Transcripts For CSPAN QA 20160125

, lozada. And, at 7 00 this morning we open our phones and take a look at this mornings headlines on the washington journal. Announcer this week, Carlos Lozada talks about the books written by the 2016 president ial candidates. Brian Carlos Lozada of the Washington Post. A while back, you went through a whole bunch of books written by president ial candidates. Why . Carlos it started with donald trump. When he launched his campaign this summer, he kept talking about his 1987 book the art of the deal. He kept saying we needed a president who could write a book like this. It sort of embodied who he was. So i figured i would read it. I never read art of the deal. I thought i might write something about it for the post. I learned he had written many books. Three memoirs, Business Advice books, even a golf book. So i decided to pick a few of them. To see what i could learn about the guy through his own writing. Brian why did he interest you, other than the obvious . Carlos a lot of politicians memoirs tend to be sort of formulaic. We know, they are very prescreened and scrubbed. This sort ofect planned wholesomeness and all americanness. Trump wrote his before he intended to run for president ever. The first was when he was 41 yearsold. I thought they might tell me something about him. I thought he would be more interesting than reading all the other sort of longterm politicians, which is the same reason i ended up reading ben carsons books too. Brian what is the number one reason candidates write these books in your opinion . What is number one and number two and number three. Carlos there is probably a lot of reasons. I think they are part of their Campaign Propaganda in some ways. I just read a book by a buzzfeed political reporter about the gop race for 2016. He says up front that he consulted the candidates memoirs but he treats them as the Campaign Propaganda that they are. And so, i think they write them because they want to put out a statement of their general beliefs. They want to appeal to particular audiences. I dont think they sell very well for the most part. Publishers go with them because it is a sweepstakes. Maybe this guy will end up being president , in which case the book will sell big. Brian i have here Hillary Clintons book hard choices in 2014. It was actually published a year after she left the state department. You write a lot about the acknowledgments and the introduction and things. What have you learned from that . She wasnt a candidate here. Do you think she was thinking about being a candidate when this book came out . Carlos i suspect Hillary Clinton has been thinking about being a candidate for a long, long time. What i find interesting about Hillary Clintons memoirs is that she wrote one after the white house, right after her years as first lady. Then she wrote this one after her period as secretary of state. What we dont have of hers, that i would love to read, is a memoir that really includes her 2008 campaign, the failed campaign. I think that would be the most the story that we havent heard from her yet. Brian a couple things. And i will go to the acknowledgments. She starts out i want to get your reaction. This is how she starts acknowledgements, the motto of the Clinton Foundation is we are all in this together. Carlos i havent read this book yet. Reacting to it right now, it sounds fairly typical politician speak, the sense of the american family, we are all in this together, connecting to readers. But it strikes me as a bit bland. Brian she was paid 14 million for this book. And, in an earlier book she has , done several with simon paid 8 she was million. And her husbands last book was 10 million. I think it adds up to 32 million. When did this happen . When did this come to the authors over the years . Carlos president obama, the memoir that he will be writing, when he leaves, the estimate is 15 million to 20 million as an advance for the book. So it better sell. I think that its a fairly recent phenomenon. President ial memoirs, probably the ones that are considered the best memoir, is that of president grant. And he wrote it because he was broke. He wrote it because he actually needed the money and and ended up in a terrific book. I think it is only in the last few decades, couple of decades, that the advances for politicians books, political memoirs, have gotten so out of control. Brian and she didnt come close to earning the money back on this, she ended up selling selling 250,000 copies. Carlos this book, from what i understand, has not sold enormously well. Brian i want to show you a video about a guy named bob barnett. Here is what this looks like. She says, i am once again indebted to bob barnett. Here is what the video looks like. [video clip] bob barnett a lot of people from political life come to me. I just dont think there is a book there. I dont think i can get the book published. And if i do, it will be for a very small amount. It wont sell anything and they will be angry at me. Even though i did not have anything to do with it. People come to me after their career is over, people who would have in a fun book, but they wait 