Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20240714

Book. I thought maybe Ronald Reagan had promised or george w. Bush. Guest no one, no one has ever said. Donald trump said in every speech and didnt give a list of 20 judges, justices, potential justices. So i think that really registered. And then what did he do with the first right to life march . He said and he spoke laster, this is something that republicans dont do. The email he put gorsuch on theres prolife. Fuppercaseletter we will assume his prolife. He delivered on those promises. I think the evangelical camp was and continues to be very, very happy with the man. These are some strange times were living in. We never thought would happen, but it is happening. Host i i want to talk about your relation with trump and how you report President Trump at the time he hadnt had even ded yet but then potential candidate trump reached that you and ask for lunch at trump tower. You met and you said he pushed back softly and gently come to words i wouldve thought could never appear in the sentence of daschle also contained the word trumpet you described him as full of humility and graciousness. This was 3. 5 months five months before he had declared. You said after he declared and he was very nice, you said the man i met was nowhere to be found now that he was on stage. There wasnt a a hint of cumulative or gentility or thoughtfulness or kindness, all the things he had shown me. So why do you think him in your opinion, does the present embrace a persona that seems to be so different from the person you met privately . Do think this person with the females come suburban voters, with minority voters who may be that persona isnt there a cup of tea . Guest very good question. And im not alone. Many people said the same thing that a private hes a very different person. Was stunned. The perception is what i went into believing, i was going to get. And as i wrote in the book, is just the opposite. Thoughtful, quiet, inquisitive, humble . He was bragging about that but he was a very different man. And i left that meeting thinking my god, if america sees of this man, this guy this guys going places. And then immediately he did that. That. Why did he do that . Why did he go lie about all tht kind of stuff . Is a master marketer. He understood something about politics that i, again, barack obama moment. Obama fundamental change politics in america. Obama took the equation that says any primary Campaign Democrats go for the liberal base, republicans go for the conservative base, and the general they fight over the middle. Through that all aside. He said my minority base, not black, but lesser numbers, and republicans, by leftwing minority base is if i can get them more agitated, more mobilized, i can beat up your majority base, to the republicans. And thats just what you he did twice. He used social media to do it. Facebook. Donald trump reversed that. He did right back to the democrats. He got his base so worked up that his he could never get 50 they said in the polls. His base beat up the democrats, and use social media as well. He replicated barack obama. Host but to what extent come in 2018 republicans lost the house. You think some of this was related to tone or the persona that is public versus who the man is privately . I think it has something to do with that, yes. You can see in the off your, the of income a party loses x amount. You could say there was a whole swath of resignations and retirements with republicans, and i was true. At the end of the day, i dont think he won new friends between 20162018. Also his popularity im not so sure his popularity goes down stream. It transmits itself to the republicans at the state and local number. I dont know that it does. I dont know that it host mini of the people who lost were either lukewarm or is not embraced them. Guest put it this way. When donald trump, goes into district or state and he says i dont like the republican in there, his base jumps up, barbara comstock, thats what he did and thats what happened to her. So it did happen in several places. I think at the end of the day, with trumpets very much almost a cult of personality it was with obama as well. Same thing. Obama didnt translate necessarily downstream. So 28 title think is a bellwether. I think 2020 will be a fascinating fascinating year no windows i do is make a wild predictions but i will say and you saw in the book, you know how everybody states today, i knew donald trump was going to win. I think im the only person who is willing to put in writing that when he asked, i looked at the future president and i and i told him it was aptly no way he could win. So there. Host dimension in the book even fox news several weeks of an election were projecting that trump would lose as well. Trekked all the experts. One or two people, the one public figure who i think has the greatest laughing him today is ann coulter when she went on bill maher. She said donald trump. I mean, the audience felt apart and left as it all back at her. Shes the one whos got the greatest last laugh. Host and you were at one point a trump skeptic peculiar opted for National Review calling of some of the critiques you had against him. But once he won the primary you didnt join the hashtag never trump rank so in the primary your concerns and your