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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. As President Trump heads to Kenosha, Wisconsin today after the police shooting of Jacob Blake and pro-police 17-year-old being charged with murder for shooting two people dead, there's a lot of news coverage of Trump refusing to denounce the shooter. Is he's stoking violence while running for reelection on the fear of violence? I've been thinking about something that candidate Trump said when he was running for president. Remember this from 2016, it sounded like it's a joke, if you can call it that, about supporters of the second amendment taking matters into their own hands if Hillary Clinton was elected president.

President Trump: Hillary wants to essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment, people, maybe there is. I don't know.

Brian: "The Second Amendment, people, maybe there is. I don't know." That was Trump at a campaign rally in August of 2016. At the same time, it's true that there has been some violence at some protests and shootings are up this year in many cities. What's the responsible thing for local officials and the presidential candidates to do? With me now is Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, the second-term Democrat happens to have a new book called The Violence Inside Us. That's a deep look at violence in our culture throughout American history but could have been written expressly for today's news cycle. Senator, it's always good to have you on with us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Chris Murphy: Yes, thanks a lot for having me.

Brian: Let's start on the news, and we'll get into the deeper roots of this as described in your book. Do you remember that apparent joke the President was making in 2016?

Senator Murphy: I do remember it. It was chilling when we all heard it for the first time, but he has now doubled down. This country has a long history of white vigilantism, white people taking law and order into their own hands, largely, in order to suppress and repress communities of color. The President is using all sorts of mechanisms right now to encourage people to go to these protests, armed to the teeth because he's made this decision, this bizarre decision, to stage his reelection based upon increasing amounts of chaos and unrest.

He has this idea that if there's more chaos and unrest, then, voters will choose him, which is odd frame in election, essentially, telling folks, "You need to elect me in order to save the country." For me, I don't think it will work, but that's where we are today, the President encouraging violence, refusing to do the normal job of a president to heal the nation because he thinks that his political salvation lies in more chaos on our streets.

Brian: You're suggesting that the President is not denouncing the idea of people coming to a pro-police or a pro-Trump rally armed. Let me play you exactly what he said at his news conference yesterday when asked about armed vigilantism among his supporters. This begins with a reporter's question.

Reporter: Do you think private citizens should be taking guns-- [crosstalk]

President Trump: I'd like to see law enforcement take care of everything. Everything should be taken care of law enforcement, but again, we have to give our police back their dignity, the respect. They're very talented people. They're strong, they're tough, they can do the job, but we've taken it away.

Brian: "We've taken it away, but law enforcement should do everything," he said. Is it fair to say he's encouraging this or winking at it when he said there that police should be doing it?

Senator Murphy: He was given a chance in that question to denounce vigilante justice. Maybe you can argue he did that by saying the police should handle everything, but then, all of a sudden, a second later, he says, "But the power has been taken away from police." He says the police should handle everything, but we've taken our power away from the police, and then, he gets asked a question about Rittenhouse and says that, in fact, the investigation is still ongoing and that maybe he was acting in self-defense.

When you take it together, to me, it's an unmistakable invitation, wink and a nod, at best, to his supporters to keep this up. I don't think it's coincidental that you see these caravans of Trump's supporters heading into the protests, often, heavily armed. They are taking their signals from the President

Brian: On taking the power away from the police as he asserted there, is it fair to say as he does that democratic mayors are making things worse by overly criticizing police or refusing to enforce the law, to keep the peace? Let me read to you from New York Times columnist, Michelle Goldberg's piece yesterday, it's called, "Biden condemned violence, why won't Trump?"

She also writes, "None of this means the left is blameless. During this weekend's confrontation in Portland, Aaron Danielson, a member of a far-right group called Patriot Prayer was shot to death, and a man, who describes himself as 100% Antifa, is reportedly being investigated for the killing. Whoever did it, Danielson's death is a travesty, and unless he was killed in self-defense, a deep, moral stain. There's no denying that some of the convulsive demonstrations of recent months have given way to violence and nihilistic destruction. When protestors in Seattle tried to set up a radically utopian police free zone, there were six people shot in 10 days, two of them fatally," writes Michelle Goldberg. Are mayors failing to keep the peace? Can Senator Murphy hear me?

