Transcripts For CSPAN2 Books About The Trump Administration 20240713

Eastern on book tv from cspan2. And now on book tv, reset author programs about the Trump Administration. We begin with the author and journalist donald, he appeared on the other Interview Program afterwards in 2018 where he discussed how President Trump business experience has impacted his presidency. Lets talk about the media. You put a lot of examples in the book is you just described. It seemed to have no bounds for discrediting the negative narratives on donald trump. Sue present trump could do no wrong. But for donald trump, he to do no right. What is your sense of what is driving this in the news or the Mainstream Media that you are part of. Will first of all, theres a bias against republicans in general. With dragon he was portrayed as stupid or dangerous both and thing in the same thing with trump. According to the median they just cant get rid of that. And i think, if they feel that if they did, it would be ostracized by their colleagues. For example, some people within the white house Correspondence Team that among themselves, they laugh at him, they mock him, and that is the overriding thing. Many people just inherently cannot think independently. In fact that is one reason that i left college after two years like a few other people. I didnt want to be told how to think really didnt want to be told what to read. Wanted to get firsthand what actually happened it. Possibly having up operated. I dont have blinders on. Lets put it on with all of these details about the real donald. That is excellent and it is a fun read. But happened with carl mylan during the access would important we can for the campaign. The deal was there any repercussions, they did later. He went to debate any supported trump actually didnt withdraw the support. Wouldnt he say. The sea,. You can get out of the race will in a landslide. That did not, is made chief of staff. But the same time truck never forgive him for saying that which is unfortunate. And so many successes. He led ceos to realize that they could expanding him will work. It wasnt constricted. A lot of other achievements that occurred. One point, hillary had sent shows a trump is a coercive but actually what he is saying in the tape is women are after him all of the time. And he takes advantage of that. Were star, they want to do that. I thought nonconsensual activity. In his consensual activity that he describes. Well. It wasnt anything that really has happened in politics in my lifetime. So we saw something that usually doesnt happen. Usually it would be the death of a president ial campaign. But paul ryan asked away looking back, what is it that they did not understand. When there was paul ryan or ronald davis, and about the truck base about these things about donald trump. I think ryan understood but it is very hard for people in certain circles on the east of the west, to understand the way the average voter thanks. My contractor working class president s, said to me that i dont care what trump says, i just care about what he does. That sums up when the people in the socalled workingclass think. After be judged by the results. Going in to, if you going to someplace in his pocket, he may be fired. And he can spout off about all kinds of things that he will be held accountable. These people understand results printed and thats what you with donald trump. I see your point in that. That was great. Lets talk about tom, it was alien to me but you write that behind the hedges, and palm beach, there are scams and orders, entries jealousies, pretenses bigotry, and occasional generosity makes a tv show look like nursery tales. Talk about how donald trump came into my lago as personality, how he took that place and how it has resulted today. Trump first heard about it from his driver. This is difficult he will go around asking people and opinion. Their chambermaid or secret service agent, he asks his advisors but also, he has a wide canvas of people who give him opinions as well as by about 12 friends who he consults printed name and them in the book. Most of them are billionaires. But that is the way he works. When i was there recently with him, he asked me what i thought about israeli settlements. I knows much about the middle east as he knows about the other things. But again my opinion. But then he decided that it was the idea of his lawyer in florida, jews and blacks, can be profit making and sure enough 700 million. That was johns second wife against turning it to a club, she wanted it for herself. He went ahead with it, the one thing that she did to contribute is that he should have us fall, so he created trumps ball at maralago, as he says at the closest thing to paradise he will ever get to. It is simply unbelievable and overlooks both sides of the aisle which is only about a halfmile wide up to the point. In this culture is unique, is to work just person in the world the house these traditions the red cross, the charities developing these models, in the end they produce that much money, one club member was married to a very wealthy real estate guy from italy and eventually he died and left her about 300 million, he underachieved stored his body at a local funeral home for 40 days under ice because he said i wanted to enjoy the season, as they call it the season, i was faithful to him and now i want to enjoy myself and go to the parties party on the yacht with thyvonna in the enter into suchs going to do her the same thing to her second. While. I dont think many spouses would go for that. But maybe in palm beach. It is incredible, talk about the flag that he had a battle with up palm beach down there. He had a huge huge blog, towering over mira lago, in the street and they said this is against the regulation and he went to battle and said it was a freespeech issue, he sued the town and they started fighting him a huge amount of money every day, eventually they settled and he agreed to move the flagpole further away from the street and to reduce the length of the flagpole, but guess what, he put on a mound that is workmen creative. In the end it was just as hard as it was before. This is typical donald trump. As he says, he always wins, not quite but he usually does. And the way he finagled to get the club approved by the town is sorted typical how he operates, on the one hand his lawyer sent copies of gentlemens agreement in another similar to the Town Council