Transcripts For CSPAN2 Game Of Thorns 20170320

[inaudible conversations] thanks for joining us at the east city bookshop. If you are here for the first time, welcome, thanks for stopping by. We are excited to have you here for tonights event and just so you know we have one to two author events every single week plus the weekly book club, twostory times per week and a variety of special gatherings like coloring books and winds with you enjoy your time tonight, check us out on the social media at east city bookshop on facebook and insta graham and city books on better andsign up for the newsletter and youll hear about all the other cool things we have coming up. But tonight it is our pleasure to welcome doug, the New York Times bestselling author who has been an advise advisor to to american president s and is one of the few living historians to have written about all of the american president s. He is interviewed six u. S. President s, second to first 71s, coauthored a book with one, has entertained too in his own home and served on a white house staff of special assistance to the president. He cofounded the chickadee awards with first Lady Nancy Reagan and is here to talk about his new book with Kenneth Walsh that he will introduce shortly. After our talk we will have a qanda from the audience and then you are welcome to purchase a copy of the book to have signed. Thanks for joining us. Thank you very much. It is my privilege to introduce doug. He was the president of the White House Press Corps Association that they put on the big dinner donald trump refused to attend this year, one of the most prestigious events in washington, d. C. And he has covered how many again . Six president s in the white house as a part of the White House Press corps. Hes worked at u. S. News for how many years . Thirtythree years and a Senior Writer he has had almost every title position you can think of. He is a remarkable journalist. They are almost extinct i will put it to you that way. He may have around four or five journalists i know of that i dont know where he stands politically. All the others i can tell you if they are left or right. Tim is absolutely objective and persons the story whatever it may be. So, i guess we can call him up as a traditional journalist were oldfashioned journalist. But its a profession that is disappearing quickly and had a brief time that a florist. Im going to turn over to him. Hes the author of many books. One that i loved is the history of all the places where the president lived. You can find them here in this bookstore and another one is a celebrity president he writes about how president s have become celebrities and that is part of their power to yo and he has a w book out. Guest i am a traditional journalist and i hope by the end of the discussion ive succeeded at that after 30 years in the white house i dont think i could have covered president s ranging from Ronald Reagan to clinton and barack obama and now donald trump unless i can talk about things right down the middle. The other thing i want to mention as we have known each other for 25, 27 years now and so i hop hope that we n conduct our talk like we talked over lunch that we are going to be sort of informal and we welcome you to ask questions afterwards and we find we do this with many sources, the best information comes in the informal give and take. Was that, we are at a very interesting time for the book to come out. I have a book coming out called ultimate insiders about white house photographers, the personal photographers who are the ultimate flies on the wall and they hear things no one else hears and see things no one else sees, so that is my next book coming out in september. Its an interesting time for this discussion and for the book because the town is the biggest parlor game in washington now. What is donald trump home about. What is he going to do next . With going to happen, what does the Republican Party mean anymore and i hope you can explain that as we go on, where the democrats go and really it is donald trump has sort of dominated the day today because in every News Organization we basically have to have somebody cover donald trump from 11 p. M. To 4 a. M. So there is another layer of coverage that has been added but i want to start by asking the basic question you talk about in the book at great length. What did donald trump do right and what did Hillary Clinton do wrong just at the top of your mind how this election turned out. So many people were wrong, so many people in my profession were wrong, people in both parties. What happened . Guest she outspent him in soft money and he did have a super hack that got started, ed rollins and jeffrey got something that raised 32 million. She, hers raised more money than any other in american history. And they spent it all. She had a ground game with 960,000 volunteers on the ground and it exceeded barack obama. Ground game. She had the ceo of google in charge of social media, she had academia, wall street, she had the bang this. She had 240 newspaper endorsements and he had 19. But there was a message and the message was burned like a brand. Everyone in america knew what the message was. Everyone in america didnt know if you asked right now what is hillarys message, they knew his message, make America Great again and we are going to get jobs back. What i would say to them at trump tower, what was the one about and they would say we are on the message because part of the message is hes not a politician, and i think that the American People are tired of politicians. They had the last two president s of the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and some argue it helps Free Enterprise was dead that you had to be an insider. They saw it as corruption both on the left and on the right and here was somebody ironically a billionaire but a troublemaker, and they wanted to see everything ive said so in a funny way, as off message there was a reassurance to them host you talk about the hillary advantage and clinton advantage. There wasnt an advantage in the end, was their . Guest though, she had the advantage of experience and all these things going for her but there was some hubris. I was out covering the rally is for both sides and i remember people in washington saying they are intense and there are giant crowds far outnumbering the rallies and