guy was ted cruz. To what extent did you see, you have a donor base, not disclosing what you cant, but to what extent was your donor base tornquist we think of the donor class and the conservative movement tends to be more establishment or maybe success of his people, chamber of commerce wing. To what extent did you feel pressure from the establishment might have felt the initial medicine to trump with donors who are more populous are really embraced him . Guest i guess in a way it didnt affect us that much because we are a 501 c 3 organization. Personally i can do whatever i want as long as i do so personally. There are people in both camps. I had people who are upset with me for not supporting trump. I had people who are upset with me because if i wasnt supporting trump. Its something you just cant win. It really did happen on both ends. But with the national who with the National Review piece is concerned, its unfortunate not that trump became never trump. That piece, that addition of National View was host against trump . Guest against trump. Host ive talked to many people and basic it was against trump. It was not never trump. Guest thats exactly what it was. Unfortunately, the addition became the bible for metatron. There were some people within National View and continue to be very vocal locally antitrust and they were in the. There are some who arent in there. I was a recipient of an interesting. Came to my office begging for money like a dog. Why does he say the. Not a word and the was accurate. I did it come to him asking for money, i came to him because he invited me to lunch to talk about the campaign. We never talked about the research center. At the end of the lunch, he asked me, if he had supported the Media Research center and i said no we hadnt. So it really wasnt what he said. My wife was not happy with the but it was what it was him off to the races we went to. Back to bank for money like a dog. That is the phrase he used to describe, you fired her like a dog. He has used this phrase against multiple people men and women. Yet somehow when he uses it against the women, hes looked at is attacking. What about humility when the president uses language like the. Do you think that the media is unfair in presenting the fact the if is he truly sexist and racist. Or is he more of an equal person. If i am speaking out of turn with him, i apologize. I do believe it was Brian Williams who filed the story. He asked if, im not making this up. He asked if he was anti dog. [laughter] thats the pot calling the kettle black. Isnt it fascinating how the media are constantly savaging the president for the language he uses. Well calling him a nazi, a fascist, calling him every kind of despicable name, the president of the United States. This is again, one of the things in the findings the book the all decency has been cast aside. From donald trump to his opponents. They call him far worse things. They are attempting to do far worse to him than what they accused him of doing to them. They have no right, none, you have a right and i have a right these books have a right to pass judgment on Donald Trumps language. The press doesnt. You pointed out in a Washington Post editorial that the process of uprooting Illegal Immigrants and sometimes they get executed and the hyperbole. Thats the Washington Post. Rent if you were to report whats happening at the border, honestly. What ever happened, all of those stories in the tens of thousands of people, and the story disappeared. Those are the ones crossing the border right now. America is being invaded in a very bad way. By some very bad people. In the book, we cite the flipside to all of the negative about donald trump. When you have 89 percent negative coverage you do have what good is a done. In fact if you look at the litany of accomplishments it is rather extraordinary. Things i didnt know as of october 2018, 1 thing i didnt know was when you talk about those things, his administration had apprehended 127,000 Illegal Immigrants with criminal records. In all the stories of whats going on on the border dont you think there is room with the story to be told. Carrie the book does go through a lot of coverage talking about nbc news. They spent two minutes to talk about the cast mentor of s l had been on for 16 years. Her reports on an number of interesting statistics the positive days released coverage of those statistics and the historic unemployment lows for women and black latinos and the ratio of 60 to one versus 60 to one with russia investigation. These ratios is incredibly huge. I am curious any. In the book also, a journalism professor, about right after trump weinmann one. He said i feel this is a failure. They failed to inform the public about the fashions they were electing. This was from a journalism professor. Im curious to what extent this pipeline is. This is clearly an ongoing issue about the way the press has treated demarest in the past and today this is decades in the making going back to the 60s. Culture wars. To what extent do journalism roles creating a pipeline problem they are the ones creating a problem. Its a bias. Brent i wish Journalism Schools would have a mandatory internship for their students in which they for one year, the journalist and students had to have real jobs. And they had to go work in real america