Presidency over the past 3 and a half years. He is making it very partisan, he came out a few hours ago talking about the democratic mayors not doing enough and how important the National Guard is and i think hes making it a partisan issue where i think in the past a president reach out and try to be compassionate and to bring people together instead of divide them, so i think thats thats been something we have seen with both the pandemic and with the recent protests. How did your book come about . Whats the genesis of it . I had seen a couple of books about the white house. Ive always been fascinated on what happened behind the scenes on Inauguration Day. Thats a dramatic day in our history when one family moves in and another family looks out and the public is looking at is west front of the capital, the swearingin ceremony that we all we all watch, but really behind the scenes theres control chaos at the white house and then the last inauguration i was just fascinated by the obamas taking off in the helicopter as right after President Trump was sworn in and flew over the white house to look down at the house they lived for 8 years as every former president and first lady do to start their new lives as semiprivate citizens, and so i wanted to dig in to what happens when you suddenly go from being the most powerful person in the world to to really being on the sidelines. Host and that includes an interview that you conducted with the president which you recount in the book and here are some of the details, quote, now a man who has been called a carnival barker and a blowhard by predecessors was sitting behind looking at me intently. I was surprised that the interview had come together at all especially since the occasionally seemed unsure of what i was writing about. I guess youre writing about first ladies, referring to the budget i had written on the subject, no, i told him, this is about the former president s. He asked me what i was working on more than once and trump was subdued and thoughtful. Diet coke with ice and the room was so bright that felt like there was television lights shooting down from the ceiling which would have been appropriate for the first president to have been reality tv star. 3 u. S. Flags and 3 times as many as each of the predecessors office. That just speaks a lot to how President Trump views the presidency, he loves the power and hes the most powerful person in the world, right, but he does in the respect his predecessors and so i thought that i had to dig into that in the book. I couldnt just be the story of, you know, george h. W. Bush and bill clinton and their friendship, you get in the book, the remarkable friendships between the former president s and you learn to get over rivalries which has been the case for decades. But i have to look at how donald trump would change the President Trumps club. Clinton and george w. Bush are closer now than they would have been had donald trump not been elected. They have more on common with each other than they do with President Trump. So thats what i wanted to look into, is where does he fit in this club and, you know, at one point i asked him that and he laughed. He was very honest in the interview. Hes certainly very honest and he said, you know, i dont think im going to fit in very well. What do you think . You know, hes under no illusions of where he fits in history. I think he sees that for himself after he leaves office. Host we asked him about the very issue in july in an interview last summer. Here is that exchange. John kennedy relied eisenhower, bill clinton relied on richard nixon, have you reached out to former president s who and why . Not too much. I speak with george bush. Ive spoke a little bit to the father but really not too much. Its hard when people were against you. I very mucht disagreed with the war in iraq so its hard to say that, you know, im all of a sudden i can forget that. Im in a situation where we are in the middle east where weve defeated as you know the caliphate and syria, i did that because i did that, i wanted to do that and we did 100 of the caliphate, when i was at 99 , people said you cant pull out, you cant pull out. When i took it over was a mess, i defeated 100 caliphate. That doesnt mean isis doesnt going around bombing a store and doingg what they do because they are stonecold crazy and we have done a great job and we are in there now for more than 7 trillion, thousands of lives, millions of lives, you to count both side because i actually count both sides. Millions of lives and they went into a country that did not knock down the world trade center, okay, they didnt knock down. It was not iraq and it was not saddam hussein, he had plenty of problems, he was not a good person but he didnt knock down the world trade center. We got stuck in this quicksand that we are getting out. I call them the endless wars. The endless wars have to end. Does that mirror what he told you . Little bit softer when it came to the bushes because he had just been invite today George George stephanopoulos george h. W. Bushs funeral, his relationship with bush which is very strained and according to my recording i have talked to lots of people including george w. Bushs family and friends say that was used as civil war. Trumps presidency was like the civil war. The only conversation that is trump has had with george w. Bush around Brett Kavanaugh who had worked for bush and bush called senators to try to get kavanaugh confirmed during the controversial hearing. They have only spoken twice on the phone and that was a long time and i know during pandemic former president s want to be of service and help but they feel like they cant do anything right now because they would look as they are teaming against him. The story will be is why they are uniting and donald trump is not part of this and they feel like their hands are tied. There is one story in the book involving former president jimmy carter as we know many saturday evenings he would would be down the street in plains georgia to meet with family and