Guest i think often times the conventional wisdom is wrong, and the conventional wisdom in money and politics you essentially have good intentioned government officials who who are being influenced or attempts to influence them by corporations or public unions and if we can only figure out a way to seal off essentially these Public Officials from this outside influences, everything would be great and so i call this the Jimmy Stewart mr. Smith goes to washington scenario. And certainly that does happen. You have wellintentioned politicians being tempted by outside forces. But my experience over the last 20 years or so in washington politics researching and writing, more often than not the opposite is true. You have a lot of corporations, other lot of entities that essentially want to be left alone by the federal government, and you have politicians or people in the executive branch who are looking for ways in which to enhance their services or the needs to get corporations involved. The hightech industry is a classic example. If you looked back 15, 20 Years Companies like google or microsoft had very small lobbying presence in the United States. It as essential they were dog what they were doing. You had a series of actions taken by congress, people from both Political Parties that forced the Tech Companies to set up lobby operations. So my view is that often times what happens in washington dc has less to do with bribery and more to do with extortion. Host does the money follow political figures who have a certain core set of beliefs . And not being viewed as bribery or even extortions action you put it. Guest sometimes it does. You can find instances where a politician that ai lined with a particular cause or policy view is getting large sums of money from a certain industry, but people would be surprised if you look at a lot of major u. S. Corporations, they tend to give to people right down the middle politically so you will fine that the oil and gas industry, for example they will give to democrats who perhaps are not predisposed to support their position. The money often times acts as a means of access or a gateway and i had examples that i cite in the book from executives from shell eye and others that literally talk about being at a meeting where members of congress were lambasting them for high gasoline prices and one called for the potential nationalization of the u. S. Oil companies. But after that meeting that very same elected official asked this executive if they might consider organizing a fundraiser for them. If youre an executive and you just heard this sort of veiled threat that maybe we should try to national isize you guys and then theres an attempt to say could you raise money for me, its hard not to see that as some sort of extortive practice. Host you say quote we want to believe that Committee Assignments are based on knowledge, expertise and backgrounds, but a member of congress will end up on a powerful committee, i can ways and means only if he or she can raise the money the more powerful the air signment, the moreman expected to distract from the Industries Industries they oversite of regulation. Guest this is a shocking thing that make i was naive about. I assumed a member of come is elected, maybe their a distinguished attorney so they end up on the Judiciary Committee, or served in the military so theyre on armeds services. The shocking reality is they have a system that they loosely call party dues, and party dues basely functions as price list. If you want to be on a socalled a committee and a committee is deemed to be powerful committee from which you can raise a lot of money house ways and means House Financial Services committee, which has oversight of wall street and the banks. Those are a. Committees. You have to raise somewhere on the order of half a Million Dollars in election cycle not for your own reelection but to actually go the Party Committee of your party whether its the republican or Democratic Congressional committee. And if you dont raise that money, there will be threats and if you continue to not raise the money you could be booted from the committee and put on a c. Committee one that you really cant raise a lot of money from, and so people dont tend to want to be on them. For example the veterans committee, which we would all deem as important work in making sure the veterans are taken care of and their needs. Thats considered a c. Committee because apparently the able too extract money from veterans is not deemed great. The sad reality is that Committee Assignments in washington, dc are determined by this price list, and your ability to raise money and if you dont raise sufficient fund for your committee you will be removed and put on a lower or considered lesser committee. Host among the many books you have written several on Ronald Reagan. Did you ever meet him . Guest i did. I met him after the left the white house in 1994. At his office in los angeles. I think sort of looking back, certainly saw a little bit of the forgetfulness that came with age or alzheimers but we had a 30minute meeting. Actually came as a result of a book id written on reagan and the cold war called victory. Host what was your impression of them . Even though he had stages alzheimers. Guest he certainly had presence. I have met other current president s and corresponded with former president s. He certainly had presence. He was very engaging. He certainly still had a understanding of, i think the core issues. Reagans always struck me as somebody who had a sense or an understanding of a few very, very important things. I cite in one book i wrote on reagan where he talks about foxes and hedgehawks and he talks about the way people think, that you