numbers and intensity but it really doesnt tell you how it is going to come out. He said the rallies do matter and it turned out that he did and i wonder if you saw that coming and felt the intensity around the country. A lot of people also said they went to these places in the rust belt states like pennsylvania and ohio and wisconsin they saw the trump signs and in washington was dismissed people just pujust put the signs out bt doesnt indicate whats going to happen on election day. I wonder when you saw it coming that he was going to win, your self. Guest the next book party was telling me there are signs all over pennsylvania. I said i dont see them. The thing i kept thinking of was i remember George Mcgovern had intense rallies and i cant forget George Mcgovern. I see the enthusiasm of these crowds. You cant tell me that this doesnt quite do something so i kept hearing that in my mind when i would say and say these rallies i kept thinking George Mcgovern who was misled by the rallies. But i have to admit that it took me off guard. I am portrayed on youtube as one of the few that might win. I could see its been a specialty of mine that evangelical vote and i have to say my wife, i want to thank her because she was running everything while i was working on this book, and my daughter is around here somewhere taking pictures, they were helping me do the research on the book that one of the things we had was that evangelical wrote. Barack obama sought out and called towards the end and said you are losing the evangelical vote and you dont have to. After the election was over one of his assistants wrote an oped in the Washington Post that said why did hillary wins the evangelical vote and part of the headline was she didnt ask for it. Turned out that didnt matter because 81 of them voted for donald trump, and i can tell you from our experience, they were very conflicted right up until the end he wasnt someone they wanted to support. On november 4 when a lot of celebrities got together, they started using the f. Word and all sorts of profanity. I thought wait a second, what a bunch of celebrities get together and used the name mohammed as a curse word in a Campaign Song lacks what kind of a reaction would you get . 1 are muslim, 70 are christi christian. Guesthat going to work . Host it does matter in those flyover states. Guest trump didnt have the role model qualities. He didnt live his life as evangelicals and conservative christians or practicing catholics feel someone should live as far as the studio 54 lifestyle and how he talked about women and so on. How did people get past that . He knew some of the buzzwords and there is a moment in the book where he sat trump tower ir and depressed and despond and and mrs. Dispersed. Very positive guy he would go down and listen to him, hes watching tv and sees a sexy blonde evangelist come on talking about hope so he calls hecalledher up and says you are terrific. Can i get you up here and he flies her to new york city and she walks him through the neighborhood so to speak because when you study his life, he would always move into a neighborhood and france, he wouldnt buy. He would rent and then hits the pavement, Walker County and listen to people and talk to people, wanting to buy a thing sometimes for several years and then when he thought he knew the area, well, this evangelist walked him around the neighborhood and he knew the different subcultures when you talk about 26 of the American Population and compare that to the 12. 9 , there are a lot of groups. He understood those and when he gave the speeches, he would say things that would belittle him that they would pick up on at the Washington Post and New York Times and at one point, he said to paula jones you should know ive been married three times and she says me too. So she wasnt a judgment call to him. They were kind of soul mates, so that is a story that has hardly been told and then a catholic story was theres a story where bill clinton takes his cell phone and throws it off the roof of his president ial pad in little rock arkansas because he is so mad at hillarys and the staff. He wanted her to go to notre dame to give a speech and then when the emails came out, blame it on russia but when they came out, what was in it, it was damaging and bill clintons answer was unique to get out in front of that and speak up and basically the idea was once we get into power, we are going to set up in these committees and coopt the Catholic Church and influence their doctrine to make it a catholic spring. Host more of a liberal or socially acceptable host one thing for you to separate church and state for talking about social policy but if you take over our church, while bill clinton wanted her to get out in front of that and say we are not going to do that, this is wrong just like a republican would denounce a donation from the wrong person, but her fear was there is no reason to call attention to this. A lot of people dont even know about it. The news media isnt covering it so lets keep it under wraps and he said you cant do that, its out there going from bishop to bishop. You have to get out front and say absolutely not, we had nothing to do with this. Host say 22 of the population are catholic and this is part of the email, so massive amounts of emails from the Clinton Campaign and john podesta and jennifer was part of that as a Communications Director both of whom are catholic as i remember which is why they had the expertise to feel they could influence. So, how much was that, how much difference did that make . Guest if you think back and remember george h. W. Bush won with a tremendous landslide and he split the catholic vote 50 50 and yet he won a landslide because the percentage of evangelicals, so trump took the catholic vote substantially over Hillary Clinton. She could have gotten a portion of that as he said afterwards that she asked and then bill clinton told if she had gone after them, she could have had some of those, so i think those emails did have a big impact and i think they came to that conclusion leaves and the first reaction was this is all jim cobeys fault, public statements, its all his fault and then later you wont hear them talking about him anymore, then it became the russians fault and in fairness, they gave money to Hillary Clinton, not to trump, but to the foundation and they