in their book "heart" former vice president dick cheney and his longtime cardiologist jonathan reiner talk about his long history with heart disease and advances in cardiology in the past decades. he had a heart transplant in 2012. the two discuss their book for about an hour next on book tv. >> tonight's program will consist of an interview conducted by margaret cochran president of the national press club journalist institute and the hurley chair in public affairs journalism at the missouri school of journalism. with mr. cheney and dr. reiner followed by a brief q&a. we invite you to purchase a book if you haven't already done so. each of the books have been pre-signed, have the pre-signed plate so you get a signed copy. there won't be a book signing tonight. as long as he has served at the highest levels of business and government vice president cheney cheney -- dick cheney has been one of the world's most prominent for the first time ever cheney together with his longtime cardiologist jonathan reiner m.d. chairs -- shares a personal story of this 35 year battle with heart disease from his first heart attack in 1978 and a heart transplant he received in 2012. part of the book has been described as riveting, singular memoir with doctor impatient. like no u.s. politician has before him cheney opens up about his health troubles sharing never before told stories about the challenges he faced during the perilous time in our nations history. dr. reiner provides his perspective on cheney's case and also gives readers a glimpse into his own education is a doctor in the history of our understanding of the human heart. the book "heart" stances on optimistic book that will give you hope and millions of americans affected by hard disease. ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming mr. cheney and dr. reiner. [applause] >> welcome gentlemen and as joe said you have written a fascinating book. the method you chose is a little unusual. you each right part of every air mr. vice president you describe your personal experience and a are reiner you give your perspective as dr. cheney's cardiologist and also the history of change innovation and part of that care. this is the formula that works so well in the book i thought we would use it for this evening. mr. vice president your heart health history is amazing and i'm sure everyone is so pleased to see you here and looking so well tonight and after they learned everything that you had been through felt even more amazed. you have had five heart attacks, numerous catheterizations quadruple bypass surgery, implantation of stems and a defibrillator and a heart pump and then 20 months ago you received a heart transplant. through it all you held some of the most high-powered jobs and dealt with some of the most stressful situations imaginable. so going back to your first heart attack which happened to you at the age of 37 during your first campaign for congress, what are the lessons you have learned from your experience that you would like to share with others? >> well, it's sort of what the book is about in the sense of what we try to do is to use my case to talk about those developments most of which had occurred when i had a heart attack. so it's a hope -- a message of hope and optimism and the phenomenal innovative capabilities of american medicine. the treatment i had in 1978 when i had my first heart attack wasn't much different than what dwight eisenhower had gotten 20 years before when he had a major heart attack. i guess to mention lessons a couple of things come to mind from a personal stamp point. one is when i had the first heart attack in the first campaign i asked my doctor a man named rick davis and in turn asked, i said does this mean i have to give up the campaign in his response was a little hard work won't kill anybody. that is not exactly conventional wisdom and i say that next to john here but he also said that stress comes from spending your life doing something you don't want to do and he said if you feel up to it and something you want to do, do it. i sort of lived by that and i think that was an important lesson. i also very early on realized that you never hesitate great if you think you might be having a heart attack if you don't get your fanny to that emergency room -- and unfortunately a lot of people put it off and say well maybe tomorrow or maybe it's indigestion or i will check it next week. when i had the first heart attack the only sensation i had was numbness in these two fingers and the only reason i checked into the hospital that night was my first cousin had had it that heart attack a few weeks before. the lesson i took away from that one second of the hospital and sat down on the examining table and passed out. if when in doubt check it out. if you don't you are a fool. that's his lenses i can be about it but that saved my life on more than one occasion. and i had a series of small attacks over period of years. i never had what i would call a major attack. the problem of course were cumulative and the damage was significant. finally the lesson that the book is about, but he wonders of modern american medicine in spite of all the debate we are having over obama carried everything else and it's not a political look. the fact of the matter is we have the best health care system in the world. it may not be perfect and there are things people can find that they would like to fix but do not underestimate the enormous talent and creativity encourages john says and persistence of those people who have given us the kind of system to save my life and allowed me to go forward to have a full and complete career by anybody's standards even though i was for 35 years a hard patient. >> thank you and that leads perfectly to the question i want to ask dr. reiner which is the right in the book that for many years the new developments in cardiac care seems to arrive just in the ninth of time to help mr. cheney. can you talk a little bit about what some of those advances were? >> i told the vice president at the beginning of this project that it's like you are driving down the road early in the morning, maybe early on a sunday morning and there's very little traffic on the road. the lights ahead if you stretch out red but just as you reach the lights each light turns green. it struck me that was really a perfect metaphor for the vice president's medical history. seemingly every time he had a medical event that might turn his light read and stop his career or stop his life medicine had an answer for it and when you look at the vice presidents life, the vice president did and just survived these events. seemingly every time he had an event he took on the job of responsibility. he had his first heart attack in 1978 and became a member of congress and had another heart attack in eight -- 1984 and ascended leadership in the republican party. he had another art attack and bypass surgery in the late 80s and became secretary of defense obviously 12 years ago became the vice president of the united states so there was a medical answer and the vice president use that medical advances to not just survive but to thrive. when we were writing the book we wanted to write it look which was less medical memoir but really a book that offered people with heart disease hope and impart to understand what we can do. i had a phonecall last week with a patient i hadn't seen in 10 years and this was the best call from anyone i have had about the look. i had known this man for a long time. he moved out of town and called and said hey john i read your book, i am dick cheney. he had multiple heart attacks than he had heart failure and he thanked us for writing the book because it helps them understand where he was and what it did and they gave him hope and that was her goal for this project. >> we are going to go through the dramatic story that you tell mr. vice president when you had from 1988 when you had ipath surgery until 2000 you experienced no heart related crises of any kind and then in 2000 george w. bush asked you to vet possible vice presidentpresident ial candidates and offered me the job. what were your concerns as related to your health and how did you address them? >> in addition to the quadruple bypass the other thing that was magical in terms of my case in the summer of 1988 was the cholesterol lowering drugs statins. late 1988 was one i won on them. between those two things cholesterol lowering drugs and bypass when i was nominated to be secretary of rensin was asked questions dr. john's predecessor originally referred me to john was able to write to the armed services committee that we have dealt with my cholesterol problem and also the blockage of the arteries and so forth. there wasn't any reason i couldn't take on the most significant responsibilities and that was true for the next 12 years. when we got to 2000 the first time i was approached about the vice president i said no way. i had a great job in 25 years in public life. i thought about running for president myself in the 90s and decided not to do that. i was going to go off and enjoy business. the vice president was not a job i aspire to in my political career was over. >> you were a dubious man about the job. >> i'm going to -- being too definitive but i'd didn't want to be vice president so i said no and he asked me if i would find someone. i figured out eventually he never except that anyone. he knew what he wanted and eventually got it and i'm glad he asked and was proud to serve in glad i did serve trade it was unique experience from my perspective and the opportunity to be vice president of the united states, health did enter into it. once he said look you are the solution to my problem i said i'm going to set myself to you because i have been fed a everybody else. you have to look at my situation front and center. i said look, a twinge in the middle of the vice president to debate i am out of there. i went to the emergency room to get it checked out. i made it clear that was a potential. he needed to satisfy himself that there was no reason why couldn't serve. that in turn led to consultations between john who is that in my dock and then who was advising then governor bush. they talk to each other and the governor talks talked to dr. coolly and concluded that there was no reason why i couldn't serve. i didn't make it through the eight years. >> three you actually figured out that he was going to become vice president or the vice president nominee before was announced. how did that happen and what are your thoughts because you had been his chief cardiologist for only two years. >> i'm at the vice president initially when i was a fellow. my mentor alan ross had been the vice president's doctor for many years and i met the vice president when i was still a trainee and when al ross retired was in the vice president's care. in late june 2000 the vice president called our office and wanted an appointment to be seen but wanted a stress test. you know, the vice president, the vice presidential sweepstakes is as they say in the book and obsession in this town. at the time i think the smart money was on tom ridge. i went to talk to the vice president in turn is then asked him is if cheney okay? he goes yeah his heart looks great. i said he wants a stress test. i think he's going to run for vice president. >> a lot of political reporters needed to be talking to you then. >> someone asked me for a stress test who is otherwise feeling well at that time in the political history of this country just stood out. the vice president had a stress test and a week later, he said it looks like i'm going to be asked to run for vice president. it's one of those moments where you have to suppress what's happening inside of your head and say oh really? [laughter] you are the third person today that has said that to me. but he happened to be right. >> fast-forward to the election, the famous elections that seem to go on forever while the votes were being counted. on november 22, you began experiencing some difficulty following your own rule you said i need to go check this out. that turned out to be your third heart attack. it was the fourth by then. a couple of other things happened in the intervening couple of months right after the inoculation and so on. you made a decision in march. tell us about that decision and what you did and why you did it. >> i was concerned. the genesis of that was -- i asked david to review all of the statutes of the constitution and any provision that i needed to know about in order to get ready to become president and do the transition. that was my main job to be ready i wanted to make certain i knew absolutely every single possibility. what david pointed out was while the 25th amendment makes it impossible to replace a president who is still alive but maybe -- maybe had a stroke in his second term the vice president under the 25th amendment by a majority vote the cabinet and the vice president can set aside president and the vice president comes the president. there is no provision and we were concerned for example if i were to have a stroke or a serious heart attack and i'm still alive and still in the office but unable to function that creates problems. it becomes almost impossible to execute the 25th amendment because the vice president is not capable of making that kind of decision. if something should happen to the president and you have a very weak president that succeeds to the top office and there's simply no way to remove in the capacity of the 25th amendment provides a way to replace it once it's gone. what i did with david was i wrote a letter of resignation in the same form that any president or vice president for constitutional officer would write to resign the post and address the secretary of state like when nixon said when he resigned the presidency. i hereby resign the vice presidency today effective and then gave it to david and told him to hang onto it. if the need ever arose and i was no longer able to function as vice president i wanted him to present that to the president and the president would have the ability. all he would have to do is submit it to the date. if he didn't want to do that fine but he had the choice. nobody else would. they were the only two knowledgeable. the other sideline was david didn't keep it in the office. he was worried something would happen and he wouldn't be able to get back into the white house for some reason. >> you didn't know this was in the book. >> he got his wife and kids out of many went back in and got the family papers in my letter of resignation. i never had to execute it but i felt it was something i needed to do. >> dr. an american medical odyssey review all of a sudden found herself working with something called the white house medical unit and i found this to be one of the more fascinating things that you really went into. first of all it's very unusual for mr. cheney as vice president to continue to see you as a cardiologist. can you talk a little bit about that arrangement and how you worked with the white house medical unit and what they do? >> i think that is one of the lessons. i think there's a lot of value in the continuity of care. regardless of how one feels about current issues with the affordable care act. there is tremendous value in having a physician follow you for many years and with a vice president with 35 years of heart disease he is only had to cardiologist take care of him, a very important longitudinal relationship. the white house has a full-time now quite large and in fact i was just over there today group of doc ayers and nurses and assistance whose primary mission is to take care of the president and the vice president and the families. it's grown in size and it takes on more than just the urgent care family doctor role which we talk about in the book in the aftermath of 9/11. the white house was concerned about bioterrorism and a lot of concerns for the safety of the president and vice president not just from natural hazards that man-made weaponized pathogens. so there are a group of fabulous full-time military docs from all the branches who are with the president and vice president 24/7. my great friend and colleague colonel hoffman was the vice president's full-time medical doc for eight years. i don't know how many hundreds of thousands of miles we traveled over the course of eight years. a tremendous personal sacrifice and away from home for so much time. there is a group of tremendously dedicated incredibly capable people who look after the president and the vice president and they do a tremendous job. i wanted to talk in the book about them because they were really unsung heroes. i say in the look. [inaudible] >> there also was a time you mentioned concerns about terrorism. there was a time when you are replacing the i call it a defibrillator. there was a much fancier name for itself i'm saying the wrong name, please. they were replacing the vice president's defibrillator but you had a security concern. tell us about that. >> wanted the innovations we talk about in the book is the development of technology implantable technology to prevent what would otherwise be a fatal heart rhythm. these are plentiful heart that it for later's and we talk about how these devices were developed. the innovator was a holocaust survivor, the only survivor in his family and he went on to develop divisive ultimate save the vice president's life. a few years ago. that we replace his original device and the new device came along with the feature that i wanted which was the ability of an early warning system for heart failure. going forward i wanted able to understand the vice president called me and said he was a little bit short of breath and i want to know if was heart failure or just a cold. it also came with the ability which was not customizable to basically talk to the device and interrogate the device wirelessly. it just seemed the threat environment of the last decade but that might not be smart and i didn't know was possible to hack into the device but the fact that they device had wireless capability gave me enough laws to ask the company and my colleagues in the tracy who left the company to disable that feature and got approval from the fda to do that. about a year ago on a sunday night mrs. cheney e-mails me and says oh my god they just hacked into the vice president's defibrillator and killed him. [laughter] i didn't get any royalty on that. but it highlights the unusual environment that this patient lived in and a lot of the folks in dozens of people who provide care for the vice president had to react to it. it wasn't just a complicated patient. he was a complicated patient living and working in essentially the most complicated environment and the most complicated time of most of our lives. it was interesting. >> there's just one additional thought because john ever gets himself enough credit. because of the dash overtime john shortly after decided i was