Goals and not to debase our country. Charlie in a tweet, present trump calledident senator corker a lightweight. We live in a land of ideals. Custodians of those ideals at home and their champion abroad. We have done great good in the world. That leadership has had its cost, but we have become incomparably powerful and wealthy as we did. We have a moral obligation and to continue in our just cause and we would bring more than shame on ourselves if we dont. Charlie and former president george w. Bush, without mentioning the president , said this. We have seen nationalism resort to nativism. We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade. Conflict and instability follow in the wake of protectionism. Charlie all of this comes as President Trump met with republicans to discuss his tax reform agenda. Joining me now from washington, robert costa from the washington post. Explain to me as you have seen these people, especially jeff flake, announcing on the senate floor he will not run again, knowing he would not have the support of the president. Mr. Costa what a moment, two to watch two republican senators, but as you said it, especially senator flake, who gave this emotional address on the senate floor. Both corker and flake decided not to run for reelection this year. It sounded an alarm for the political establishment, for their own party and for the country. The latter aspect is important to note because this is just not about the republican civil war which you now have veteran republican senators who hold influence in the chamber, speaking out about the future of the country, calling president own partys president , dangerous, a threat to National Norms and institutions. His conduct unbecoming. The list goes on and on. Charlie and questioning history his truthfulness. Mr. Costa and questioning his truthfulness, charlie. It was a question of character. Charlie what is going to be the outcome of all this . You have steve bannon saying he will challenge people in their primaries, the president has important legislation that these senators are now free to vote their conscience. Mr. Costa it has big consequences. There will be many consequences on capitol hill. Whatthrows a wrench into will happen with tax reform. The party is trying to get tax cuts through. They dont even have a bill yet, but they are trying to get some kind of consensus. The president try to make a pitch and just an hour later, flake makes this bombshell of a speech. There are republican primaries for the senate. This will have an effect in nevada where the incumbent dean heller is facing a conservative challenger. Tennessee, in alabama, judge roy moore is already running in Mitch Mcconnell is likely to face an intense challenge from a band and backed candidate. Charlie at the same time, that is another case where the president said he will support senator wicker. Mr. Costa he says he will support senator barrasso of wyoming senator fisher and nebraska as well. Does the president have the Political Capital to pull them over the finish line . He was not able to do that with senator Luther Strange in alabama. Charlie do we know more about flake and what he hopes to achieve by this . From a simply a senator political family saying i have had enough . Mr. Costa it was, it was also a culmination of a year of criticism from senator flake. He wrote a book called the conscious conservative that was about going against President Trumps ideology. You see a totem of conservatism, beginning his career in a conservative think tank, was in Congress Close to Vice President for pence when he was in the house. This is a mainstream conservative who does not like the direction the gop is going. Charlie so we have civil war in the Republican Party . Mr. Costa we do. Weve had civil war in the Republican Party for nearly a decade. Ever since the Obama Presidency began in january 2009 and the rise of the tea party, we have seen the unraveling of the consensus that was established by president reagan. Hawkish foreign policy, tax cuts, that was the core of what held the Republican Party together. Over the last 10 years in the global economy, and really as a reporter, we see it all breaking apart. As it breaks apart, President Trump has a grip on the base. People like senator flake and senator mccain, former president george w. Bush all are speaking out, appalled at this term. Charlie appalled at where they think the country is going . Mr. Costa they are. They are appalled at what they see as this rising populism, ravensbasedism, politics, a Republican Party they all went up through as an institution, had believed in, they now see in disarray and they dont really know how to control it or bring it back. That is why when senator flake spoke today about the fever in the country, he was speaking about that senate. Is speakingalso about what he thinks the president is responsible for. It seems to me that if george w. Bush speaks the way he did without naming the president but everyone knew what he was talking about john mccain says what he said. They are really talking about holding the president responsible for the tenor of our times. Mr. Costa thats right. And flakes speech was far more personal when it came to President Trump. He talked about how he cannot defend the president s conduct or behavior. He used the term it is not normal repeatedly. How he had to think about answering to his children in the future. It was a question of character in the speech today. What we saw from mccain and former president bush a few days ago was really a question of ideology. They dont like the drift of the party. Flake is making it more personal. Charlie some people are saying in certain columns that people will look back at this and ask you, where were you when you when he saw this happening to the country, if in fact things are as negative as they see them. Where were you and did you take a stand . There is this notion of history is judging you. Mr. Costa there is. Im always as a reporter skeptical of that, in a sense. The establishment sources i talked to in both parties use that kind of phrase, where were you when trump was president , what they see as an apocalyptic moment in this country where norms are being erased and institutions are crumbling, but you have to add that that, many people in this country dont see the country in those terms and they dont see the trump moment as an apocalypse, as but as the break down of an establishment they have come to loath. Charlie and what percentage of the country has that point of view you just articulated represents . Mr. Costa we have seen the polls. Probably about 25 to 40 . 