[Music playing] <font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Host Sueann Ramella] Take a</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>moment and imagine an Arab person.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>Now, imagine an American.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>How different are they?</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>How alike?</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>Is it the same person?</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>What you can do to understand</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>the Arab and Muslim world.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>How to check</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>your news sources.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>And a history leason on</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>American exceptionalism.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>and also, of the book</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>"The New Arab Journalist.

"</font> [Music playing] <font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] I feel like since the</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>time of yellow journalism,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>So now it's like we have</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>video and audio and words,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>and it's pretty and fascinating.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>The influence is so heavy.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>How would you recommend to a</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>person to be self-educated about</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>influence and fake news or bias?</font> [Lawrence] It is so difficult and I mean, so difficult.

There are plenty of techniques that you can use, you know, where's it coming from?

What website is this from?

What's the credibility?

I teach students, the first thing you do, you go on the website, if you don't know this org, it's not the New York Times or whatever, you go to the About section.

Who are they?

Does it give an actual name of, you know, is there a masthead, is there an email address for contacts or a physical address?

If it's again, not a mainstream news organization, where's their funding coming from?

And, you know, these are all critical things and look carefully at that URL because, you know, it may say Denver Post, and this is an example of the Denver Post, but it's maybe News Denver Post, or I forget the actual name, but there's a fake right-wing extreme website that pretends to be the Denver Post.

And this is true in many, many places.

So I have students send me things, you know, submit things from these off-brand websites.

There are a couple of places you can go.

If you see a story that wait a minute, is that really true?

Snopes.com, they fact check many, many, many stories.

There's also a website called media bias slash fact-check, and they will give you a rating of that website.

So it's, you know, it's middle of the road, it's left bias, it's right bias, it's, you know, completely trash, et cetera.

So, you know, so these are basic things you can do, but we all get trapped by this.

I mean, we all live in silos and bubbles at some level.

And so my Facebook friends and I tend to open up my LinkedIn and obviously my Twitter feeds to anybody to follow, but with my Facebook, I'm selective.

So, you know, I have many senior journalists, you know, I'm selective.

So, you know, I have many senior journalists, you know, former heads of, you know, vice presidents of news at CBS or editors at the New York Times.

And I'm always amazed when I see things pop up.

And I look at it and this is nonsense.

It's fake news, literally fake news, not just news that the government doesn't like, and it's been forwarded by someone who was a senior, you know, spent 30 years in the news business because he or she didn't check this.

So it's very easy.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] What would you say to parents?</font> [Lawrence] Yeah.

The thousand dollar or $60,000 question.

I think, working with them to have critical approaches to issues, not just believe everything you see and forget about news, just in general, question things, be skeptical.

Ask why, ask how, ask where, and then that, as they grow up is going to, hopefully, begin to translate toward how they evaluate the news.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>upset at young people.</font> [Lawrence] And they're probably the same people that don't question the news, right?

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Good point.

Because</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>critical thinking, don't you think,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>Dr.

Pintak, is kind of painful?</font> [Lawrence] It's very painful.

And we're sitting on a university campus and you know, this is a huge problem in American higher education right now, the lack of critical thinking and the lack of willingness to be questioned on the part of students.

You're disrespecting me.

You're upsetting me.

And, you know, there are certainly plenty of space for trigger warnings and these sorts of things, but by the same token, we're supposedly preparing them to go out into the world and, you know, depending on what world they go out into, and they may go out into a bubble and never face these issues, but the odds are, they're going to face being questioned.

They're going to face having their views questioned.

They're going to face hearing and seeing things that offend them, upset them, that they don't like.

But, you know, it's kind of like little kids playing in the sandbox, playing in the sandbox, they pick up immunities, right.

And, you know, we don't want them eating gallons of sand, or playing with the dog and the dog licking their face, they're picking up immunities.

And the same is true among students in higher education, being exposed to other views, being exposed to challenges, being exposed to nasty stuff.