friends. Quote, on a quiet saturday evening as former president carter was about to serve himself at the buffet table at a friends house a call came in from the white house operator announcing that President Trump we wanted to talk to him about china and trade. Jimmy carter sat down plait and picked up the phone, some spoke for most of the call, but carter was able to ask about the status of talks with north korea and he advised the president to, quote, be flexible with the north Korean Leader. Carter got in a dig about trumps then National Security adviser john bolton, staunch supporter of the war in iraq to which the president replied, i call the shots according to person in the room, the tenminute call left President Trump unmoved and after they hung up he went back to the table piled with platters of food and quietly filled his plate as though nothing had happened. Thats classic jimmy carter, right . I dont know if youve had an opportunity to go down to plains, but incredible sunday service that he does and he and wife carter lived in modest ranchstyle home that i went to visit with my friend last june and we went down there and an incredible meeting because he is so very modest and different from trump. Trump used carter as fellow outsider from the president s club. Over the years carter has done things including criticizing george w. Bush about the war in iraq, criticizing bushs handling of Hurricane Katrina and being very outspoken, you know, he went to haiti, north korea, he went all over the world on behalf of this country but in the process delivering messages on behalf of president clinton, he went to haiti, he brought cnn crew with him and did an interview with cnn before he briefed to clinton about what happened in the trip which is just not done. He does things his own way and i think trump sees kinship with jimmy carter, that has changed recently when jimmy carter, you know, questioned whether or not trump was legitimate president. But when i interviewed trump he indicated that carter was the only former president that he felt he really had an affinity for because he was a fellow outsider. Host and one photograph that captured a lot of the former president s after barack obama was elected president during the transition period as you can see, george w. Bush, his father george h. W. Bush, president elect barack obama and jimmy carter. Good morning. Good morning, steve, love cspan. Good morning, ms. Brower. I have been voting straight democrat since 1972. Im on south side of chicago, small city. I actually got a photograph of my late wife with mr. Obama when he ran against bobby in a fundraiser at the hilton. Im a little discouraged by what im reading in the news obamagate, i hope it doesnt come back to the president. I agree there are some bad actors in the top of the fbi, im just hoping it doesnt come back to president obama, but if it does, is there any author out there that will write about it obama and even when trump is out, write a book about trump unbiased . Because theres so much bias in the news today that cspan is terrific. We all love cspan, but im afraid history will bend a little bit both in Different Directions for both different president s, thanks a lot. Host bob, thanks for the call. There are historians who will look at the Trump Presidency fairly. I think there is certainly, you know, a degree of liberal bias in the news and i do think that sometimes when youre just saying things that are kind of known, you know, i think trump is such a disruptor. For instance, in my interview with the president i asked if he would go to president obamas president ial Library Opening which is something every president has done in modern history to celebrate the legacy of the president s before him and he said no, why would why would he even invite me. Now we know he will not invite obamas to president ial portrait unveiling in the white house. Theres just a break of tradition that i dont think its bias in sort of just marking that at the break. I think the bigger question is does that matter, do these traditions matter . When Melania Trump decided not to move into the white house immediately because she wanted barron trump, their son to finish school in new york, that was something no modern first lady has done. But i think it was an interesting move because why should you not be able to make those decisions for yourself and your family, so in some ways they disruptors and very different but also forced us to question the traditions. Caller mentioned former president obama, his comments earlier this year, the graduating class of the historically black colleges and universities, he did not mention President Trump, but clearly he was on his mind. Lets watch. More than anything this pandemic has pulled back curtain that so many of the folks in charge know what they are doing, a lot of them arent even pretend b to be in charge, if the world is going to get better its going to be up to you. With everything suddenly feeling like its up for grabs, this is your time to seize the initiative. Nobody can tell you anymore that you should be waiting your turn. Nobody can tell you anymore this is how its always been done. More than ever, this is your moment, your generations world to shape. Host Kate Andersen brower, when you heard that, what was your reaction . I was surprised because president obama has really been quiet on the sidelines. Hes been criticized for that and i have reported in the book about how he feels, you know, somewhat like hes in a bind, you know. He feels if he does come out and criticize President Trump and he immediately provides a a way to galvanize trump voters because i think trump wants an enemy and obama makes good clearly good enemy, weve heard him talk about this obamagate Conspiracy Theory thatsen proven. Thats unproven. I was surprised. The pandemic has pushed president obama and president bush out into speaking. They feel like this is just a bridge too far. It has not been handled well and i talked to one top former trump official who said, well, it is ironic that the