a candidate possibly for sub cardiac arrest. and that is when we put in the icd, the defibrillator and eight years later as i'm packing my jeep out of the grudge in jackson wyoming and 79. >> you had already left the white house, a private citizen. >> a private citizen and the secret service was still with me. i went into sudden cardiac arrest and just blacked out ming came back. i had a vague not on my head. the jeep was on a rock at the end of the driveway. john's foresight in having me do that saved my life. 16 seconds from the time my heart went into defib until i was back and the device measured the situation, executed the preprogrammed shock to my heart and i was back in 16 seconds but that was one of the most crucial decisions that saved my life. and a very important one. >> you talked about 2009 and even beginning in 2007.or reiner you were noticing a decline in the vice president's health or his status i guess. you said now we were beginning to see a not-so-subtle decline in his cardiovascular status. it was becoming abundantly clear that dick cheney had been congestive heart failure. we observing what steps did you take? e. the vice president was becoming more short of breath and what we were really watching was the degree of over 30 years of heart disease involving the arteries that lead to the heart muscle. the vice president had them so well compensatcompensat ed for so many years and had been asymptomatic with this vigorous incredibly had the life and really an amazingly stressful environment. you know about a year from the end of the vice president's term in office i noticed that he was becoming more short of breath and starting to develop the early signs of heart failure which is part of the natural history of this disease. it was subtle and the vice president could still function and put in a full day of work and still exercise area it was becoming clear that we were going to enter into a phase of the disease. >> so you left the white house in 2009 and he told us about the incident in the driveway. a 2010 things have deteriorated further, and i guess maybe doctors everywhere that you you describe the state of the men i will ask the vice president about how you were feeling about it. >> there were a series of events in the last days of the administration the vice president had incapacitating back injury which ultimately required back surgery in the summer of 2010 and a few months after that the vice president had out of congestive heart failure and a month or two after that in 2009 at the device went off. then there were a series of events that followed that. there is a term i describe in the book which i call circling the drain. in medicine we have ways of describing things which sometimes seem cold but you get a world will forming of this accelerating torrent of events in the vice president is starting to have them. he developed a drill to elation which was not tolerated well with rapid irregular heartbeat which required blood thinner's. the blood thinners cause life-threatening bleeding but the blood thinners were necessary to prevent stroke. you can see one event to lead to aid and other events like a series of dominos. that led to end-stage heart disease and now in the late spring and early summer of 2010 when the vice president essentially was dying of congestive heart failure. >> how are you approaching things at that point? what did you think ben? >> i was in the period, 17 months after he left the white house until i reached the real crisis. as john said it was sort of one thing after another and a complex set of developments through the spring. when i got down to the point, this would have been july 2010, i remember going to the hospital i think it was the fourth of july. i had these bleeding problems at one point and i had arterial nosebleeds that involves bleeding in the leg and so forth i went down and went back home and i heard the fireworks going off driving down river road for the park great canaveral rd.. this was impossible during normal circumstances. i had had a fantastic life, a great family and done everything i could conceivably think of doing and i have known for many years that, assumed for many years that eventually i would die of a heart attack. it happened to my dad and happened to my mother's father and i had reached the point where i was 69 years old and i was at peace. as i contemplated the end of my days, it was not nearly as difficult for me as it was for my family. so it was a time that i had come to grips with the fact that my time was up and i had run out of technology. there weren't any more green lights that i focused on her thought much about. that is the shape i was in when we went into the hospital on the sixth of july expecting to try one more thing which was a binge regular device. >> what was the next possible greenlight that you had? >> the natural history of heart disease is the heart function deteriorates to the point where the heart can no longer compensate and the heart can no longer function. until recently the next thing that would happen is that person would die. in the spring of 2010. >> this spring? and we are now in july. >> a month or two before that the vice president's daughter liz called me and she said and it was very sad to hear this. she said my dad is gone. and is it true that there is nothing that can be done in? i said no, there is more that can be done. we can put a left ventricular assist device and we can transplant him. liz said he's not too old for for for that and i said he's not too old for that. that began this process of moving the vice president towards mechanical assist so now in 2013 instead of watching the inexorablinexorabl e decline of the patient we can support the function of a heart with a really wonderful elegant technology with one moving part that spends about 10,000 revolutions per minute and can take over for essentially ape pumping chamber heart. that is what we offered the vice president. although the vice president appeared to be somebody who was at the end of his days, what we thought all of these problems would have a single cause which was the bad heart and if we could make the heart that are all these other problems ,-com,-com ma bleeding and the arrhythmias everything would go away. so we set out to expat and our colleagues across the river at fairfax hospital, a wonderful display of surgical skill and dedication, perseverance. the whole operation implanting in assist device on the night of july 6. the vice president that night was --. >> so did you think about not doing it or as soon as you heard about this you are willing to do this? >> it wasn't really a close call. i had not thought about transplant and partly it never occurred to me that it was a possibility. i had never really spent a lot of time oppressing on it and john set up a meeting with the nova team and actually brought in a wheel honest-to-goodness working -- and they briefed me on the operation. when it was time for going to operate on thursday night to try to rebuild my strength. my numbers were collapsing so fast. the docs came into my family was there and a basic he said we have to do this. i said let's do it. it was the toughest surgery by far and texts 20 some units of blood. i came out and i was so weak when i went to the surgery, was a very sick puppy. i have five weeks in the icu and part of that on a respirator sedated and 35 weeks afterwards contracting pneumonia while i was recovering from it so it is a rough patch but it worked. once i came out from under the anesthetic i had lost 40 pounds and i was unable to control wadleigh functions except that i could breathe and i had to practice that that i was alive. with the prospect that if i could get the transplant i would would -- [inaudible] >> okay, let's move ahead than to wind you let believe it was march 232012. he both received calls. tell your experience. >> i won't be able to forget the date he a cassette of wood had been my dad's 90th birthday. my wife charisse and i were going to take our children the next day to colorado for a speech trip but the phone rang as i was getting into bed and it was my colleague today looked at the phone and before you even press the green button on the phone i saw the caller i.d.. it would have been no other reason for him to call me at that time at midnight. i just picked up the phone and without even saying hello i just said and the head of the heart failure at fairfax said john, we have a heart and it's perfect. i had known in some ways ever since i had met the vice president that one day we might be getting a phonecall like that but it was a very dramatic moment. i called the vice president. he had gotten the news from one of the prep is nurse at fairfax and i called the vice president and i said sir this is going to be a great day. i realized i was probably trying to reassure myself. the vice president was saying incredible spirits and it was a very emotional evening for me. >> you described the surgery and when you came out of it he describes the heart refilling with blood and starting to beat again. when you woke up tell us what you felt then. >> well i can remember john was at the bedside as well as the surgeon at fairfax and they told me everything had gone very well in the transplant had gone very smooth and it looked like a good hard. once it was hooked up with the blood supply and given a touch electric glee it had taken off and it was perfect. at that point my immediate reaction was one of joy. at the same time as you go through this you are very much aware and i always emphasize as they do tonight i wouldn't be here without it. people often ask who don't understand it. early on partly because my sense of almost being ripped one, thought it was dying and all of a sudden i got an extension of my life. on the other hand the family had just been through a terrible tragedy and had lost someone and there was a mismatch emotionally in terms of where you are at that particular time. it was the easiest surgery i ever had. i had done it three times, the same scar. the only thing i have left to show for 35 years of heart disease is that i've got a scar open three times for open heart procedures. the stents are gone and defibrillators are gone, everything that was the part of the 35 years of coronary artery disease. a new heart and arteries and it are absolutely clean from the standpoint of luggage and backend a year or words after catheterization. i hadn't had arteries like that since i was much younger. as john said it was at the center of my illness and once i got a new heart everything else went away and the problems i had been living with for so long. >> in 2010 you were unable to fish or hunt, two of your favorite activities and you could need up the stairs. what is your tiffany like today? what is life like for you today? we can see you look very well. >> i spent heart of the year in wyoming. i got a diesel that i called the horse trailer with. it's a -- my granddaughters force. she is a barrel racer. this year i shot pheasant and tailed grouse in montana and south dakota and last week i was on the eastern shore for use. i fished probably one day a week all summer long. from the standpoint of physical limitations i work out on exercise goal bike every day. i have got a bad knee but that's because i have played too much ice -- football when i was in high school. john told me a long time ago he said this whole operation in everything we are going through will be a success when you tell me you are more worried about your game then you are your heart. [laughter] speech.tercel three some people have suggested that mr. cheney got special treatment because he is a vip. is that true? >> obviously not. every innovation, every drug, every device that the vice president received is commercially available technology. there are no experimental therapies offered to the vice president that the vice president wasn't unusual patient. he was the vice was the vice president of united states although we delivered i think state-of-the-art complex medical medical -- to complex patient the most complex patient of my career actually what was different was how he had it delivered and i talk about in the book how we have to tailor the care of somebody who has very singular security requirements who requires very efficient care. i can't impose on the vice president if you come in tomorrow and maybe later in the week and next week and try to create an efficient model of care. we talk about how we do that in the book. the way we deliver the care is unusual. the care he got his standard state-of-the-art cardiovascular care 2500 years in the making. sure, when you have to find a place for the military aide carrying the football that is not usual care. and that g. w. were almost all the vice president's care has been for the last three decades we knew how to do that so we configured this standard care to a standard patient and i admit that absolutely. >> but you do say in the woke that sometimes celebrities can get worse care. there is the famous celebrity syndrome and then better care. there can be a downside. >> we tried not to do that in very early on the early morning when the vice president was admitted with a small heart attack i told him that i didn't want to negatively diocese care by not doing what i would normally do for the average joe who came in with those symptoms. i think throughout the course of his care with me and with us and my many colleagues that g. w. we tried very hard to do that. early on when we were thinking about the defibrillator in 20011 of my colleagues said why look for trouble? that is the kind of thinking that we really wanted to avoid. so vip care usually doesn't mean good care. it usually means the converse of that but we try to divide usual care in an unusual way. >> thank you. mr. vice president you wrote in the book about how important your family was to your recovery and you also wrote about how your political campaigns were always a family affair. i'm sure it's painful right now for you to be experiencing the rifts between your daughters. i wonder if tonight you have anything you want to add to the statement that you and your wife made a few weeks ago about that situation? >> no. [laughter] i knew you were going to ask. it is obviously a difficult thing for a family to deal with but when i put out a statement a few days ago, a week or two ago and we were surprised when there was an attack launched against lives on facebook and wished it hadn't happened and do believe we lived with his situation and have dealt with it for many years. it's always been dealt with within the context of the family and that is their preference. that's the proper place to do with it. >> you can't publicly say that you are supportive -- the that's as far as i'm going to go on the subject barbour said don't waste your time. >> okay. >> you taught me a lot. john is sitting over here. [laughter] >> one last question and we will take some questions from the audience on the affordable care act in the opening here. do you think if the affordable care acted and in place with your health care have been any different? you are covered bye bye insurance the whole time. >> insurance i had, there was a time when i was 23 when i got second hospitalized and had no health insurance. i spent our honeymoon money on medical. later on i learned i needed health insurance and i got the regular who crossed lou shield program and i've had that throughout my life. that basically finance the care and i believe when i left the white house at that point, i think that was the way it worked in terms of my concerns, there are a lot of them. i talk about for example the importance of continuity and doctors. i had my second heart attack in 1984. i was in the congress and the semito bethesda at that time. the care was perfect. i had been in the hospitals and this was my second heart attack. one of the things that concerned me was i never knew who might doctor was. that is when i made the decision that i needed to find a first-rate cardiologist in the washington area so i embarked on a political career and to follow it over time. that is how i was put onto alan ross and that led to john. the continuity of those two doctors over time is absolutely crucial. i wouldn't be here today without it. i worry when i hear all this talk about you can keep the same doctor if you want. i'm sorry, but i think that's a very bad sign. i worry very much about the device tax. we talk about in the book in one of the great things john does is he writes about stents. two guys had a good idea and no money. i happen to know and i didn't know he was doing it at the time a guy named -- invested $250,000 and that gave him enough to get a patent and he sold it to johnson & johnson johnson & johnson. it saved millions of lives. the initiative and incentive for them to do that and make it happen didn't come from the government. they put it together themselves and now under obamacare is we are going to tax the makings of devices. they pay taxes on every profit they make like everybody else but this is a new tax imposed on medical devices. i think that is one of the dumbest ideas i have heard and i feel very strongly about it. literally i'm mocking proof of how great and how innovative our health care system has been. i can't imagine anything worse. i'm sure i can but i think it's an example of how ill-conceived parts of this program are. >> thank you. we will go now to the audience for questions. we have people with microphones and shelby go here? you have someone there who wants to ask a question? >> mr. vice president there are countless people waiting for hearts in the united states. had you not been the vice president do you believe he would have received a heart when he needed one? >> i went through the process that everybody else has to go through. john can speak to it with greater resort than i did. the normal waiting time was 12 months and i waited 20 months. >> dr. reiner? >> i can answer that. there is no way to game the system. there was certainly never any intent to try to game the system and even if there was it can't be done. transplants are managed in the united states by the united network for organ sharing which has highly codified rules and regulations to allocate in the united states. so, the answer to your question is yes, we absolutely would have received a heart if he you were not the vice president. feeding -- being vice president in a state suffered no advantage and in fact he waited 20 months for a hard. but the vice president hasn't said or what we say in the book is when he finally made the decision to go for the transplant he privately said i'm going to wait my turn for this. i said i understand that sir of course and he did. >> the 20 months was twice as long as the average weight. another question. >> thank you. mr. vice president, during your tenure in office do you feel that enough information was disseminated about your health to the public and more pertinent i think do you have any thoughts about the way such information should be handled in the future for the president and vice president? i believe, i can't think of another instance where as much information is provided on a regular basis for each and every one of the incidents. i can go into gw for a calf and no one would know about it. tv cameras outside. it was not like it was a secret. when i had heart attacks i was always in the hometown newspaper. i got ready to have quadruple bypass and we announced it so there was anything that was kept secret in my mind and the book itself a think is the