You know, we may be upset and horrified by studying the Holocaust, but there's a purpose to studying the Holocaust.

And if we say, ah, that's going to upset me and I'm going to have nightmares or, you know, I just can't deal with that, I'm going to be stressed out.

And then you ultimately don't know about the Holocaust.

So you don't know why it's inappropriate for people to be walking around in Walmart with masks on with swastikas.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Yes.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>the hurt is still there and</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>will be there for a long time.</font> [Lawrence] Absolutely.

I mean, you know, when we talk about the Holocaust, obviously we still have people alive who experienced the Holocaust, who were in the concentration camps.

But even if we didn't, there are those who make the analogy between concentration camps and what's happening right here in the U.S., right?

With children in detention centers.

And, you know, clearly they're not being marched off to the gas chambers, thank God.

But there are parallels.

And if you don't understand, things are a slippery slope and you take one step and okay, maybe you can get away with it.

You take two steps, but then you take three or four and you slip and you fall on your butt and you go right down the hill and, you know, suddenly you're in fascism, you're in, you know, you're sending people off, to maybe not gas chambers, but you're locking them up without reason.

You know, you look at what happened in Portland with people in uniforms, with no identity, identification, randomly picking people off the street.

I mean, this is stuff that happens in the developing world or China or Russia.

It's not supposed to happen here.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Well, Dr. Pintak do</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>you think as Americans,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>actually third world thinking?</font> [Lawrence] Oh God, yes.

Well, I think there are elements of third world thinking but we are certainly very impressed with ourselves.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] I know I'm asking</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>you to predict the future,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>getting ill young.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>society where you get</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>healthcare if you work.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>So then what happens to people like that,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>is something grand enough</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>like COVID-19 able to change</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>American society?</font> [Lawrence] Well, I think in the long-term, yes, but not necessarily for the good, because we are so divided that I think this can just further divide us.

I mean, we don't see a huge groundswell of we're all in it together.

We don't see a post 9/11, you know, we're all Americans we're helping each other.

It's "I don't want to wear a damn mask and nobody's going to make me."

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] And even,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>may not be media literate,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>but they're all usually white.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>And then you have people</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>protesting who are people of color.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>It doesn't seem right to me.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>stage where it's defiant against</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>all that it's been taught and says,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>don't tell me what to do.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>18 year old stage?</font> [Lawrence] That, or we're becoming senile and set in our ways.

[Both laughing] <font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Because right, Dr. Pintak,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>when they've been around</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>for thousands of years.</font> [Lawrence] So, as you said, in the march of history, we're nothing.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] We just showed up!</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Both laugh]</font> back in the pre-colonial era.

Was written on a ship off the Jamestown colony.

And it was this pinene to the potential of this new land.

And they will build this city on a hill.

And Reagan used this term in one of his more famous speeches.

So it's the idea that we are the city on the hill that is a shining beacon of light for the world of freedom and opportunity.

And we, you know, many, many, many levels that's true.

I mean, we have as a nation always been that place that other people want to come and for opportunity, et cetera.

But it also taken too far, means that we can do whatever we want to, anything we do is right.

And there is no wrong and you can't criticize our society or your un-American.

Where have we heard that recently?

And so it's a two-edged sword.

You know, we want to be inspired by seeing the American flag, but we also don't want to believe that everyone should be under the American flag.

Uh, everyone around the world.

If they want to come here, sure.

I don't want to sound like I'm endorsing that idea that they can't come.

But, um, the idea that, you know, we go into Iraq and fly the flag and we go, wherever it may be.

So it doesn't take into account our differences.

It doesn't take into account the fact that I have certain political views, you have certain political views, they may not align, but in an overarching sense, we are all Americans and we are committed to certain values.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] It goes back for me,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>So I often wonder if our society</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>has just gotten, I think,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>soft or afraid of challenge because</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>it's been so comfortable and easy.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>different way of naming a color,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>your mind hurts, and you just,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>you just retrench back into yourself.</font> [Lawrence] And some of this, not all, but an awful lot of this does come back to journalism.