10 years too long. And by that time they come for me, they are out of the public eye and it is a bit of a hard sell and i dont like to disappoint. Brian he acts as an agent and has has 375 journalists and political people that he has represented. He does not take a percent of that commission. He just charges by the hour supposedly. What does he do . Carlos ive never met bob barnett. I have only read about him. He appears in virtually every acknowledgment section of every book by any notable politician. It is comforting to hear that he turns some of them down. Because it doesnt seem that way. Its not a surprise at all that Hillary Clinton thanks him. In marco rubios acknowledgments of his latest campaign book, american dreams, the first person he thanks is my lord and savior, jesus christ. The second person he mentions is, my lawyer bob barnett. That tells you something about the standing he has. When you mention about how some people come to him too late about books, you know, i might disagree with him a little bit. I think that we are seeing some books coming out way too early before people have a chance to really be reflective about their experience. And when it feels like there is a little bit of maybe too much score settling going on. That sort of thing sells books but it does not make for terrific reading. Sometimes i think a little bit more time would help, even if it doesnt help sales. Brian what stood out in the marco rubio book . Carlos he wrote a more personal memoir called american son, i believe. And then his latest book is called american dreams. It is a straightforward book about policy and personal experience in which he uses a lot of case studies in florida where he is from. He is a senator from florida. He talks about his various policy issues. The things he cares about, whether education or tax policy. In the acknowledgments of the book, he thanks barnett. He thanks one of his major donors but doesnt identify him as such. He just thanks him for his help and advice throughout the years. Brian you say he is an 83yearold man now. I think his name is bremen. How much of that goes on in the books that you have read . Carlos in the substance of the book themselves, not at all. People arent thrilled to mention their funders and their donors. But they thank them sort of in subtle ways, in acknowledgments and forwards and that sort of thing. Brian one of the people that Hillary Clinton thanks is a woman named named Linda Muscatine and her husband. Who along with her husband, own a bookstore. She interviewed her in a forum. [video clip] Linda Muscatine you seem like youre having a good time . Hillary clinton yes. I think i am having a good time. I think that is in part due to the enthusiasm that i have experienced as i traveled around in these last couple of days. It is a great feeling to have written a book about four years that were consequential in my view and we can talk about that more but which for me were both a personal journey with heavy responsibility. And what i try to do in the book was write it so that i could give you, the readers, a bit of a peak, and the curtain. Because the headlines surely tell some of the story, but not all of the story. Brian who writes these books and how often is it somebody like Linda Muscatine who is involved in it . She didnt say she wrote it. She just read the chapters, but she has written speeches for her. Carlos i think on many occasions, the politicians write them themselves. I think often they state this clearly in their forwards or acknowledgments. They have a lot of help. They have ghostwriters or people who serve as readers of various chapters. On occasion, they will put the name of the coauthor or ghostwriter right on the cover. With, not a with. But a but usually, you dont care so much about that other individual. And i find it a little unusual to have the person interviewing you. Im a huge fan of politics and prose, but that was sort of a softball question. Are you having fun . Brian the interesting thing ive found is there is one name that is missing, both from the index and from the book and from the acknowledgements Sidney Blumenthal. What are the chances that Sidney Blumenthal would not be mentioned in this book . Carlos he played a more significant role during her white house years. I seem to recall there was a conversation about him maybe having a role in the state department. It did not happen should talk about that. But i dont recall that. Brian he has been deeply involved with the emails back and forth when she was secretary of state. Carlos on consequential matters, sometimes deeply inane matters. You know, i think i would subscribe to the rule of thumb on political memoirs. These are not meant to be or should not be interpreted as a true record of what took place. Brian you have written several articles on donald trump. You talk about he doesnt seem to be a huge fan of the gipper. You say in another book he is starting to talk favorably about the gipper. Say afterther one you he lost the election to Ronald Reagan, talking about jimmy carter, this is donald trump. Carlos yes. The donald turned him down. But he said that it impressed