keeping it focused just on asia. so not in that sense franklin roosevelt made a big difference. in their book "heart" former vice president dick cheney and his longtime cardiologist jonathan reiner talk about his long history with heart disease and advances in cardiology in the past decades. he had a heart transplant in 2012. the two discuss their book for about an hour next on book tv. >> tonight's program will consist of an interview conducted by margaret cochran president of the national press club journalist institute and the hurley chair in public affairs journalism at the missouri school of journalism. with mr. cheney and dr. reiner followed by a brief q&a. we invite you to purchase a book if you haven't already done so. each of the books have been pre-signed, have the pre-signed plate so you get a signed copy. there won't be a book signing tonight. as long as he has served at the highest levels of business and government vice president cheney cheney -- dick cheney has been one of the world's most prominent for the first time ever cheney together with his longtime cardiologist jonathan reiner m.d. chairs -- shares a personal story of this 35 year battle with heart disease from his first heart attack in 1978 and a heart transplant he received in 2012. part of the book has been described as riveting, singular memoir with doctor impatient. like no u.s. politician has before him cheney opens up about his health troubles sharing never before told stories about the challenges he faced during the perilous time in our nations history. dr. reiner provides his perspective on cheney's case and also gives readers a glimpse into his own education is a doctor in the history of our understanding of the human heart. the book "heart" stances on optimistic book that will give you hope and millions of americans affected by hard disease. ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming mr. cheney and dr. reiner. [applause] >> welcome gentlemen and as joe said you have written a fascinating book. the method you chose is a little unusual. you each right part of every air mr. vice president you describe your personal experience and a are reiner you give your perspective as dr. cheney's cardiologist and also the history of change innovation and part of that care. this is the formula that works so well in the book i thought we would use it for this evening. mr. vice president your heart health history is amazing and i'm sure everyone is so pleased to see you here and looking so well tonight and after they learned everything that you had been through felt even more amazed. you have had five heart attacks, numerous catheterizations quadruple bypass surgery, implantation of stems and a defibrillator and a heart pump and then 20 months ago you received a heart transplant. through it all you held some of the most high-powered jobs and dealt with some of the most stressful situations imaginable. so going back to your first heart attack which happened to you at the age of 37 during your first campaign for congress, what are the lessons you have learned from your experience that you would like to share with others? >> well, it's sort of what the book is about in the sense of what we try to do is to use my case to talk about those developments most of which had occurred when i had a heart attack. so it's a hope -- a message of hope and optimism and the phenomenal innovative capabilities of american medicine. the treatment i had in 1978 when i had my first heart attack wasn't much different than what dwight eisenhower had gotten 20 years before when he had a major heart attack. i guess to mention lessons a couple of things come to mind from a personal stamp point. one is when i had the first heart attack in the first campaign i asked my doctor a man named rick davis and in turn asked, i said does this mean i have to give up the campaign in his response was a little hard work won't kill anybody. that is not exactly conventional wisdom and i say that next to john here but he also said that stress comes from spending your life doing something you don't want to do and he said if you feel up to it and something you want to do, do it. i sort of lived by that and i think that was an important lesson. i also very early on realized that you never hesitate great if you think you might be having a heart attack if you don't get your fanny to that emergency room -- and unfortunately a lot of people put it off and say well maybe tomorrow or maybe it's indigestion or i will check it next week. when i had the first heart attack the only sensation i had was numbness in these two fingers and the only reason i checked into the hospital that night was my first cousin had had it that heart attack a few weeks before. the lesson i took away from that one second of the hospital and sat down on the examining table and passed out. if when in doubt check it out. if you don't you are a fool. that's his lenses i can be about it but that saved my life on more than one occasion. and i had a series of small attacks over period of years. i never had what i would call a major attack. the problem of course were cumulative and the damage was significant. finally the lesson that the book is about, but he wonders of modern american medicine in spite of all the debate we are having over obama carried everything else and it's not a political look. the fact of the matter is we have the best health care system in the world. it may not be perfect and there are things people can find that they would like to fix but do not underestimate the enormous talent and creativity encourages john says and persistence of those people who have given us the kind of system to save my life and allowed me to go forward to have a full and complete career by anybody's standards even though i was for 35 years a hard patient. >> thank you and that leads perfectly to the question i want to ask dr. reiner which is the right in the book that for many years the new developments in cardiac care seems to arrive just in the ninth of time to help mr. cheney. can you talk a little bit about what some of those advances were? >> i told the vice president at the beginning of this project that it's like you are driving down the road early in the morning, maybe early on a sunday morning and there's very little traffic on the road. the lights ahead if you stretch out red but just as you reach the lights each light turns green. it struck me that was really a perfect metaphor for the vice president's medical history. seemingly every time he had a medical event that might turn his light read and stop his career or stop his life medicine had an answer for it and when you look at the vice presidents life, the vice president did and just survived these events. seemingly every time he had an event he took on the job of responsibility. he had his first heart attack in 1978 and became a member of congress and had another heart attack in eight -- 1984 and ascended leadership in the republican party. he had another art attack and bypass surgery in the late 80s and became secretary of defense obviously 12 years ago became the vice president of the united states so there was a medical answer and the vice president use that medical advances to not just survive but to thrive. when we were writing the book we wanted to write it look which was less medical memoir but really a book that offered people with heart disease hope and impart to understand what we can do. i had a phonecall last week with a patient i hadn't seen in 10 years and this was the best call from anyone i have had about the look. i had known this man for a long time. he moved out of town and called and said hey john i read your book, i am dick cheney. he had multiple heart attacks than he had heart failure and he thanked us for writing the book because it helps them understand where he was and what it did and they gave him hope and that was her goal for this project. >> we are going to go through the dramatic story that you tell mr. vice president when you had from 1988 when you had ipath surgery until 2000 you experienced no heart related crises of any kind and then in 2000 george w. bush asked you to vet possible vice presidentpresident ial candidates and offered me the job. what were your concerns as related to your health and how did you address them? >> in addition to the quadruple bypass the other thing that was magical in terms of my case in the summer of 1988 was the cholesterol lowering drugs statins. late 1988 was one i won on them. between those two things cholesterol lowering drugs and bypass when i was nominated to be secretary of rensin was asked questions dr. john's predecessor originally referred me to john was able to write to the armed services committee that we have dealt with my cholesterol problem and also the blockage of the arteries and so forth. there wasn't any reason i couldn't take on the most significant responsibilities and that was true for the next 12 years. when we got to 2000 the first time i was approached about the vice president i said no way. i had a great job in 25 years in public life. i thought about running for president myself in the 90s and decided not to do that. i was going to go off and enjoy business. the vice president was not a job i aspire to in my political career was over. >> you were a dubious man about the job. >> i'm going to -- being too definitive but i'd didn't want to be vice president so i said no and he asked me if i would find someone. i figured out eventually he never except that anyone. he knew what he wanted and eventually got it and i'm glad he asked and was proud to serve in glad i did serve trade it was unique experience from my perspective and the opportunity to be vice president of the united states, health did enter into it. once he said look you are the solution to my problem i said i'm going to set myself to you because i have been fed a everybody else. you have to look at my situation front and center. i said look, a twinge in the middle of the vice president to debate i am out of there. i went to the emergency room to get it checked out. i made it clear that was a potential. he needed to satisfy himself that there was no reason why couldn't serve. that in turn led to consultations between john who is that in my dock and then who was advising then governor bush. they talk to each other and the governor talks talked to dr. coolly and concluded that there was no reason why i couldn't serve. i didn't make it through the eight years. >> three you actually figured out that he was going to become vice president or the vice president nominee before was announced. how did that happen and what are your thoughts because you had been his chief cardiologist for only two years. >> i'm at the vice president initially when i was a fellow. my mentor alan ross had been the vice president's doctor for many years and i met the vice president when i was still a trainee and when al ross retired was in the vice president's care. in late june 2000 the vice president called our office and wanted an appointment to be seen but wanted a stress test. you know, the vice president, the vice presidential sweepstakes is as they say in the book and obsession in this town. at the time i think the smart money was on tom ridge. i went to talk to the vice president in turn is then asked him is if cheney okay? he goes yeah his heart looks great. i said he wants a stress test. i think he's going to run for vice president. >> a lot of political reporters needed to be talking to you then. >> someone asked me for a stress test who is otherwise feeling well at that time in the political history of this country just stood out. the vice president had a stress test and a week later, he said it looks like i'm going to be asked to run for vice president. it's one of those moments where you have to suppress what's happening inside of your head and say oh really? [laughter] you are the third person today that has said that to me. but he happened to be right. >> fast-forward to the election, the famous elections that seem to go on forever while the votes were being counted. on november 22, you began experiencing some difficulty following your own rule you said i need to go check this out. that turned out to be your third heart attack. it was the fourth by then. a couple of other things happened in the intervening couple of months right after the inoculation and so on. you made a decision in march. tell us about that decision and what you did and why you did it. >> i was concerned. the genesis of that was -- i asked david to review all of the statutes of the constitution and any provision that i needed to know about in order to get ready to become president and do the transition. that was my main job to be ready i wanted to make certain i knew absolutely every single possibility. what david pointed out was while the 25th amendment makes it impossible to replace a president who is still alive but maybe -- maybe had a stroke in his second term the vice president under the 25th amendment by a majority vote the cabinet and the vice president can set aside president and the vice president comes the president. there is no provision and we were concerned for example if i were to have a stroke or a serious heart attack and i'm still alive and still in the office but unable to function that creates problems. it becomes almost impossible to execute the 25th amendment because the vice president is not capable of making that kind of decision. if something should happen to the president and you have a very weak president that succeeds to the top office and there's simply no way to remove in the capacity of the 25th amendment provides a way to replace it once it's gone. what i did with david was i wrote a letter of resignation in the same form that any president or vice president for constitutional officer would write to resign the post and address the secretary of state like when nixon said when he resigned the presidency. i hereby resign the vice presidency today effective and then gave it to david and told him to hang onto it. if the need ever arose and i was no longer able to function as vice president i wanted him to present that to the president and the president would have the ability. all he would have to do is submit it to the date. if he didn't want to do that fine but he had the choice. nobody else would. they were the only two knowledgeable. the other sideline was david didn't keep it in the office. he was worried something would happen and he wouldn't be able to get back into the white house for some reason. >> you didn't know this was in the book. >> he got his wife and kids out of many went back in and got the family papers in my letter of resignation. i never had to execute it but i felt it was something i needed to do. >> dr. an american medical odyssey review all of a sudden found herself working with something called the white house medical unit and i found this to be one of the more fascinating things that you really went into. first of all it's very unusual for mr. cheney as vice president to continue to see you as a cardiologist. can you talk a little bit about that arrangement and how you worked with the white house medical unit and what they do? >> i think that is one of the lessons. i think there's a lot of value in the continuity of care. regardless of how one feels about current issues with the affordable care act. there is tremendous value in having a physician follow you for many years and with a vice president with 35 years of heart disease he is only had to cardiologist take care of him, a very important longitudinal relationship. the white house has a full-time now quite large and in fact i was just over there today group of doc ayers and nurses and assistance whose primary mission is to take care of the president and the vice president and the families. it's grown in size and it takes on more than just the urgent care family doctor role which we talk about in the book in the aftermath of 9/11. the white house was concerned about bioterrorism and a lot of concerns for the safety of the president and vice president not just from natural hazards that man-made weaponized pathogens. so there are a group of fabulous full-time military docs from all the branches who are with the president and vice president 24/7. my great friend and colleague colonel hoffman was the vice president's full-time medical doc for eight years. i don't know how many hundreds of thousands of miles we traveled over the course of eight years. a tremendous personal sacrifice and away from home for so much time. there is a group of tremendously dedicated incredibly capable people who look after the president and the vice president and they do a tremendous job. i wanted to talk in the book about them because they were really unsung heroes. i say in the look. [inaudible] >> there also was a time you mentioned concerns about terrorism. there was a time when you are replacing the i call it a defibrillator. there was a much fancier name for itself i'm saying the wrong name, please. they were replacing the vice president's defibrillator but you had a security concern. tell us about that. >> wanted the innovations we talk about in the book is the development of technology implantable technology to prevent what would otherwise be a fatal heart rhythm. these are plentiful heart that it for later's and we talk about how these devices were developed. the innovator was a holocaust survivor, the only survivor in his family and he went on to develop divisive ultimate save the vice president's life. a few years ago. that we replace his original device and the new device came along with the feature that i wanted which was the ability of an early warning system for heart failure. going forward i wanted able to understand the vice president called me and said he was a little bit short of breath and i want to know if was heart failure or just a cold. it also came with the ability which was not customizable to basically talk to the device and interrogate the device wirelessly. it just seemed the threat environment of the last decade but that might not be smart and i didn't know was possible to hack into the device but the fact that they device had wireless capability gave me enough laws to ask the company and my colleagues in the tracy who left the company to disable that feature and got approval from the fda to do