It comes back to media because we are such a divided nation right now, first and foremost, because our media is so divided.

To betray my age, back when I was a CBS correspondent, initially in the age of Walter Cronkite, that's how old I am.

Um, but back then, every night, 80 or 90 million Americans would sit down and watch one of the three network newscasts, ABC, NBC, CBS.

And that was when they were 200 million Americans.

So the overwhelming percentage of adults were watching one of those three newscasts.

Now they weren't perfect newscasts.

You could argue they had a certain, slightly Northeast liberal bias to them, but generally, they weren't making it up, that's for sure.

And back then you would sit at the dinner table and you would have vicious arguments about Vietnam, about, you know, black power issues, about Richard Nixon, but the difference was, we all agreed that America was in Vietnam.

We all agreed that Nixon was president.

We all agreed that there were racial issues in America.

We agreed that the sky was blue.

We don't agree that the sky is blue anymore because my news organization is telling you the sky is green.

And his news organization is telling you the sky is red.

So we don't have that basic set of shared facts over which to argue.

If we don't agree on what the facts are, if we don't agree that the sky is blue, that the moon is circling the earth, that the earth is not flat, we can't have a rational conversation about geography or science or whatever it may be.

And that's the fundamental problem.

And that began first with talk radio in the eighties with the rise of conservative talk radio, and then the appearance of cable television.

So you had CNN first and which was relatively balanced in the beginning.

And then Fox came along, staking out a completely different political turf, and then it all spread from there.

And now I look at the news media and I find how CNN reports about the president and his issues around the administration and how the Washington Post report about those things.

They've just gone too far.

There's no longer a starting point of balance.

It's you know what happened that was wrong today?

And that's deadly for democracy.

[Music playing] <font color=#AAAAAAFF>how'd, you had these debates</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>at home with your family.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>Did you grow up in a</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>household with journalists?</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>How did you get started</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>and interested in it?</font> [Lawrence] No.

I mean, my parents were politically aware and we always talked about political issues and certainly I was, you know, again, to date myself, I was of an age that I was looking at Vietnam.

And literally the year that I turned draft age was the year Vietnam ended, or they stopped drafting for Vietnam.

We stopped sending people.

So we had, you know, big political conversations and my father had been a Marine and what my mother wanted was, you know, go to Canada, right?

And he didn't really like that idea, but by the same token, he also didn't really want his son killed in Vietnam at that point, you know, it was a lost war and a pointless war.

We watched the news every night, you know, I grew up watching Walter Cronkite.

So, you know, the day I walked into the CBS newsroom as a CBS correspondent to meet uncle Walter, was, I mean, you know, I still tear up when I think about it.

So we were aware, but I just wanted to be a journalist.

A) I wanted to go overseas.

I just always knew I wanted to go overseas.

And, you know, I flirted with, do I want to go into the foreign service or something, but I really always intrinsically in my gut wanted to be a journalist.

And, you know, in high school I was lucky enough to be in a relatively affluent town in Connecticut.

And we started a radio station in my high school.

And then, I went to Northwestern for journalism, but also immediately started working.

I was first a desk assistant, basically a copy boy, at the CBS all news station in Chicago, and then stringing for other people, doing freelance work for other people, and then managed to finagle my way into an internship in Washington, DC with AP radio.

And I suddenly found myself covering the White House and Capitol Hill and covering Washington, drove home to me that I didn't want to cover Washington.

And then as soon as I finished my University in American, in Washington while I was working, and then I immediately packed up and went to Africa, freelancing, and ironically in the, you know, in the big circle of life thing, Kenya where I'm now moving and running a program, the first story I did from overseas was from Nairobi.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Oh my goodness.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>It's meant to be.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>around the world.

I mean,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>What advice would you</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>have for Americans who</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>travel when it comes to</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>cultural understanding?</font> [Lawrence] Expect that it is going to be completely different and welcome that.

