[applause] i know that youre applauding because youre here at the 2017 Miami Book Fair here in miami, florida. What a Beautiful Day it is here in miami this morning. Thats why we live here, and thats why such a wonderful destination for our visitors. Welcome again to Miami Book Fair, and we have a truly wonderful treat in store for you today. I hope many of you have had the opportunity all week to enjoy the outstanding presentations that have been taking place this year. I hope that you will continue with us through tomorrow evening when the sevenday fair closes. You know, this fair just would not take place each and every year without the cooperation, the collaboration, the passion, and the volunteerism of many people in our community. Namely, the students, faculty, staff of Miamidade College. [applause] and really hundreds of high school students, middle School Stunts and others in the community. So we truly thank everyone for coming together and unifying behind this Miami Book Fair. Also want to thank the friends, the circle friends of Miami Book Fair. Thank you so much for your support. Each and every year. And i invite others to join that circle. I also want to acknowledge the sponsors, ohl and many, many other corporate and Community Sponsors that, again, come together to make sure that this outstanding literary and cultural event can be brought to thousands and hundreds of thousands of fairgoers every year. So i know that you did not come here to hear me. So what id like to do at this time is to ask you to turn off all of your devices so we can all enjoy the program, and help me welcome a friend of Miami Book Fair, friend of Miamidade College, and he will be introducing our special guests today. Help me welcome mr. Filipe basuto, regional mark manager of tv bank. Good morning. What a large crowd. So, it is my pleasure to be the presenter of our speaker. Youre not here to see me. We all know that. The beauty is, today in miami has to be one of the nicest days in a long time and we needed that so its been exciting day, and not only that but exciting day to have such a distinguished guest here today. Chris matthews began his career by working on the staff four for democratic Members Congress before moving than print media. In 1997 he began his own tack show hard ball with Chris Matthews airing every night on msnbc. The the author of seven bestselling books, including jack kennedy, tip and the gipper, when politics worked, and kennedy and mixon, hard ball. And now with the publication of Bobby Kennedy, raging spirit, he is drawing on Extensive Research and interviews and pulls back the curtain on public and private worlds of Robert Francis kennedy. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming, Chris Matthews. [applause] [cheers and applause] thank you. Thank you. What an intelligent crowd. I have seen this much iq i dont know. Great stuff. Well, just came from seattle, the weather is nicer here. Its great to come back here. A outdoorsy crowd here. Dont have to wear a tie or coat. We only have until 11 15. The rule says 35 minutes. The book is inexpensively priced. Its actually a beautiful piece of art. Theres a picture that i spent my producer and i spent so much time trying to get the right artwork. I want it to be a beautiful back for a beautiful guy. I wanted to it have him with minority kids, reaching out like nobody has ever done before. He was the first white candidate like this who real ya reached into the minority commune and really engulfed himself as much as he. Could this is the reason i wrote this book, is this dirt poor white family along the jersey tracks, in june of 68, dirt poor. The kid has no shirt. We didnt grow up like this but dirt all over you, the guy the father is obviously affectionatly patriotic about Bobby Kennedy. Something the democrats lost, this affectionate patriotism, gut patriotism of the heart. Hes obviously been in the military. Got this crisp salute he is offering his democratic leader. This is all gone, the connection of the white workingless and the Democratic Party. Has to come back. It has to. [applause] and the salute is everything. And the africanamerican crowd that day in june of 68, the audience, Something Like there is doesnt happen. They sang spontaneously 20,000 in baltimore, the battle hymn of the republic. This is americanism. I want to give you four pictures which i think identify my book and why i wrote it. April 4, 1968, Bobby Kennedys campaigning for president. He has gone from notre dame, university to ball state university. In fact at ball state university, an africanamerican kid said, why do you have hope for america . He said baas most white people and most black people are good people. And he said that he had hope. And as he got on the plane, actually got in the door go to the plane to indianapolis, he get to the word that king had been assassinated bay white guy, racist killing. He said why did i tell that kid to have hope . So he gets to the scene, actually before gets to this very tough neighborhood in indianapolis an africanamerican neighborhood, the police leave him, the Police Escort refused to go in. They dont not going to take the risk. They know its explosive. The situation. So bobby goes in anyway. He says i have to go. So he goes in, and the gets up on the flatbed truck looking at the group of africanamericans, have no idea what has happened. There was no twitter and that crap back then. People heard things of word of mouth or waited for cronkite to tell them. Wasnt like today. And he said, have i work with nbc, i was able to get the tape and you hear him saying to the guy next to him, do they know writ . Yet . And the guy says, no. So he has to tell them. And so he gives this says, im not going to talk long because i have something terrible to tell you. He tells them. And initially the crowd is cheering him because theyre so thrilled that Bobby Kennedy is there, that they dont actually hear his words and keep cheering