that. about a year ago on a sunday night mrs. cheney e-mails me and says oh my god they just hacked into the vice president's defibrillator and killed him. [laughter] i didn't get any royalty on that. but it highlights the unusual environment that this patient lived in and a lot of the folks in dozens of people who provide care for the vice president had to react to it. it wasn't just a complicated patient. he was a complicated patient living and working in essentially the most complicated environment and the most complicated time of most of our lives. it was interesting. >> there's just one additional thought because john ever gets himself enough credit. because of the dash overtime john shortly after decided i was a candidate possibly for sub cardiac arrest. and that is when we put in the icd, the defibrillator and eight years later as i'm packing my jeep out of the grudge in jackson wyoming and 79. >> you had already left the white house, a private citizen. >> a private citizen and the secret service was still with me. i went into sudden cardiac arrest and just blacked out ming came back. i had a vague not on my head. the jeep was on a rock at the end of the driveway. john's foresight in having me do that saved my life. 16 seconds from the time my heart went into defib until i was back and the device measured the situation, executed the preprogrammed shock to my heart and i was back in 16 seconds but that was one of the most crucial decisions that saved my life. and a very important one. >> you talked about 2009 and even beginning in 2007.or reiner you were noticing a decline in the vice president's health or his status i guess. you said now we were beginning to see a not-so-subtle decline in his cardiovascular status. it was becoming abundantly clear that dick cheney had been congestive heart failure. we observing what steps did you take? e. the vice president was becoming more short of breath and what we were really watching was the degree of over 30 years of heart disease involving the arteries that lead to the heart muscle. the vice president had them so well compensatcompensat ed for so many years and had been asymptomatic with this vigorous incredibly had the life and really an amazingly stressful environment. you know about a year from the end of the vice president's term in office i noticed that he was becoming more short of breath and starting to develop the early signs of heart failure which is part of the natural history of this disease. it was subtle and the vice president could still function and put in a full day of work and still exercise area it was becoming clear that we were going to enter into a phase of the disease. >> so you left the white house in 2009 and he told us about the incident in the driveway. a 2010 things have deteriorated further, and i guess maybe doctors everywhere that you you describe the state of the men i will ask the vice president about how you were feeling about it. >> there were a series of events in the last days of the administration the vice president had incapacitating back injury which ultimately required back surgery in the summer of 2010 and a few months after that the vice president had out of congestive heart failure and a month or two after that in 2009 at the device went off. then there were a series of events that followed that. there is a term i describe in the book which i call circling the drain. in medicine we have ways of describing things which sometimes seem cold but you get a world will forming of this accelerating torrent of events in the vice president is starting to have them. he developed a drill to elation which was not tolerated well with rapid irregular heartbeat which required blood thinner's. the blood thinners cause life-threatening bleeding but the blood thinners were necessary to prevent stroke. you can see one event to lead to aid and other events like a series of dominos. that led to end-stage heart disease and now in the late spring and early summer of 2010 when the vice president essentially was dying of congestive heart failure. >> how are you approaching things at that point? what did you think ben? >> i was in the period, 17 months after he left the white house until i reached the real crisis. as john said it was sort of one thing after another and a complex set of developments through the spring. when i got down to the point, this would have been july 2010, i remember going to the hospital i think it was the fourth of july. i had these bleeding problems at one point and i had arterial nosebleeds that involves bleeding in the leg and so forth i went down and went back home and i heard the fireworks going off driving down river road for the park great canaveral rd.. this was impossible during normal circumstances. i had had a fantastic life, a great family and done everything i could conceivably think of doing and i have known for many years that, assumed for many years that eventually i would die of a heart attack. it happened to my dad and happened to my mother's father and i had reached the point where i was 69 years old and i was at peace. as i contemplated the end of my days, it was not nearly as difficult for me as it was for my family. so it was a time that i had come to grips with the fact that my time was up and i had run out of technology. there weren't any more green lights that i focused on her thought much about. that is the shape i was in when we went into the hospital on the sixth of july expecting to try one more thing which was a binge regular device. >> what was the next possible greenlight that you had? >> the natural history of heart disease is the heart function deteriorates to the point where the heart can no longer compensate and the heart can no longer function. until recently the next thing that would happen is that person would die. in the spring of 2010. >> this spring? and we are now in july. >> a month or two before that the vice president's daughter liz called me and she said and it was very sad to hear this. she said my dad is gone. and is it true that there is nothing that can be done in? i said no, there is more that can be done. we can put a left ventricular assist device and we can transplant him. liz said he's not too old for for for that and i said he's not too old for that. that began this process of moving the vice president towards mechanical assist so now in 2013 instead of watching the inexorablinexorabl e decline of the patient we can support the function of a heart with a really wonderful elegant technology with one moving part that spends about 10,000 revolutions per minute and can take over for essentially ape pumping chamber heart. that is what we offered the vice president. although the vice president appeared to be somebody who was at the end of his days, what we thought all of these problems would have a single cause which was the bad heart and if we could make the heart that are all these other problems ,-com,-com ma bleeding and the arrhythmias everything would go away. so we set out to expat and our colleagues across the river at fairfax hospital, a wonderful display of surgical skill and dedication, perseverance. the whole operation implanting in assist device on the night of july 6. the vice president that night was --. >> so did you think about not doing it or as soon as you heard about this you are willing to do this? >> it wasn't really a close call. i had not thought about transplant and partly it never occurred to me that it was a possibility. i had never really spent a lot of time oppressing on it and john set up a meeting with the nova team and actually brought in a wheel honest-to-goodness working -- and they briefed me on the operation. when it was time for going to operate on thursday night to try to rebuild my strength. my numbers were collapsing so fast. the docs came into my family was there and a basic he said we have to do this. i said let's do it. it was the toughest surgery by far and texts 20 some units of blood. i came out and i was so weak when i went to the surgery, was a very sick puppy. i have five weeks in the icu and part of that on a respirator sedated and 35 weeks afterwards contracting pneumonia while i was recovering from it so it is a rough patch but it worked. once i came out from under the anesthetic i had lost 40 pounds and i was unable to control wadleigh functions except that i could breathe and i had to practice that that i was alive. with the prospect that if i could get the transplant i would would -- [inaudible] >> okay, let's move ahead than to wind you let believe it was march 232012. he both received calls. tell your experience. >> i won't be able to forget the date he a cassette of wood had been my dad's 90th birthday. my wife charisse and i were going to take our children the next day to colorado for a speech trip but the phone rang as i was getting into bed and it was my colleague today looked at the phone and before you even press the green button on the phone i saw the caller i.d.. it would have been no other reason for him to call me at that time at midnight. i just picked up the phone and without even saying hello i just said and the head of the heart failure at fairfax said john, we have a heart and it's perfect. i had known in some ways ever since i had met the vice president that one day we might be getting a phonecall like that but it was a very dramatic moment. i called the vice president. he had gotten the news from one of the prep is nurse at fairfax and i called the vice president and i said sir this is going to be a great day. i realized i was probably trying to reassure myself. the vice president was saying incredible spirits and it was a very emotional evening for me. >> you described the surgery and when you came out of it he describes the heart refilling with blood and starting to beat again. when you woke up tell us what you felt then. >> well i can remember john was at the bedside as well as the surgeon at fairfax and they told me everything had gone very well in the transplant had gone very smooth and it looked like a good hard. once it was hooked up with the blood supply and given a touch electric glee it had taken off and it was perfect. at that point my immediate reaction was one of joy. at the same time as you go through this you are very much aware and i always emphasize as they do tonight i wouldn't be here without it. people often ask who don't understand it. early on partly because my sense of almost being ripped one, thought it was dying and all of a sudden i got an extension of my life. on the other hand the family had just been through a terrible tragedy and had lost someone and there was a mismatch emotionally in terms of where you are at that particular time. it was the easiest surgery i ever had. i had done it three times, the same scar. the only thing i have left to show for 35 years of heart disease is that i've got a scar open three times for open heart procedures. the stents are gone and defibrillators are gone, everything that was the part of the 35 years of coronary artery disease. a new heart and arteries and it are absolutely clean from the standpoint of luggage and backend a year or words after catheterization. i hadn't had arteries like that since i was much younger. as john said it was at the center of my illness and once i got a new heart everything else went away and the problems i had been living with for so long. >> in 2010 you were unable to fish or hunt, two of your favorite activities and you could need up the stairs. what is your tiffany like today? what is life like for you today? we can see you look very well. >> i spent heart of the year in wyoming. i got a diesel that i called the horse trailer with. it's a -- my granddaughters force. she is a barrel racer. this year i shot pheasant and tailed grouse in montana and south dakota and last week i was on the eastern shore for use. i fished probably one day a week all summer long. from the standpoint of physical limitations i work out on exercise goal bike every day. i have got a bad knee but that's because i have played too much ice -- football when i was in high school. john told me a long time ago he said this whole operation in everything we are going through will be a success when you tell me you are more worried about your game then you are your heart. [laughter] speech.tercel three some people have suggested that mr. cheney got special treatment because he is a vip. is that true? >> obviously not. every innovation, every drug, every device that the vice president received is commercially available technology. there are no experimental therapies offered to the vice president that the vice president wasn't unusual patient. he was the vice was the vice president of united states although we delivered i think state-of-the-art complex medical medical -- to complex patient the most complex patient of my career actually what was different was how he had it delivered and i talk about in the book how we have to tailor the care of somebody who has very singular security requirements who requires very efficient care. i can't impose on the vice president if you come in tomorrow and maybe later in the week and next week and try to create an efficient model of care. we talk about how we do that in the book. the way we deliver the care is unusual. the care he got his standard state-of-the-art cardiovascular care 2500 years in the making. sure, when you have to find a place for the military aide carrying the football that is not usual care. and that g. w. were almost all the vice president's care has been for the last three decades we knew how to do that so we configured this standard care to a standard patient and i admit that absolutely. >> but you do say in the woke that sometimes celebrities can get worse care. there is the famous celebrity syndrome and then better care. there can be a downside. >> we tried not to do that in very early on the early morning when the vice president was admitted with a small heart attack i told him that i didn't want to negatively diocese care by not doing what i would normally do for the average joe who came in with those symptoms. i think throughout the course of his care with me and with us and my many colleagues that g. w. we tried very hard to do that. early on when we were thinking about the defibrillator in 20011 of my colleagues said why look for trouble? that is the kind of thinking that we really wanted to avoid. so vip care usually doesn't mean good care. it usually means the converse of that but we try to divide usual care in an unusual way. >> thank you. mr. vice president you wrote in the book about how important your family was to your recovery and you also wrote about how your political campaigns were always a family affair. i'm sure it's painful right now for you to be experiencing the rifts between your daughters. i wonder if tonight you have anything you want to add to the statement that you and your wife made a few weeks ago about that situation? >> no. [laughter] i knew you were going to ask. it is obviously a difficult thing for a family to deal with but when i put out a statement a few days ago, a week or two ago and we were surprised when there was an attack launched against lives on facebook and wished it hadn't happened and do believe we lived with his situation and have dealt with it for many years. it's always been dealt with within the context of the family and that is their preference. that's the proper place to do with it. >> you can't publicly say that you are supportive -- the that's as far as i'm going to go on the subject barbour said don't waste your time. >> okay. >> you taught me a lot. john is sitting over here. [laughter] >> one last question and we will take some questions from the audience on the affordable care act in the opening here. do you think if the affordable care acted and in place with your health care have been any different? you are covered bye bye insurance the whole time. >> insurance i had, there was a time when i was 23 when i got second hospitalized and had no health insurance. i spent our honeymoon money on medical. later on i learned i needed health insurance and i got the regular who crossed lou shield program and i've had that throughout my life. that basically finance the care and i believe when i left the white house at that point, i think that was the way it worked in terms of my concerns, there are a lot of them. i talk about for example the importance of continuity and doctors. i had my second heart attack in 1984. i was in the congress and the semito bethesda at that time. the care was perfect. i had been in the hospitals and this was my second heart attack. one of the things that concerned me was i never knew who might doctor was. that is when i made the decision that i needed to find a first-rate cardiologist in the washington area so i embarked on a political career and to follow it over time. that is how i was put onto alan ross and that led to john. the continuity of those two doctors over time is absolutely crucial. i wouldn't be here today without it. i worry when i hear all this talk about you can keep the same doctor if you want. i'm sorry, but i think that's a very bad sign. i worry very much about the device tax. we talk about in the book in one of the great things john does is he writes about stents. two guys had a good idea and no money. i happen to know and i didn't know he was doing it at the time a guy named -- invested $250,000 and that gave him enough to get a patent and he sold it to johnson & johnson johnson & johnson. it saved millions of lives. the initiative and incentive for them to do that and make it happen didn't come from the government. they put it together themselves and now under obamacare is we are going to tax the makings of devices. they pay taxes on every profit they make like everybody else but this is a new tax imposed on medical devices. i think that is one of the dumbest ideas i have heard and i feel very strongly about it. literally i'm mocking proof of how great and how innovative our health care system has been. i can't imagine anything worse. i'm sure i can but i think it's an example of how ill-conceived parts of this program are. >> thank you. we will go now to the audience for questions. we have people with microphones and shelby go here? you have someone there who wants to ask a question? >> mr. vice president there are countless people waiting for hearts in the united states. had you not been the vice president do you believe he would have received a heart when he needed one? >> i went through the process that everybody else has to go through. john can speak to it with greater resort than i did. the normal waiting time was 12 months and i waited 20 months. >> dr. reiner? >> i can answer that. there is no way to game the system. there was certainly never any intent to try to game the system and even if there was it can't be done. transplants are managed in the united states by the united network for organ sharing which has highly codified rules and