have foxes who know a lot about a lot of things. You could look at somebody like, say, Richard Nixon or bill clinton, and say they are foxes. They understand the minutia of a lot of issues. So you have fox on the one hand, the hem hoggs on the other. Hedge hoggs are people who know about a few very, very important things profoundly important things. So i would put, for example Ronald Reagan as a hedge hog. He was not a technocrat, not a detailed guy but he understood human freedom he understood human schooling when it came to freedom and that made all the difference for the world and the type of leader he was. Host one significant moment in his second term was his meeting with Mick Kell Gorbachev in like vic. Guest the meeting was to come to an arms controlled agreement. Possibly seeking the elimination of Nuclear Weapons which had been a concern of Ronald Reagans for a while. A lot of people fail to recognize he had profound moral concerns about Nuclear Weapons so he was prepared to potentially come to some sort of agreement on the eventual limits limits and elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The problem is that gorbachevs real going was to end the u. S. Strategic defense initiative, sometimes called star wars and that became very apparent when you look at even though russian transcripts of the meetings that was really gorbachevs objective, and reagan was not prepared to give that up because he couldnt understand why if the concern was about Nuclear Weapons capability, why gorbachev would wont to get rid of a weapons system that would prevent ostensibly Nuclear Weapons from being used against civilian populations. Host at the very beginning of your book, reagans war you say the following reagan is impossible to understand outside his 40 year battle with communism, struggle that consumed more of his attention annie other endeavor and touch the very center of his life. It cost him his first marriage, brought him his second wife, damaged his relationship with his children, brought on death threats, sitting up and night guarding with hissed kids and a 32 caliber pistol, three assassination attempts, one fourth deranged assassin took him an inch from death, Ronald Reagan came to believe his life had been spared by god for a define purpose defeating communism. Guest this is a really interesting turning point in reagans a. Reagan in the 1940s is a labor lead are the Screen Actors Guild was a harry truman democrat. Voted for fdr four times. Guest exactly. The real turning point or Tipping Point for reagan when it came to political philosophy had less to do with tax rates and other issues, although they did influence him. It had to do more with this violent strike that occurred where there were elements within the Screen Actors Guild who were supportive of the communist party, members of the communest party, and these individual had a very, very violent strike, and reagan wanted to reason with them and was shocked to the extent that they were willing to use violence to expand their agenda. And i think that had a profound effect that shook him to his core and led him to become the profound anticommunist he was. The profound anticommunist that really did transform the cold war in a fundamental way. Host this book grinning with the gipper is a fun book. I want to ask you about his upbringing. He grew up in a very troubled household but had a sense of humor. Guest he did grow up a in troubled household. Loved his mar very much. Hays father hat a dripping problem, had times when he was not employed. The way that Ronald Reagan debt with that by becoming a man of strong conviction and with sort of a light touch and by that i mean he used humor in a way to lighten the moment but in a sense to convey setter truths. We talked about the relationship between reagan and gorbachev. Reagan would tell gorbachev jokes about communism and the ludicrousy of the problems you had in the soviet system. And gorbachev would laugh and it was a moment of lightheartedness but those jokes had certain truths i think were designed to convey reagans views about communism. Host in the very beginning stages of the 2016 campaign but certainly jeb bush is front and center and your book pie the bushes portrait of a dynasty. I want to share part of what you said. You say for the bushes, blood runs thicker than politics or pattronnage. John adams called it family spirit desire to promote the essence of our families. For the bush its the idea deeply ingrained from our youth longtime Family Friends know they possess a strong tribal sense, dynastic instink that drives them. I you talk to other candidate martin omalley, seeing the presidency is not a crown to be passed from one family to another, clear lay reference to the bush family and the clintons. Guest ive said that as well. Anybody that reads the bushes book will see i have admiration for the family. They have other strong sense of civic duty but it is trouble to me we have a circumstance where you have in a sense i would say, bland names now that have taken over american politics. The bushes and the Republican Party, and the clintons and the Democratic Party where there is this sense of this brand representing the future of government. I have a concern about that and a problem with that. I have come to the conclusion that even in the case of Ronald Reagan who somebody i have enormous respect for nobody in american politics irs replaceable. The notion that people would have in the democratic part right now that Hillary Clinton is the only democrat that can govern us, the only one that can win, and likewise republicans saying that about the bushes. I dont think American History bears that out. History bears out the unexpected the potential for