Senator Murphy: Yes.

Brian: Go ahead.

Senator Murphy: Yes, I'm here.

Brian: The question is, are mayors failing to keep the peace in light of some of those things?

Senator Murphy: They aren't. Listen, being a mayor or a police chief is a very tough job at a moment of social and civil unrest, but that unrest is happening for a good reason. The fact of the matter is communities of color, Black men, in particular, have been persecuted by police in many of these neighborhoods year after year, decade after decade. Of course, they are rising up and demanding something new, but the President has an ability, a unique ability, to heal the nation.

He could go to Kenosha and he could condemn violence on both sides. He could initiate legislative responses at the federal level to actually hold police accountable and to address the economic grievances, the legitimate economic grievances of people of color, but he doesn't do any of that. He inflames the violence, he doesn't offer any real solutions, and he makes the job of these mayors harder.

I like what Joe Biden said yesterday. He put it all out on the table. He condemns violence, no matter who's carrying it out, no matter whether it comes from the left or the right. That's what we expect of our leaders. There's no excuse for violence in this country. We have one candidate for president that calls it out on both sides, and we have the President of the United States, who seems to care mostly about it when it's conducted by people who are critical of him.

Brian: One more question in this thread before we get to the deeper issues in your book that relate to all of this. Yes, Biden called it out on both sides yesterday, but Republicans say the issue of rising violence this year was avoided at the Democratic Convention because it doesn't help the democratic side. Certainly, we could talk about Trump avoiding the coronavirus at his convention and lots of other things, but is it fair to say that your party downplayed it too much at your convention like Trump's convention downplaying the virus?

Senator Murphy: I watched our convention, and I don't think our convention downplayed the protest movement that's convulsing this country. In fact, we lifted up the narrative of those who are trying to seek justice. Now, again, there's no excuse for violence and much of the violence that has been committed out there, I think, is by folks who don't necessarily have a political agenda, who have just used these protests as a mechanism to engage in property crimes. We should condemn all of that.

Our convention was very much about the legitimate grievances that underlie these protests. If you don't do something about the structure of policing in this country, if you don't do something about the hollowing out of so many neighborhoods throughout Black America, then, you're going to continue to have unrest in this nation for good reason. People are upset at how they have been treated, and they should be out in the streets protesting. The way to heal the nation is not just to throw a whole bunch of cops into these protests, but to actually listen to the folks who are asking for things to change and engage in that conversation.

Brian: When you say there's going to be unrest as long as this systemically racist policing continues, some people may hear that as excusing violence because when you say unrest that suggests something other than peaceful protest, or does it not?

Senator Murphy: No. I mean, peaceful protests make people uncomfortable. That's the reason. Many of these protests use very strong words. What I'm saying is that there's going to be a political movement in this country to command change. The President has the opportunity to respond to that by setting in motion a series of legislative actions to try to make things better. He's not doing that. In fact, he's just stirring up folks on the streets on both sides of this debate. When I say unrest, I mean political unrest, and we should have political unrest in this country until we actually take seriously the fact that Black people, people of color, in this country have been oppressed and subjugated and persecuted for far too long.

Brian: Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, my guest, your book title is The Violence Inside Us, which makes it sound like an individual psychology thing, The Violence Inside Us, but it's not that, right?

Senator Murphy: It is, in part. I wrote this book to basically sum up the examination I've done of American violence in the last seven years. Obviously, my political career changed after the shooting in Sandy Hook, and I've spent most of the last seven years trying to understand why something like that happens, why America has so many gun homicides in our cities. What I wrote is a book that really explains the full extent of American violence.