regulations to allocate in the united states. so, the answer to your question is yes, we absolutely would have received a heart if he you were not the vice president. feeding -- being vice president in a state suffered no advantage and in fact he waited 20 months for a hard. but the vice president hasn't said or what we say in the book is when he finally made the decision to go for the transplant he privately said i'm going to wait my turn for this. i said i understand that sir of course and he did. >> the 20 months was twice as long as the average weight. another question. >> thank you. mr. vice president, during your tenure in office do you feel that enough information was disseminated about your health to the public and more pertinent i think do you have any thoughts about the way such information should be handled in the future for the president and vice president? i believe, i can't think of another instance where as much information is provided on a regular basis for each and every one of the incidents. i can go into gw for a calf and no one would know about it. tv cameras outside. it was not like it was a secret. when i had heart attacks i was always in the hometown newspaper. i got ready to have quadruple bypass and we announced it so there was anything that was kept secret in my mind and the book itself a think is the most complete disclosure of the health of any you know constitutional officer in the public. maybe someone else put up more and i don't know who it was. roosevelt, fdr also had cancer in his latter days in office. then there's all the discussion about jack kennedy and all of his health problems. i think our track record is pretty good in that regard and i think we put out the right amount of information. in the end you can substitute medical judgment with a political judgment especially where the vice president is concerned. we provided -- he had full and complete knowledge of my situation. we have a situation where i didn't keep anything from him and i gave him all the reasons why and he went ahead and did it anyway. so i don't, i'm reluctant to say that somehow we have to have a medical board set up so you get a stamp on your forehead that you are certified healthy enough to be vice president. the other point i guess i would make is you could have a very strong healthy 40-year-old and might have been a great half bad for redskins or whatever, a great athlete. >> it would be good if there was a good halfback. we could use him right now. >> based on my health -- they picked me for my experience. the secretary of defense is what he was looking for. from having done two vice presidential searches for george w. bush i can tell you the perfect candidate does not exist. i always end up at the least worst option in case -- except in my case obviously. >> laughed. [laughter] that's a good point in which to close out the evening. >> on to thank everybody for coming and a special thanks to the george washington university heart and vascular institute that helps promote this event tonight and to the staff of the press club. now for a special occasion we have if i can get up here without dropping it. this is a big event of the night. [laughter] the national press club mugs. we always presented to our special guests. thank you all for coming. [applause] >> he will keep coming back until he gets the whole set of the half dozen. please join me in thanking the vice president and dr. reiner for a fabulous presentation and as you can see the book is wonderful so get it. [applause] .. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]
from a rocky week. he is doubling down on his calls for rival kasich to drop out of the race. and cruz taking out his first negative ad against kasich. >> he's 1 in 30. he ought to get the hell out. just like a stubborn guy. he's stubborn. he doesn't want to leave. let me tell you, he hurts me much more than he hurts cruz. cruz wants him out. cruz is wrong. he hurts me. >> there are only two candidates whose names will appear on the ballot. donald trump and myself. under the rules, you have to have won eight states. there are only two candidates who will have met that. the choice will be between me and donald trump and i believe we will win that election. if there is a contested convention, you know, one of the easiest ways to understand that is simply the question, where do the rubio delegates and where do the kasich delegates go, and i think they naturally come to us, and this puts us over a majority. >> pressure mounting as the candidates steel themselves for what could be a contested convention. let's get right to senior white house correspondent jim acosta. where trump will be speaking any minute now. trump really has to make up ground here. >> yes, i think so, you're right, you heard what trump said at that last rally in wisconsin. a win would certainly change everything in this race. and that is why you're hearing him go after not only ted cruz but john kasich. john kasich is not really a threat in terms of winning the nomination. he wants john kasich out of this race. he's not even competing in wisconsin. but, you know, there is a fighting spirit. there is this internal memo that was obtained by "the washington post." showing they feel like trump is winning. and he's been trying to clean up after all those remarks. he was talking about the comment to "the washington post" that the country may be heading towards a very major recession. trump said at that rally yes, i said that. but i also believe if i'm elected president, there won't be a recession. he's still capable of creating some controversy. he retweeted a video that talks about the fighting spirit inside the campaign. >> we're at war. no one wants to admit it but humanity is under attack. one very specific man might be all that stands between humanity and t and. >> that man is my father. >> that video is not even produced by the trump campaign. we run into this all the time. trump supporters are very much behind this candidate despite everything we've heard over the last week. we're not getting any indication they're fleeing from this gop front-runner. it could be an interesting mix in milwaukee. his wife mill lan ya trump will be with him. but it will be just down the street from a bernie sanders rally. that could be a potentially volatile mix. pam. >> we will be keep being a close eye on that. thank you very much. wins in wisconsin could give both campaigns shots of momentum. if he has any chance of stopping trump short of the delegates he needs. so here to break down the math, cnn's dana bash, chief political correspondent. i want to start with this report. you just got a hold of the internal memo that jim mentioned. what does it say? >> it's this one-page memo. all you have to do is read the line, and i'll keep it clean, digging through the b.s., so that gives you a sense. it's from a senior trump adviser. it was written to the trump team. the gist of it is basically trying to buck up the team after a bad week by saying trump's worst week is a creation of the media. and going through the reuters tracking poll, which is a poll that is done every day. saying that despite the narrative, trump is still doing well and the memo concludes trump, 1, washington establishment/media, 0. that gives you a sense of what this is. it's kind of a way to, you know, buck people up internally but the fact it was leaked is not an accident, it's the message they want to get out. >> ahead of the primary tomorrow. there's a lot of horse trading going on behind the scenes, right? what's going on right now? >> it's just start, but it's probably nothing compard to what we will likely see if, in fact, there is no outright republican nominee because of -- or due to the actual context. like we're going to see in wisconsin tomorrow. so there are all kinds of toing and froing. going on for a while, pam, within the cruz campaign, they've had a tremendous organization really from the get go and they've been watching these contests. and not just the contests but the nominating processes that come after the contest. after the media and everybody have left the state. done nad trump's campaign, especially after meeting with the rnc last week, they're kicking it into high gear as well. there's a lot of talk now about whether or not there will be this white knight, somebody who will potentially emerge from the convention if there is no nominee who is not currently running, and ted cruz in wisconsin campaigning today had a thing or two to say about that. listen to this. >> this fever pipe dream of washington that at the convention they will parachute in some white knight who will save the washington establishment. it is nothing less than a pipe dream. it ain't going to happen. if it did, the people would quite rightly revolt. >> and one of the names that has been talked about on and off is the house speaker paul ryan who i should note is going to be the speaker and the chair of the convention. he's going to be kind of the guy in charge of keeping the trains on track which will not be an easy job. the republican national chair reince priebus told cnn on sunday that he does not believe that paul ryan or anybody else who is not running for president will end up being the nominee. now, that has changed, that could happen, i've seen it change. when paul ryan said no, he didn't want to be the speaker about 100 times and then he's the speaker. so that could happen. but right now the republican chair is saying huh-uh. >> anything can happen if there's one thing we learned from this race. dana bash, thank you. just ahead on this monday, a revealing new profile on donald trump suggests he now wears a bulletproof vest and has a arsenal of secrets about fox news. plus, at least 20 terrorists reportedly on the run right now. terrorists connected to the attacks in paris and brussels. why do so many businesses rely on the us postal service? because when they ship with us, their business becomes our business. that's why we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. here, there, everywhere. united states postal service priority: you my son and i used to watch the red carpet shows on tv now, i'm walking them. life is unpredictable being flake free isn't. because i have used head and shoulders for 20 years. used regularly, it removes up to 100% of flakes keeping you protected live flake free for life in new york state, we believe tomorrow starts today. all across the state, the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, the lowest taxes in decades, and new infrastructure for a new generation attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow. like in rochester, with world-class botox. and in buffalo, where medicine meets the future. let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today - at business.ny.gov john kasich revving in the spotlight today and the new found attention from ted cruz who was on the attack with his first ads targeting the ohio governor and donald trump who's calling for him to drop out. take a listen to what kasich said just a short time ago. >> i'm dropping in, i'm not dropping out. now listen, here's the situation. the reason why trump said kasich needs to get out. i mean, think about what this guy said. and i want to have my votes. this is not fair. i thought we got out of the sand box years ago. look, they wanted me to get out for a long time. let me tell you what the situation is. why would i get out when i'm the only person, number one who beats hillary in the fall? >> joining me now to discuss, john nicole, political writer, national affairs correspondent for the nation and associate editor for the capital times and wisconsin grown, good to have you on. we just heard john kasich basically saying too bad he's not going anywhere, he's, quote, going to get a heck of a lot of trump's voters. just how devastating is his presence in this race for trump and cruz? trump contends it's worse for him than for cruz. >> trump may be right. john kasich's presence independent race overall is very significant. it's significant in wisconsin. john kasich has run a remarkable campaign in wisconsin. a little under the radar because there's so much attention to the trump cruz fight. john kasich has recognized that wisconsin lost most of its delegates by congressional district, not by the statewide vote, so he has targeted rural areas and certain more moderate cities frankly. snirt, he saturday night, he was watching basketball in madison with a big crowd of people. i'm not suggesting he's going to win wisconsin, but it is very possible he could come out with a chunk of delegates and it is also quite possible that a good many of those delegates might have gone to donald trump. >> so then let's just kind of hone in on a little more of the direct impact that could have on donald trump versus ted cruz. who has more to lose? >> in wisconsin, trump has the most to lose because he could well get beat in wisconsin by ted cruz. ted cruz is an unlikely candidate for the rest of the race. remember this, if you look at where we're going from here, new york, pennsylvania, maryland, connecticut, places like that, those are not natural ted cruz turf. but some of them, especially pennsylvania, that might be a good place for john kasich. and so if trump is pushed back, if he is weakened in wisconsin and this race does go forward, as long as kasich comes out of wisconsin with a reasonable number, as long as he looks viable, there's a real chance that the dynamic of wisconsin could be cruz gets a victory he can't get any place else, that weakens trump, but it also creates a bit of an opening not merely for the speculation about an open convention but also for kasich to begin to position himself as a momentum candidate against a trump. >> hence why so many people are saying wisconsin could really be a big turning point in this race. >> i'm going to look at the democratic side. the bernie sanders campaign has called it devastating if they were to lose in wisconsin. is it really that dramatic? how high are the stakes for hillary clinton there? >> sure. the stakes are incredibly high for sanders in wisconsin because just as i suggested over on the republican side, you've got the notion of a momentum candidacy. a momentum candidacy is different than a delegate candidacy. the delegate numbers are what they are and they will also be noted and analyzed. momentum is something else. it's the sense that even if you're not ahead in delegates, you keep moving forward, that people are interested in you, they're engaged with you. for sanders to maintain a momentum candidacy, he needs a wisconsin win. he has to do well in wisconsin. that then takes him to new york and pennsylvania and the rest of these states. for clinton, there's a little less at stake but it's important. because if clinton gets beat at a significant level, if she's down double digits, of course that is a hit. >> that keeps her in the race longer against bernie sanders. i have to ask you, any predictions for tomorrow in wisconsin? >> sure. my prediction for tomorrow is donald trump will perhaps do a little better than some people expected. he's working incredibly hard. i don't know if he can overtake ted cruz. john kasich will also get a good vote out of wisconsin, more than some people expect. on the democratic side, i think that race has tightened up a little bit. but it certainly looks at this point like sanders who put in incredibly intense effort while clinton is away that sanders is probably going to get that advantage. a lot of people may well be deciding right up till tuesday morning which primary to vote in, whether they take a democratic ballot or republican ballot so it's a little up in the air. >> hence it big push there today from the candidates. john nichols, really interesting insight from you, thank you very much. >> it's a pleasure to be with you. >> up next on this monday, there's a new report that says there's a growing list of fugitives of an isis inspired terror network on the loose in europe and now authorities there have names to go on. plus, any minute now, donald trump and ted cruz holding competing rallies in wisconsin making their last-minute pitch to voters there. we will bring that to you live. is a party... t ...on every plate - and we're about to keep it going. yeah, you've got three more weeks to try the largest variety of lobster dishes of the year... ...like lobster lover's dream... and new dueling lobster tails. this party can't last so hurry in. you premium like clockwork. month after month. year after year. then one night, you hydroplane into a ditch. yeah... surprise... your insurance company tells you to pay up again. why pay for insurance if you have to pay even more for using it? 