president feels calling up strong men autocrats like erdogan and putin than he does to pick up the phone to talk to obama and bush and is there a problem with that, you know, would it be helpful for us to see the former president s now, they a lot of people disagree with the war, a lot of people have problems with clinton, bush and obama but they do carry a certain moral authority, certainly jimmy carter does and i think people would like to see that especially during the time out of inprecedented pandemic in modern history and then terrible whats going on around the country, the unrest in protests. It would be very nice for us to see president s come together, i think. Dorothy is next from raleigh, north carolina, good morning. Good morning, i would like to address a couple of things really quick but thats not the question i want to ask. I want to make a couple of statements, a couple of the callers brought this thing up. Number one, theres no obamagate, the reason why the fbi was was investigating Trumps Campaign members was because they the fbi was listening to russia. They listen to russia calls coming to the u. S. Trumps Campaign People were talking to russia. Thats how they got involved with that because the fbi surveilling russia, not the Trump Campaign but there were 150 contacts. President trump met them in helsinki. He didnt say trumps name. How many times has trump offended most of the president s . Hes doing it, so when history is written, you have to write, we have videos, we cant theres no hearsay. You are going to hear it. As to divisiveness of dividing the citizens and one more thing i want to say and you can tell me if thats the reason why the president s we didnt know that we were going to have another emergency. Cspan had two people, trump is not a president who can deal with emergencies and he might not be a strategic thinker, we will have a cyberattack and might still be in office and probably handled terribly and two people on cspan from intelligence, republicans an democrats and they said not enough is being done for us about cyberattack and thats going to be our next emergency, pandemic. Dorothy, thanks for the call from raleigh, north carolina. Im reminded when former president bush released video praising frontline workers, President Trump was where was he during impeachment . Guest that was remarkable to me and to her point i do wonder if theres strategy behind some of that because it doesnt make a whole lot of sense because most president s would see bushs video and say this is wonderful, lets all come together but instead President Trump use it to divide and that worked for him in 2016 and we are going into an election and thats the cynical thinking. As he said to me, he honestly has serious disagreements with the president s that came before him. He really does think that the war in iraq was the worst decision in u. S. History and thats something, like him or not, he has stuck by the conditions that he had for years. You can go back 20 years and look at what he said about america paying for countries and Everyone Needs to pay their own fair share when he has not changed and i think the presidency if anything has cost him to become more of who he is. Hes dug in. But i think he wants to be accepted by the former president s. I really do, but i think he feels like hes an outsider and so it has worked for him. Gary, good morning, from birmingham, alabama, youre next. Caller how are you doing, thanks for accepting me call. I have a thought about the 5 president s and what president obama had just recently stated about basically handling the torture over to this future generation. Here is something that i think speaking with hundreds of people, the president s, those 5 president s, if they were to come together and truly want to hand that torch over, with the federal congressional staffers we have right now that have for 20 or 30 years really havent worked for the people, bring in their payroll and their insurance into the same system that the states have. If you think about it its the same thing that we live under as a people, systems within our states, yet they have their own system. We understand with corporate and companies that there are ways of incentivizing peoples payrolls to create some type of productivity. Our congress staffers could do the same and they would produce if their payrolls and insurance were back home. Host gary, thank you for the call from alabama. Kate andersen brower, comment . Guest well, i do think to a larger point and i have ive always been struck by the former president s cashing in on the presidency and how its become situation where, you know, the obamas could become the first billionaire former president and first lady because ms. Obama is incredibly powerful in her own right and jimmy carter, someone who did not profit from the presidency to the same extent at all. And then, you know, harry truman, someone so word about looking like he was endorsing companies that he wouldnt even sign his memoirs with a pen that had a brand name on it because he was concerned that it would look like he was endorsing that brand of pens. So i think since gerald ford who famously joined the corporate boards to make money, weve seen the presidency earn these men enormous amount of money, right, and so theres a sense of profiting off of the presidency that i think is really unseemly and i talk about that in the book but at the same time, you know, they have given lots of money to charity and in the obama and the bushes and the clintons have done a loot good with the money as well but something getting paid 500,000 for an hourlong speech is ridiculous, right . Our guest Kate Andersen brower, team of 5, the best sellers, the residents, a look at the white house and first women, shes contributed to the new york times, vanity fair, the washington post, Bloomberg Business week and al is joining from st. Petersburg, florida. Good morning. Good morning, in regard to your book cover i really like that 5 politicians, youre absolutely right, the politicians and donald tru