It actually starts with a biological explanation of violence. It starts by talking about the fact that human beings actually are much more prone to violence than almost any other species, and then, it goes on to an examination of American violence. This has been a very violent country from the beginning, and in some ways, because of our makeup, and because of our history, we are destined to be a more violent nation.

To me, that just elevates our duty to not throw kerosene on the smoldering fire. By allowing this country to be awash in guns, often, in the hands of the wrong people, we are abdicating that duty and that responsibility. That's what the book talks about, how, as humans, we have a predilection to violence, as Americans, how we have a very peculiar history of violence that is difficult to overcome, but how we can make choices, particularly, in the area of firearms laws to dramatically change that trajectory. It's within our power. That's what the book is about.

Brian: You assert in the book that because of the particular American predilection toward violence, there needs to be more gun control laws in this country, rather than less, or compare to other countries. Can you elaborate on both halves of that? Why do you say that we have a particular predilection toward violence in this country? What some of the history of that that you layout in the book? Why does that suggest, despite the culture that led to the Second Amendment in the first place, that we have the opposite of that?

Senator Murphy: Sure. America starts to become a global outlier when it comes to rates of violence in the middle 1800s. It happens for three reasons. First, it happens because of the explosion of the slave population in the early 1800s after the invention of the cotton gin. America needs more violence in order to keep the slave population under thumb. Our entire economic order rests on this country becoming numb to violence.

Second, we have these huge waves of immigrant groups that come into the country, and what we learn is that when there are different immigrant groups, people from different backgrounds who are contesting for economic space, there does tend to be an increase in violence. That is, in part, connected to our biology that tends to group ourselves, and then, look at members of other groups with fear. Lastly, the invention of the handgun. The handgun is invented, it allows you to conceal a lethal weapon very easily, and all of a sudden, these arguments on the street turn into lethal incidents.

America has never really been able to overcome that history of racism. America, frankly, celebrates our multiculturalism. We can do something very easily about our gun laws. We can make the decision to make it a little bit harder for dangerous people to have weapons. We can certainly get these very dangerous military-style weapons off the streets. What the research shows over the years is that our loose gun laws that lead to this flood of weapons across the country has potentially doubled the murder rate in this nation. It was probably going to be higher than most other countries, but we didn't have to have double the number of murders that we would have had had we made different choices about our gun laws.

Brian: Listeners, we can take some phone calls for Senator Chris Murphy, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet a question @BrianLehrer. You can call on any issue relevant to the Senator, but certainly, including what's in the news today. How does violence by any side at protests influence your thinking about the election? How does what President Trump or Joe Biden, what they're doing, influence your thinking about the election 646-435-7280, and the history of violence in this country and the issues that Senator Murphy is talking about from his book, The Violence Inside Us, 646-435-7280.

It's interesting that you mentioned handguns. It seems to me that the gun regulation movement has really changed from what it was, say, a generation ago when the primary gun control group used to be known as Handgun Control, Inc. Now, this really is mostly about what you were just describing as military assault-style weapons. Do you think that the gun control movement has given up too much on regulating handguns, which are the ones that proliferate most among the population?

Senator Murphy: You have to follow the research, and what the research tells you is that smart, common sense handgun regulation gets you pretty significant and immediate returns. The primary way that we regulate handguns is by background checks and registration. What the data shows is that states that do both those things, require you to get a permit for a handgun and require you to go through a background check, regardless of where you buy the weapon, online, a gun show, or in a bricks and mortar store, those states tend to have gun homicide rates that are 20 to 30 to 40% lower than states that don't have those laws. States that have removed those requirements have seen their gun homicide rates pretty immediately, within a year or two, increase by that same percentage, 20 or 30%.

I'd make a case in the book that we probably should not be talking about broad bans on handguns. I don't actually think the Constitution allows for that. The smart regulation of those guns actually dramatically lowers your rates of violence on a state by state basis. I just think we have to follow that evidence. Yes, I want bans on assault weapons as well, but registration and background checks on handguns, boy, that saves hundreds and hundreds of lives for every state that adopts it.