him that carter had guts to ask them for something big. He hadnt been impressed with carter as a president. But asking in and asking the donald for five million made him seem like a gutsy guy. Brian later you said ronald ronalds another all, reagan is another example. He is so smooth and so effective a performer he completely won over the American People. Now, seven years later are the American People beginning to wonder if there is anything beneath that smile. Carlos i believe this is in one of his earliest books where he brian the art of the deal. Carlos his first book then, when he is critical of president reagan. Which leads me to believe he probably wasnt planning a huge career in the republican politics of the time. Later on in subsequent books, he speaks glowingly of Ronald Reagan. He seems to have gotten religion on reagan. Brian and you say he spoke glowingly of Hillary Rodham clinton. And there is a picture of the two of them in the book. Carlos as we all know from one of the Republican Debates, Hillary Clinton attended Donald Trumps wedding. Doesnt know, he he is an interesting mix because he holds these deep grudges. They can be famous people, journalists who have wronged him, bankers he felt gave him a raw deal, and he will call the out to viciously in these books. But he is also a man who cultivates relationships longterm, including, it seems, with the clintons. One of the best moments in the Republican Debate is when they asked him, you know, why do you give money to democrats . Why do you give money to so many politicians . What did you get from Hillary Clinton . And what he said was, she came to my wedding. Its these personal touch things that matter to people. And i think thats why he kept up the relationship with the clintons. Brian you write something called book party. Carlos its the name of the blog the Washington Post has given me on the site to write reviews and to write things about books i find interesting. Brian how often do you write . Carlos there is a review that runs every week in the print Washington Post on sunday in the outlook section. And so, i read or write i read a book and write a review on it at least every weekend a few times during the close the course of the week, i am writing online. Sometimes, i take a deep dive like into the trump books. I dont think i wrote anything while i was working on trial. Brian i saw a tweet on twitter from you saying that it is a strange year to become an american citizen. [laughter] carlos yes. Bryan is 2015 your year to become an american citizen . Carlos i became an american citizen in 2014. It was my first year as an american citizen. Im sort of thinking about that a little bit because i have just been reading for the first time, it is embarrassing, a book i should have read a long time ago democracy in america by alexis to tocqueville. Anis a lesson in sort of introduction to advanced physics, i hope, for the United States. When i look back on 2015, which is my first year as a u. S. Citizen i lived here for decades. My kids are american. My wife is from ohio. You know, you cant get more american than that, maybe indiana. And so i didnt think a lot would change about the way i felt. But you know, once you take the oath, you feel like you are all in. And everything that is going on sort of you feel invested in any field is possible for. Seeing everything that has happened in american politics this year, the rise of donald trump, Hillary Clinton and the email obsessions, that sort of extraordinary republican race, has made it interesting. I havent decided who i am going to vote for. I paid attention more than i have, even after all these washingtone post to be an american is a glorious burden. Brian when did you come to the United States . Where did you come from . What has been your career path . Carlos i first came when i was three years old. Threeyearsold. My family we moved to Northern California where we had some relatives. Brian from where . Carlos from peru, from lima. My family is from peru. I lived in california for seven years. Then we went back to peru when i was 10yearsold. And, i stayed there until i finished high school. Then i returned to the u. S. And went to the university of notre dame for college. And i pretty much stayed here since. I did a graduate program at the Woodrow Wilson school at princeton university. The maybesoontothe school ated princeton. I worked at the Federal Reserve for a couple of years because i thought i wanted to be an economist. But i found it sort of dull. Im sure my colleagues from there are going to see this now and complain to me. They were terrific. But it was the late 1990s. At the time, we thought the economy was great. We thought the fed was doing anything perfectly. Only later did we learn everything would go wrong. I moved to washington and started working at a magazine here, Foreign Policy magazine and i was there for five years. I learned a lot from smart journalists. I took a fellowship year at Columbia University at the Journalism School there. Business journalism fellowship. And then i went to the post. And ive been there for 10 years. At the post, i have had a chance to do a lot