Members who were trying to prevent him from turning this into a club implying their biggest and thats why there against approving the club, the so then he sued the town and he invited the Town Council Members maralago and said we will have glamorous girls and he also played golf with them and he uses the carrot and the stick and eventually it was miralago that brings us almost 40 million a year and everybody wants to go there, that sums up the weight trump operates. Another recent book about President Trump is Bob Woodwards fear, and if the author appoints a prizewinning journalist discusses conclusion about the Trump Administration. He spoke at George Washington university in september 2018. Everyone here has seen the book with an enormous amount of attention and the thing that struck me the most about the book was i thought that you drew conclusion in a way that you may not have in previous books. You are very critical of how comey handled his interactions with the president when he briefed him on the dossier. In your largest conclusion can you imagine two weeks away from becoming president and the fbi director comes in and theres no way that J Edgar Hoover is not far behind and says by the way, if we had the secret dossier about you being with prostitutes in moscow three years earlier, how would you feel. How should comey have handled it. [laughter] not that way. Trump has legitimate beef in my view and i say so in the book. Being the prisoner of too much history in writing about too much president in the case of bill clinton when he came into office in 1993 and his white House Counsel in the first of six, that is right but the first and as you imagine, clinton had some baggage to and there was all kinds of things that the fbi got about clintons Extracurricular Activities which were abundant so they sent all this to clinton in the senate to the white House Counsel, and he looked at it and said put in the burn bags and he said okay, lets see what happens, lets see how these things im not sure the burn bag i wish you wouldve called me. [laughter] he did not but the idea of the fbi director getting in the face of somebody like trump who has a big ego and i quote in the book that clinton told his lawyer after the briefing and she said melania can never find out about this and of course it was about two minutes or two days later she did as did the world. And you draw a conclusion that the administration is and very dangerous spot, is at the furthest you have ever gone and why did you go so far. Evelyn duffy who is my assistant, are you here evelyn, raise your hand evelyn, standup. [applause] George Washington University Graduate in the year 2007, she has worked for me since that time and weve done five books, four president s and she knows all the secrets. And she knows how to keep secrets and she knows how to kick me in the. Ass. [laughter] and for that i salute her in gw. But evelyn and my wife are very much involved is a Family Affair and they both said you cannot step away from the obvious conclusions of what you found in the book. That there are a group of people which i illustrate very vividly who stand up to trump, steal documents office desk on south korean trade because it is connected to lots of sensitive intelligence operations, documents on nafta, documents on Climate Change and so forth, its a regular procedure. Give it off the resolute desk and he will not remember or not think about it. As i say, you have all of the other things, his lawyer for the Russian Investigation for eight months, can you imagine being trumps lawyer, for eight months. He goes through and he finally does a practice session with trump and in the white house, there overlooking the monument and the lawyer plays mueller and ask questions of trump, its a dry run in trump makes things up and loses emotional control and finally he says you cannot testify, if you testify will be as he elegantly puts it, an orange jumpsuit. And you dont have to know a lot about Law Enforcement to not recognize what that is. So you connect all of these things in my conclusion in the book is that its an administration and a white house that is going through a nervous breakdown. Its going through a nervous breakdown, how could it go wrong, what would a manifestation of that look like, is it something on the trader economic side, give us an example, its in a dangerous spot, what could happen. On trade, it sounds has to tear but the trade war with china, 99. 9 of the economist say that tariffs make no sense, they hurt consumers, we buy things abroad in this country because they are cheaper and better quality in trump somehow has in his head that were taken that money from us, they are stealing it and he will not get that out of his head. One of the conclusions that a make is that there is a war on truth, part of it is not just what trump says, but where trump gets these ideas in the experts go in and the chief Economic Advisor stops him gently in an affectionate perhaps way and says if you shut the [bleep] up you would learn something. [laughter] [applause] to look at recent books on the Trump Administration continues with his book the case where trump deals with how the president has followed through on his campaign promises, mr. Hanson appeared on her author Interview Program after words on 2018 and spoke with former republican congressman dave of virginia. I think in the deep state a permanent class of federal and state and local workers who feel they are exempt from public accountability through Civil Service or union and they had resources of the state so they want to regulate a farmer or they want to sue a coal company, they have the memes to bankrupt the person. Or if there are federal prosecutor and say will bring in front of the liberal washington, d. C. Jury entire you up for years and less should make to this, this, this as we saw with the mueller, thats the deep state, they tend to be progressive only in the sense that the ideology of making them bigger and given the more power is democratic and leftist. That is one of the reasons they hated trump, you mentioned the names but i feel like him and alter universe, James Cropper went before a Congressional Committee and under oath he swore the United States was not intercepting communication of practices then he said i lied, i gave the least untruth. There were no consequences. John brennan went before a Congressional Committee and said i tell you we have not had