Mark Anthony Green: So I wanna talk about this special. But the first question I want to ask you, it's a complicated question. The question is: Are we fucked? Are we going to be okay, Van Jones?

Van Jones: Look, that depends on what we do. This is the most dangerous political period I think the country has entered since probably the Civil War, in that we have a president who from a psychological point of view seems erratic and from a political point of view seems to be authoritarian. And that is a very bad combination. I mean, you could have a kleptocracy in the United States much like you have in Russia, where the head of state is enriching himself—blatantly enriching himself and his family and driving down rights and respects in the country. The Republican Party is gonna have to make a decision: How much of his behavior are they going to tolerate? Think about this: The Republican Party was worried about Hillary Clinton making $100 million giving speeches and running a foundation. This guy, his family is running a multibillion-dollar conglomerate with no blind trusts to avoid any conflict of interest. His role model seems to be Putin. The mere fact that this is the kind of thing we have to worry about is very, very scary.

Tell me about the new special [Editor's note: The Messy Truth, tonight, December 6, on CNN at 9 P.M.]. Was this a direct response to the election, or was it something you were working on and it just so happened that Trump actually got elected?

Going back a year ago, I was focused on trying to build a bridge of trust and respect with Trump supporters even at CNN. I've been very clear that, no matter who won the election, the day afterward, Sanders' voters were not gonna leave America, Hillary's voters were not gonna leave America, Trump voters were not gonna leave America, Black Lives Matter was not gonna leave America, and the cops were not gonna leave America. We're all still gonna be here the day after the election. Two weeks before the election, I went to Pennsylvania on my own with an independent film crew, to go into the homes of Trump voters and ask: Are we on the edge of another civil war? There's that much division. And you can see the results of that at messytruth.org. I am a no-apology left-wing-of-Pluto progressive, but that doesn't mean I can't work with people I disagree with. I worked with Newt Gingrich on criminal-justice reform and the opioid crisis. You're not gonna find two people who disagree on more than me and Newt. People have forgotten that your 99% enemy can be your 1% friend on a point where you agree.

“A lot of people in the United States have been living in Trump’s America for a long time. If you’re undocumented or poor or black, you’ve been feeling this way for a while.”

Trump had dinner with Mitt Romney recently. You see all of these people who were so against him—probably no bigger example than Ted Cruz—and now they're, at best, trying to work with him so he doesn't mess up too horrifically and, at worst, kissing the ring. Should Mitt Romney be trying to work with Donald Trump to help make things better?

[Long inhale] Mmm. I think all the Republicans are now in a damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don't position. If they stand back and things go really bad, they may feel guilty. If they stand back and don't help and things go well, they may feel stupid for not having participated. They lean in and help, they may find themselves in a Nixon-style, scandal-ridden presidency—while, on the other hand, maybe they lean in and they make America, you know, great just by having a commander who has serious mental-health issues. If you walk through the decision-making tree with any Republican, as I have, it's hard to know what to do. And we don't have a normal Republican government in formation. It's really a conservative populist alliance. Paul Ryan wants to keep the TPP trade deal and privatize Social Security; Trump wants to tear up TPP and he expressed no real interest in privatizing Social Security. Trump put in Reince Priebus as a kind of "normal" conservative—but he also put in Bannon, who is, at least by association, a nightmare. The days of easy answers and simple binaries are really over. We've gone over the waterfall.

Younger voters feeling disgust, like everyone's phony—I don't think it's that simple. I think it's a very complicated question. What do you do when someone like Trump actually wins? Do you ignore your own party? Do you denounce the whole country? Do you get in and try to make it work? Do you think maybe you were wrong? Everybody's going through a lot of complex thoughts, and the tendency to reduce everything to either a "This sucks" or "This is awesome" choice is a big problem for the younger voters especially.