and go visit indiana and see how the real world operates. This is an institution. Where people go from Ivy League Schools to columbia journalism, school of journalism. They never set foot in america. They dont understand real world experiences. They dont understand how the economy works. They do not understand the idea of investment of sacrifice. They dont know how to hire somebody. They dont know the pain of having to lay somebody off. This world is unknown to them. I do believe the in a real way, journalists need to understand what they are talking about before they pass judgment on all of these things. They have worked themselves up into such a messy frenzy especially with this man the when he is tipping the apple cart, he is going against the narrative. I dont have any more cliches i gave them up with. [laughter] but it is what he is doing and therefore you will get a jeff jarvis the clearly seems to throw out the word fascist. What if you seamlessly throughout the word communist with barack obama how long you would last. Carrie the. Of education versus industry. Your book saying that if we are going to get trump, we might as well get the nuremberg valley to go with it. The number of comments the people are comparing trump to hitler is growing by the day. You go through the book systematically and document the extent to which these words are thrown around. The turnaround very casually. In terms of the demographics, looking at the future, the millennial population is 44 percent nonwhite and when we are looking at voting patterns dating back to 1964, 6 percent of black voters voted Something Like 39 percent low 30s for Dwight Eisenhower and nixon in the 60s. Its always been for generations with black voters, single the kids, one time i think it broke 10 percent. We have multi generational black voters having such skepticism for the conservative movement, what does the say Going Forward especially looking at the majority nonwhite. The growing latino population. Looking at the future, what is the future for the conservative movement at the media is so entrenched in these anti conservative narratives. Particularly the minorities. Brent i guess it depends on what conservatives do. There might be some kind of shifts taking place here. I dont know if its temporary or permanent. Heres what i do know. The republican establishment is a reveler to the public conversation. Nobody cares. Nobody cares with the United States says or believes. The house is just one step behind the. Whether Republican Party is concerned, it is in deep trouble. The reason there is a republican president is partially because the republican president spent half of his time voting against the Republican Party. Thats the only reason he is there. He became a populist. He attracted blacks. I think you made a mistake in the campaign. He went to detroit and twice he said what he had to lose. Cute line, he shouldve got the check to me enterprise zone. He didnt do it. I hope he does. I think hes going to move hes got the latino orders moving and i think hes going to move the black voters what does the do to republicans. I dont know. Where conservatives are concerned. It is high time conservatives stood up to the press. He defended himself, he went to war against them. He started this with them. He started it with them. He showed how they can be defeated and he did defeat them. With the conservative movement, either learn a lesson from him more than just maybe not get into the relevancy after him. Carrie he would say with criminal Justice Reform opportunities record unemployment, historically black housing and universities, the he is certainly looking to good outcome. You talk about being disconnected from conservatives. What figures do you see out there as ripping the divide beyond donald trump. Brent coccus. Freedom coccus. At once upon a time the republicans were synonymous with conservatives. Everybody wanted to be a reagan conservative during during the reagan years. Today, youve got this freedom coccus in the house. They are, the conservatives in the house. You got more than a handful of republicans in the senate who are conservatives. There is nothing more than a handful of conservatives. Thats how you get reelected. They are going to be the ones likely maybe one or two more, they are the only conservatives in town. The question is how long can the republicans keep up this facade. When you see them being no different than democrats when it comes to Economic Issues or politicians. They are really no different. We try to out them, the democrats always win. Carrie President Trump is going to sign trade conservatives him. Brent is unfortunate that the president would do the. This is the one thing we just now after the republican, even democrats too, run on the idea of fiscal conservatism. Why, we are going to stop this crazy spending. Their children and their children and their children are going to be affected by this. Why, its irresponsible. The republicans did nothing but. The finger at the democrats during the obama years when the debt was double. Now the democrats are pointing the fingers at the republicans and they are all supporting it. Presence are signing them. George bush and barack obama now President Trump. There is going to be a commotion. And personally is not going to be us, it is going to be her children