of different things. I was reaganomics editor first. I was a National Security editor. And for five years, i was the editor for our sunday outlook section, which is the greatest job in journalism. You get to sort of dialup any person you want to write about anything. I did that for five years. And then i figured i should try something new. And i saw that our old, long time book critic was going to retire. I figured maybe that was something to try and maybe i could try to do it a little differently and really, the experience i had at the post, getting a chance to edit some a different lines of coverage is sort of the perfect training to then be a Nonfiction Book critic because we cover politics and history and economics and writ large. So this is my first year doing that. Brian going back to some of your reviews, here is a video clip of ben carson talking about his book. [video clip] ben carson when i give a speech, you know, i dont have a written text. I just go up there and i survey the situation. I ascertain what kind of audience we have. And, you know, i will have a few points that i will make sure i make, which i have written on a card. And then i just start speaking. And basically i write the same , way. I have a chapter title and i will write down some bullet points about what i want to say and i order them. I just start dictating. So its very much whats on my heart. I always pray and i ask god to guide me in my writing, to give me wisdom in terms of what points need to be brought out. And i think he does a pretty good job of that. Brian are you siding with marco rubio in the reference to god. What did you find in his book . Carlos you know, what he just said, it fits perfectly with the way his books read. He talked about when he goes to speak for an audience, he doesnt really prepare a lot. He just kind of goes. That is enormous confidence. Politicians are usually so scripted. Ben carson is not. He has enormous selfconfidence in his intellectual abilities. And what comes across in the book as well is he has enormous faith that god will help him whenever he needs it. It could be having him the wisdom to write that book chapter in just the way he needs to. It could be helping him during surgery. He attributes a lot of his success as a neurosurgeon to his faith into god process very specific interventions in those moments of carrying out a complicated operation. Even in one case, he mentions in gifted hands, his first book, when he was a student at yale, he hadnt really studied hard in his chemistry exam. His chemistry class. He was afraid he was going to fail the final. The night before the final, in a dream, god sent him the questions and answers. So he has this deep abiding faith instilled in him by his mother that god will step in and help him, not just in a general sense in his life, but in very specific moments. Brian you write in your heysis of his books, repeatedly plagiarizes in college. And he minimizes the transgression is ignorance rather than malice. Frankly, i had never heard of the term plagiarism, he writes. Originally, they gave me another chance. Fortunately, they gave me another chance. Does anybody ever follow up with the candidate and asked them questions about these books and what they say . Carlos that happened in a very intense way recently with ben carson. He is sort of fading a little bit in the polls now. But when it looked like he was getting close up there with donald trump, there was a lot of attention paid to very specific incidents in his books. And he couldnt really substantiate. For example, he talks about how, when he was young, he had this very intense temper. At one point, he even tried to stab a friend of his. People have gone back and tried to find who that was, when that happened. No one has any memory of it. He said, well, it was a relative. I dont want to embarrass this person now. Or he says that he had the opportunity to go to west point on a scholarship that he turned down. We learned later that he never really applied and west point doesnt hand out specific scholarships. Everyone goes tofree. Commission afree. Tuitionfree. The thing is getting accepted into west point. What i came away with from ben carsons books is i am most almost think we should treat them i mean, you cant do this with normal politicians books because you sort of expect those to be carefully vetted and factbased and at least checkable in some way. Ben carsons books feel more like parables. They feel like these nice, inspirational stories about a guy who came from very difficult circumstances to achieve extraordinary success in his profession. And they were a big hit. They were published, the early ones, by christian publishing houses. It was that kind of intent. It wasnt like this was carefully vetted material. I mean, the way he talked about in the clip he showed, he writes that he writes from the heart. The heart is not always factbased. Brian have you ever listened to audiobooks . Carlos no. The only time i do is when we are road tripping and we are going to see family in ohio. We might pop a cd in the car and listen. But often with the children i have three young kids that might be