any Collateral Damage or attacks in afghanistan. That was a lie, he admitted it, he went before another committee and said we do not at the cia tap into the senate because that is a lie, there was no ramifications, james comey said the two of your Congressional Committees on 245 occasions, i cannot remember, i do not know if you are i said that to an irs investigator we would be in jail. People have an assumption that they have a right to overturn an election because they are exempt and powerful and when Andrew Mccabe said that he thought donald trump was not acting right and you want to abroad rosenstein, Deputy Attorney general and they discussed whether they should tap the president of the United States for wire and those two would decide whether they should pull cabinet officers to remove an elected president on the 25th amendment which was never designed for that, that was the opinion me of what the deep state thought of itself in his power and his morality and throughout history and the spanish empire, or the empire, it is always a problem and it always grows and has supremacy. I dont know how we stop it but we have to speak out against it. Without my constituents and liberals, i get the chance that bernie sanders, hes in agreement with what you said about the deep state and the concentration of wealth empowers on the left, it is interesting that Everybody Knows this and people would ask, what can we do, and you really left in a tough fine that the major politicians that they know, if you mess with the deep state, the cia, they told trump, i think it was schumer made a comment. I have many of those quotes in the book when schumer says im six ways to sunday to get you when john brennan tweeted an attack on trump, Samantha Power said not a good idea and theres a lot of evidence of what they thought of themselves. Brandon and cropper encomium mccabe thought they were exempt and sober they are right, they have not been exposed to criminal prosecution that anyone of us have done it, we wouldve been leveraged and we go after all of the minor characters, we find a carter page, papadopoulos and we threaten them for years of imprisonment and financial ruin unless they give a particular testimony we find useful but we have all the asymmetrical criminality that we do not touch because part of it is their own fault, we give the undo prestige and obedience to people with alphabet titles after the name jd, phd, ma, md, the council and formulations with the Hoover Institution and rather just examining people, that was part of a revolution of the 30s, 40s and 50s of a managerial society. We feel there is a professional class because there is credential and they were to the right place and therefore that equates with wisdom and sobriety and yet thats another reason that people heated donald trump. If you walked into a room and donald trump, if you said mr. Trump you cannot do that because the counsel and formulation things its a bad idea, he would tell me what good idea they had lately, was that the north korea, six party agreement, was that they agreed on framework, it has not worked, was afghanistan, we have not one. That is one reason they do not like him. Is interesting when charlottesville came up in your name linked to not season that requires a big state in our philosophy believes that we want to reduce the federal government madisonian logic with federal state and local in the federal separation of powers and uc President Trump fighting this war daily and trying to fight do you see any light at the ends of the tunnel that were able to reduce the size and scope of government and the power of being wielded and as you noted is continually grown. I think the problem is we hear that donald trump has not filled the federal office, hes deregulated, but the same time the cost of government and the deficit has been rising so you want to know if he someone engaged in the character because its very hard to see that he has the expertise and experience in the help, the systematically go through the ministry of state and say is this person needed, as that person wanted, can we cut money here, im really worried about the role of the federal prosecutors into the state prosecutors, the idea that the federal prosecutor can decide completely which case to try into leveraged witnesses for the power in the state behind him to extract a confession. It is really scary because its predicated that im going to go to you and i want to convict him and i found something in your past and im going to try you and it will cost you a Million Dollars to defend yourself and i have a budget and i wil will brk you if you testify against him. I dont think it was ever intended to work that way. The look at recent books on the Trump Administration continues with author and trump president ial Campaign Advisor stephen moore, his book trump anomic examines Economic Policy with the Trump Administration. Heres a portion of his talk which he discusses in the tax cut of 2017. Theres always a risk when we save people are probusiness, they are actually pro colonialism at the same time. A couple of ideas, first of all, the government has a 4 trilliondollar enterprise, its a biggest enterprise in the world, then you bring business principles to how we operate that and it makes sense to me. You do not waste money, you have the bottom line and you make sure that you only have so much revenue and you dont spend over your revenue amount. Trump has brought some of the principles to washington which i think well long overdue. One of the things that barack obama, he did not know anything about business, how could he possibly know what economic policies are going to work. I think the biggest difference between president obama and President Trump is one really listening to him it felt like a very empty business sentiment. Of course. Now with President Trump i think companies are relieved. Look at what happened, we have charts in the book that show literally when people say this is the obama recovery experience, what are people talking about. Under obama, the last year he was in office the economy grew 1. 