Before, some far worse than we are living today, with the hindsight of history we can see them as Inflection Point in the transitional period between an old system that is broken down in a new one so largely information. Are we added Inflection Point. Absolutely right in the middle. I think to the best example of it in 2016 the republican primary, there was a real civil war and the republican primary that the establishments republicans and john bush and others did not get the nomination, did not get the support of the American People, who got it the revolutionary donald trump, the democrats are doing the same thing right now theyre having a civil war in their party and is it going to be the traditional democrat, is it going to be some outsider, is it going to be a socialist, i think that is indicative of the fact that socialism does not work, to govern the people, it really has not kept up with the country, i guess at the end of this book that i realize after a long period of thoughtfulness and into the wilderness and trying to figure it out is that america goes through the divisive. Roughly over 40 years, why, its because we are very dynamic, demographically, geographically, socially, economically, we are constantly reinventing ourselves, not just as individuals but as a nation and government by his very nature is the status quo institution. This is how we boys done things and this is how we will do things is same way again. Its people who get stuck in the status quo. Get some cave watching going on. [laughter] and based on Common Ground and civility. Explained to me what you mean and what you mean by populism. They are forced to define nationalism and populism and globalism. I believe for decades i was part of the republican policy establishment. I had job and those administrations and i came to reject a lot of the thinking that i had before. Globalism in my mind is the idea because it is a sophisticated economy and the world is flat, flat, National Boundaries are not as an point important and finance and the boundaries are less important with free flow of ideas finance and business and that is the globalist. So we really dont need to think so much about the National Rules and regulations to have global institutions and regulations. The second part is the elitism and a complicated society and to those that have graduate degrees and they all should have any kind of opinion on National Security. So those two together that experts matter but a lot of those think with this group of enlightened people that we would be a safer and happy place. Thats where i was ten or 15 years ago i am not there anymore. For one the elitist are not taking care of all the people and especially i as a patriotic redblooded american they believe the American People are not a self selected group of experts or bureaucrat or aristocrats, the American People who have a right to choose their leaders and also the American People and we could change their mind. So i think we have spent far too long and dealing with the world in the way that it should be the United States is the end of world war ii this is a dominant country and militarily and what they did we were very generous to our former allies and even former adversaries so we entered into security agreements bilateral security agreements to our disadvantage four of those resources of nato. We are very lopsided. That was at the expense of the American Embassy to have Economic Development and those nations. So that is how things were for 70 years. But that did not make sense anymore because the world had changed they had not only recovered economically but were surpassing them. We did the same thing with china around 2000 murray said to ourselves we will give china a helping hand like japan or korea to be our trading partners it didnt work out the same way so thats why i broke with nationalism and broke with globalism and went to elitism well before donald trump came along. I went around the country and did public speaking. I am the elitist. But as it went around the country i knew something was happening. I couldnt figure out what it was so i did my own in formal polling and i would say how many of you think the economy is not where it was you dont have the opportunity for your childrens generation . And then i said is america losing its place in the world that we are being kicked around by pipsqueak countries . That i would ask how many of you think the values of america that we think of selfreliance, independence and ingenuity how many of you think. And then how many of you think it is washingtons fault . Everybodys hand including the sound equipment. [laughter] so the people i was talking to womens groups, College Student students, form policy experts, business groups, they were not suffering but yet they knew something was very wrong. So that was an awakening and a convergence so the way the country had kept the peace and had governed itself for decades. And just with a committed populist, my version. But i would say and i want to point out nationalism is not that xenophobic and populism is that we dont have to do anything. Give everybody everything. Thats for somebody else to talk about but for me it is getting back to americas roots. But you are selfaware with that educational experience. So talk about your time in the white house and with the National Security advisor. And those like fiona hill. And the wall street journal. And the places like the white house dealing with a complex problem and those who are educated. And had written extensively what about the peoples government. You get the best of i. C. E. You can get i was responsible for hiring fiona hill with russia and