Brian: Adam in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Senator Chris Murphy. Hi, Adam.

Adam: Hi. My question, Senator Murphy, is that a lot of the gun legislation that has been proposed, especially things that would drastically get guns off the streets-- I know you just talked about handguns, but for me, the problem that I see is there's just already too many guns. What are some solutions that you think would get massive amounts of guns off the street, both legal ones and also illegal ones, and also, would be palatable to Republicans and people on the right because it moves with natural incentives the same way Cash for Clunkers was a market-based thing that Republicans didn't seem to have that big of a problem and it actually achieved the same goals? I know gun buybacks are hard, but what are your ideas about that?

Senator Murphy: Listen, it's a really important question. It often comes up in the context of military-style assault weapons, AR-15. Even if you were to reimpose a ban, there are already so many of these weapons out on the streets. Again, I don't mean to be a broken record here, but I do just go back to the evidence we have.

The evidence we have suggests that the moment that you put in place the restrictions that I'm talking about, being much more careful about who owns weapons, and then, requiring these permits, that regardless of how many weapons are already out in commercial traffic, it very quickly bends the numbers, in part, because the folks that are committing crimes are often acquiring weapons shortly before they commit the crime, so that immediate barrier to access to a weapon often has immediate results.

I certainly support increasing things like gun buybacks, but I actually don't think we need to spend a ton of time worrying about getting all the old weapons off the street just because the data suggests that you get a pretty immediate benefit from the kind of laws that Connecticut has adopted.

Brian: Michael in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Senator Chris Murphy. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hi. My name dropped off when you first mentioned it. Good morning, gentlemen. By the way, Senator, I heard you were interviewed last night about your book, and I have a question for you about something I thought I heard you say at the end of it. That was not the reason I originally called in. As soon as I heard you deflect about the Democrats not mentioning the violence in the cities, that's what really railed me up. I've been writing to friends in screeds the last few days about this.

As far as I'm concerned, the Democrats not mentioning the violence that's been going on is no different than the Republicans not mentioning COVID. This is political malfeasance. After four-plus years of Trump, you had to have known where this was going to go. You had to see it coming. Not getting out in front of it, seeding that issue to Trump, and Biden, in the campaign, the Dems have been on the defensive about it ever since, this is indefensible how this has been handled.

It's a real issue. It didn't start two days before the Democratic Convention, it's been going on for months. Hemming and hawing and equivocating about it ain't going to cut it. Biden, his speech yesterday was the first semblance of attacking this and confronting it forthrightly. The judicial part of it was what he needs to do. He's got to turn it around against Trump, and not just be on the defensive and explaining himself and being defensive about it. He's got to basically point out that Trump, not only was not making peace but he wants the disorder as a political issue.

Brian: Michael, let me get a response. You put a lot on the table there. You obviously hear Michael's frustration as, apparently, a Democrat, who thinks that the Democrats, certainly at the convention, missed the opportunity to address this issue proactively, and therefore, Biden, he made himself play defense.

Senator Murphy: Listen, I don't necessarily agree. I've listened to a lot of Democrats over the course of the last several weeks condemn violence on all sides. I've done it, many of my colleagues have done it. I'll be honest, I didn't watch every second of the Democratic Convention. Being responsible in this moment is not just about condemning violence, it's also about taking seriously the fact that there are people out in the streets for good reasons. Black men are being shot in the back. They're being killed with a knee on their neck. If we don't, as a party, seriously talk about the need for broad systemic reform to our criminal justice system, to our school financing system, then, we're also being incredibly irresponsible.