5 , driving down into a recession, look at what happened to business confidence, consumer confidence, Investor Confidence and two days after the election, and went through the roof because people realized that this guy does know something about business. I think when i talked to businessmen and women, people say what is the single most important thing trump has done to unleash the incredible economy and in my opinion, is not any one thing, its a business is new that if they were successful, the government would not come after them with a baseball bat and hit him over the head. Imagine getting the government as much out of the way, we all want clean air and seawater and financial protection and so on but in ways that are not going to inhibit our bid businesses. I am probusiness, im not a colonialist but you cant have jobs without businesses. The problem is the Democratic Party is very antibusiness in their outcome. Lets look at the tax cut. Uni, ive been reporting on tax, and its done, the idea of 25 years that we will still be calling for the reduction of taxes, it depresses me, i dont have to say this anymore. They tell us about the tax cut, how it came to be. In our first meeting with trump he asked us to be an Economic Advisor and the first thing you said, he knew in general the direction that he wanted to go in the lower rates and help businesses succeed and make it more of a competitive place so the factories leaving will come back to the United States and we were fully on board. We put some meat on the bones and basically came up with this idea of 20 business tax rate because you know this, you did a lot of research, we were up here and the rest was down here, theres a 20 percentage point gap, as we said to trump, this is a 20 tariff were putting on her own goods and services, repeating every American Business out of the gate at a 20 disadvantage. In the u. S. Have the highest income tax rate. And almost twice as high as average. When youre higher than the french. [laughter] the other thing, we had a tax system, those two things together were really detrimental to companies in the left is always talking about the Corporate Income tax at home by keeping their money abroad that it is not a solution, every Investment Decision especially of that size is dictated by a system and nonconducive to a business decision or great economic outcome. He got that, he was not a tough sell on that, i remember my favorite story in the book, we are recommending to you that you run under 20 business tax rate and i never forget he said im not going to do that and i said dont you understand what im saying and he said im on 15 and it was so interesting. The now day until almost exactly a year ago that the bill was signed into law and we got the votes that we needed in the 50 votes in the senate. I remember Mitch Mcconnell coming into the room and he says im sorry mr. President i cannot give you 15 , would you take 20 and President Trump said absolutely all take 20, im convinced trump is a master negotiator, he understood something larry and i didnt at the beginning, you start at 15 and negotiate up, if you started at 20 we wouldve been 25, 26 . The other thing that trump did that i want to mention that is really important, every time we would bring this up he would say what about the 26 and a half million Small Business in this country, he would say i want to make sure every business man and woman in this business gets a tax cut. This is been mislabeled, big joint tax cut for the large corporations in every Small Business actually had a Tax Liability has gotten tax cut and thats gotten a lot of juice from the economy and we did the repatriation and we have businesses who have money overseas to bring it back at a low rate, that is coming back, have a trillion dollars of money that is come back to build factories that we invested here. There is a minimum global t tax. One of the changes made that you have a minimal global tax. I believe there is. We got rid theres so many elements, we got rid of the corporate alternative minimum tax but for businesses, its a very positive thing, we see a lot of money come back to the United States in a lot of Business Investment in the most important point, this is something that larry kudlow always said to trump, trump says all the time because it is true, when you cut taxes for businesses, its a middleclass tax cut. People think how can that possibly become a when you get this is investing more in the country and they will hire more workers, pay them more, productivity is related to the Business Investment and if you have a Trump Company that is 18 trucks and then you have 20, they have to hire tumor truck drivers. It was working towards getting businesses healthy so they can hire more workers and today in america we have 7 million more jobs and we ever had people distilled on. That is workers a lot of opportunity to bring their wages up. I think its a point that is repeating that the Corporate Income tax rate is not just a giveaway to our businesses. The Economic Research shows very clearly that it leads to more Capital Investment which leads to more product which leads to higher wages in the Economic Growth as you said, more jobs but the jobs that exist are higherpaying jobs. It is something that is counterintuitive for people in the fight for they say this was a tax cut for rich people in a big tax cut for corporation is wrong. We did a study that the average american has gained 2000, the average middleclass workers see it 10000 aftertax increase in the income and when you include the increase in the salaries are getting, we estimate 3000, if you are making a family of making 50 80000 and you get an extra 2500 a year in your paycheck, that is a big deal. I dont care if need to pull oc says thats chrome, that is not crumbs. Onestory and dallas a couple months ago and the latina woman walked by me and said are you the one who talks about economics with donald trump and i said yeah that was me, i was in church is going to slot me or something, she said i did not vote for donald trump, i dont like donald trump but she said i got a 2000dollar bonus from my employer inches and for the first time in five years im going to be able to take a vacation. That is the thing that means a lot to middleclass family. Alexander discussed the makeup of the president s cabinet at the press club in washington, d. C. Last summer. In this portion he reports on how lesserknown cabinet members are coming up with policies that will last for generations. I think the most consequential people are not the cabinet, its the deputies in the assistant secretary under them, a lot of them today our Heritage Foundation or American Enterprises institute. But the fact that trump has relatively small position of government all