and he has to keep telling them. And we have to read it because the words are amazing. And its classic what i like about this speech issue its awkward. Talks about how his brother was killed bay why guy, why thought was an odd thing to do he wasnt killed for racial reason us but the tried to connect. Took his skin off to talk to the crowd litsch exposed himself, and any true empathy has to come clothed in vulnerability. You have be to vulnerable to be empathetic. Want just say, im a tough guy, have my armor on. Prayers and thoughts are with you, that crap politics always say. Im so sick of it. But true empathy comes from pain, it comes from experience, from being a person. Cant have emthe if you dont have that. Think a lot about the guy with empathy. Dont have it today. Our leader and im note just pointing at the one over top. Im talk about all the ones in congress. They read out statements written by staff people who are bored to death, cold toast. Thats what we get from these people. The other day when trump came out with they tax bill of his, pelosi said 0 Chuck Schumer doesnt matter who reads this stuff. The same words. Its a ponzi scheme. Oh, you original little person. Im so tired of these people. Say something human, Say Something that means something to you, relate to people about what this tax thing will mean to their lives. They dont even bother too much work. Too busy raisings money and kissing ass, which i what they do. I talk about the train ride. Want to talk about the cuban missile crisis. Bobby predicted he wasnt a visionary. Had a couple of predictions thought were fascinating. One that we we would have an africanamerican president in 40 years, off by sten. Pretty good. Also so damned optimistic. What are the changes a guy like barack obama would come along who was unbelievable about threading the needle of ago africanamerican and from a whited mother and all the interesting aspects aspects of immigrations that worked for him. Him being a genius, absolutely 100 clean, like no politician has ever been. And. [applause] but he nailed that. Also nailed the jimmy hoff to toa hoffa, he said he couldnt quit. He said hoffa can quit the mob you. Dont walk away from the mob. You end up in cement somewhere. We dont foe what kind of see meant he end up in but we dont think is what a happy ending the other prediction after the bay of pig he said the russian will bring Nuclear Weapons into cuba. Within a year they did. Castro says told the guy that produced the movie 0 13 days i didnt want them to bring in offensive weapons but they did. He also said he liked Bobby Kennedy but who knows. And he did say that they were wrong to do it because the weapons wore not to defend castro from us. They were to reach every state in the United States every city in the United States this side of seattle. Offensive Nuclear Weapons aim at bounces off the soviet the imbalance with Nuclear Weapons. Nothing do with protecting cuba. They were aimed at us and cass street would have been standing there in central park if the war had gone the other way watching us all executed. The cuban missile crisis, he said it has go get them. His brother jack said if we move on cuba, khrushchev is ready to move on west berlin and we were outnumber thread ten to wound, we would have had to go nuclear so he can see the chain reaction, and then he said, you have to calm down the hawks. Know what he did . He went into the room of hawks, bundy and curtis lemay, people like that. He said were not the empire of japan. We dont pull sneak attacks. We dont go and kill everybody without notice just because we want to gain a strategic advantage. Were not like them. Unfortunately, george w. Bush never got that memo. So, he made a lot of great calls. Made a lot of mistakes in this youth. Joe mccarthy and then turned on him. But the thing i like about bobby was his character because when he turned against joe mccarthy, he thought maccar the has gone too far in fighting communism and abusing witnesses and demagoguery. He wrote the resolution condemning him on behalf of the democrats and help bring him down. When mccarthy drank limps to death, in drank himself to death, in three years, bobby stayed with him as a person. He would go to his family and sit there while maccar the across anytime him in a studentor, he wrote in his diary how mccarthy whereas drunk the last few hearings. Im irish, i understand the whole thing. The clan. You look out for the guy that grew up like you did even if he goes bad itch understand it. All the time he was risking his becauses political career because you didnt want to be known as a friend of joe mccarthy. So he said the airport at national airport, with his daughter, kathleen, who is a friend of mine, and my wife. A friend of my wife even more. Kathleen told me she was six years old with her dad, with daddy, and daddy gets the word over the car radio that joe mccarthy drank himself to death. At bethesda naval hospital. He was so overwrought by this that he drove around the airport three times. And then when it came time to bury mccar their 70 centers showed up for this service at the capitol. Four of them went off to wisconsin, bobby snuck along on the plane. When he got he got a ride with a reporter but begged the guy to never say he was there and then went to the funeral site and sat and watched from the car as they burredded mccarthy. Politicians are not like this. Poll politicians are for show most of them. He had a character within him. He did things because he thought they were important and thats why people believed in him and his enemies feared him because he actually would do what he said he would do. When he announces for president , nixon is watching from portland, oregon, at the benson hotel. Wanting television. Bobby announced for flint, march 16th. And nixon is watching the toupe and then when somebody turns off the television, nixon is still staring at the tv set and am like, twilight zone, and nixon starts