Why else would you travel?

Why go to McDonald's in Rome when you've got Rome there!

[Laughs] And why fuss about, you know, someone else's food or the smells on the street or the traffic when you went to experience that.

And if that, wasn't what you wanted to experience, go to Las Vegas.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann laughing] And see</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>the culture there!

Nevada.</font> [Lawrence] Absolutely.

You know, you've got the Eiffel tower.

[Sueann] True.

[Lawrence] Gondolas!

[Both laughing] <font color=#AAAAAAFF>She said, it's not weird,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>it's different and different is okay.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>And I've kept that in my</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>heart for a long time.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>like, this is weird!

No, it's different.</font> [Lawrence laughing] <font color=#AAAAAAFF>ways of living and thinking?</font> [Lawrence] Well, the lack thereof is at the heart of much of our division, isn't it?

You know, certainly when we talk about issues around Black Lives Matter and treatment of Muslims and treatment of Hispanics, of the "China flu" or virus, all of these things are built on ignorance, a lack of knowledge, a lack of ability to recognize that it's just different, it's not weird.

And so that inability on the part of some, and obviously not everyone, to recognize and at some level embrace differences is at the root of our division.

I mean, obviously you're looking through the window, you know, I'm white.

I'm an aging white male, but I think much of what we are seeing right now is, you know, some subset of my profile rebelling against the fact that we are in an age when a non-white majority, is about to occur.

It's already happened in the, I think it's under nine or 10 years old, in that generation.

It's now a majority non-white population.

So that obviously means the nation will be.

And I think, you know, much of what we're seeing is that last gasp of control and influence and defensiveness.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>nicely tanned.

[Laughs.

]</font> [Lawrence] Well, the reality is that, first of all, that's a good thing in my background.

When I lived in Beirut, when Americans were being kidnapped, um, that some people would think that I was not an American or might be an Arab.

And I actually have gone into Lebanon and been asked, when I give them my American passport, well, where's your other passport?

Meaning my Lebanese passport.

And no, my background is basically Eastern European, German, Irish.

But as you know, my wife is originally Indonesian, so my kids are mixed and they were all born overseas.

And so, I don't know, maybe it's just kind of like a dog and their master, I'm around them so much.

I'm picking up a little bit.

[Laughs.]

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>it's nice to be able to pass between</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>cultures and be readily accepted,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>they're surrounded by that</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>they can't just blend,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>walk into a room and nobody</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>gives it a second thought.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>I love that your kids</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>are mixed.

[Laughs.

]</font> [Lawrence] It's also interesting that there's this whole debate over genetics or how people are raised, what shapes you more, right?

And so I have three kids, two daughters, and then the youngest is a boy and the daughters, first of all, we have the whole spectrum of skin color.

So my eldest daughter is the darkest and African-Americans think she's a light-skinned African-American, Hispanics thinks she's Hispanic, Asians think she's Asian, et cetera, et cetera.

Then the middle, the other daughter, she did a year in Nepal, volunteering at an orphanage.

And everyone there thought she was either Indian or Nepali.

And both girls are very consciously aware of being women of color.

The son looks white and thinks white.

I mean.

[Laughs.]

And so, it's very odd, you know, same genes, same upbringing, but he just has a very different worldview.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>And then my son is so white.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>Then I look at them and I think,</font> [Lawrence] And I genuinely think that part of the difference in their worldviews is that, you know, the girls are something, right?

People don't necessarily know what they are, but there's something, they're not clearly purely white.

And so they've always been aware of that and have been aware of being women of color.

Whereas my son is white enough that everybody just thinks he's just plain Caucasian.

And so that has shaped his worldview.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] You were mentioning</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>this generations, you know,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>the majority coming up</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>that are young right now,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>are mixed race or people of color,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>that reminds me about</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>technology and media literacy.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>Like these people who are coming up</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>and taking over as a majority leaders</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>have been bombarded with</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>all this information.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>So how do you perceive that</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>might change the culture of</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>America as far as journalism</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>or culture or acceptance?</font> [Lawrence] Well, how many hours do we have?