lot of the appointeds are acting and maybe they will get a confirmation hearing, maybe they wont but they all work in this contingent field where they know the bubble can pop. A lot of them are out there basically with no supervision there is no white house function but he is not drilling down on the epa. Hes just not. A lot of these folks are fairly young and ideological and they will punch as hard as they can. These are not necessarily trumps policies but the Heritage Foundation how to position four years. How do you know when the book is done . Or how do you know there will be another tweet tonight . How do you figure out when you are ready to put the on the story and publish the book . Thats funny i just referenced ricks book. That i should get new material for mine because so much happens every day. I argue my editor said you are done. [laughter] so asking if i could interview trump i made it clear and she made it happen we waited. That was the last thing in february and the editor said you cant do any more because then now i am writing the book every day something new happens and wilbur ross does something crazy your Steve Mnuchin is flying on a plane. It would never end. So we had to end with a hard deadline. Obviously a lot of news organizations have published transcripts to show the rambling answers are how they freeze their questions with transparency so what was your interview like how long did it last . What kinds of things. Oval office february 1927 minutes. I dont know if there is a difference between trump in real life and trump on television he was charming in a way that i consider myself a new yorker that he has the outer borough charm i watched him with crowds from the south its a charm that works on people even if theyre not from new york but to recognize or something quirky new york ish about him. He didnt want to talk about the cabinet but just as clearly didnt know anything about his own cabinet he didnt know who was working for him and what they were doing. Thats not the way he sees the presidency. Everything is trump. The Trump Organization sounds like a big thing but its a couple secretaries and whoever his chief people were at the time. But i think he looks at the white house the same way because emerson once said the institution is the shadow of a man in the way that you can imagine at present doing one a president doing that. I thank you are right. I dont think he has the cognitive landscape to look at super complex problems. He is a man driven by his needs and emotions him as a policy anything that accurate. Sometimes really strong sometimes they serve him poorly. When it comes to his own image like talking to bannon he will acknowledge something that bannon understands him really well. I think michael wolf has said the reason he relied on bannon so much because he felt he was the best part of trump and bannon will say that a little bit more kindly that hes not and intellectual but and intelligence thats almost impossible to teach like a selfpreservation and selfpromotion. I dont know how well that serves the president as the chief executive trump decides impulsively he will fire comey he calls people into the white house i will fire him dont try to talk me out of it he says what you think of me filing one firing comey session says thats fine with me rosenstein says he did mishandled the Clinton Administration trump says goes back so he writes the memo and hands it back to the white house all of a sudden trump who had already decided on his own to fire comey completely unrelated to the clinton scraps the memo and says this is the reason he must be fired at the White House Press corps went out and said the Justice Department insisted comey be fired because of the way he handled the clinton investigation and then trump said go to a press conference and say you are the one that insisted comey be fired so at this point rosenstein is in shock because he knew it was completely false not because of the clintons that trump wanted to fire comey and not his idea to fire comey and to his credit he refused to do that. Trump try to get sessions to pressure him and he said no that is a false narrative we will not put it out. Days later, rosenstein calls now Andrew Mccabe is the acting fbi director i will be just a brief passage talking about something relatively innocuous rosensteins gaze shifted to the room and the distance his voice was wavering his eyes tear it up he could not believe what was happening the white house was trying to make it look as if it was his idea to fire comey but that wasnt true the president asked him to write the memo after announcing he was firing comey he was struggling to keep his emotions in check he was calling the president a liar they barely knew each other he wanted to be compassionate. Are you okay . Know. Are you getting any sleep . Know. Is your family okay . Rosenstein said there were news trucks parked outside his house the wife and family were upset. There was a pause and rosenstein said there is no when i can trust. He was struggling to hold his emotions in check and then asked if he should appoint a special counsel and mccabe said yes it would be a good idea. Rosen consign always considered comey a friend and mentor the one person i wish i could talk to is jim comey. Good luck with that mccabe thought this is the guy he just fired. It is a sequence of events where rosenstein offers to wear why are invoke the 20th amendment to invoke the president but by the end of the mueller investigation, he is a new person, there are two occasions the Justice Department was drafting press releases so he goes to the white house and comes out his job is intact as soon as the Mueller Report is delivered he and the new attorney general rush to state trump has been exonerated there was no crime or obstruction of justice case to be made this is not what the Mueller Report said mueller wrote a letter to the effect with it was far more damning than rosenstein was willing to say and this is a classic example of wellintentioned bureaucrats to get into the trump orbit drawn into the web a false narratives and irresponsible if not ill legal behavior and then asked to protect the president because rosenstein lied about the wire and the 25th amendment then he fired him then whenever he wanted so to address the issu issue, trump has again just this week accuse the whistleblower people who have helped the whistleblower to be a part of the deep state