it the wildest campaign in history.
		What was the wildest moment that you were able to uncover as you tried to pull the curtain back on that campaign?
chris whipple ▲ ● ▼		Well, I guess I would have to say that, I mean, look, it was the political story of the century.
chris whipple ▲ ● ▼		I was writing another book when Joe Biden suddenly dropped out of the race, and I called my publisher and said, We've got to do this, and we had to do it fast.

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