europe at the Brookings Institution i have read her books and known her for years. I thought she would be an important addition. I knew she wouldnt agree with me but i thought before Trump Took Office that what he said on the campaign trail to improve relations with russia. Not a least bit naive they have been doing bad stuff for a long time to the United States to monkey around in our elections. And as a very good advisor to trump i hoped that fiona hill could get in to with trump to do negotiations lets have a back story. Lets drive a harder deal. Sadly thats not how it worked out because of the Russian Investigation but i thought she would be a very good and then respect her views. And thats not the way it worked out. And also what i thought about him with realworld experience in the Business World as well as a journalist world and he wanted to take a much tougher stand on china thats what trump wanted to do. Cspan lets talk about china even very clear in your book administrations have not recognized it is the challenge. I am interested in your thoughts of complete meeting with the economy that is state run and your thoughts how the president has to be tough with china in the way another president may not have been tough enough. Where do i start . [laughter] talk with the imbalance a capitalist country like america and a state run economy. And also tread on footing. So lets start where is china and where are they . So president xi points out he has essentially that give us all the power. You dont have any individual rights we promise you will have prosperity and peace. That would be the glue that held the country together. And that faded away. There is no real ideology. And then maybe ethnic pride and historical pride. So that is the deal of the chinese leadership. And prosperity has increased but when chinas leader advanced it wasnt like america or in the west with the young person at an old person on old candidate and a young candidate and medium. In china you advance with your generation. So you start out probably identified at ten years old as a smart person to be nurtured so the chinese advance with their age group. By the time they are president they have seen all the leaders they are now dealing with and their government bureaucracy and form policy and they have been working together for decades. You dont move your class or age group at your age cohort so what about today . Where were they in the formative years of their lives . They were in the middle of a cultural revolution. So that in china was in the sixties thats when they were in their late teens and a lot of the leadership now where the sons of the leaders of china when the cultural revolution happened which was chaotic and disruptive and storming universities and tearing down leaders and it was the wrong kind of populist revolution but they took those Senior Leaders and put them in jail. So president xis father was one of those people so as all the colleagues, a lot of them are in the top position and then had a good life now all of a sudden sent to the countryside along with their family to be punished and beaten so president xi and his group to them thats the worst thing that could happen is disruptive Society People going crazy, order breaking down, so what they want to do it all cost is to make sure china doesnt go there again. That drives the whole authoritarian system. That drives their position in the world with order at all cost. They dont believe like we do it is a good thing and individual freedom because you will not have that you will be as the government tells you. Thats what they say so everything goes along quite nicely United States tried to help china to modernize. Just laid korea and all the other countries. But it didnt happen because the chinese were coming from so far behind with probably 20 and 30 years. And they are very conscious of that. People were in starvation situations 20 years ago and now building cities. So the United States, a lot of the manufacturing jobs that they went to china and america we have unemployment or underemployment for the large section of the population. So we enabled their success. We dont resent it. I dont. We enabled it. But now times have changed. It is time to recalibrate that relationship. We dont need to treat china like a third world country to give them the advantages of trade and finance and market economies they have enjoyed as a third world developing country. Im not saying we should have an adversarial relationship or keep them down but just play fair. So with that historic achievement but its time to refigure that relationship. So what about yahweh one dash huawai and do you have concerns about chinas rise as the dominant power. We know you are in charge. We want a piece. But i think their rhetoric and their ambitions have changed. So what i would point to is the refusal to renegotiate a lot of these. They beg borrow steel anyway that you can for western technology. But three things geographically and militarily that im nervous about is the South China Sea. The waterway through which all world trade flows europe to africa to the middle east through the South China Sea honestly and korea and they very aggressively moved to say that internal they said we have some islands and build them out for of the fishing fleet. No. They militarize them and now moving toward claiming that is the worlds greatest see lane of commerce they can say who does what and when. So the silk road is the chinese attempt to take the countries in the 15th and 16th century when the trade came from the middle east the chinese have attempted to recreate the silk road with china in charge is called one belt