40 of the republican base, the hardcore group. We saw the suburbs in the midwest, the rust belt in 2016, a lot of Movement Towards that even if they were not attending trump rallies. We saw places because of the loss of manufacturing, anger, maybe racially charged politics. They were able to go around that kind of politics because of many factors. Charlie i think the remaining question is will this lead to other people feeling like they have to speak out in terms of how they feel about were the country is today . Mr. Costa i think he will continue to see retired republican lawmakers speak out the safety of retirement that allows them to be more candid. Maybe senator wicker and senator heller, republicans up in 2018 will rethink their campaigns, maybe they wont. I think House Speaker ryan and mcconnell, they are the weathervane im watching. Not to much flake and corker. For now, there are with him in they are with him in lockstep in many respects trying to move forward on the agenda and there is no real unraveling there. Charlie bob costa from the washington post, thank you so much. Mr. Costa thank you. Charlie jenna conant is here. Her latest book man of the hour is a biography of her grandfather, james b conan. As a scientist, he helped oversee gas projects in world war i. He helped oversee a Manhattan Project which produce the first atomic bomb. He also served at Harvard University for 20 years. He was the first ambassador to west germany. Im pleased to have jenna at this table. This is amazing. This is a book you were born to write. This is a book you had to write. This is a book you intended to write. Mine said aend of labor of love, but maybe more labor. Charlie in fact, you said he you knew you had to ride it for write it. I knew i had to write it. Tokyo park was about another Manhattan Project. I did oppenheimer. Very close friend of my grandfather and his wartime colleagues, they oversaw the wartime production of the bomb. And i finallyt tackle it. He had a very big life. Charlie in fact, you said he had several lives. Jenna he did. He thought he would be an academic scientist, he was a very famous chemist and was on track to win it nobel prize when he got tapped to be president of harvard. Charlie this is in the 1930s . Jenna 1933. Hitler camee to power and roosevelt became president. It was a time science was changing the world. Technologies of war were completely changing the way we thought. Charlie lets slow this down. How did he end up being the president of harvard . Jenna harvard was at a moment when its eminence was fading a little bit. It had new competitors. It was trying to figure out who should run the university. It was the height of the depression, so it was a challenging time to become the president of hartford harvard. Someone came to my grandfather and said, would you recommend and what do you think are the challenges facing harvard . He gave such a brilliant talk to this guy that the fellow went back and said, i think this obscure chemist named conant is the man for the job. There was a huge horserace right up until the 11th hour. They thought it would be someone else and in the end, they gave it to this chemist. He was 40 and was not well known at the time. Charlie was a controversial because he also identified with poison gas . Jenna actually, the poison gas, he headed up this secret laboratory for poison gas, but he emerged as a hero of the war. It had been seen as a weapon to help end the war, and the chemists all emerged from world war i as these sort of these famous figures. It was changing the world. Huge industries were being spawned by chemists, so they were seen as changing the next century. They were visionary scientists now. Having a visionary scientist of harbor as the head of harvard seemed the way to go. Charlie interesting because harvard is looking for a president now. One of the questions is what kind of person do we want . A lawyer, a scientist, someone from my grandfather was doubly controversial because like now, it was economic hard times and there were accusations of elitism as there are at harvard now and lack of diversity. My grandfather was from the other side of the tracks. He was from a workingclass neighborhood. He was from. Chester he was from dorchester like the kennedys. He did not want to oversee a school of rich mens sons. He immediately changed the policy and started a Scholarship Program has said we will widen the admissions and admit people of every background and geographical area and religion. This was unheard of at the time. Of course, because harvard did it, all of the other universities in the country followed suit, which is really why he has become known as the father of the american meritocracy. Charlie he also developed sats. Jenna yes, as part of this, he was investing in educational testing and it led to the development of the sat because he wanted to pursue the notion of fairness and merit and you advance on talent, not your birthright. Charlie how do you remember him . Jenna well, i remember him as a brilliant man. He was a very sweet man. He had been through three wars, two hot and one cold. He built terrifying weapons and i think he have been humbled by had been humbled by history a little bit. He realized the Nuclear Force that he helped usher and had not e had not madenc the world a safer place, it made it a more vulnerable place. Charlie he also realized in creating this awful weapon he had to think about