Yes, in our convention, we talked a lot about changing as a nation, to actually address the complaints that are being made by people of color. I actually think that we've been pretty consistent about condemning violence on all sides. I think the contrast that was presented yesterday is a winning political contrast. Joe Biden condemning violence no matter where it comes from, pointing out that under Obama's presidency, violent crime declined by 15%, and then, Donald Trump going on TV and refusing to condemn a double murder by one of his supporters at a time when murder rates in American cities are increasing by about 25%. That's ultimately a story that's easy for people to understand. I don't think that Joe Biden is missing this moment, he's capitalizing on it.

Brian: If the Democrats take the Senate, what kinds of legislation, which you just suggested that more legislation is needed, what kind of legislation at the federal level would you support with respect to criminal justice reform?

Senator Murphy: We introduced a bill in the United States Senate, led by Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, that would fundamentally reform federal policing laws. It would change the immunity that many police officers use. It would set up a federal standard for the use of force. It would broaden the powers of the Department of Justice to investigate local police departments. That bill is a really good start, but then, we have to have this bigger conversation.

In my book, I admit that the story of American violence is not just guns. Violence actually tracks most closely income. If you are poor and white, you are just as likely to be the victim of violence if you are poor and Black in this country. Violence is increasing at interesting and sometimes astonishing in poor white areas of the country as well. We need to be thinking about violence policy through an economic prism. When I support things like raising the minimum wage or increasing educational benefits for families or the child care tax credit, that's smart economic policy, but it's also smart anti-violence policy. It also will reduce the number of gun murders and homicides and suicides in this country. That has to be part of our agenda as well.

Brian: Lou on Staten Island, you're on WNYC with Senator Chris Murphy. Hi, Lou.

Lou: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Senator. I just want to know if you have an answer to this question because it's really bothering me. In the 40 years I've been in this country, I have never witnessed such debasement of political discourse in this country. I remember politician like Tom Foley from Washington, he was in the House as a Speaker, I remember Tip O'Neill from Massachusetts, these men, even though they agree to disagree with the opposition, they never came to the point where they just say, "You are an enemy. I don't want to talk to you, the President's enemy." How did we-- Senator, how did this country get to this place? You're almost becoming like Somalia or Uganda or what any other country you can think about where the political discourse is no longer bringing the citizens together but dividing them. How did this country get to this point?

Senator Murphy: Listen, we have a lot of work to do. I appreciate the question when it comes to fixing our democracy. I think part of the reason why a lot of Trump's voters are abandoning him is because he said he was going to come here and clean up the swamp, and the place is swampier than ever before. He didn't engage in any broad reform. There's more of K Street and more lobbyists involved in government than ever before, and our partisanship seems worse.

I'll take this issue of gun violence as an example. After Dayton and El Paso, there was an opportunity last summer to pass a bipartisan background checks bill. I spent a number of hours on the phone with the President himself and with Republican colleagues trying to find some common ground. In the end, the minute that we put a proposal on the table, the NRA came out and announced their opposition, and Republicans disappeared from the negotiating table. Sometimes, in order to get compromise, you just have to get stronger as a political movement. I think that we'll get a lot of Republicans to work with us on background checks in the next Congress in part because our movement is going to be as strong as the gun lobby.

Then, let me say one last thing because I understand how down people are for good reason on politics today. This President has failed us when it comes to COVID response. I would argue that Congress has not failed us. In fact, Congress in a bipartisan way has stepped up and passed four or five different comprehensive measures to expand unemployment insurance, to save tens of thousands of small businesses from extinction, to fund testing programs all across the country.

I'm not saying the legislation we've passed has been perfect. I'm not saying that we can even adequately substitute for an administration that refuses to lead when it comes to COVID response, but when the chips were down in March, April, and June, Congress was able to come together and pass some pretty substantial legislation, often, by big bipartisan majorities. Right now, Mitch McConnell is stopping us from passing a new funding bill, and we've got to get over that hurdle. I actually don't know that the spring and the summer is an advertisement that democracy is fundamentally broken. I actually think that we've had some moments in which we've shown that in a crisis, at least in Congress, Republicans and Democrats can find ways to work together. We just need to do that on more issues.