got the Silicon Valley deal and the iranian deal. It was actually theoretically an exchange. There was no exchange with tru the first thing he does is increase military spending. What kind of a deal is that . Guest another thing i wanted you to talk about is the White Working Class because i know in the book you talk about how you picked this up and i was picking it up from the reporters standpoint on how Hillary Clinton was just completely missing the problem she was having in this rust belt states. They were confident they were going to win pennsylvania. Then the litany was always the republicans talked of winning pennsylvania that they almost never do. Guest they will never do that. We didnt expect it this time. Host i know into the you mentioned this i come from a workingclass background myself and you said people have been overlooked, despised, stomped on, taken for granted, this is their moment to speak. They have been shamed into telling the pollsters what they wanted to hear it in the privacy of the polling booths, they struck a blow. He isnt a workingclass guy and he is a business aristocrat. How did he send this and Michael Moore was right on the money he said i know what youre going to do and he laughed like they caught them in the act because they knew they were going to vote for donald trump. I think they presented being pushed into the conversation the media overplayed it and they just reacted. Dont tell me what to do. It might have worked but it might have been overdone and the media came off as a little desperate. They didnt like being called racists. They voted twice the same group all through those rust belt states. They took great pride in the fact that the union voters, twice they voted for barack obama and they were proud of themselves. They love to see that stigma of racism ended and they took pleasure in voting for barack obama and now they were being called racist because they didnt vote for another democrat who wasnt africanamerican . They thought im not going to be pushed into that. Host tk about the mont Hillary Clinton used that word to describe a lot of the supporters and it was taken as offensive by a lot of people. Guest i guess it shows the humor that it was overplayed as the people said you know, we are quick to think of the worst thing about ourselves until somebody says something about us and its critical we very often will say that is true and we will assume, but here the voters were defying it like deplorable, give me a break. They thought that was a little overreaching and kind of pushed back and took pride and wore it on their lapel. Host i wanted to get to more of what you make of what is going on contemporaneously with donald trump but before i do that, what did you learn about the country from the campaign . What did you learn about where the country is politically and what it wants from its government and how much change do people really want and what did you learn about donald trump . I would love to hear your answer to that question. [laughter] the senato senator and i talkedt that a lot. She worked for the Publishing Company who were terrific by the way and turn this around on a dime. They were very impressive to me about why it did it go bu didni took away is the american elected were on two things i couldnt believe they were onto and in some cases it was almost instinctive. They didnt know how the import and export think worked, didnt know how the Federal Reserve worked, didnt go into details e details of the stimulus plan which allowed the pushed by liberals and was obama. Plan that l of Major Companies to virtually ignore environmental regulation so they have it both ways they could say we are strong on the environment and they could with major monopolies disregard the law but keep them for small businesses. So, there was a modified dont know how else to put it but corruption and thats why towards the end they pushed trump into this drain the swamp because the average voter they couldnt explain what the details were that they had the sense that we were getting screwed and they had it on the left, Bernie Sanders people, the right with the ron paul people who would come out of the woodwork in 2012, and the lack of response when ronnie came forward i think was a bit of a shock. He thought this was going to be easy. So, i came away impressed with the fact that the average person out there has a good sense of smell and they sense something is wrong and that is why they are picking trump. Guest host i think that we tend to see things from the political prism if you look at the polling, our institutions are in big trouble with people as far as credibility goes and organized religion. The church has people, congress cut the news media, the presidency, the presidency has gone from 73 favorable rating in peoples minds in 1973 to about 20 today were 30 . Congress is like 9 . The only institutions that are above water and have a favorable rating on the military and the police. Just about Everything Else is aa tremendous credibity problem or crisis and so i think like you said, people sense something is going wrong here and for many years, that famous question of is the country headed in the right direction are on the wrong track has been in the negative that people feel they are headed in the wrong direction and i think people just got to the point where they said donald trump is a flawed candidate and messenger but hes going to shake things up, and i think toomey is one lesson i drew from the whole campaign. But. Host i want to ask about where we are today. Donald trump talked about doing things that republicans have traditionally liked such as increasing the military budget, as yoas you said, increasing the Homeland Security budget that just came out now, but at the same time, he is opposed to free trade that republicans have liked for many years. He doesnt want to tamper with Social Security and medicare, which a lot of republicans want to find ways to overhaul, so what does the Republican Party stand for anymore and what does this mean . Guest i think we are in a transition right now, and it hasnt settled or been determined, but i think that we have been cut loose right now and it seems like the old left and right no longer apply. But there is a sense that by some the United States its like calling go and brazil, everything is up. In my opinion part of