people that look like perhaps ordinary leaders to be great leaders during times of crisis, so i think the reliance that we have of, we have to go back to another to a family, yet again, for another leader, just strikes me as something that is not particularly american. Im not saying theyre antiamerican but im saying the american etoethought is about new blood and new leader. Host we remember in 2000, the campaign and the historyic bush v. Gore litigation and if you read between the lines on the picture you have the mother that is looking over looking on carefully and then george w. Bush almost reading his mind saying what is happening tonight . Yes, yes. Its an amazing drama and what is interesting about the family, one of the things i respect about the family, is that sense of loyalty that transcends politics. They have an amazing ability to convey loyalty but also to have an innate competitiveness within the family, has made them so successful as a political dynasty thats very different. I draw contrast in the book between the kennedy dynasty which i think was more topdown, you had joe kennedy calling the shots, as long as he was able to and directing the careers steering the careers of jfk and ted and bobby with the bushes its more bottomup. The sense and expectation youre a bush, and you are expected to in a essence contribute to American Public life in one way or another and theres a competitiveness between them. So while the brothers love each other very much, theres also a fierce competitiveness to be the one that extend the Family Dynasty or extends the family brand as it were, more than the others and its a unique and i think very effective model as far as dynasties go. Host in fact jeb was the one that was supposed to win in 1994. Guest very, very interesting how that got worked out. Going back now these decades ago, jeb was running for governor in 1994 and everybody in the familiar hill knew he was going to run they expected him to run and they thought he was going to win because he really is a policy guy. A guy that eats and breathes policy and understands it very well. He is the one that, when george h. W. Bush was running for president , was running for congress was involved and engaged in the campaigns in a way that george w. Never was and yet that same year in 1994, george w. Is running for governor in texas against ann richards who was a very, very charismatic campaigner, governor of texas. So when i interview family members and ask them in 94 what did you think was going to happen to a person they all said jebs going to win george w. Is not going to win. A little more of a hot head, not as polished at jeb. The opposite happened so it totally changed the dynamics within the family. It led jeb to a lot of soul searching because the think everybody expected him to win and the didnt, and i think it led to george w. Being recognized within the family in a way as a having political smarts that maybe had not been appreciated before. Host the selection of George Herbert walker bush as Ronald Reagans running mate, decision made let in the process by todays standers. Had gone through the whole ford presidency, walk usually to the decisionmaking process and how significant that was and then the relationship over the years between Ronald Reagan and George Herbert walker bush. Guest thats a great question. A lot of times now in recent political elections the tendency is to pick somebody on the outside for your Vice President ial running mate who maybe wasnt running against you but is going to add something in terms of the state theyre from or the demographics where theyre from in 1980 it was unusual because reagan won the nomination, george h. W. Bush was the runner up, and george h. W. Bucks was the selection and became the selection after this internal debate within the reagan camp and essentially rested on really two things. Number one that george h. W. Bush had a lot of knowledge. He had served as cia director, u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. , he had served as envoy in beijing china. So he had the expertise. More importantly than that they recognized that george h. W. Bush had the temperment of being a team player. He would not try to grab glory you for himself so those were the two qualities that led him to be the choice. That choice was not without dissension. But i think it ended up being an excellent choice and i think they had a very good relationship. They were not close. They were not pals. These were very, very different people. People forget that culturally they came from very, very different backgrounds. Politically, they had differences. Reagan in a way was the antiestablishment republican, potentially looked at running in 68 against nixon ran against ford in 76 and nearly lost. He was the antiestablishment republican. George h. W. Bush was the consummate republican, having served as chairman of the Republican Party itself itch wouldnt say they were close but i think they worked well together and there was a Mutual Respect on both parts which is a key ingredient, and they had different strengths. George h. W. Bush is not the orator not the visionary that reagan was. On the other hand, george h. W. Bush in other words the maybe cappics of government and how things worked. Host you get a sense of how different the Republican Party is today versus 1976, when gerald ford selected bob dole, when reagan, many people forget, selected as republican a pennsylvania senator to be his running made mate, was his hhs secretary but that has changed the party itself. Guest its been very interesting to see both Political Parties undergo this transformation in the case of the Republican Party its has become more activest, lets establishment, a