Brian: Interesting. Now, some of our listeners, to that point into the caller's question, may have seen the interview with you, the transcribed interview, in the New York Times the other day, that had a very chilling headline, which was, "Senator Chris Murphy is worried. We're seeing democracy's last stand." Would you put it that way?

Senator Murphy: I would. I want to make clear why that's not inconsistent with my last statement. I have made this argument for a while, that democracy is very fragile, and I argue that it's unnatural. I don't think it's a coincidence that 99.9% of human beings, who have been on this planet in the last 1000 years, have not lived in democracies. I don't think it's a coincidence that there's nothing else in our lives we really run by democratic vote that we care about other than our government. Our workplaces don't run by democratic vote, our kids' sports teams don't run by democratic vote. I love my kids, but they don't get an equal vote in the decisions that my wife and I make together. We just have to understand you have to really protect it.

Human beings actually do have an instinct to follow strong leaders, and over the years, have often been perfectly willing to invest authority in one figure or handful of figures. That's why it's so dangerous for the Republican Party to refuse to stand up to the ways in which the President has violated the rule of law, made it harder to vote, attack the free press because he's not smart enough or disciplined enough to transition a government from democracy to autocracy.

It happens. It's happening in countries in Eastern Europe right now. It's happening in Turkey right now. It's happening in the Philippines right now. I just think we'd be so foolish, so full of hubris if we believe that couldn't happen in the United States of America, which is why I get so upset at my Republican colleagues for not standing up to him. I think we could lose our democracy if we don't get serious about protecting it. This election is obviously the most important fulcrum point in the future of American democracy. There'll be another threat again, like President Trump, and we better stand up to it more effectively than we have this time around.

Brian: In that context, let me ask you about something else that's in the news the last few days. You're on the foreign relations committee, which is not the intelligence committee, which might be a little more relevant to this but it certainly foreign relations too, the Trump administration says that the director of National Intelligence will no longer brief Congress in person about election security threats like Russian or Chinese or Iranian or whoever's attempts to interfere with our presidential election. They will give written reports on what they're seeing, but the director of National Intelligence will not come and sit for in-person briefings. What do you make of that?

Senator Murphy: This is an example of the very real threats to democracy that I refer to. This is another example of the President weaponizing the powers he has in the Oval Office for his political advantage. One of the hallmarks of a democracy is that you don't use the official powers of your office in order to protect your reelection. That's why the Hatch Act is actually important. That's why the impeachment trial was so important, so that we didn't normalize the use of foreign policy in order to try to rig elections. The President now refusing to tell Congress in a meaningful way about outside interference operations is another way in which he is trying to use the powers of his office to slip through to reelection.

In my book, I actually have a chapter called The Violence We Export. There's a chapter in this book about all the ways in which American violence gets sent to other nations. That chapter is about the fact that America really hasn't recognized all of the different ways that our competitors try to expand their influence. We build more aircraft carriers, more jet fighters. Russia invests billions of dollars into propaganda operations and election interference department. If we don't start recalibrating the way we spend money, then, we're going to constantly be subject to these efforts like the one undergone by Russia today to try to interfere with the 2020 election.

Influence across the world is now not just about the size of your military, it's about all sorts of other asymmetric capabilities. That is a part of this book, trying to figure out why America relies so much on violence in order to try to maintain our reputation and our influence and our power in the world. Russia's efforts here in this election showed that there's all sorts of other avenues to try to expand influence.

Brian: Just last thing on election interference, and then, we're out of time, A, do you think the written report, if they really are giving you written reports on foreign election interference attempts, will not tell you in Congress what you need to know about it in order to protect our election security? Is there anything that you can point to right now that you know that Russia is doing similar to or different from what they did in 2016?

I think we lost the senator's line. Might have had something to do with the timing out at 10:35, and folks, it's 10:35. We thank Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut. His new book is called The Violence Inside Us. We'll continue in a minute.

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