the economic boom on wall street is what i describe as envy, and by that i mean yes i get a loan and directly from my bank or from the Federal Reserve but i would do better in the free market and i dont get as big of a loan as you do and so theres the sense that yes there is corruption but i dont know that i am getting the best deal in this. I might be beating the small businessman but i dont know that im beating this big company over here and almost the desire to end it and for me and everybody lets get back to make the best product and who comes in on time to serve the marketplace. I think there was excitement that maybe he could find a way back to that so that isnt left or right it is a recapturing of the enterprise. How much can his Business Savvy translate into governing. We havent had a good experience with business president s in the past. Herbert hoover, he was a business example. He had some government example two. Can trump convert his business proud us into effective governing strategy . I would give him some credit for some of the jobs out of come back. Someone say that is just talk. That is part of the process of being the leader, the talk. To say it and to try to get companies to please him by bringing jobs back. What i like is the whole china thing. I think it was wise enough to see that we have had the largest transfer of wealth in World History outside of the middle east. That is the wealth that has left the United States and gone to china. In 2015, the trade deficit was 367 billion. That does not begin to account year, after year, after year, the money that we borrowed from china to do the things that we want to do. It is paid off with the manipulated currency. You pay off the debts with cheap dollars and trump is the first guy to talk about it. The last three presidency, clinton, bush, and obama, the last three presidencies have greased the skids for china. There is no way under normal circumstances that china would have been allowed the wto without the clintons paving the way. That is at the time china was giving huge amounts of money to the dnc, to clintons, there is a scandal. The fbi started to arrest people and they fled to china and they had to give it back and refund the money. Most people kind of forgot and ignored that. I show one of the men who wired 1 million into a Restaurant Owners in little rock, arkansas and he showed up on the streets of manhattan, the fbi arrested him. We do not know the outcome of that. Theys found suitcases of cash in his room. There is one scene in the book where donald trump is with melania, she is saying to him, why do you have to do this . We have worked so hard that we finally have this great life and we have reached at this moment where everything is perfect. Why do you want to do this . And he senses that it is being taken away from him by melania. He says in the past tense, but i could have been so good. I could have done such a good job. Its like he cant be president. It was china, hes thinking i know what to do, i know what is going on and i know how to fix this. I could fix it. I have no strings attached, im willing to take this on, nobody elses. Then at that point melania says, well, if you want to do this then you have to do this. But, she warns him you will win. She wanted to make sure that he understood you not just going to increase your market share, you need to be prepared for the fact that youre going to win. There is always this chatter in the hypocrisy more or less that he didnt want to win. He just wanted to increase his random become more famous. Even take his marbles and go home and give up the nomination or something. But you found at the end of the campaign, he was working a lot harder than Hillary Clinton. He had a lot more events, and he really wanted this. He did. There is a part in the book, that he is prepared if he loses. There is talk of the greenroom, will start our own Television Network, we will write a book called the breakdown will have a website and landing page. Well have sean hannity come over and be on our Television Network and sean hannity said no , you never agree to that. But he was prepared for that. But Reince Priebus and others, to use this as the title, that you have to land the plane. They say that a pilot if you are in trouble it, if you run out of fuel both engines are blown. You are going to die and you are up there. A pilot is taught that you do not stop flying the plane. You fly it all the way down to the ground, maybe you will die, but youre definitely going to die if you panic. You keep find that playing, you look for fields or highways or somewhere to land it. You watch for telephone poles and trees and high wires, you dont stop until you are on the ground are dead. Like the fellow who landed in the hudson river. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] they outworked hillary and it came at the end. I said that on one interview on tv, i said that i would rather in the Campaign Like this with the wind at my back. What you make also of the willingness to take out after his opponents, the policy of someone criticizes him he has to respond to that, and so on. And particularly this accusation that president obama try it spied on him on trump tower. What you make of that . I dont like it. I would not advise it if i was working in the white house were on his team. As i have said, it is kind of a quaint reassurance to people who like the fact that he has these rough edges and is unpredictable and not a politician. They just a politicians. Having said that, have to tell you something. Donald trump is not the first president to suspect that his predecessors spied on him. When the clintons came into power, Hillary Clinton you can read about it, she was convinced that dear old sweet George Herbert walker bush was spying on him. She had the secret service sweep the private apartments of the white house and wasnt satisfied , had the fbi come in looking for bugs to see who is listening in. Eventually, the clintons organize what they called the White House Security personnel office. They put two of their own Campaign Staffers to run that to access all of the old files, the political enemies in my file. They had all of George Herbert walker bushs files, those are the ones that Jaeger Hoover used to use for blackmail purposes. The clintons have access to those and it became a scandal called