the Polar Express or some thing like that. Brian i asked that for a reason. Im going to show you some video of 2006 of senator dick durbin on the floor the senate talking about Grammy Awards primarily for audiobooks. [video clip] dick durbin in the history of the United States of america, only two United States senators have won a grammy award. The first was United States senator Everett Mckinley dirksen from illinois, for his album gallon myth. And now again, another senator from illinois has become the second senator in history to win best spokenrds for word. Senator obama won his grammy for his recording of his book games his eye of his dreamsaphical book, for my father. I understand Hillary Clinton won a grammy award when she was first lady. Now she is a distinguished senator from new york. And she won for it takes a village. Brian recently, jimmy carter was nominated for a grammy. One of the things that came to mind, they are all democrats. None of the republicans come of the Ronald Reagan books, the george w. Bush, and of those got a nominee. I carlos i have no idea. The thing about the reagan memoir authored by him, there was a question about how much he actually wrote. I think even joked at one point, i hear it is a great book. I havent had occasion to listen to audiobooks. It seems like a small sample size though if only three of them have won. Sometimes you get outsiders to read books. But obviously, with such a notable figure, it is impossible to imagine anyone else. I think president obama has a certain sort of rhythm and cadence to his speeches that personally i think could be more appealing for an audiobook than perhaps senator clinton. Brian he read it himself. Carlos yes. I havent listened to them. Brian the president ial campaign right now, from your perspective, take all the candidates into account, in the case of president obama, they always go back to the books. That is what started it all. Will they do that in this campaign . Carlos i dont think so. They were politicians before they were authors right . President obama, i mean, his first book, i think, terrific. His second book maybe he had political aspirations. In fact, he certainly did, but he wrote that before he was, you know, barack obama. The audacity of hope is not a great book. It is a formal, conventional political book. I think that is typical of what it politician writes. I dont think that any of the current crop at least from what i have read really have books that they have written so far that will stand out in some sort of lasting historical manner. Brian ted cruz published a book. Did you write about that one . Carlos i think that was part of when i looked at the acknowledgment sections of all the candidates books. The book, what i try to do is shine a light on what is happening in washington, the Washington Cartel, what is happening behind closed doors. If you ever wonder what happens in the Republican Senate lunches, what theyre doing, this book tries to shine a light on it on how the Washington Cartel, career politicians, republicans and democrats, get in bed with washington lobbyists, giant corporations, and conspired to grow government to favor cronyism and corporate welfare at the expense of hardworking taxpayers. Brian ben carson was on the bestseller list for a long time. I dont think ted cruz was for rare long. But conservatives are much more successful today. What is it what is selling these conservative books now . Carlos with ted cruz, the New York Times did not put him on the bestseller list initially. There was a huge spat about this were people felt, including the ted cruz supporters, that they were blackballing him from the list. They didnt want to have him there, even though they put a are there, even though they put a lot bill oreillys books are constantly on those lists. Right now, what is going on in the conservative movement, the republican party, is just more interesting. There is a real fight about with the party is going to be, about who the standardbearer is. Watching the campaign this year, it is far more interesting to look at the republicans than the democratic side. That may have something to do with why there is more interest in these candidates and their books. Brian whats your reaction to the reaction of the republicans to basically reagan republicans to killing the reagan book. It was recently written in the New York Times a retort for that book. Whats going on their . There . Caller it is selling books for bill oreilly. This is only helping the bill Oreilly Publishing industrial complex. Killing reagan is a part of a series of killing historical fiction books. And a lot of people who were in the Reagan Administration or reagan biographers have said, have contested the central contention of the book that reagan that oreilly said, after the assassination attempt, reagan was never the same and started deteriorating rapidly. That has been questioned by people who were there. Oreilly doesnt back down. Oreilly says he didnt consult those people for the buck book because they have too much skin in the game. They have vested interests in preserving the mythologies of Ronald Reagan. I think this