the future. Jenna he tried desperately, even before the weapon was used, to control it. He had written a letter to give secretary of war stimson to give to truman to argued they had to control weapons, there should be a national agreement. They failed to achieve an international agreement. Then he lobbied ferociously against the hydrant Hydrogen Bomb and he and oppenheimer lost that fight. It was a very bitter fight. Keller won that fight and oppenheimers reputation was destroyed in the process. The famous great board hearing, he was accused of disloyalty and stripped of his security clearance. Charlie this was a man who literally had led the scientific aspects of the Manhattan Project. Jenna and in my grandfathers view, was responsible for the fact we completed in a possible an impossible weapon in 27 months and he was driven out of washington like a thief in the night. My grandfather thought it was one of the great tragedies of american political life. Charlie he went back to princeton . Jenna he did. He got a job at the institute of advanced studies at princeton, but he was no longer allowed to sit on any of the government committees supervising the weapon that he himself had built and knew more about than anybody, so it was a waste of talent. For my grandfather, who helped create this weapon, and saw it proliferate, he absolutely visualized the situation we are in today. He wrote ad famous speech in which he said if we get ourselves into a situation where we are in a Nuclear Standoff and two countries have stacks of weapons, it will be like two gunmen with itchy trigger fingers and we could be the loser. He foresaw this very situation with north korea then and tried desperately to avert disaster by cautioning restraint and intense diplomacy and not resorting to preemptive strikes. Charlie why was he never called back to government . Jenna well, he was so upset after the oppenheimer hearing, he was so disgusted he called washington a lunatic asylum. Washington charlie he called washington a lunatic asylum . Jenna he did. There are many moments in this book that parallel what we are going to today. At the time in the 1950s, peoples reputations were being destroyed by one story, just bitter, personal fights in washington, so i think he was so dismayed that he asked eisenhower for an appointment and eisenhower made him high commissioner of germany, which was a very important job. Because germany was the front lines of the cold war. If we didnt solve the chairman situation, it was felt we could get into a third world war and a nuclear war with russia. Charlie that was a fact, we were a member of the berlin airlift, a whole number of things. So he felt he could be of service there. He went to germany. He rearmed germany and ushered them into the nato treaty and tried to make them a block against soviet aggression as he saw it in the 1950s. Charlie what was his core competence . Brilliant . Ly he was was it creativity, was it managerial abilities . Jenna i think it was an ability to bring cold, calm reason to enormous national crises. Really, that is what he was known for. He was able to cope with situations of great urgency and danger and bring a lot of reason a lot of history, and an enormous ability to cut through a lot of the politics, the military ambitions, the diplomatic complexities and come up with a solution. He was a problem solver. Charlie how old was he when he died . Jenna he was 84. Charlie did he regret did he write his own memoir . Jenna he did. Called my several lives. It was a good book, a dry book. Charlie they often are. Jenna especially in those days, buttondown yankees. Charlie that is why george bush 41 deserves some credit. He got jon meacham to write his own book. Most of them, with some exceptions ulysses s grant, charles de gaulle, jenna they were stoic. Charlie well, they were not writers in some cases. Almost it was like the thing to do, after you left office, you had to write a memoir. They had to write it, but they were not writers. I think we may see Something Different from obama because he is a writer. Jenna he was to stoic a yankee to admit any doubts. He never publicly secondguessed trumans decision to drop the bomb. Privately, i think he agonized about the second bomb. The nagasaki bomb. I think his guilt was not about charlie was it necessary, because they had not come to the table after the first one. Jenna what most people dont understand is the order was never given to drop the second bomb. ,roves issued one directive general leslie gross, who was the head of the Manhattan Project, he was the head of the Manhattan Project. The warpped the bomb, wasnt over, the implosion bomb became available and they dropped back. As my grandfather always stated, dropped that. As my grandfather always stated, truman could have issued an order to stop the second bomb, but a second order was never given. Charlie it was just a progression jenna and a third bomb was in the works. Charlie by then, they had surrendered. How long was it between the second bomb and the surrender . Was it soon after . After nagasaki, they said jenna yes. His guilt was not about the bombing of japan. In a war of 50 million to 70 million dead, as horrible as those losses were charlie i dont know what the number was, but a huge amount of americans wouldve had to die if they had invaded japan. Jenna they really paled in the numbers dead and my grandfather was firm in his belief that the quickrought the war to a end and saved lives on both sides of the conflict. I dont think that can be debated. His guilt was he helped ushered in Nuclear Weapons and failed to control them. Charlie how did he think they might have been controlled . Wena believe it or not cant put ourselves in their positions, but having witnessed the First Nuclear explosion in alamogordo in 1945, they thought this weapon was so horrifying that it would end war itself. No one would want to use them. It sounds very naive, but oppenheimer, the others, they really all came to believe this. Charlie do we know how c