file ga trp is not the fir president to think that. Mean you n forgive him for doing that. Ths case of one president calling his predecessor, without evidence, publicly. I dont think the clintons made the public. Your rights. They were very obsessed with the idea that the white house household staff and the secret service were not loyal to them. Then you remember all of that. And there is truth to that. They were right. But the trump defenders would say he is airing it out. It is good to air it out. It may be that it is good to talk about it. After the news media said this guys nutty, saying his predecessor was wiretapping, only a few days later the big story is, the cia can look at you through your samsung television. So which story is true . Maybe the thing to talk about. On a big world the same way like on this particular topic. Theres an expectation of the president might have a more elevated respect for evidence and public disclosure. But, the other thing in looking at trump today, how much can he unify the country . He seems to be focused on this idea of this state that is buried in the governments to work against him, the bureaucracy is against him. Obama holdovers are against him. Do you take that very seriously . And can he bring the country together . I think he can. We saw an example with that speech. If that would have kept going and he kept doing that i think he could have. I think he will . I dont know. I do believe, i know everybody has said this all to the nomination process, went with the general election that there is a point where his missteps could reach Critical Mass and he could lose his pace. It sort of happened with richard nixon. I remember with richard nixon, people would say, well, there is one more thing and then there was one more thing. There is a wl im stl wi them but if theres one more thing and they kept doing that. Finally they reached the point where they said okay, thats it. But there is a lot of one more things with trump. There is and there was with nixon. It might eventually reach Critical Mass. Do think it would be a snap judgment type of thing your change of policies or broken promise . Do we really have much of a sense of how that would work . I dont have a sense of it because everything is so scrambled because the sense of the people, and i think rightly so, there is a lot of corruption because of that, i dont know that they are willing to trust somebody else, and i think they do vent like the stories on tv about how much money it cost to protect the trump children. Whether they want . To they want the trump children to be murdered . I have traveled with the children of president s around the world and they have to have secret service protection. So they say look at all of these money theres many to protect the trump children . Well do they want melia and sasha and chelsea to be protected . Do they want them kidnapped or murdered, of course not. Do they want them held captive at Camp Davidson is spending money. I think people resent that. Then there is a story, you threat me and i would like to know because i keep seeing online that theres a story that trump was giving back his salary are trying to find a way to get back his salary. If that is true, then for a news agency to run a story say look at all of this money is wasted he just flew down to maralago and not to add, by the way hes not taken a salary. I think that omission is irritating for people in the audience. Theres a lot of reports to try to get the white house to say where that stands if he tried to give the salary back. So we dont know. And then during the Campaign Trump made a big thing about obama playing golf all of the time and traveling around the country vacations and he is doing it more than obama did. On a pro rata basis. By the way, we tell a story or would that get you in trouble , the story about george w. Bush was elected as a new president , he flies from texas back to washington, and the only people on the plane is empty is karl rove in you. I dont know who else, if anybody area then you sit down with the new president elect and he has to about theres a number of ways that story could go. I know there is one story, maybe this is one youre thinking about. Theres a lot of stories about the ranch, the one that is relevant here is how blunt he was in many ways because i remember when i was first getting to know him before he ran for president he was governor of texas. I had known him when he was his fathers troubleshooter as you remember. I went down to austin and was in the office with him. Karen hughes who was the spokeswoman and left the room and it was me and him. He was showing me a baseball collection. He never said thank you. We were sitting there by ourselves and he sai knod, you i hope that now that i was elected president that you and your colleagues in the media give me a fresh start. I know its different. I used to be was called the fierce warrior for my father. Now im president and i know they are different roles. That might be a little bit of residence which will. So i took a risk and i said just you and me, mr. President , in those days youre pretty much of an hole. And he said youre right, i was. And he is very saying give me a chance ill show you i can do things better for people to give him a chance after 9 11. A person who is a much different guy than he came across in public. He was more engaging and interesting. He also went to his ranch a lot. He said its my ranch and i remember traveling around there with him and was driving the pickup truck and i remember these flames he was burning cedar which he thought was in it in basis invasive. And he said he was burning cedar next thought isnt that against the regulations and he said its my property and i will do whatever i want on it. The story i wanted you to tell. Maybe im spacing this out. It is something to the fact that when he got on the plane he has to how many days did reagan spend on the ranch . I dont remember where that story goes. I remember how many days it went 60 days and he was relieved because he already couldnt wait to get out of washington. Thats right, he couldnt. He exceeded that and he was at his ranch 400 days. Reagan was at his ranch a year out of his eight your presidency so people are already measuring trump going to maralago too much. I have a george w. Bush story that relates to issues