people in the white house told the whistleblower what was happening i could just read the end of the book to say the same thing hes already said many times before. That they are traitors he hasnt said it explicitly but he has implied the punishment should be as it has been in the past, the death penalty. The origins are from the middle east turkey and egypt where entrenched bureaucratic complexes sometimes elect a leader who was running the country to preserve their own powers and privileges. The deep state concept has recently been used in another variation on the military Industrial Complex it was traditionally considered to be primarily people on wall stree street, goldman sachs, the lobbyist in washington, the large corporations, the Big Technology companies. That is how it was translated in the United States context. Trump has weaponize the concept to apply it to the federal bureaucracy and specifically the fbi and Justice Department and intelligence communities. I never thought i would see the day where a republican president turned on the Law Enforcement communities and granted them as enemies of the people. Congress says something very important that he never heard the phrase deep state and told trump started to use it but if what he means men and women devote their lives to serve the American People they take the oath of allegiance to uphold the United States and do not work for the president of the United States and specifically this president and thank god we have the deep state of these are important checks on the executive we are a nation of checks and balances and bureaucrats are appointed people and career Civil Servants it doesnt matter republicans or democrats. Everybody has a political view to support the constitution and we have a whistleblower come forward. Telling the president he cant do Something Like that that we have the essence of what the system calls upon them to do. So in this context is something we can all sleep easier knowing it is a fascinating story and with the National Security council and then to some degree. And with this strategy to have all of this influence one of the reasons and then was able to go to the oval office with december 2018s of what there is someone in his and then to roll out a map. And the National Security council and with those suggested tweets. And he said that hes giving him the same so then being consistently inconsistent. And that we will pull out or we will stay this consistent inconsistency could be helpful if you are conducting in the United States and what i say to be very lucky was a major foreignpolicy crisis with the iron curtain going down in europe and with the financial crisis so trump doesnt have this type of crisis so how would he react . So what we know about him is as an accurate predictor but with that military power and then to have a foreignpolicy crisis. The consistent inconsistency is not helpful to the allies so where the redlines are as it were. Its clear they cant count on that. So my publicist to talk about the book and then with the new trump it with gdp in defense spending and then to spend 2 percent in nato by 2024. And then to get to Angela Merkel germans dont always 600 billion and then to misunderstand or whatever and then in 1987 saying the japanese at the time was only 200 billion but the obsession with him. And look at hr mcmaster. And those military offices. And to speak that indisputable truths and the Reagan Library in california a few months before he resigned so to have a view of the world with this amazing meeting in the tank but the pentagon in 1943 so this is fdr and marshall at the time with world war ii so with the presidency, trump doesnt know enough about what we are doing in the world and why are those troops around the world what are the trade agreements . And how many do we have . And jim matus and rex to listen talk about the trade agreements and with republicans and democrats and then the strategist just to show how committed we were and then could work against us. And then theres a bunch of words that i cannot use on cspan and with these deficits to really means something and then general dunford ran that so it sitting there and then with this being a total fiasco and then steve bannon said to Jared Kushner and writes previous and by that with that comparison so the point that bannon was trying to make was to laying down the marker them back of the white house. For those with the National Security council and what what trump was like in these meetings these were consistent and what does this mean for the American People and why are we hear 16 or 17 years later. These are not unusual questions but of course we live and the consensus with the dim so the fact it isnt bad but what ive been thinking about is the endless wars. We were really careful how we wrote about different sources of how people reacted in the room just because we understand how somebody reacted and was thinking about the way the president was mistreating them does not mean they were not directly direct sources. We talked to a lot of people that were briefed at the time with the principal spot and one of the most important things we did recording this book was protect the people who were talking to us. They took great risk to tell us what happened between the us one behind the scenes and it was so much worse than realtime so they trusted us so we try to do that with the book. I know better. Obviously trump is not a fan of the book. He does have a good line he called this third rate reporters which is better than fourth rate but also call the stone cold losers from the amazon. We are looking for stone cold loser music. [laughter] get that in the audio version. The next hamilton. I feel very matter of fact about his shortcomings objective journalists but you also dont pull punches in terms of what you have witnessed as washington reporters prior to this one example of many talks about the deputy a journal to say he spoke with reverence for the world of law that framework of transparency and basic fairness that trump was underlying daily so talk about the calculation of that blunt statement with that umbrella of objectivity because of the misunderstanding it lets each side have their say not making the call. Keep in mind that moment im glad you brought it up because nobody has single that out so that is a scene where the Deputy Attorney general and the Justice Department personally his reputation of three