with that weird thing of him, talking about forces well be unleashed we cannot imagine. And who knows where this is going lead. Because the kennedys had this sort of atmospheric connection to this country. People feared them. Some hated them. And people loved them. They excited us. And i think in most cases in a very positive way. When jack kennedy went to debate nixon in 1960, bobby was his cornern man and when he said goodbye to him in the green room, he said, kick him in the balls. Who doesnt want a brother like nat . You know who is behind you. Henry cabot lodge said, erase in the assassins image. A real morale booster. I look like an assassin . Try not to look like one too much. I mean, jesus. Anyway, know what this book is about. And i didnt realize it until i spent he last crazy six, seven mons intensely writing it. So its about the writing, i guess, and the research, and all the research is based on people i know. Or got to know very well. Frank man co witness, and Ethel Kennedy and Kathleen Kennedy and people close. Tip oneill who i worked with all the years, almost all of this is inside stuff, stuff that nobody else knows about. The book is really i wrote this in the beginning. The book is about what america could use as a leader today. Its what we lack today. And what we lack is empathy, for real people. True empathy. Not phony, after lunch at the rotary club b. S. Religion, that kind of stuff, but true religious belief. When bobby talked to black crowd in indianapolis he said, lets say a prayer for our country him meant it. Prayer meant something to him. Secondly, unity. He tried to bring blacks and whites together. When he went through gary, indiana, not like ron howard sang about it. Gary, indiana, tough, ethnic town with people with long unspellable names from eastern superthe blacks moving in and rode through the town with the first black mayor littler tony ziai. The guys remember him. The boxing he was the other guy in somebody up there likes me about rocky greats llano. He won the third match. Everybody my age who is here know wes grew up with booking, boxing. So empathy, unity, being a moral compass. Somebody who actually we like to thing, the time were kids watching robin hood movies, when the king or the president , richard the lyon heart shows up, he will do the right thing, be the right person, if it comes down to a judgment, we dont have any of those thing notices our leadership. We dont have empathy, true empathy. Even for a war widow. We do not have unity because the person at the top wants to vision because if he can get his 40 he is happy. If he can get 35, hes happy. As long as he gets that. So division is working. People against him play the same game but i dont hold them as accountable because theyre rocketing but both sides love to play the division game. More moneys into the coffers. And third we lack a moral compass. Someone who can remember when it really comed to crunch and isnt political anymore, the right decision, how to deal with north korea. Somebody that is iran, a moral judgment that helps us . I think we need a moral judgment. These issues are too tricky without a moral guidance. Impossible for human beings to decide sometimes. You need something moral to guide you. And i think we need all those things. If Bobby Kennedy and your spirit is running against donald trump this year you have a good candidate. You have a very good candidate. Hope you read the book. I loved writing it. I think bobby is more interesting than jack because he is more like us. Accessible. Wasnt gifted, wasnt elegant. He was the kid that the father didnt like. And maybe thats why he understood the overlooked. A friend of mine once said i was in the peace corps with them and talk about his love life with women and said people dont mind being using, they mind being discarded. Isnt that everything . Discarded. Every since we started the archie bunker thing in the l. A. 70s, making fun of white working people, we kissed them gob. Make fun of people, you call the deplorable, theyhart you. Saw they cling to their guns and religious . Oh, yeah, cling to my. Okay. Im a little person and youre a big person. Thank you. Ill be voting for the other guy this time. We need some unity again. And this is my guy. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Ill take questions now. I told our guys 18 minutes. Ill be glad to i stuck generally to the book. Theres a lot of stuff but whatever. Im here, im here. I think you have to get in line, miss. Go ahead. Please. You voice must be heard. Hope i have half men and women here, mainsplaining is over. Lets mix it up. Ive often thought how much better life would be today if Bobby Kennedy had not left us. Often, often thought that. Im so glad you wrote the book. I look forward to reading it. And maybe the answers are in there, but i wanted to ask, would bobby be successful today and is there another Bobby Kennedy thats the hardest question, but let me think. I think his brothers tribute to him at st. Patricks cathedral after he died was good. He saw suffering and tried to heal it. Saw war ask tried to stop it. I think of the vietnam after i was part of growing up, anticommunism and i did think the world was being taken over by communists and understand how with got into and didnt want to lose like we lost to the germans, taking one country at a time if get all that. But that was pretty clear by the mid60s we werent going to win over there, the people therefor saw it as a nationalistic struggle and it was them against the europeans against us this, french and then us. Bobby said, i think he would have tried to end the war. Think the war is two times longer thanked had to be. Go to the wall in washington, all the people who were killed, i think half as many. I think if the war ended in 69 under the same term wed got in 73 bit the way. We come home get the p. O. W. S and come home. Not much of other deal for the communist side. They got to us leave. You go, tha