today. That is, when donald trump said that he thought his predecessor, obama was wiretapping him, obama s statement was the president never directed that donald trump he wiretapped area as soon as i heard that i thought oh, president s dont direct. That is a thousand years old. Thats henry the second, will no one read me from this meddlesome police because henry the second in the legend of the story was astonished that his entourage could have figured out that he wanted that man murdered. Finally he said will no one rid me of this and they race off and butcher thomas beckett. I remember being on their plane was george w. Bush and i said to him it i was going to do this and this. It wasnt illegal. He grunted and moaned. I took that to mean okay, that is what he wants me to do. It turned out afterwards he was happy but i thought back on it many times. He never said yes, thats it, thats what i want you to do. So heads of networks, heads of bookstores, heads of magazines, mafia leaders on the street, president s of the United States, they dont direct to come i want you to bug Donald Trumps artment. But you quickly figure o wha they want. A lot of times there silent and they tell you what they want. Theres also this notion of a possible reliability where you dont want the president to know certain things so the president wants to have a way of denying that he ever knew about it. You dont open your mouth in front of him. An example was a good one. There is also this whole fisa, the foreign intelligent court system which operates independent of the president s orders. So that could happen to. I suspect will be hearing more about that as time goes on. Do you see signs that trump is thinking that he has to temper himself . Or do you think he just doesnt think that is necessary at all . I am seeing him quiet now. Its been on the network news its five days he hasnt answered this. When i see that i think Hillary Clinton who took 300 days before she had her second press conference. But five and counting that he has it responding. Theyre trying to build suspense thats great. If he has gone five days or seven days, good for him. Having been in the white house yourself, do you think this idea of the disarray that is been reported in talked about is over done . Do you think there is some disarray, or is a pretty normal . Its normal. I remember with us with George Herbert walker bush i remember john was supposed to be the. [inaudible] the u. S. Senate was outraged and they said he can be secretary of defense, hes an alcoholic. Well for the u. S. Senate to criticize someone for being an alcoholic is just a tad bit hypocritical. And he didn make it. As you say were going to sign that we need to move a long hair does anybody have questions and also for Live Streaming had a question if anybody have a question or, you wish to make. Which is president would you like in donald trump to the most and what are the similarities and differences . The one i compare him the most who is Andrew Jackson. The first six american president were episcopalians and here came Andrew Jackson was presbyterian like donald trump. Theyre all six president s were east coast, he was west. All six president s were part of the political aristocracy, for were secretary of state, two came from the same family, john adams and john quincy adams. Theyll favored the National Bank which Andrew Jackson said is just making the rich richer and the poor poorer. They wanted a second National Bank and he said absolutely not. He was profane, he was crude, he had bullets in his body from duels and from battles he had bought as a general. When he came back after he won the election they made the white house turned into a wreck like a junkin party. He had to sneak out and go to a hotel the first night of the white house. And then he took revenge after he won. He appointed all of the positions to his buddies and to Business People instead of the political elite who wanted those positions. The spoils system it became known as. It became a scandal to come eventually. That was Andrew Jackson. So im comparing to him or maybe Teddy Roosevelt only to the extent he seems to be willing to bust up some of the corporations he feels has an unfair monopoly. I was going to say Andrew Jackson as well. One, the temperament comparison, the anger, on behalf of he didnt use this phrase but he thought there forgot americans then that trump feels are around now. He was representing them and a lot of americans felt that to their core. That they were not being represented. During the campaign one of the reasons he was such a tough guy when he was president was because his wife, rachel, mary and was not divorced from her first husband because he was abusive and did not realize that divorced and not go through. Opponents of the campaign made out to be an adulterous. She did not realize it was going on. She kept her protected from this she found out about it and she died before he took office as a nervous breakdown. He blames his adversaries for killing his wife. Thats a harsh way to start your presidency. When he took over he was so angry he was very aggressive against his adversaries. The other interesting comparison is that he set up his own projects and media. That is what trump is doing with going to the altright media and breitbart and these other organizations. Jackson was the forerunner of the and he would actually have his favorite newspaper editor to the white house and he would dictate stories to them. Im sure trump would like to do that himself which he actually does on twitter, anyway. Technology has changed but there are a lot of comparisons there. You mentioning your book about the hightech technology that hillary had. Basically the republicans had none of that. What is that say for the technology, what does that say for if the republicans to get organized with technology what could happen . Thomas sullivan who has all of the attorneys in the world. When Reince Priebus was ahead of the Republican National committee he said and sean spicer as press secretary was the chief strategist said they were going to have technology that was comparable to the democrats. They had caught them. Now, it turned out they had not. It turned out also that the Technology Look at what he the last election trump had other ways of dealing with the country he did not use the micro targeting and so on