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it's really alarming to think they're still operating in europe as we speak. >> this is a big worry for european intelligence agencies. one of those on the list of eight who went to syria in the beginning of 2014 with abaaoud, the principal organizer behind the paris attacks. now, that puts him in the frame of somehow being connected. another name we have is najim al hamid. he was picked up by salah abdeslam. he was sort of the fourth suicide bomber, the french national stadium in the paris for the paris attacks. he didn't blow up his explosives. he picked up al hamid in germany, brought him back to brussels at that time. he's on the run. whereabouts unknown. these are sm of the connections. for intelligence agencies at the moment, there was still some uncertainty. there had been reports that he may be dead. isis may have put out pictures of him appearing to be dead to cover his tracks and give him a second lease of life, if you will. on the other hand, the assessment may finally come back he is indeed dead. these are the things that intelligence ajen advice working with. across europe, the fact these eight men are out there, associated with the paris and brussels attacks, that's a real concern. we saw with salah abdeslam. in the meantime, they could be plotting other attacks that they can turn around very quickly or others in the groups can turn around very quickly if any of them get picked up, pam. >> there are all these different connections. it really gives you a sense this isn't just one big group, that these are sort of multiple groups connected in various ways responsible for these attacks, right? >> sure. if you sort of take a step back, which is what a belgium journalist did about a week ago, he kind of plotted out, okay, who else connected with abaaoud, because he's seen as a principal organizer, and a recruiter, a radical recruiter in belgium who's now in jail but all the people associated with him that he inspired and then sent off to syria, if you kind of build a couple of rings out from them, belgium authorities have tried in be absentia some of the peop associated with this recruiter, then you get to a number of over 20 people potentially, and of course you can build that out further. it's very hard to put a specific number on it but the rings build out and the concern is across europe as a whole potentially 1,500 people have gone to join isis and come back, 1,500 have come back, and the problem is literally staying on top of that. in the uk, last 18 months, seven plots have been thwarted, you know, every day it's a stretch and a strain to deal with those additional people. have they come back, where are they, how do you track them. so this is the concern going forward. >> and it's not just the ones they know about. what's most disturbing to these officials is what they don't know. those still operating they don't know about, don't have their names. nic robertson, thank you very much for that reporting, we appreciate it. >> meantime we're getting an inside look at donald trump's small circle of advisers and what may be behind his recent comments that have him in hot water. took a peek behind how the trump campaign operates behind closed doors. the writer describes it as one of the most unrorthodox campaig in history. let's start with this quote from the reporter gabriel sherman who wrote the piece. he talked about how there's a lot of fatigue from the donald trump -- for donald trump, that he's just tired, he's worn out. that's behind his comments this past week. what do you know about that? >> of course he's worn out. you can hardly blame him for being worn out. when he got into this race, he didn't think he was going to last that long. he thought he was going back to doing "the apprentice" on nbc. his campaign has lasted for more than nine months throughout which he's been the front-runner. he's been going at a rigorous pace. going for, you know, six days a week. often flying back to one of his homes in either new york or florida, you know, in the middle of night sometimes. he gives these speeches. meanwhile, he's doing all of this with a staff that is far smaller than your average political staff. for one of the party's front-runners. he has less than 100 people on his payroll. hillary clinton has eight times that many people on her payroll. really his core campaign fundamentally about 10 or 12 people. the reason for that of course is because donald trump is his own campaign manager. he is the one calling the shots, making the decisions. basically government veing how thing happens. he's doing it in large part off the cuff. >> in the article he said, i don't need adviser, i'm my own adviser. what's interesting in this article, it said that trump has some damaging information on fox news head roger ailes. saying if ailes ever truly want to war against trump, trump would have the arsenal to large a retaliatory strike. does this perhaps explain why fox news hasn't really gone after trump harder for all his criticism of the network? what do you make of that? >> let's start by separating what we know from what we don't know. what we know is donald trump was associated -- participated in negotiation between roger ailes and his communication chief who was fired. trump helped in the negotiations because he knew both parties. will make you privy to a great deal of information. as to whether trump has this trove of damaging information he can use, that to me -- that's thinly sourced in the piece. it seems somewhat speculative. you have to ask yourself if trump was holding this arsenal over roger ailes, you have to ask yourself why roger ailes has been so aggressive in taking on trump in terms defending megyn kelly, defending the network's coverage. they really haven't shied away from issuing statements that suggest donald trump isn't fit to be president of the united states. if that's not the sort of thing that's going to provoke him to use this so-called arsenal, what is? >> that's true, you look at that statement, about the ayatollah, you remember that, about a month or two ago. many people said that was pretty harsh. the reporter got a peek behind the curtain of trump's small campaign headquarters. even includes a so-called wall of shame. showing all the candidates who have dropped out of the race. what does this say about trump and his campaign what we see here? >> we, look, it says a couple things. one, he loves winning. he truly loves winning. in fact, think one thing that article gets to is that's sort of the governing force in his life. he likes to win. by any means necessary. i think he takes great pleasure in sort of being a political hit man and taking off the competition one by one. he's done it very effectively. he's gone after one candidate at a time. he's gone after bush for being low energy. he called him little marco rubio. now going after ted cruz, calling him lying ted. he's strategic in terms of how he goes after his opponents. he takes great pride in his ability to beat them. trump as a brand is based off the concept of winning, of success, picking off the majority of 17 political opponents. i think trump will put that in a win under his belt, whether or not he gets the nomination for his party. >> the article talks about those in his inner circle. most of them, if not at all, really don't have much of a political background, right, it's really fascinating to look at those he surrounds himself with. >> it's a ragtag band, it's a rogues gallery. yet somehow they've proven very effective in terms of sort of carrying donald trump or following donald trump to the success he's achieved. indeed, the people that trump has selected, that he's surrounded himself with, they're like him. they don't have a background in politics. they do things in an conventional way. i would say the greatest strength is really following trump's lead. trump calls the shots. he does what he need to do. he nodes people who can really put into place his sort of vision for his campaign and who can follow him as he makes these decisions off the cuff. he has that in hz campaign manager and his top spokesperson. they're very, very loyal to him. they always refer to him as mr. trump. never as donald, anything like that. there's a great deal of loyalty in that small circle of advisers. >> you can really see that. really fascinating. up next on this monday, trump on the economy. he says he will erase the national debt within eight years and claims a very massive recession is on its way into the u.s. we'll get ben stein's take on that. plus, any minute now, donald trump and ted cruz will hold competing rallies in wyy s iies. we'll bring that to you live. you're watching cnn. we'll be right back. moderate to severe crohn's disease is tough, but i've managed. except that managing my symptoms was all i was doing. and when i finally told my doctor, he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. and that in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief. and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. we're learning more about donald trump's economic vision for the country. it is bold and grandiose but is it possible? cnn's chief business correspondent christine romans crunches the numbers. >> donald trump making some bold economic predictions and the math doesn't add up. first, he says he could pay off the national debt in eight years in office. the national debt, that's $19 trillion. just to show you how huge that is. every man, woman and child in america would need to chip in $59,748 to pay it off. for trump to erase that debt in eight years, he would first have to balance the budget so no more debt is tacked on. that would have to come from congress, so good luck with that. then trump would have to pay down $3 trillion a year. the entire amount the government is spending, just less than $4 trillion. that's a lot of money. trump says he could renegotiate trade deals. somehow balancing the trade deficits. something economists say isn't possible in eight years and could have disastrous consequences if it starts' trade war. trade wars cause recessions and higher deficits when tax receive kn revenue plunges. he also wants to cut tax rates. that could lower the amount of money the government brings in making the deficit surge. in fact, many tax scorers say his tax strategy, his tax plan, would actually balloon the very deficit that adds to the debt he says he's going to cut. he says he won't touch entitlements. another big spending pot of money. pamela, the map on the national debt claim doesn't add up. >> christine romans, breaking it down for us. donald trump is making another bold claim that the upz is headed for a massive recession. another one. he first made the grim predictions in a ven interview h the "washington post." earlier today, trump repeated his weary outlook on the economy. >> i was interviewed by "the washington post." two great reporters. they did a story. i thought it was a pretty good story. i don't know where they had this but somebody kcame out that i said we're going -- we're in a bubble, big bubble, could be a really ugly bubble. you know what this is right, bubbles. when they burst, it's not a good thing. and what i said is we're going to go into a massive recession. but i also say if i'm president that's not going to happen. i'm going to straighten things out before it happens. >> let's talk about this with commentator ben stein. thanks for coming on. >> i think the main credential here is economist. in all of my years as an economist, which is roughly 50 years, i've never seen such nonsense as we just heard from mr. trump and it breaks my heart, it makes me want to cry because i'm republican, i've never voted for a democrat, and to think the guy who's our likely standard bearer has such nonsensical ideas of every single aspect of the economy is just breathtakingly horrible. >> well, you know, when you look at it, though, it's politically expedient for trump to go out there and say the economy is heading down the drain and i can fix it because it keeps his business record in the headlines. political incentive is clear, right? >> the political incentive is clear. i guess he might as well say also men from mars are coming down. but there's just nothing factual about what he's saying. we were not in a bubble. by the way, most of these metrics are measured. the unemployment rate is not 20%, something he's been saying, which is just -- might as well say it's 2 million percent. might as well count the dead as being unemployed. the idea he's going to eliminate the national debt. he might as well say he's going to flap his swings and fly. it's just unbelievable this is coming from the party's leading candidate. it's just horrifying. i don't know what to say. i'm just so flabbergasted by it, i hardly know how to control myself. >> so on that note, you know, how unusual is it for a front-runner like this of a party to make these dramatic predictions about the economy because oftentimes you hear politicians say, you know, talk about the economy, but this takes it to a whole new level, right? >> it takes it to a whole new record of ridiculousness. maybe we are going to have a recession, but if we are, he doesn't know. mr. warren buffett doesn't know. the people who are making stock price quotes don't know. the leading economist in america doesn't know. he must know something nobody else knows. i don't know where he gets this information but maybe he's getting it from people whispering in his ear. if we are heading for a recession, he doesn't know. there's no sign we're heading for a recession and if we are, he doesn't know and there's no way he's going to be able to fix it. cutting taxes is not going to fix it. renegotiating trade deals with mexico and china is just a way to start a gigantic recession. i mean, this is a very scary thing. by the way, your previous guest was saying he's tired and needs to rest. maybe he could take a few days of rest, talk to some economists who are actually sane, and get some ideas about how the real world works. his ideas are just bouncing off the moon. >> clearly economic forecasts don't square with what he said. he had to have known economists would come out to set the record straight. isn't it a risky move for him to say these things then in that case? >> you know, i don't know what goes on in his head. he's a force of nature. i don't know what goes on in his head. but it's frightening that he has no economist advisers. carl icahn, a very smart guy on wall street who's made a great deal of money. steve wynn who runs best hotels in las vegas. but as far as economic advisers, as far as i can tell, he doesn't have any and he desperately things he's saying are wacky as wacky can be. just off the charts. >> ben, let me just say this. as far as his economist advisers, donald trump says he's his best adviser particularly when it comes to the economy. >> that's really scary. >> but you look at the polls and people think that he is the best for the economy compared to the other gop candidates. how do you explain that? >> sheer idiocy. >> so you're calling people who are voting for him in these polls just idiots? >> no, i'm saying they're -- no, not at all. some of my very, very best friends, some of the people i respect most in the whole world are trump fans. but to believe he knows anything about the future of the economy or how the economy works is just nonsense. this is a guy who's a charming guy. his ideas about defense policy are excellent. his ideas about foreign policy are excellent. his ideas about the economy are just absolutely bewilderingly foolish. >> do you think people are conflating his business record and his success in business with his knowledge about the economy? >> i think something like that is going on. compared with many other very wealthy people, he isn't that successful at all. he's a pauper compared with warren buffett and warren buffett has completely different ideas about the economy from mr. trump. i don't think there's another terribly rich person in america who has the same ideas mr. trump has. the fact that a person is successful in business tells you nothing whatsoever about his abilities to predict future of the economy or know how the economy works. tells you nothing about it at all. it's a whole different deal. making money is a whole did i re different field from economic. >> ben stein, thank you. any minute now, we're expecting dueling rallies in the state of wisconsin, donald trump and ted cruz, both making a last-minute appeal to voters and both candidates attacking governor kasich telling him to drop out of the race. we'll bring that to you live as they happen. plus, is wisconsin a make or break state for ted cruz? what happens if he comes up short? 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is fresh controversy in europe over a controversial relocation plan for migrants. the first wave included hundreds of people. all part of a plan worked out between the european union and turkey and it's aimed at reducing the influx of illegal immigrants, migrants, in greece. cnn international correspondent phil black is at the turkish port where the migrants were today. >> we watched as the three vessels that traveled from the greek islands pulled up and started to disembark the migrants. 202 in all. being escorted by european officials for the journey over. then there was a transfer as they were handed over to turkish officials here. taken ashore. identified, registered and moved on to other holding camp s places. for the people who don't come from syria, most from pakistan, some from afghanistan, they are taken to detention centers where turkish officials say they could be returned to their country of origin. the syrians are allowed to stay here. they will be sent to the camps that already house some 2 million syrian people who have fled the conflict in that country. the european union says this deal is necessary in order to remove some of the pressure on greece. as borders around greece have been closed by individual european countries to migrants, it means that migrants have been stuck in grooeece by the tens o thousands. some 50,000 now. it is hoped that this deal will remove some pressure by transporting some back to turkey but also sending a very clear message that will deter others from making the journey across the sea to greece in the first place. it is not popular with everyone. human rights activists. refugee activists say that it is an abdication of europe's moral responsibility to help these people. they believe greece does not have the resources to properly process all the refugee asylum applications that it will have to. and they're really concerned about sending these people back to turkey. a country which according to amnesty international is increasingly intolerance of refugees here. turkey says it will do all it possibly can to provide refuge and help those, especially those fleeing the syrian conflict. phil black, cnn, dikili, turkey. any minute now, ted cruz will step out on to the stage at a dueling rally in wisconsin. it is a dueling rally being against his rival trump. cnn is there. what are we expecting to hear? >> hey, pamela, we're here at the cheese castle in kenosha, wisconsin, where we expect senator cruz to arrive any moment. probably sample some cheese and speak to supporters who are here to see him. but it's been interesting to see how much confidence senator cruz has really been projecting as he campaigned here in wisconsin. earlier this morning in madison, he predicted an outright win tomorrow night in the primary. saying right now it's an all hands on deck situation. not necessarily all about the win but making sure they win as many delegates as possible. certainly as he campaigns here, it's been interesting, really try to cast this as a defining moment. telling voters point blank this is essentially a turning point and the message they send here tomorrow night to voters will really resonate across the country. so trying to turn this into not only a collection of delegates but a collection of momentum. also senator cruz in addition to targeting trump has really been going after john kasich. this is an interesting shift in strategy we've seen from their campaign. releasing their first negative tv ad against john kasich over the weekend running here in wisconsin. certainly a concern at some leave from the cruz campaign. also arguing that john kasich certainly does not deserve to be on that ballot if this goes through a contested convention, pam. >> thank you very much. we'll check back in with you there in wisconsin. and coming up, things are getting pretty nasty on the democratic side. bernie sanders looking to keep momentum on his side with a big win in wisconsin. but storm clouds already forming over the battle for new york and the prospect for a debate in the heart of brooklyn. heart of brooklyn. stay with us.