one road so they will bill the physical highway but also the virtual highway by going through all these countries and building things to Chinese Standards and they will be in charge. Not unlike the roman empire and the final thing is the maritime ambitions looking at pakistan and they said we will build ports and just like the South China Sea they said we want to trade these chinese goods but in fact some of those are now militarized so they are building maritime routes and a land route and trying to solve the worlds Global Commerce so now in addition to that the chinese leaders have said they want to dominate the technology of the future. Making low value tennis shoes to go up through technology. And so artificial intelligenc intelligence, bioengineering and say we want to be leaders and do it however we have to. We will steal and with the intellectual property. And a much more aggressive attitude. And then said we will dominate the world and dominate technology of the world and the commerce of the world. And then to rewrite the rules. And with the rest of the world not to say that this would be overly aggressive start. And the states around the pacific rim with the trade agreements on the lower tariffs to constrain chinas ability and certainly the United States. Youre also talking about the tpp. That would be a great thing to revisit second term. But trump understood if you rebuild the American Economy you have a lot of leverage. As you get over middle east oil and to become Energy Independent you have a lot of leverage. Also and they need to sell it to us. And to fix the American Economy and to use trade wars and the one with britain soon and then to have much more leverage and that my advice to him with the phase i agreement. And japan and south korea and now we have a consortium to go to china and then have the same complaints with the block led by the United States we dont want to keep you down but saw that experiment the economy with the economy that think was visited when you speak about china. But with iraq and afghanistan so how do we extricate ourselves and that there would be a vacuum with isis and al qaeda. And focus energy and resources. I think Foreign Affairs is like childrearing. And to me the big priority now is china. And then to lose track of the real problem. And he was really great at understanding it is the soviet union and the United States is the endgame and Nuclear Weapons. So lets not get sidetracked with the other issue that prevents you from dealing with the major issues. What trump has allowed the Energy Industry in the United States weve had Energy Importers to exporters within a short period of time as a major source of energy so once we got off of their energy with the psychodrama they have been fighting each other with tribal warfare we dont need their oil in fact we could replace their oil so to me is one of the important things all the other stuff you have mentioned that is important and if it distracts you from doing the important thing dealing with asia and china and the five g Global Technologies then you should have a very different approach. Yes like going into afghanistan but we did that after three months we should not have stayed around to rebuild afghanistan and surely not. That you talk in the book the idea trying to nation build what that looks like in 20 years and what is missing is Civil Society you cant just make a democracy you have to be a democracy with those educational institutions and talk about invasions and im interested in your views so i have appreciated your candor from the president s tweeting for example and your thoughts on the Political Institutions as the backbone of democracy. But then on the other hand the judiciary for example we saw a president who passed judges some way or another thinking about the judges that are in the trials and those that are associated with him. Talk to me about the importance. What part of the First Amendment is freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Trump understands like reagan that they will be against him. [laughter] i would absolutely argue that. Some president s do get that treatment. But then says he cannot be involved with the newspaperman. [laughter] so the same way reagan did i think all great revolutionary president s did you have to find a way to get directly to the American People and with that press establishment reagan did it by going around the country speaking to cities and towns all over the country and fdr had fireside chats talking on the radio directly so how does trump do it . He understands the Washington Press corps doesnt like him he understands they hate him and will lie. But he found a way to reach directly to the American People by tweeting. I dont like his tweets but on the other hand it has been very effective to get directly to the American People so for that that is an institution that he and reagan and fdr and lincoln going all the way back has observe the free speech of the american leaders to talk directly to the people. So how is that balanced . For example we wouldnt have more to gain with the wall street journal and Washington Post reported so where is the balance getting in the way of a president and actually asking the question for the American People . So what will happen im trying to figure out, we talked about this at the beginning i dont know its like its just hard. Youll never have a great experience with it. [laughter] so what happens . You have to realize eventually they become irrelevant so to have a little believer and those voices that are trying to strangle or refuse to listen because nobody will listen to them anymore sorry worried about the b