doesnt stop a book from selling. I think it only helps it. Brian god, guns, grits, and gravy. Carlos Mike Huckabee. Brian here is Mike Huckabee talking about his book. Mike huckabee there are three major cultural bubbles in america. New york, washington, and the other is hollywood. And from those three cultural bubbles emanate fashion, finance, government, politics, music, entertainment, movies, Television Pretty much all the things that set the american cultural table. But the point of my book is that there is a big disconnect between the people, the values, the attitudes, the lifestyles of People Living in those three bubbles and the people who live out and what we often call the flyover country. Brian how did he do . Carlos the book . Its sort of, you know what does he say . It drips over you like sawmill gravy on biscuits. Huckabee as cultural warrior is the theme of a lot of his books. God, guts, grits and gravy, as critical as he is of new york, washington, l. A. Cultural bubbles, as he calls them, he has been very skilled at, you know, making his presence felt in all of them. On cable television, through his books, and in some ways his campaigns feel in part like efforts to solidify that brand. He is the folksy cultural warrior. From the title of his book two to comments such as these. Brian Lindsey Graham ran for president , runs for president carlos still. Brian he did something unusual. He wrote an ebook only and gave it away. Did you read it . Carlos i did not. I did not read Lindsey Grahams ebook. I feel bad. I probably should have. Part of what made it hard was he didnt really even seem to want to write it. He says right up front this is something you kind of have to do when you are applying for this job. Not Everyone Needs to write a book, but i guess i have to. If hes not selling it himself, its hard to pick it up. Brian he actually said everyone has a story. Not everyone has to tell it of course. Carlos im not his publicist, but that is not the most engaging way to begin your book. Brian based on your experience of reviewing all of these books, and i know this isnt the business you are in, but what would you advise somebody that is a politician that is going to write a book . To do to get peoples interest a lot of these books didnt sell at all. Carlos i mean, you know, i poke a little bit of fun at senator graham, but he does have a very good point. Not Everyone Needs to write a book. And what may be politically expedient may not make for the most interesting read. So if youre hellbent on writing a book, what i would really encourage is to be honest, to tell real stories about your life. So many of them, everyone i think does have interesting stories in their lives. And politicians, you know, who are singleminded in this pursuit of power and ideology, could have particularly interesting ones. But when they put out these memoirs, you know, they are sanitized. They are vetted, you know. They are there for sort of minimum controversy. You know, when ted cruz described what is in his book, it is in every speech he gives. The Washington Cartel and the politicians in bed with the lobbyists people have heard that it thousand times. A real story about ted cruz . That could be interesting, like what his life is really like. That would be good. But they rarely produce those kinds of books. Brian youre the end of 2015, you wrote funniest, scariest, and whiniest books. How do you sift through all the stuff . Do you like to read . Carlos i love to read. I have always enjoyed reading, since i was a little kid. I was just very kind of book wormy boy. We get deluged with books at the Washington Post. Everyone is trying to get us to review their books. Authors reach out with publicists. It is this investment i get to read anything i want. Sometimes, i may take a book because i already know something about the subject and he could i could bring some insight for readers. More often than not, it is something i am curious about, something that sounds like a good story. Brian let me ask you a couple of these. Most instant classic book i read this year. Carlos barton swaim was speechwriter first of all, there are so many speechwriter memoirs. Life is too short to read a bunch of memoirs about speechwriters. The reason why i picked his was because he was speechwriter to governor mark sander in South Carolina who most of the world came to know when he gave this extraordinary rambling speech confessing that he had not been hiking the appalachian trail but was in argentina with his girlfriend. And of course, he was a married man. So i thought, oh, that is interesting. It would be interesting to know what it was like to write speeches for mark sanford. And barton swaim writes what i think is a terrific book telling you what it is like to be in charge of communication for a politician who is not really a gifted writer or speaker. He has to learn to write poorly, train himself to use the cliches the governor heard the governor loved. The governor was always wanting to mention rosa parks in his speeches. He just liked the idea of mentioning rosa parks. So you see barton swaim trying to work in rosa parks in these completely