decades hangs in the balance and has written a memo cited by the president as the reason to fire jim comey and he doesnt believe according to sources that its all being served up as justification that they are questioning if the prosecutor is a kiss up essentially. So it is a vulnerable time for him he is really emotional and the reason we chose those words is because donald trump has at this point called the Justice Department the trump Justice Department to threaten sessions multiple times and for recusing him say that he should on recusing himself what to be ethically impossible to say i cant have a conflict and now i dont and all the ways he was breaking the norm two things come together Rod Rosenstein saying i care about the rule of law. I look like numbersign. And the president very much not caring about that. So my impressions the two top lines how much trumps mood swings really encompass not just the way the white house operates but the way the government has been operating under him and the National Security apparatus. But i want to get to the first part that he is incredibly abusive to his staff even longterm allies the vodka and jared are those that escape that are they the only ones . That this is not a New Discovery about donald trump we have known for some time he is abusive. He expects loyalty really from the people that work for him and do not get it in return but with the abusive management style was so much worse that we knew would realtime to call Kiersten Nielsen at 5 00 oclock in the morning to bark orders to after watching lou dobbs to say he had a great idea for the border go do it and then call her at 5 00 a. M. To wonder why it hasnt been done and then people are asleep. And the way he handled rex to listen the secretary of state at the end and fired him while on a Diplomatic Mission to africa to clean up the relationship with african countries because trump called them as whole nations. And then to take aside we are just telling you what happened behind the scenes and readers draw conclusions about that. How did you manage to make me feel bad for rex to listen . [laughter] its true. And those that would feel some sympathy and empathy to the most hard line. And you ride at one point standing with trump as a sign of executive order and at the same time the administration was circulating a completely different deal. Why . Why would you even do that . There are two really good points. I find it really interesting about this presidency that we learned in the eyeopening way even we that had been there from day number one were taken aback but the grownups in the room you may not agree with them politically or philosophically and think that personality style is not so great he was reviled in many parts of the state department to cut the bureaucracy and reorganize and not being very approachable but that him and john kelly then chief of staff defense secretary jim matus were people who kept telling the president you dont want to do this let me tell you why. And with those National Security implications and then to highlight but the result was he is increasingly surrounded so yes here we are in the impeachment phase not many people get here as quickly as he did. How in the world have a serve donald trump . Of the conservative ideology and the philosophy they hope to serve the agenda but what they found out they just got a lion roar in their face every day. As deputy National Security advisor with american and Foreign Policy so where we now . It is the status report so it was pretty clear on this class of weaponry its also pretty clear the chinese were not part of any deal so lets go to where we need to get to if we cheat we will say we are cheating so it was the right thing to do. So you have to some chips to play in the game and how some leverage where is your leverage and then to go to the soviet union and say lets cancel this and we have a lot of leverage technological leverage and the Defense Missile system that they knew they could have build and thought we might be able to. So trump goes to the right place but then negotiate them. So looking at north korea so that is committal and noncommittal and promises that we are building a Nuclear Weapon program. What are your views if this is the solvable problem that north korea will have Nuclear Weapons . I say priorities. Republicans and democrats was sanctions and economic problems and then to the negotiating table so i think that trump is done the right thing when at the trump of the administration of all the agencies of government and treasury so what we can do about north korea with the basic same all policy. So come back to me in a weeks time so actually and good tv style said accepting the North Koreans but then think about regime change and what we might do militarily. So lets think about covert things we can do. Because they probably havent done the reassessment of north korea the last couple of years so they all come back about a week later and i spent the time in between relearning a lot of stuff. So it was a decade before you were born so i can have these ideas it was that economic stuff a little bit of military and if you put them together either a switch that is on or off you could have a dial and then turned up the dial of pressure so with the world china place 75 percent of north korea comes as a gift from china. So they said they will help you but they never did. But the other thing all on his own getting advice they didnt understand as a negotiator that with trump and kim jungun it would always be personal. He doesnt care about his generals. About the greater leader than his father or grandfather. So i think trump has found that third way and then very carefully chosen by the administration by then because singapore is the most modern city in the world and theyve done in three years time. So for that next meeting that they have the United States fought the vietnam war and we were mortal enemies but to say this is vietnam we are at war with each other but look how close we are now . To be calibrated these are the possibilities the other thing that trump did that was sophisticated enough so with that modernization and pyongyan pyongyang. So the most intractable problem in the world. And to have that problem like north korea. So thats where it goes with a different relationship with china going forward. And everything is interconnected. You have trade and one thing on the border wall. Trying to