Those are three different, [Laughs] different interviews.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>especially as a father of mixed kids.</font> [Lawrence] Well, I think first of all, there's so much more room for connections.

So you can be linked into in the, in the capital version and the non-capital version, linked in to broad networks of like-minded people.

So even if you're sitting in Casper, Wyoming, and most people, I don't know what's in Casper, but I'm making it up here.

Um, and most everybody else is white.

You can connect to other people that are like you.

Now, that's the good part.

The bad part, is that you can then end up in that silo.

And the bad part is what happens when those said people sitting in, you know, an Albuquerque or a Casper, Wyoming, connect to the wrong people online.

And that's how you end up with women going off to Syria to become an ISIS bride.

So, you know, there's lots of good and lots of bad with all of this.

And it's a matter of, you know, being educated, judicious, intelligent, uh, watching your kids, what they're looking at, et cetera, et cetera.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>because you could be lured.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>You could be manipulated so</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>easily with your emotions.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>you know,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>We could fall prey to</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>fake relationships and.</font> [Lawrence] Absolutely, and it can undermine our real relationship or what should be our real relationships.

guide them.

I mean, I remember when my kids were in high school here in Pullman, friends would come over for dinner and you know, we'd sit down and have dinner and they'd say, wow, you do this every night?

Yeah.

Because it's the only time that the family can get together.

So, you know, short of there being a soccer game that's, you know, out of town or something.

No, we're all sitting down at, you know, whatever seven o'clock and having dinner and connecting for an hour, and then we may go off and disperse in different directions again.

But otherwise you have no interaction with your kids and you have no chance to guide them, educate them, inspire them, whatever it may be.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] It's work.</font> [Lawrence] It's a lot of work.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>you want it to grow well, you</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>want to have good produce.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>You have to put work into</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>it.

Ugh, so much work!</font> [Lawrence laughing.]

[Music playing] [Lawrence] A lot of places and it takes work.

So my first stop every day is The New York Times because I do, you know, no matter what some people say, I think, the Times presents the most balanced US view.

It ain't perfect, but it is for the most part, a straightforward presentation of the day's news.

I look at the Post, I look at the Guardian and I know the Guardian is liberal, so I know that when I'm looking at it.

I'll look at Fox, to see what is going on over there.

And then I look at an array of international sites.

So I'll look at The Daily Star or one of the other Middle East papers.

I will look at one of the papers in Pakistan, The Dawn or The Express Tribune.

Now that I'm focusing on Africa, look at the two papers in Kenya, the two main papers and others in Uganda and Tanzania, I'll try to look at the Jakarta Post.

So, you know, a range of things.

And then, you know, through the day I'm getting inundated with stuff.

I'll click on Twitter occasionally, and I'll see some stuff and I might drill down into some of them.

So it's very easy to get sucked into that rabbit hole.

And I made a, particularly with COVID, I made a conscious decision that early on in the COVID crisis, that after a couple of days of watching people screaming, the world is ending on CNN, et cetera.

I just started to unplug.

So I said, all right, I'll do a round of news in the morning, what's going on.

And then I unplugged for the rest of the day.

And then, you know, round dinner time, I do another deep dive into the news.

And then I purposely didn't look at the news before I was going to bed.

My habit was always, I'd look at, you know, lying in bed on my iPad, I'd read the news and often we'd watch [Stephen] Colbert.

And so I stopped all of that.

And so I'm not, you know, consumed by it, and likewise, COVID, not consumed by this, the sky is falling, the sky is falling.

It's a big problem.

And, you know, we need to know what's going on, but we don't need to listen to it 24/7.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] That is very mindful</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>and healthy of you to do,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>especially as a man of journalism.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>about many things in the world as</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>I am, and you could spend all day.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>Just like scrolling and</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>reading and clicking.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>It's just so huge.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>That's very helpful.