♪ in new york state, we believe tomorrow starts today. alross the state, the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, the lowest taxes in decades, and new infrastructure for a new generation attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow. like in rochester, with world-class botox. and in buffalo, where medicine meets the future. let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today - at business.ny.gov incredible blnow comes with protectionan incredible double your money back guarantee. always discreet is for bladder leaks and it's drier than poise. try it, love it or get double your money back. always discreet. top of the hour now. i'm pamela brown, in today for brook baldwin. nice to have you along. this is coverage of the fierce fight happening right now in wisconsin. today, donald trump and ted cruz are blanketing the battleground state as they gear up for tomorrow's critical primary. holding dueling rallies in a state that very well could decide the fate of this race. and we'll go live to those rallies any minute. be sure to stick around for that. it's not winner take all in wisconsin but winner take most. 42 delegates are up for grabs there. as trump tries to bounce back from a rocky week. he is doubling down on his scorching calls for roival john kasich to drop out of the race and cruz is jumping on board as well. taking out his first negative ads against kasich. pressure mounting as the candidates steel themselves for what could be a contested convention. meantime, the clash of the candidates is about to get up close and personal. tonight in milwaukee, both donald trump and bernie sanders have staged competing rallies just steps apart from each other. with candidates known to draw huge crowds of passion not supporters, it's safe to say things could get interesting there. cnn's sara sider in joining us from wisconsin where crowds are already gathering. >> most are gathered to go in and see donald trump. he's been here all weekend. he's made that very clear because he knows the polling numbers that have come out have not been favorable for him. he's 10% behind according to the latest poll ted cruz. he's been hitting this place hard. we are seeing thousands of people every single time he shows up waiting to hear what he has to say. he has told people this morning in lacrosse, wisconsin, that if he can pull off a win here, it's over, people, in the words of donald trump. so you can certainly see that he knows this is important for him. help knows a win here is important. getting those 42 delegates wisconsin has. and he is pushing very, very hard. so far, we've seen very, very few protesters when it comes to all the different events he's had all weekend long. the most we saw was about 50 to 100 people that came out last night. this is his first very, very big, big grouping here. and we expect to see quite a few people. as you said, just a couple of blocks away, bernie sanders is also having a rally. and you know those two groups don't mesh well, pam. >> yes, to say least. sara, thank you for your reporting there. joining me, a.b. stad dord, associate editor for the hill, and dana bash, cnn chief political correspondent. dana, to you first, just bottom line, how much of a turning point was wisconsin for cruz and trump? >> i don't know it's going to be a turning point but it certainly is going to be a significant marker in this race. because if ted cruz doesn't win this and doesn't win, as you said, most of the delegates, which is, you know, what would happen if he does get a pretty significant win, then it's going to be very, very hard for him to catch up in the delegate count before the convention in july. the flip side is if trump doesn't win, right now the way the polls are going, he still can. it's harder but it's not as hard if cruz does. it's the delegates, then it's also the psychological momentum that cruz can get and will get if he does win wisconsin. that's something at this point money can't buy and delegates don't matter. they matter a lot but that's something that is kind of the understood idea out there. >> you know, someone i was talking to earlier on the show said there's the delegate race and then there's the the momentum race. both very important here. a.b., speaking of momentum, it seems like ted cruz sees an opening in wisconsin with female voter in the wake of the trump controversial, right? >> i think cruz will take any opening he can. but certainly the polls are looking good. trump's last ten days are looking terrible. in a state like wisconsin where republicans are so organized and are loyal to the governor there, he's popular, really organized and operated well on behalf of his recall election and his re-election. tried to help paul ryan, help mitt romney win the state in 2012. this is a state that's ripe to stop trump. like dana said, if he manages to win ted cruz, it's a real momentum for people who really want anyone but donald trump and are hoping to see cruz get ahead. certainly, and delegates, even if he were to get almost all of the 42, ted cruz that is, he still has more than 200 delegates, you know, deficit to trump. it's not that trump will be the nominee or make it to cleveland with 1,237, but it would really -- it would really frustrate trump tremendously to have a ted cruz victory in wisconsin. >> let's listen to donald trump speaking now in superior, wisconsin. >> in florida, we won in a landslide. they had thousands of commercials. i turned on the television. i couldn't stand it. i said turn it off, turn it off. during one of the major golf tournaments. it's my golf tournament, during the commercial, before they gave out the trophy to adam scott at dorell, they come up with a commercial, four in a row, anti-trump. you know, i said something, i just wrote it down, it's called never trump. did you hear this, never trump? do you know what these are? these are establishment people that don't want to see it happen because they're all at the trough, they're all making a lot of money. i don't think in many cases they care who win. they want to keep it going. i just said never trump. if they work this hard to stop obama, obama wouldn't have had a chance, you know that. obama wouldn't have had a chance. so i was writing -- because i'm self-funding my campaign, i'm putting up my own money, right. nobody does this. i guess the last might have been ross perot. i have turned down tens of billions of dollars from special interests. and from people. and frankly from friends of mine. they want to give me millions. one guy in palm beach recently said donald, we'd like to give you $10 million. now, for me to turn it down is, you know, it's like against migraine. because my whole life i've been taking money. i take, take, take. that's what a business man does, right, or a business woman, we take. we take. and, you know, they come up, i'd like to -- and one guy in particular, he's a very rich guy. member of the club. he said, i'd like to make a major contribution to you or your pac. i said, i don't have a pac. you know all these guys have these phony pacs. i saw where cruz had an event run by his pac. that's not allowed. europe not allowed to do that. they said it was paid for round by his pac. europe not allowed to do that. which -- that's a whole nother story. this guy comes up and said, i'd like to give you whatever money you want for your campaign. i said, i can't take it. he looked and said you're kidding, right? i said, no, i can't take it. i have turned down so much money. if i would have accepted -- i think bush, jeb, had the biggest of all the pacs. he had like $148 million or something he raised. i think it even got a lot bigger than that. i could have had that times four or five. coming over, i said, you know, i don't think it's appreciated. and i'm not knocking you. but when people look at me and then they look at this guy cruz who's totally controlled by the people who give him the money. 100% totally controlled -- >> donald trump there talking in superior, wisconsin, holding a dueling rally against his rival ted cruz. we're keeping an eye on that as well. i want to go back to our panel and bring in dana bash. because he started, dana, we didn't hear this part, bub he started talking about the establishment and how negative they are toward him. this goes to this leaked memo you've obtained from his inner circle where adviser barry ben intercept says a republican establishment in the media tried to paint last week as the worst week ever for trump. he said the opposite is true. tell us more about this. >> that's right, this is the memo right here. just a one pager. it is from, as you said, barry bennett, a senior adviser, who's on cnn quite a bit. it's written to corey lewandowski and the rest of the team. the idea in here is try to buck up the staff and get perspective from their point of view on what he even says is media's worst week ever last week. it concludes by saying that the question is -- there's a question they can't grasp which is -- by the way, he means us and the establishment. america is sick of them. their idiotic attacks just remind voters why they hate the washington establishment. so yes, this is the kind of thing that is not a surprise they want us to see it because they believe that the narrative of last week, which, you know, was earned, donald trump did not have a good week, and even he admitted to a mistake that he almost never does. >> i was going to say for the first time since i can remember, said he made a mistake with that retweet, right? that says something. >> retweeting the pictures, the side by side picture of his wife, the superer model, with a not very flattering picture of ted cruz's wife. he did say this weekend in an interview that he shouldn't have retweeted that. which you're exactly right, pam, i don't remember the last time donald trump has said anything that he regrets. he usually doubles down, triples down, quadruples down. this time, he was a little bit hum belled after the week he had. >> clearly something's going on there. i want to talk about john kasich. he's really the man in the middle here. taking fire from both trump and cruz. for calling for him to drop out. let's listen to how kasich responded to those calls. >> i'm dropping in. i'm not dropping out. you know, listen, here's the situation. the reason why trump said kasich needs to get out, i mean, think about what this guy said. he said he needs to get out because he's getting my votes and i want to have my votes. this is not fair. i thought we got out of the sand box years ago. no, they all want -- look, they wanted me to get out for a long time. let me tell you what the situation is. why would i get out when i'm the only person, number one who beats hillary in the fall. >> okay, so that's one explanation from kasich. but, a.b., why is he staying in the race? i mean, when you look at the numbers, it's mathematically impossible basically for him to win the necessary delegates, right? why is he staying in this race? >> oh, yeah, he doesn't plan to win at the ballot box between now and july. he plans to win at the convention. and some of the best minds in the party in terms of political operatives are working on kasich's behalf. as many phone calls as he gets asking him to drop out, he gets a lot of them begging him to stay in. saying he's the only hope of beating hillary, that cruz will go down, that trump will go down. that he's, you know, the only path for rescuing the party. there are many people who still believe there's so little left to lose for the republican party that choosing john kasich over cruz and trump at the convention will an acceptable path because he's the most viable candidate. he's encouraged. i thought the freudian slip about i'm not dropping out, i'm dropping in, was hilarious, because he doesn't pretend to have a path to get the votes because now and the convention. >> trump just addressed him moments ago at this rally. let's listen. >> i didn't think so. but how about kasich? he's won -- how many staptes ar there, like 30? whatever it is, he's won one. i would have won that one if i had two more days. i stayed in florida to campaign. we won florida in a landslide, won by almost 20 points. i should have left florida a little early but i didn't want to take a chance on losing florida. i went to ohio one extra day, maybe two days, i would have won, we came very close. against him and the machine in ohio, which is fine, i understand it. but here's the guy, he's 1 in 32. the one is his home state. i mean, give me a break. and he almost lost it. he's 1 for 32. he just says, i'm going to keep running. i don't care. he's taking my votes. because he's not taking from cruz, he's taking from me. i said to myself, it's unfair, because marco could have stayed. marco was doing much better than he was. marco could have stayed. they all could have stayed. jeb bush could have stayed, right? you know, he would have liked to have stayed. low energy. he would have stayed. just stay. but they all could have stayed. if you go by that theory. so i think it's unfair. i will tell you, one thing about kasich, he voted in favor of nafta, which is a disaster. that sucked the businesses from wisconsin and every place else. you have to see new england. just took them away. he voted in favor. and what he wants now is tpp. transpacific partnership. a total disaster for our country. led by the special interests. led by the lobbies. this is going to make nafta look like a baby, folks, and you shouldn't allow it. ted cruz wants it. because his people that give him money are telling him we want it. it's a bad thing for our country. believe me, folks, a really bad thing. >> there we hear trump addressing kasich calling for him to get out of the race. i want to thank our panel. wish we could talk more, there's so much to discuss, appreciate it, guys. and be sure to stay with us as we build up to wisconsin. our special coverage will take place all day tomorrow right here on cnn. and just ahead, a revealing new profile on donald trump suggests he now wears a bulletproof investment and has a, quote, arsenal of secrets about fox news. plus, one of president obama's former advisers says a civil war is breaking out among democrats. i'll ask a bernie sanders surrogate if he agrees. and it's being called a, quote, colossal mistake. the cause of a deadly amtrak crash on one of the busiest corridors in the country. we'll have a live report after this break. when a moment turns romantic why pause to take a pill? or stop to find a bathroom? cialis for daily use is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and 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by $100. and keep lowering it $100 annually, until it's gone. then continue to earn that $100 every year. there's no limit to how much you can earn and this savings applies to every vehicle on your policy. call to learn more. switch to liberty mutual and you could save up to $509. call liberty mutual for a free quote today at see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. well this or won't they? democratic presidential front-runner hillary clinton says she's ready to face off with bernie sanders and sanders says he's ready too. but the two camps can't agree on a date. and they're lashing out at each other about it. sanders told cnn he's confident they'll figure something out soon. in the meantime, the battle for the new york primary is in full swing. >> if we win in new york state, between you and me, i don't want to get hillary clinton more nervous than she already is. she's already under a lot of pressure. so don't tell her this. but i think we win here, we win in new york state, we're on our way to the white house. >> i was so proud to be a new yorker all those eight years i represented you. i have always been proud but i am even prouder today. >> so here now, bernie sanders surrogate and former ohio state senator nina turner. thanks for coming on, nina. >> thanks, pamela. >> first question, clinton's camp has come out and said it has proposed three debate dates. all of which the sanders camp has turned down. why haven't they accented any of those dates? >> well, let's correct the -- tell the truth about this. senator bernie sanders is the one that asked for the debate to happen in new york. and he has had to work very hard, his campaign, to get the clinton campaign to even agree to do a debate, to have a debate in new york, person yod. it's my understanding that senator sanders has accepted an nbc date o april the 10th and let's hope the secretary will accept that same date. have the debate in new york, one of the biggest states in this country, and a state where sanders was born and raised and the state where secretary clinton served as senator. i'm confident, too, both sides will work it out. >> the sanders campaign put out a memo saying the loss would be devastating. why did they say that? >> a loss would be devastating for senator sand erers? >> yes. >> senator sanders is working very hard. we know he is up in the polls in wisconsin. he's working very hard there. he's there right now. a big turnout is what is going to drive the win for senator sanders. so i think that is not just based on the polls but based on what people are saying on the ground, based on the energy and enthusiasm he's revving up on the ground there in wisconsin, that he will be successful in that state. he's not taking anything for granted. i think from the campaign's perspective, they never want to get a big head about anything. we know no matter what polls say, voters ultimately have the final say. >> there's this new york times report out that suggests the sanders campaign had several missteps early on, including this notion that the sanders camp could have gone harder in iowa. how do you respeondrespond? >> sanders has never run a negative campaign. he prides himself on staying on the issues. it's easy for "the new york times" to talk about the what the senator should have done. it's very hard to run a national campaign. he's not been running for the presidency of the united states of america for eight years. he got into this race because he saw a need. he saw a need to have a champion stand up and say that we need to pull people up out of poverty. $15 an hour for minimum wage puts people in a living wage category. we live in a country where a high schokoochool diploma is no we're is necessary to sustain. we need to know every child can grow up and go to college or university to increase their skills. we need to have universal health care in this country. sanders got into this race because he knows that the american people need a champion. he didn't get in this race because of ego. he got in this place to lift people in this country. >> do you agree there were some missteps early on, particularly in iowa, as "the new york times" was saying in this article? >> i don't agree with "the new york times." "the new york times" quite frankly will not be the ones who will decide who will be the president of the united states of america next. it will be the american people will decide. voters will decide that. again, it is hard. it is challenging to run a presidential election. hindsight is 20/20. i've run campaigns as well. you always have that moment where you question should i