which the democrats relied on. He did very well, its just that they miss the boat in the seven key states where micro targeting didnt get to the voters. In the roosevelts one ing we may have learned is that will week could maybe overdo the Political Technology as the beall and endall. We have to reevaluate that, in addition to poland we have to evaluate how much credence you put in the polls. The pollsters did pretty much get the National Vote right, hillary did win 3 million more votes than he did, largely because of california and new york. She did come close to what the pollsters said the national margin would be. Electorally, thats where the pollsters were wrong. In those seven key states. If you do euros search, go home and put into google, and start searching some of the issues, you will see how google slanted dramatically. Good into a Search Engine like yahoo or bing, or Internet Explorer. Any other Search Engine and compare them. You will see the power of taking control of the Search Engine. The clintons were able to take control of the google Search Engine so you could type in for example if you type in, Hillary Clinton cr i, if you do it in bing or Internet Explorer it will automatically finish Hillary Clinton crime, Hillary Clinton crime family. If you do it on google itll say Hillary Clinton cries or Hillary Clinton criminal Justice Reform speech. That will be the second choice. If you go to the google searches and you print out what is searching on google you will not find her the anybody searching Hillary Clinton reform criminal speech. A very tiny percentage, but its up there is a second search. So in the area of wikipedia she did a great job and they really dominated wikipedia. In the area of google searches with the help of the former ceo of google, they did a tremendous job. So republicans have a lot of work to do still technologically during the research for the book i know you met with a lot of your resources and did you come across stories that you wanted to put in the book but you just couldnt fit in . Now its your turn to get into trouble. Im curious if you had stories that you wanted in their the editor can speak better than me but that others were very thorough. The attorneys, we spent almost a week and going over, where did you get this, and theres attorneys who there occasionally were not good enough. Most of them most of them when hillary that she lost the election, i did not want to put that in when it first came out. Seem like voyeurism. I was not sure was true. In the second source said no shattering glasses screams profanity, anger, tears. There was all of this going on. The second source wasnt good enough but after three sources i said this is a part of history and someone else is going to write it. I take control of what happens and what didnt happen. So i wrote it and then when the governor of pennsylvania appears on national tv and said i just left the peninsula hotel, i went back and saw that in some of the youtube shes very angry and i thought well there were some stories. I was troubled by the source who work for her for almost 20 years who said that this is troubling to me, that her secret service agent, the woman assigned to protect her life referred to her as firstcome as barbara bush would say it reminds with which. That when i heard that i said to the person, youre kidding me. And i thought what did you think when you heard that and i thought it was very disrespectful. I was astounded that this person is going to die and take a bullet for her and he said after i worked there for a while i realize she has a very material personality and there were people who could not reacthat way. There were some stories i think it in but not too many. Theres a story of johnny who we dont know where he is. He made this videotape that if anything happens to them or disappears he mazes videotape and he made it for his lawyer and for about 14 people in the lives in the peoples republic of china and he disappeared. Theres only hundred 40 witnesses in china gate, he was the only one that testified before congress and told what he had done and that the money didnt he come from the peoples republic of china. After the book was published i got a phone call from a whistleblower who said ive read some of the stories about your book, i have ordered your book, and i have a story that cannot be told. He told me his story and i hooked him up with the fbi. I said they may not be interested in this, it may be old history, but they may have some loose ends that they want to finish up. So theyre looking into it. This involved the transfer of Welding Equipment that allows the missiles to work. The chinese developed missiles and they were not working, they were blowing up on the launch pads. There are missing a key part. That transfer was made during the clinton administration. At the bequest of the officials at the state department who said that the United States government would appreciate it if you would fill this order for this company from china. So thats a potential news story like the kennedys and fdr, we are just now learning some of the things that went on. There are things were still going to learn from years to come about some of these president s. So the short answer is yes, but not much. I put everything i could put in the book i did. Anybody online . We have one question. Do you believe with how brazen he is that trump has the potential to push back on the political culture which is making it increasingly difficult for conservatives to stand up for their conservative convictions . I think he has. I dont know what your answer would be. I think is very politically incorrect. I think he has push back a lot. The other part of it is, a lot of conservatives are emboldened to speak more freely and they have their own fragmented media culture. There is many more outlets for conservatives to be heard now that there have been in my lifetime. Same for liberals, really. We are broken into compartments. We talk to each other and our own little political worlds and nt talk to people beyond that i think that is a big problem for the country. I think conservatives are very much emboldened to speak their minds, as our liberals. Its just that theyre talking over everybody else. Anger is really disappointing to see that. When you live in other countries and you travel and other countries and