Okay.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>So I'm going to go back</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>a little bit to culture,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>and I got a couple more questions to asks.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>As someone who has been</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>in the Muslim world a lot,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>you understand a lot of the</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>nuances of their culture.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>What would you tell a person</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>or what does America need to</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>understand about the Muslim</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>world that would really help us?</font> [Lawrence] It's not a monolith.

So when the president [Trump], during the campaign said, Islam hates us.

Oh really?

All 6 billion Muslims, et cetera, et cetera.

[Laughs.]

Um, it is as diverse on every level, as anything in the US or anything in the West.

Islam in quotes as a religion is hugely diverse, from the, you know, fundamental divide between the Sunni and the Shia.

And I won't bore you with why that is, et cetera, but it is a fundamental religious divide.

It is a fundamental cultural divide.

And now in the modern day, it is a fundamental political divide.

That's why Saudi Arabia and Iran are at each other's throats.

It all comes back to their different approaches to Islam.

And then there are a plethora of subsect within Islam that believe in everything under the sun.

And yes, it all comes back to, there is an Allah.

There is a God.

But I mean, there are small schisms of Islam, like the Druzes in Lebanon who believe in reincarnation, well, whether it's nothing more anathema to mainstream Islam than reincarnation.

So, and then culturally, it is vastly different.

And even where women are covered in some way, shape or form.

And I mean, something other than wearing just clothes, it is dramatically different wherever you go.

So, you know, culturally how Indonesians view the Saudis and because there are Muslims everywhere in the world and they are as diverse as everywhere in the world.

So that's the biggest thing.

And, you know, we look here in the US, you have until the 2016 election, even politically Muslims were very divided.

So generally the Muslims had been here a long time and were established in business, it's a bit like Asians, were more conservative, were Republican.

Those who had just arrived or in recent decades, were more liberal.

Now because of all the attacks on Muslims, and the rhetoric, they, for the most part, they are all leaning democratic, but politically, culturally, you know, you have right here in Pullman, Washington, which is a tiny little mosque because of WSU.

You know, you have Arab Muslims, you have South Asian Muslims, you have African Muslims, et cetera, et cetera.

And they are all very different.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] It's a big world.

Wow.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>So in other words, they're just like us.</font> [Lawrence] Well, they are us!

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Right?

They are us.</font> [Lawrence] The majority of Muslims in America are American citizens.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Were you ever,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>like when was a moment when</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>you just were really sad for</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>the United States?</font> [Lawrence] Oh goodness.

Um.

When we reelected George Bush.

I think that was the beginning.

Because I look at America through an international perspective of how others are seeing us and much of the world and particularly the Arab world and the broader Muslim world asked, how could you have elected this man the first time?

And so, because they were seeing the impact that he was having in the Muslim world, they were on the receiving end of the guns, as it were.

But then when we reelected him, because they understood that there was, you know, the first election was controversial to say the least, and you know, that electoral college versus popular vote, blah, blah, blah.

But then they said, well, how could you have done it again?

But that pales in comparison to where we are now.

I mean, it is so sad when you look at America through the eyes of people from overseas many, not all, obviously they're not a monolith either.

I was just reading a piece the other day in the nation of Nairobi, Kenya, a column about exactly this, written by a Kenyan.

And he said, you all remember [President] Trump's comment about shithole countries?

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Yes.</font> [Lawrence] And he said, now America is a shithole country.

[Laughs.]

And that pretty much summed it up.

[Laughs.]

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>but she is from Singapore.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>they're praying for our country</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>because they're worried for her.</font> [Lawrence] Because people do look up to America.

And even at the height of the Iraq war, tens of thousands of American forces were in Iraq and the place was devastated, et cetera.

People still felt good about America and Americans, not necessarily American policy.