and her grown grandchildren who are going to be suffering because of what is being done today. Carrie the molar testimony has happened, the report is out, the media has, the ratio stories about the molar investigation was truly incredible. Whats next for the press in terms of their strategies and covering present trump now that the smaller site 19 shining armor. Brent what are they do. They have been vested. On the proposition the there was going to be a real possibility of moving this man from office removing him. Not only a possibility, of calling and a justification for it. All of these things have disappeared. Meanwhile, you that the radicals in the house the are agitating for it. I love it the nancy pelosi suddenly. I dont know what planet we are on but lets assume she is a moderate compared to some of those radicals. The media will continue oxygen to those radicals and nancy pelosi knows it is going to royally backfire on everybody. I think its going to royally backfire the news media. Because again the public is seeing this for what it is. They are saying the everyone saw yesterday, there beating a dead horse. There i go with those cliches again. Carrie the book you talk about bowling on the media and how the divide between republican respondents and democrat respondents to the song about the media. Democrats believe the media is generally on their side and republicans generally believe the media is against their side. To what extent does the media not realize the vote to hers themselves are telling them how to mitigate the lack of trust in the media. Why does the media understand your consumers are especially if you are trying to sell some of the products in your consumers were giving you feedback about the product, why wouldnt you listen to them. Brent there is a fallacy the says this and this trumps business when it comes to the news india. For the reason. Lets go back to cnn. I wont say who it was but cnn has an endless number of president s in recent years. Someone i knew, a good fella, he had been involved with another network on the west coast and it always said to me, its all about the numbers, its all about the numbers. They only care about the numbe numbers. This is the president of cnn. He said im going to do your favor in two papers. Youre going to love me forever. What are they. The first one is get on cnn one or whatever your aircraft is a god of palm beach and bring a checkbook. Ask around and try to find directions for this rush limbaughs house. Gods house knocking the door and open up your checkbook sign it a blank check and give it to him. Tell him he can fill it in for whatever amount he wants to do whatever he wants and one week youll have the Number One Network on television. Thats all you have to do. He asked what my second idea was. I said dont ever take up a fight with robin hales. This guy did and he lost his job. Cnn, you want to regain your audience. Within 15 seconds of market analysis, will tell you the they conservatives win. Dont go in the conservatives standpoint, just even out your network coverage. Go back to news and youre going to break back in. Hed rather go down in flames and do the, all of these networks. If you are looking at this as a business proposition, fox is the pig one on the block. When they do, think of the upset of blocks. They know what theyre doing. They would rather go down in flames. Then deal with fox. Carrie you talk a little bit on the issue of technology and facebook and twitter and conservatives and the perceptions the there is. Against suit conservatives and the suppresses the algorithms. Do you think the text should be broken up. Brent too soon to tell. The question is one, is there a need to do something. And the answer is yes. Because all of it has gone in this direction where they are casting aside and they continue to say they have the open marketplace of ideas and they had the legal protection. Against defamation doing the. There clearly with the lyft. The question becomes will they change course. I dont know, i dont think it will. If they dont, then can you compete against them. Could another facebook emerged. Could another twitter emerge another google. When you look at the power, the these companies have, how are you going to compete against apple with a trillion dollars in cash. How can you compete with facebook when they are reaching 2. 2 billion people across the globe. How are you going to compete with google when as 92 percent of potentials. The has to be explored. If you cant compete with them. Then you have antitrust issues and that is the. Of the conservatives position. You gotta have a petition. Its too soon to tell whether you can or cannot be competitive in the sphere. Carrie do you think, whats the comparison with teddy roosevelt. Do you think potential of comparison between the two. The rough rider, the outsider, the roughandtumble, person and afraid to challenge the establishment. Brent the populace, guess what, thats Elizabeth Warren two. Interesting, no, i see in the future the lyft right Alliance Area against the middle where it comes to corporate america. You are seeing more and more people on the right who are looking at pig businesses saying is corrupt and is corrupting washington. And Everybody Knows they one. When the show. Guess on the lyft. That is an interesting dynamic