you look back on america, theyre so close. When you get here they seem so far apart. Theyre so angry, it reminds me of some of the worst acrimony can happen in families, among cousins or siblings. The closer they are the more intense they can be. Thats how i see it happening. I wish marco was here tonight because he helped with the book game of thrones he did a study on the media. He tracked every moderator of every president ial debate. There were 126 of them. Because of the internet there was no mystery now, he could clearly identify liberal or conservative, 121 of them. Starting with Howard K Smith they would Say Something to speech and you could find it online and identify themselves very clearly. They were overwhelmingly, like 121 out of 125 words liberal democrats. Another thing about these debates and im interested in your view, if you look at the key debate they kennedy, next and debate in 1960 where people who wash it that kennedy want to people who were heard on the radio thought nixon one. If you look at the role of the moderator, he was sitting in the back, they had a panel of reporters not even facing the camera. The candidates were at the center of this. When i introduce the reporters they had to crane there next to turn around and say, im sandra van ocher, its very awkward. Now the moderators are as equal to the candidates. They probably have as much time as the candidates do. I think thats troubling. The Political Parties one but the celebrity culture of the moderators think that they are as important as the candidates are. The first debates like lincoln and douglas there were no moderators. There is a clock. They spoke for an hour or hour and a half. Now it is so much different. I think there will be some changes next time around. I think the country also gets to the point where they feel its probably too many of these debates. It was quite a show. Absolutely. Part of this is the celebrity culture it is just part of what we are as a nation with a game of thrones i did a lot with the debates in the poise of megan kelly, to know that story . She gets in the limo and the limo driver offers megan kelly some coffee and please youll feel better and they go a little bit further and they say this will relax you and she takes a coffee and she immediately gets violently sick. She gets into the bathroom and she starts throwing up. Associate covers up with a blt, that was the debate where she says donald trump, you call wom that pigs and that was the question that came out. She had a blanket underneath the desk to cover her up. She felt like she caught the flu or what she poisoned . Very interesting and having worked in political campaigns anything is possible. When you worked with president bush running against dukakis, roger ailes had a fox he realized bush was nervous so just before the debate started he made them moment of walking out on the stage just as the red light was going to go on and dukakis is looking and he hands push a piece of paper and push looks at and smiles. Of the word on the paper was kill. It just relaxed bush. But dukakis was thinking is this some kind of secret ambush going on here . Sometimes the advisors need to use the techniques to get the best out. One of the thing is the collision between the clinton bushes early on. They both had the same donors. If you look through the list of donors they were identical. Early on the clintons set the sign to the bushes dont worry about donald trump, your boys going to be okay, meaning jeb bush because theres a Silver Bullet out there and it will take donald trump out of the campaign. I dont determine in the book if the Silver Bullet was the British Secret service file or the access hollywood file because theres another part and there were nbc is troubled over how to release that access hollywood file and when. But because billy bush was involved most people assume it was that. The Jeb Bush Campaign is relieved and they begin looking for the Silver Bullet. This will be something easy to find because the clintons are telling us about it. I was a part of a president ial campaign with george w. Bush. His Opposition Research was something to behold. You push the buttons and in that office on 14th street, there were dozens and dozens of people in little cubbyholes and it was preinternet. The stacks of National Geographic in life magazines and camcorders following every candidate everywhere, its hard to imagine how much money was spent on Opposition Research. Jeb bushs Opposition Research and the intelligent officers cannot find it. So finally they get closer to the nomination jeb bushs people , one person in particular approaches the clinton people and says now what was that you were trying to tell us . Can you help us. They needed a hint. By that time the Clinton Campaign is saying no way. If you cannot find it, you are on your own. They thought this guy is going to win the nomination. Were going to face him in the general and we will save that Silver Bullet for them. As you well know, the other bush family, they believe in a certain nobility in public life, but they need a top person around them, the master of negativity. Lee at walter pioneered these negative campaign techniques. Hes a fabulous story on how he reinvented the politics of anyways by focusing on the negative. He was the guy behind that, they could find somehow whatever they needed how to do that sort of thing. Then the the son of course had roger ailes who was no pushover either. And then george w. Bush had karl rove. He was another tough. And the father had jennifer and dick darman. But of course before they went in i cant remember his name now, but youre right he always had someone tough there who could be the stalking horse said he could be the diplomat. Now is so negative. And now trump with lee atwater. Thats good point. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you for joining us tonight. It has been a pleasure to host your talk. Please feel free to remain for a little bit, get a book and have assigned and mingle with the authors. Thanks for visiting the east city bookshop. [applause] you can see why we like to have lunch and talk. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] book tv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. Tweet us on twitter. Com book tv or post a comment on her facebook page. Facebook. Com book tv. [inaudible]