That's always been the differentiator.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>American government and policy,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>but you have a majority,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>I don't know,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>nice folk?</font> [Lawrence] Well, we'll find out in November.

Not necessarily nice folk part, but the quiet and differentiating them from the current government, that don't necessarily buy into the politics of the current government.

But we've seen this after 9/11, we had the greatest outpouring of sympathy and compassion for the US in the Muslim world, across the Muslim world, deep down in the Muslim world.

And it was squandered in the years after.

And then we had [President Barack] Obama when he came into office, he came to Cairo, gave a speech in Cairo where he said, you know, we're going to have a new partnership with the Arab and Muslim worlds, a new attitude, a new message and that was desperately needed.

But then, you know, if you hark back to the old commercial of where's the beef?

That was what ultimately people in that part of the world said, well all the words were good.

All the rhetoric was good, and you didn't invade us, so that was a good thing, but there was never anything else.

[Lawrence] In terms of how the world sees them?

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Yeah.</font> [Lawrence] I don't think there is.

And I, you know, I'm not a historian, but you know, the analogy would be great Britain and the British Imperial rule, [Sueann laughs.]

but they were never looked at sympathetically.

[Laughs.]

And they're not now, you know?

And I think that's one of perhaps the biggest differentiator between the US and all of the others that had come before from, you know, the Roman empire on down, was that we weren't colonizers.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] For the most part.</font> [Lawrence] Well, yeah, for the most part, and we had fought against colonization, so we had that in common with them.

And so I think that is also what made people look to America.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Hmm.

Dr. Pintak,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>what would you like to see</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>America as a whole, as a society,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>as a people work toward?</font> [Lawrence] Being able to talk to each other, being able to have a conversation.

I mean, until we can have a conversation across the political divides, we're pretty well screwed.

No matter what happens in November [2020], we are going to be a deeply divided nation <font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] And how do</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>we get there?

Like?</font> [Lawrence] I don't know.

I mean, obviously if I knew what, you know, I'd be running for president or something, right?

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] You'd write the book.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Laughs.

]</font> [Lawrence] I would at least write the book, right.

[Laughs.]

But I mean, seriously again, if you go back to the, you know, our conversation about sitting at the dinner table during Vietnam and everyone's arguing, people still respected each other's views, you know, we didn't then unfriend each other, right?

[Laughs.]

And when I covered Washington in the mid seventies, on the floor of the Senate, the Republicans and the Democrat would be arguing over whatever it was they were arguing over.

And then they'd all go out to dinner or go out and have a glass of whiskey.

They would go into those classic smoke-filled rooms and there was some actual conversation that went on and dickering and horse trading, and they found compromises.

That's how policy is done.

You don't have policy by screaming at each other, calling each other names and refusing to talk to each other and refusing to give an inch, you know?

So in November, no matter what happens, whether Trump wins, whether Biden wins, you're going to have a vastly divided nation.

I mean, you talked about the, you know, the guys in the Coeur d'Alene's and places like that, who come out on the streets with their weapons and defend democracy or whatever it is they think they're defending, well, what are these folks going to do if Trump loses and you know, on the other side, how are the folks that have been out on the streets with Black Lives Matter rallies, et cetera, going to react if Trump wins?

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Yeah.

We're going to have</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>a lot of hard things to talk about.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>It's a relationship.

And if</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>you care enough about it,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>you put effort into it in your</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>heart gets broken sometimes,</font> [Lawrence] Right.

I mean, you know, which is why lots of marriages fall apart.

Right?

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>Okay.

Dr. Pintak.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>Thank you so much for</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>speaking with us today.</font> [Lawrence] My pleasure.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Oh my goodness.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>I wish you the best of luck in your,</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>for two years, you'll be abroad?</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>Oh, I hope there's many</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>good works for that.</font> [Lawrence] Thanks so much.

<font color=#AAAAAAFF>[Sueann] Oh my goodness.</font> <font color=#AAAAAAFF>America has so much to learn.</font> [Lawrence] We do indeed.

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