emerging were anti trust is rising. Donald trump is going in the ted cruz direction two. What is the message. Very populace. I think the road invaded by different things. Elizabeth warren is motivated by the leaving. Ted cruz is the leaving there are two powers. You see this emerging alliance the might be growing. Interesting diamond dynamics. Carrie if we had the editorinchief of the New York Times and the presidency and any other number of executives here in this conversation with us. What would you say to them and their advice to them in terms of looking at the country because certainly an argument i heard over and over again of people who are critics of donald trump as he is dividing the country. To what extent are these National Media outlets dividing the country. Brent they have been for years. I would tell them the when if we were all meeting here and i walked out, there would not be a need to mitigate trump but that is the belief system the they had. We go with him very surprised, that i didnt have smoking horns. I remember years ago when i was having dinner in hollywood. Hosted a dinner for me in hollywood. There were writers and directors and lots of people there. They all knew each other. They were all conservatives. The interesting thing was the at this table right in front of me as i was speaking, there is some people chatting at the table and they all were friends. Clearly socialist. I heard one person reach over to the other and say, i didnt know you are a conservative. It was like making the sign of a fish. I think that is going on today. In the news media. Youve got these industries where its not just profession professional, but it is personal. It is the social world. Thats all they know. Their infinite and they all work at the same network. They all think the same way. They inundate and they believe they are the mainstream. I dont like the term Mainstream Media because are not mainstream they are too part of the lyft the they dont see themselves the way. What i would say to them as higher conservatives. Bring conservatives into the vault. They are professionals, be sure i know how to be reporters. Because there conservatives who dont know how to be reporters either. Back to journalism, bring them in. See what happens to your product. When you have to include them in the equation one is going to happen is very good thanks. Carrie in your business model, the New York Times have singing an uptick in their print and digital. The thing under bill clinton was going to impeachment, they sought a quite enough take. Do you think some extent there is a financial Incentive Forum to continue to display in opposition position. Brent perhaps. You see in this in the world today, lets look at the cable networks. Fox and cnn and in this clearly all of them are motivated a box. Fox not completely. With shaun and lauren, very pro trump. Smith is not in the afternoon. Its not as a one sided as cnn or theyve all made Business Decisions and they are each saying i can carve out a certain piece of the pie for myself. I think at the end of the day, cnn has to be life. I know theyre looking at the numbers. Using we have a sliver of the pie. We have so little of the pie. I dont know the the formula is working forum. Fox is making a portion of money. So it is working forum. It was missing and all the. Journalism. If you look at these 24 hour news networks, fox and indy see and cnn. How much time is being spent on real news reporting. Very little. They would say we are giving the market with market wants. And fortunately, it might be true. Ab the market doesnt want news. Carrie thank you so much. We hope the cspan2 will take a look. Thank you so much. Brent thank you so much and thank you for having me. This program is available for a podcast. All afterwards programs can be viewed at book tv. Org. For 40 years cspan2 has been providing america with unfiltered coverage. You can make up your own mind created by cable in 1979, cspan2 has brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan2, your unfiltered view of government. Every yearbook tv covers book fairs and festivals around the country. Heres a look at some coming up this fall. In september, look for us at the brooklyn festival in new york city. The on october 11th, through the 13th its the southern festival of books in nashville. The following weekend the boston book festival welcomes over 300 speakers in the wisconsin book festival anticipated over 15000 people. Also later in the month, set in for a coverage of the texas book festival in austin. For more information about upcoming book fairs and festivals and to watch our previous festival coverage, with look at the book fair tap on our website. Now invoked to be, we are live with author and historian, joanne freeman. Her books include affairs of honor, the essential hamilton and most recently, the field of blood. Violence in congress and the road to civil war. Joanne freeman, youre going to hate this opening question. Trace the arc of our nations history. From 1783 to 1861, the political history of our nation. Wow, i will use the word hate. Back is a little daunting. Trace the art. Im to do the historian thing and speak generally. I guess it would save your looking an american in politics, from the beginning straight through, we could even go past the civil war, youre talking ou