contrived ways into speeches. Also, he really opens up about what the governor was like communicating internally to his staff. And he can be really brutal. It was a book that i think is people romanticize the role of the speechwriter. You know, you are whispering into the ears of the powerful, giving them words, like hannity or reagan. This is such like kennedy or reagan. This is such a painful experience for this guy and his successes that he rolls and are exciting but also just that he revels in our exciting but also just bad. Everyone will remember his confession. He was just in the crowd watching. He didnt get to write it. Brian the marco rubio book, youre right that people often mention connections they have to people that they admire. But here is a man that you say marco rubio admires a man who is an intellectual conservative. [video clip] the american context has always been a different context. In speaking about the americans around the time of the revolution, one of his great speeches in parliament opposing the policy of the government offers a kind of character description. It is a wonderful thing to read. It used to be read in american schools. What he said first is that americans are obsessed with personal liberty. They constantly see them coming. In this way, they are different from the british cousins. His argument against the british government, this is something you had to understand about them. You have to understand their character. And their character is an obsession with personal liberty and the translate that into tax policy. Brian how often do you see that where they connect to some you like this in their books . Carlos it doesnt happen a lot. One of the things i really appreciated about marco rubios book is that he is really transparent about his sort of intellectual and lyrical political influences. He has a list of, like, 40 plus people in the back of his book that inspired him on matters of and advised him on matters of policy. This is one of the leaders of what they are calling the reformed conservative movement or the reformicon, which is a great term. Should rubio win the nomination and potentially win the white house, i suspect he will be a significant player in whether directly in the administration or as an advisor to him. He was referring to a book that he published a year or two ago, i believe, looking at edinburg and thomas paine as these two competing strands in american political thought. I find that whether you subscribe to his politics and policy, i find it i find that really refreshing, that a politician will try to engage on an intellectual level, but also be transparent about what those influences are. Brian you pointed out, when he talks about the 45 individuals, 44 of them are men and one is a woman. Carlos i did mention that. It is very much a boys club. A policy specialist was the one woman. Brian president of the National Alliance for public schools. Carlos congratulations, nina, you made the cut. Brian there is one woman who wrote a book decides Hillary Clinton. Here is Carly Fiorina on her book. [video clip] carly, in your new book, rising to the challenge, an excellent book, you make it his a distinction between people with political experience and expertise and people who have business experience and expertise. Carly fiorina i think to do the job requires an understanding of how the economy actually works. I started out as a secretary. So i do understand the economy from multiple angles. I think it requires an understanding of how the world works. The truth is i have more experience with more World Leaders on the stage today than anyone else running. With maybe the possible exception of Hillary Clinton. I did not do photo ops. Brian did you read her book . Carlos i read portions of her latest book, yeah. Brian any reaction . Small book, right . Carlos both books are sort of thin volumes. You know, she does emphasize the outsider experience which is this recurring mantra in american politics. Once in a while, you want to the outsider, you want someone who can run america like a corporation. Her tenure at hewlettpackard was controversial. So it is not the easiest for her probably. In the race she had kind of this moment after the first debate when it seemed like she was going to be a bigger player and elevated. So i dont think that has a really materialized. I dont know that her play for the outsider role, at a time when you have trump and carson, has really been effective. Her first book was really more about her time as an executive. Her next book is more personal, with a searing description of what she lost her daughter. Brian do all of the candidates put their picture on their cover . Carlos im trying to think if there was anyone who does not yeah, i think they do. I think they all do. Brian when the Hillary Clinton paperback came out, they switched the picture, but its very subtle from a straight on shot on the hardback to a side glance on the other of Hillary Clinton. Carlos maybe they got a better side. Brian if you had to name a book about politics, i mean by one of the candidates, that you would find the most refreshing or the most interesting, which