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Below is a copy of an interview with the University of Chicago Robert Pep, who was broadcast on “confronting the nation with Margaret Brennan” on September 14, 2025.

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Major Garrett: Welcome again. We will take a closer look at the problem of political violence in America. I now joined, I am pleased to say, by a professor of Chicago University Robert Pep. He is the founding director of the Chicago project on security and threats. Professor, it is great to be with us. Thanks for joining us. What are the trend lines, and what are the main terms that my fans want to understand?

Professor Robert Babi: We are now at the moment of the water gatherings of what I call violent populism in America. This era is defined, first and foremost, with two factor: one, a rising wave of political violence on both the right and the left. I just thought, and I want to return to 2002, just think about the attack- it missed the assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi, the democratic leader in the House of Representatives, almost. Brett Cavano’s attempt, judge of the conservative Supreme Court. Two attempts by Republican candidate Donald Trump, then in Minnesota only a few months ago, not only attempts, but the actual assassinations of Democratic leaders. Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania. Now, we see Charlie Kerk assassinated. What we see is this evident trend in the numbers of attacks, along with this, though, we also see an increasing wave, and in support of political violence on both right and left that corresponds to this increasing trend of political violence on both right and left. Our center in the Chicago University project on security and threats, we are conducting very reliable national surveys on political violence- supporting political violence between Americans for more than four years. We started this in the summer of 2021. The latest survey survey was found in May higher levels of support for political violence on both the right and the left than we saw, and this is one of the reasons that make me a warning rang with this great opening in the New York Times in the June, saying that we are the responsibility of the main political violence, and I am sorry to say that we are now right in violent barriers.

Major Garrett: In the survey data, do people who respond to your reconnaissance say, reconcile myself with the political result I want- I will be ready to resort to violence? Is this the main contact point?

: The main relationship is private political grievance. So we asked, just give you an example, 39 % of Democrats say they agree that the use of power is justified to remove Donald Trump from the presidency. When we deepen more to investigate, what does strength mean? 55 % talk about assassinations. They talk about the deadly uses of strength. For this reason we use this term. On the right, we also asked this poll itself. We found that 24 % of Republicans agree that Donald Trump is justifying him in the US military’s use to suppress democratic demonstrators. So these are very specific questions. We have a full set of these questions so that we can really speak very accurately about what grievances want people to say the use of strength. We know what the meaning of this term, after which we can see Republican Democrats in the boycott.

Major Garrett: Does your research invite the point that Senator Lancord and Senator Cois, which is an accelerated and enlarged internet?

: It is accelerated, but it is not the root cause. So, studying this problem now for five years, I found that as happened around the world, a major social change, it pays political violence. We see this in other countries around the world, and- but the details of change differ. We are now moving for the first time in the history of our 250 -year -old country, from a white majority democracy, to a white minority democracy. In 1990, we were 76 % of non -MP. Today, we are 57 % of Latin white origin. It will be another 10 years, and perhaps 15 if we deport many of these illegal illegal immigrants, before we are truly transferred to democracy with a really white. Well, this change occurred in generations. It has started about 10 years ago, with the generation of the real turning point and corresponds to the rise of Donald Trump, why it comes to immigration, and why it turns from migration, which means that people are prevented from crossing the borders until now the deportation of collective numbers of people, because there are people on the right who want to stop this or the opposite, and also the delicious reaction to Donald Trump on parts of the left from the right, and those who want Continue this. This is really Taproot, and for this reason we need to expect this left for its own devices be worse and will be with us for 10 years.

Major Garrett: So, this is a demographic story that creates a political reaction that is amplified and accelerated online. Do I have this right?

I got it completely. This is why the Internet is not important. It is a reinforcement factor. And there –

Major Garrett: In other words, is it very simplified to say that it is the Internet?

: exactly. Because this is the reason for this- a few years ago, people challenged their findings, and they said, no, no, we will only develop people. So the problem here is only the Internet, so we will develop X, Y and Z. The victory has not missed. The reason is that, yes, it is additional- it is like throwing gasoline over the fire, but the Internet is not the same fire. There is something happening, which really puts our policy. I am sorry to say, this is a story we have seen all over the world, in other countries, at other times. That is- this is the social change that leads to extremist policy that changes the winners and losers in our society in a real way, and this leads to political violence.

Major Garrett: The professor, it has always been a distinctive feature of this country, we have somewhat thought about ourselves that we have this experience that has a lot of differences in opinion, and the cramps of violence, but in the end, we agree and move forward. Are you more or less optimistic about this, and this primary assumption about America’s basic ability than you were before?

: The future is in our hands. This is not closed with fate. However, if we do nothing, this will still get worse. The first thing we have to do is that we need to intensify our political leaders. We have just seen a case before, where we have members of the Senate from both sides of the corridor that makes a common appearance of the video. Well, this is really- to condemn violence. This is important, because the leaders can curb their voters. When they spoil the ingredients of the other side, our data show that everything is worse. This is the worst among all possible worlds, as it produces a challenge. We need to escalate that. What will they go? A summit between President Trump, the ruler Newhew, and the ruler Pritzker, a plenary session where they all condemn, political violence.

Major Garrett: Professor Babi, I am very happy because you are here. Behavior modeling is important in many contexts, in life, politics, etc. Thank you very much. We will return in a moment.