have done something differently. but the bottom line is that i'm very glad that the american people will have the final say and not pundits and not newspaper papers. the voters will have the final say. >> former white house official and cnn commentator van jones said there's a civil war in the democratic party. i want you to listen to what he said and then respond on the other side of it. >> a civil war is breaking out in the democratic party. this went from being, hey, you know, i don't care about your e-mails, blah, blah, blah. as this thing has gone on, what's happened is bernie sanders should be out. in a normal situation, he would be out. last month, he raised $41 million. we're in the middle of a second sanders surge. and now both sides are getting frustrated with each other on everything. so it shows up. it's like a couple fighting over some total sight issue. >> and, you know, talking about the debate, can't agree on the debate date. that's just one of the issues he's referring to. do you agree they're in a civil war right now, that we're in the middle of this second surge for bernie sanders? >> well, i wouldn't necessarily call it a civil war, even though i certainly understand what van jones is talking about. this is a race about contrasts. this is a contest being held between two folks who want to become president of the united states of america on the democratic side. this is about who can win over the hearts and minds of the people and the voters. so democrats may not have thought there was going to be a candidate who was going to challenge secretary clinton but guess what, there is one, and his name is senator bernie sanders and he is fighting very hard. he just won the last 6 of 7 contests. as van jones pointed out, the average donation to his campaign is $27 an hour -- not $27 an hour, excuse me, the average donation is $27, and he raised $44 million in the month of march. fueled by people power. so there are millions of people in this country who want to see senator sanders continue to prevail, continue to raise the money. you need money for the mission. at least he is doing that. he is mirroring his campaign by having it powered by everyday people so at the end of the day the only folks he will have to answer to will be the people. that is what primaries are all about. it's a challenge about ideas. that is happening. and i'm so glad democrats and others even independents who have a chance to vote in open primaries will have an opportunity to decide who they want to be the person, the nominee, for the democratic party. okay, nina turner, thank you. ahead, a revealing new profile on donald trump suggests he now wears a bulletproof investments and has an arsenal of secrets about fox news. and we're also going to wisconsin where ted cruz is speaking right now, issuing a challenge to donald trump. that's next. there are two billion people who don't have access to basic banking, but that is changing. at temenos, with the microsoft cloud, we can enable a banker to travel to the most remote locations with nothing but a phone and a tablet. everywhere where there's a phone, you have a bank. now a person is able to start a business, and employ somebody for the first time. the microsoft cloud helped us to bring banking to ten million people in just two years. it's transforming our world. my main goal was to feed him a quality diet., i decided to give freshpet a try. dexter: there's real chunks of vegetables and chicken in it. raul: and, if the food is in the fridge, you know it has to be fresh. patrick: he's a happy guy when he has his freshpet. premium like clockwork. month after month. year after year. then one night, you hydroplane into a ditch. yeah... surprise... your insurance company tells you to pay up again. why pay for insurance if you have to pay even more for using it? 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>> ted cruz there in wisconsin. he's holding dueling rally, donald trump as well holding a primary. wisconsin could be a game changer depending on how the vote shakes out. it could have serious implications for all the presidential candidates going forward as they fight for the nomination. that's especially true for the republicans. 42 delegates are up for grabs in wisconsin. it's a heated battle. let's discuss this battle. joining me now, cnn's bill mattingly and republican strategist. thank you both for coming on. phil, first to you and the republicans. does ted cruz need to win big in wisconsin to close the gap on trump? >> well, i think the cruz campaign would acknowledge that wynn wisconsin is a huge state for them and what they've seen with the numbers, starting to open up a lead over donald trump really bodes well. ted cruz winning wisconsin doesn't stop donald trump. it doesn't take a huge chunk out of the lead he holds. but what it does do is it gives hope to the never trump, stop trump movement. the movement is starting to coalesce behind ted cruz. now ted cruz needs to perform. 42 delegates isn't a lot. but ted cruz performing well in wisconsin tomorrow really sets him up going forward as the true alternative to donald trump. >> and cruz isn't the only one donald trump's focused on. we just heard him not long ago asking for john kasich to drop out of the race, calling for him to drop out. how much of a threat is john kasich in preventing donald trump for getting the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination? >> well, there are several states going forward that john kasich will get a certain amount of delegates. it won't be much. he's not going to be competitive in the delegate count. it's about stopping trump from getting 1,237. every vote, even if it's in new york, like 20 delegates are taken away from like donald trump, he doesn't hit 50%, that becomes significant. and donald -- excuse me, john kasich is a threat to both donald trump and ted cruz because if you go into that convention in july and it's an open convention and no one gets there on the first or second ballot, john kasich can very well become the consensus candidate. >> let's talk about the convention, phil, because ted cruz says there will only be two names on the ballot during the convention. but the rnc decides that, no one else, right? >> the rules committee going into the convention will decide those rules. what ted cruz is si sighting is specific rule that says you have to have more than 58% to be the nominee. this was crafted to benefit mitt romney, hurt rand paul in 2012. but the rules reset every four years. he and donald trump will own a large portion offal delegate eg going into cleveland, and therefore they will put that into place. kasich's team work hard against that. hoping to position themselves into a second or third ballot. i think what this shows right now is behind the scenes, while donald trump and ted cruz are going at it publicly, they will be working to keep john kasich out of this if they can possibly get it done. >> there's a lot going on behind the scenes. phil mattingly, susan dell perisio, thank you very much for that. up next on this monday, why were two maintenance workers working on an active track when a passenger train struck and killed them both? what happened here? that story up next. trump has a small inner circle of trusted advisers but can that inner circle be shrinking? we'll discuss. stay with us. we'll be right back. you do all this research on a perfect car then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates. maybe you should have done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. just one of the many features that comes standard with our base policy. call for a free quote today. see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. and you're talking to yourevere rheumatorheumatologistike me, about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira giving me new perspective. doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. talk to your doctor and visit humira.com. this is humira at work. amtrak made a, quote, colossal mistake that led to a deadly crash in pennsylvania. a source close to the investigation tells cnn two construction workers were using a backhoe on the wrong track when the passenger train slammed into them, killing them. how did this mistake happen? >> good afternoon, pamela. that's what investigators are trying to figure out. how these two workers ended up on the wrong track, on an active track, when amtrak 89 came through this stretch of rail track behind me. they're looking at how this mistake was made. there's a 12-step process for how construction workers are supposed to end up where they are each time they're doing construction work. and clearly there was a mistake somewhere in there yesterday morning when this collision happened. you can see from the pictures of that train the engine, the force of that impact was enormous. it actually lifted that engine off of the tracks, derailed that front car and passengers who we spoke to described a very frightening experience. one passenger telling cnn he could tell something was wrong before the impact happened. he could see a cloud of smoke and said it felt like they were riding on gravel. as we await more details, we do know autopsies are being done as we speak. we're hope for the identification of those two workers later today. but we do know from a local congressman, robert brady, that they were veteran workers. veteran maintenance workers doing their regular maintenance. help said o he said one of them had 40 years of experience. and he guessed there must have been something in the scheduling, in the dispatching, that went very, very wrong, pamela. >> a 12-step process and this still happened. sara gannon, thank you very much for bringing us that reporting. meantime, donald trump says he could wipe out america's debt in eight years. an idea many economists are calling wild. next, legendary journalist carl bernstein says he knows why trump is re trump is resonating. plus, is trump holding secrets about fox news? a new report raising eyebrows. 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(party music) (splashing/destruction) (splashing/destruction) (burke) and we covered it, october twenty-seventh, 2014. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ from the political system to medical care, education, banking, even basic infrastructure. as far as donald trump is concerned, nothing in america works anymore. take a listen. >> it shows how broken the system is. because our leaders are stupid. >> a total disaster. we can't let it continue. >> see a private system without the artificial lines around every state. >> we spend far more pure pupil than any other country in the world. >> why should they when the stupid leaders of the united states will do it for them and that's what's happening, whether you like it or not. >> all right, so experts would beg to differ but there is no doubt trump's litany of complaints is resonating. why? carl bernstein, author of "a woman in charge," the life of hillary rodham clinton, joins me now to discuss this. carl, let's just start on the economy for instance. donald trump says we're headed for another recession. but data says otherwise. low unemployment, stock market humming along. why is the public buying what trump is selling? >> i don't think they are buying it anymore. i think that they were on the verge of it in much larger numbers. but now we are beginning to see the implosion of the trump campaign because of his misogyny, because of his demagoguery. because of the issues in a deeper sense than mere slogans. was he on the verge of enlarging that? yes, but not now i think. >> when it comes to business, he does have a proven record, many would say. and then he's trying to tackle these other issues we saw in that video. improving education. veterans health care and so forth. why do voters think trump can make a difference in those areas? these are issues politicians have been tackling for decades. >> some voters, i wouldn't generalize too much. i think what he was on the verge of doing was presenting a message that says, look, let's face fakes. our institutions in this country are not working. not education. not transportation. not our medical care. on and on. well, he's not wrong about some of those things. what we have seen instead is his own inability to present a coherent message. his own neo fascist tendencies in term also of author taranism. genocidal inclinations, but rather, me, me, me the self, the big authoritarian leader who will make everything all right without any faith in democratic institutions and the misogyny shown toward women in the last couple of weeks i think is beginning to totally undermine his campaign beyond the base >> it's yet to be seen, though, he's still doing well in the polls. he's still the front-runner. but i want to point out too, clearly you have some strong words for donald trump, but you've also said that he's done some good in the area of highlighting the broken political system, right? >> i don't think it's about whether he has done good or not, i think he has identified some real truths about some elements of the system that aren't working. has he thought through the issues enough to provide solutions? no, he has not. then you mentioned his own business record. i think we're starting to see a kind of scrutiny in the press that puts some real question marks about his own business record. what he has been trying to do is get enough delegates to win before the convention. and now it looks if he loses wisconsin that he might well not be able to do that. why? because of his own failures in these last couple weeks. >> so, carl, something remarkable happened this past weekend. donald trump admitted he made a mistake after retweeting the picture of heidi cruz, ted cruz's wife. what do you make of that? >> i make of it the outcry was so loud that even he recognized -- >> but the outcry has been loud for other controversies, why this one? >> i think there has been a cumulative effect of the last couple of weeks. the kkk remarks, heidi cruz, all kinds of questions. the economy, the interview with "the washington post" with my friend bob woodward which did not make much sense in terms of policy provisions. i think when he was on the verge of breaking through towards a majority of delegates, now he's getting a second look because of his shallowness, ignorance and authoritarianism that is bringing him up short. i've always thought this would be a deadlocked convention and paul ryan might well be the nominee. i still think that is a somewhat likely scenario. >> even though reince priebus has said that's not going to happen more than likely? >> i think if trump cannot get a majority going on, i think there will be a draft on another ballot of a different candidate, not cruz, not kasich, and ryan is a very likely one. a kind of consensus. i've thought that all along, as you know, from what i've said on the air here. >> we'll see what happens. carl bernstein, thank you very much. so great to have you on. >> good to be with you. up next right here in the newsroom, a revealing profile on donald trump and his inner circle, including his wall of shame and bulletproof vest. you both have a perfect driving record. >>perfect. no tickets. no accidents... >>that is until one of you clips a food truck, ruining your perfect record. >>yup... now, you would think your insurance company would cut you some slack, right? >>no. your insurance rates go through the roof. your perfect record doesn't get you anything. >>anything. perfect! for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. and if you do have an accident, our claim centers are available to assist you 24/7. for a free quote, call liberty mutual at switch to liberty mutual and you could save up to $509 call today at see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. as donald trump's campaign gets closer to a possible republican presidential nomination, it appears his campaign's already small inner circle is shrinking. there are reports now that his controversial campaign manager's role is being scaled back and a 20-something political novice is running things behind the scenes. let's talk about this with brian stelter, the host of "reliable sources." brian, what do we know about this report that donald trump has an arsenal of secrets that he could use against roger ailes, the head of fox news? >> this is one of the biggest surprises in the story out today. he reports trump was actually the mediator in a dispute between roger ailes, the powerful head of fox news, and his former pr head. so this guy, brian lewis, was roger ailes right-hand man a number of years. when lewis was fired, he hired a lawyer and it turns out that lawyer had a connection to trump. so trump was called in to basically mediate this feud or this severance negotiation between brian lewis and the head of fox news. what's interesting is that lewis allegedly had lots of secrets he was going to spill about fox. he agreed not to because he signed a deal and he was paid and now he has no comment on this. but the idea here is that maybe trump knows what was in this deal because trump was the negotiator. it shows trump's cozy connections to media executives, like the head of fox news. >> very interesting. i have to ask you about in the report about trump wearing a bulletproof vest and making senior staff at the white house sign nondisclosure agreements. what more do we know about that? >> the idea that he will have senior staffers sign nondisclosure agreements. it came up in an interview with "the washington post" over the weekend. it's something we've not heard before, but this shows how trump brings a corporate sensibility to his running for president. i thought the most revealing detail is that trump has only 94 people on his election -- on his campaign payroll. he has a core staff of about a dozen and then 94 total. hillary clinton's campaign has over 700. that in a nutshell explains the difference between trump's campaign and all the others. if it works, that's miraculous. if it doesn't work, maybe one of the reasons why his campaign will end up not succeeding is because he has a relatively small number of staffers. we'll see in the weeks and months to come. >> of course he says i don't need all these staffers, i can be my own advisor. brian stelter, thank you very much for that. >> thanks. >> and "the lead with jake tapper" starts right now. thanks, pamela. will donald trump trade his "make america great" hat again for a cheesehead? "the lead" start right now. wisconsin votes in fewer than 24 hours as donald trump and ted cruz say their names are the only ones that should be on the ballot come convention time. secret memo. a campaign document we were not supposed to see reveals what donald trump's brain trust really thinks about the republican establishment and the national media. and surprise, surprise, the language is not g-rated. the isis spider web. 20-plus terrorists, some who helped orchestrate massaes