one would that have been . Carlos of the Current Group . Brian yes. Carlos i guess there is refreshing for different reasons. Is something refreshing to read or refreshing because of the departure . Jeb bush wrote a book about immigration policy. It is a slod. But he actually tried to lay out a vision on the contentious policy issue, which is something that they dont do a lot. So it was refreshing and that in that particular sense. Donald trump, he wrote three memoirs, art of the deal, surviving at the top, the art of the comeback. His second book is where he was more reflective. Things are going wonderfully in things were not going wonderfully in his business at the time or his personal life here it is the only book we see trump sort of struggling a little bit and admitting it. So for trump, i would call that refreshing. He realized that maybe he showed more than he intended to in the second book. Brian here is donald trump on the stop. Here he is talking about his first one back in 1998. Donald trump our country needs a truly great leader. And we need a truly great leader now. We need a leader that wrote the art of the deal. Carlos that is what inspired me to start this exercise, reading the candidates books, that he would so overly stake his credentials to the presidency on this book. When people see that i read eight donald trump books in a row, they make jokes. Oh, condolences, better you than me. Whatever you think of donald trump, they are far more entertaining than the vast majority of political memoirs. There is selfindulgence, they are bombastic. But they are not boring to read. Brian back in june 2015, you took from one of the books. I want to read it and see what you think about the technique he has used all year. One thing i have learned about the press is they are always hungry for a good story. Carlos trump has been famous longer than any Business Leader we can think of alive now. Longer than bill clinton. He was publishing a bestselling memoir in 1987. And part of that is his ability to regenerate media interest. You know, he is always dallying with this idea of maybe i will run for president multiple times. Now that he has finally done it, now that he completely jumped into the race, you know, the coverage has been extraordinary. I think he understands that. Something else he writes is that even bad press is good press for him. It means they are talking about you. Brian you see the final he says the final key that i promote is bravado. What i do want to ask you though is why has the Television Medium allowed this is the first time i can remember in history allowed him to call it in. He doesnt go to the studios. He just calls it in and all the networks taken. Carlos i would imagine because, having donald trump on your show, is irresistible right now. Brian its not Good Journalism though, if you dont have to look at him in the eye. Carlos i think you have better interviews when you can look someone in the eye. Trump right now, he keeps doubling down on the outrageous things that he says. The books seem pretty muted by comparison. I think there has been may be an excess of coverage and an excess of sort of lenience and letting him do this. He doesnt like to leave trump tower. He doesnt like to leave where he lives. He talks in this context about his hair and the way it stays perfectly the way it is because he limits the extent to which he can subject it to the elements. He lives there. He takes the elevator up to his office from his bedroom. The apprentice was shot their there. He didnt have to leave. He said, im either in a limo, in a helicopter or my private jet. People talk about the president ial bubble. The trump bubble is far more encompassing. And he doesnt even like to travel, you know, like candidates have to sort of go everywhere i go to the swing states. He is basically running his campaign from manhattan. Sometimes, that is the only way to get him. Brian if you had to write a book today, what would you write about . Carlos you know, this is a book that only i would care to read, right . But it is something i have had on my mind for a long time. One of my favorite books of all time is called the worldly the worldly philosophers. He writes these incredible stories about economists over time as people. The book i would write is about the thinkers who have to find the big ideas for americas role in the world after the cold war. John williamson, robert kagan. And look at each of them and their lives and how their ideas influenced americas sensitive side. Brian if anybody wants to read book party on the web, how do they get their get there. Carlos you can go to the Washington Post. Com. Brian Carlos Lozada, thank you for being here. Carlos thank you for having me. Announcer for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q a. Org. Programs are also available as cspan podcasts. A new poll by cbs shows points different between Hillary Hunton and bernie sanders. Ted many stories take a look at a run considered by michael bloomberg. Editors of the wall street journal note that he would not spend time or money in such an effort if he did not sense an what type ofreater candidate