figure out most president s have a lot of analysis and what made john f. Kennedy. And working closely with him its all about winning where you either made money that year or you lost. He created the whole genre of reality television. You have good ratings are bad ratings so it is all about winning how you make the money it is just getting to where you can win so trump was an negotiating position what you have to do to get to that point to every time he proposes a negotiation of somebody the media goes nuts and thats just absurd trump probably thinks it is absurd to. So to a certain extent to say a lot of strange things so to kim jungun and with those trash talks mine are bigger than yours i could decimate you. But trump doesnt care who he humiliates doesnt worry about two contradictory thoughts in the same place or overruling himself and it has been pretty effective. We conclude our books with turning point usa founder charlie kirk. Because i have been slow blown away by the Trump Presidency its important to recount those and focus how he can succeed but also unequally anxious with the appeasement of the enemies endless wars overseas and that President Trump has positively recalibrated the Republican Party for generations and its important to learn from it to learn from those successes so i wrote this book partly for that reason watching cable news and reading the newspapers i kept coming across the left wing prognosticators telling me what President Trump believes. They said you hate have you hate all of us. Im supposed to listen to you . And he wants to enrich his businesses. No guarding philosophies. And i said to myself first of all i spent time with him and the first family. Why is nobody articulating the doctrine of the Trump Presidency . You dont just stumble accidentally justice kavanaugh, largest ever tax cut in american history, lowest unemployment for minorities come energy independence, Qassem Soleimani dead Golan Heights recognized the iran deal is canceled out of the Paris Climate Accord put the enemies on defense and produce our own oil and shale. Thats not an accident. You dont stumble into that because every other would have a track record of success. And what of these people been doing the last 20 years so thats what i went to go out to write the book so i did talk to the president but also i went to rally after rally of people that would wait hundreds of hours just for a chance to see the president of the United States speak for 30 minutes. And they spent 200 hours through tsunami like conditions and then in minnesota where they waited outside negative 10degree weather. Im sure you all appreciate this. That is not normal. So there is no comedian. Sometimes there is. But he is so much funnier than the latenight comedians. And with the latenight comedy shows that are applauding but they are not laughing because they are not funny. It is 11 00 oclock political talk show. So what drives these people to wait so long at the rallies . To take days off of work and feel they are part of something . Talk about the federalist papers which is citizen government. For the first time in many decades of people finally believe there is someone that listens to them and delivers for them. The great irony of the whole thing that you couldnt write this in a novel that it took a billionaire businessman who was supposed to be as disconnected as anyone. And the moment they came down the escalator to change american politics fundamentally for good. So here is the consensus. I felt like i was losing my country. Both parties were participating. The Republican Party talks a good game and did nothing to fix it. I was so sick and tired of politics as usual i wanted someone with a sledgehamme sledgehammer, brooklyn brawler to go blow it all up. That is special. Actually it was poetic. People say i dont like his tweets. I will address this one time and one time only and this is the best way i can address it. America was drowning in the middle of the ocean under the decline of both Political Parties over the last 20 years they both contributed to this. Big government management and adventurism abroad allow the country to crumble then finally in the middle the night we are gasping for air a rescue helicopter brings us up to life so we can breathe and the first thing that you say is i dont like your tweet history. We are breathing again it is irrelevant its like the heart surgeon thank you for the triple bypass surgery by the way hate to your tweets but im glad we are breathing again. So not to mention i can make the argument that it set the cadence as a public northstar to understand what the president is trying to accomplish and key people accountable. So now there is a real time standard and accountability measure what the president is thinking. I think he is hilarious. I like a politician outside of the Cocktail Party say one do another consensus of washington dc i dont care if he offends a couple people i like that he punches back twice is hard because i feel he has been fighting for our country. And others are okay with manage decline that is the thesis of the doctrine of his presidency. First and foremost if you go to the doctor and say give me the bad news first and President Trump basically was brutal who said we are losing. Borders are wide open trade deals are stupid trained on final it is laughing obama care is a disaster, the deep state is corrupt, this was the first 30 seconds. [laughter] the first honest assessment we have received in a long time. That is the first part of his doctrine. I wont sugarcoat it. And those that are rooted in the renewal of a nation. And what President Trump has done what hes trying to do. And to revitalize and resuscitate in the manage decline. We have outbreaks of contagious disease. Basically people get sick and then we hope we can throw sufficient vaccine and drugs added to go away. Its not surprising somehow very quickly the animal connection comes into play with mosquitoes and a bola it is bat so the way that it in on affect somebody. There is nothing about this virus that is anything other than a natural mutation and with the biological warfare and that should be a wakeup call to all of us that it must be taken very seriously. We are in denial something that i discovered with my own research with the meritocracy everybody treated the same way so people have different experiences and with that logic we are not even different but denying inequality