Here, i will give you one statistic that i do not put in the book. I was told in 1970 that there were 160 some registered lobbyists in washington. There are now over 13,000. Second, i have started studying Early American History in considerable depth and i went backtoschool in my 60s to get a graduate degree in jefferson. The founders used the language of the ancient republican, greece and rome. And warned against corruption. Their definition of corruption was not bribery or quid pro quo, money under the table. It was putting special interests ahead of the common good. By that definition, washington today is a massively corrupt place. Brian let me show you some video of harry truman after he was out of office talking about his future as a next president. [video clip] some of them, when they became president were rich men. Some of them were in the same financial situation that i was myself. Those men who have had to go ahead and do what was necessary to make a living, did not under any circumstances use the fact that they had been president to promote their own welfare and benefit. That is one of the great assets the country has had. President s of the United States are men who understand what it to be the chief executive of the greatest country in the world and that is all there is to it. I had offers from half a dozen people who wanted to pay me a great big salary. One of particular told make you would like to give me 100,000 a year to be chairman of the board of his organization. I said to him why didnt you make that offer to me when i was working on the farm for 10 years. And then he left because he knew where i had put him. He was trying to exploit the presidency of the United States. Brian here we are, some years later and it is 100,000 is not even a enough for a speech. Gary the great senators i worked with in the 1970s and 1980s would never have become lobbyists. The stewarts and nelsons and mansfields, people like that i would not say it is beneath them, but as truman said, they did not believe they should monetize the title they were given by the voters. That ethic again, it is not illegal, it is legal to lobby but the ethics behind that have changed enormously. It was a great question that miller he wrote a book and he talks with harry and asked him a president had just been flown home in air force one. The story was that the president cleaned everything out. Miller brought this up with president truman. And he asked him what he had taken from the white house very he said nothing. Truman said nothing. He said, you must have taken a pencil. No. He answered that it did not belong to him. It is a great mystery to me. I do not know. I observed those great senators i served with. I was still quite a young man and i learned from them. I vowed never to lobby even though it is legal and people were beginning to make a lot of money doing it, it just did not seem right to me. I have never done it. Brian you were not in the senate. This guy came to the senate after you left. Here is senator from louisiana. I will follow up after you see it. [video clip] you understand their backgrounds and who they represent. I think it helps us understand how people of different positions can be friends because if you are truly representing your state the best you can, it is not just because of the politics but because of where they are from. Let me say one other thing that i think we need to Pay Attention to in this body, the United States senate. And that is that we do not let outside forces dictate to us how we treat each other, and how we work together. Brian true . Gary that has changed also a great deal. It is widespread in the country. Everyone knows the parties are at loggerheads. I cannot answer the question as to why. I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. Partisan media has had something to do with it. I would not think her point except the name mr. Murdock. I think he has changed politics in the media. I started in the age of brinkley and Walter Cronkite and they played it right down the middle as you know. But now, we have partisan media aroundtheclock. Moving out of office into moneymaking and that combined with the explosion of campaign costs and finance all intertwined. That has led to a closed system in washington where fewer and people can seek Public Office. It would be impossible for an unknown senator like me to make a Serious Campaign for the presidency today. Brian remind a 25yearold watching this right now about your political past. Gary we do not have enough time. I was starting law school, or the year before, handing out leaflets for john kennedy. I worked in the Justice Department when Robert Kennedy was attorney general. I worked as a volunteer on his 1968 president ial campaign. I then spent two years for George Mcgovern in 1971 and 1972. I ran for the senate, never having run for office before in 1974 and succeeding and being reelected in 1980. Seeking the presidency in 1984. Brian and 1988. Gary in 1988, briefly. Since you have gotten out of politics, what have you done . Besides the 21 books you have written. Gary i have not counted, some before and some since leaving office. I went back to school. I earned a graduate degree, a phd. I wrote a thesis on Thomas Jefferson. And his ideal of the republic. And that got published. I tried to help coloradobased companies do international projects. I was deeply involved in one of our Bell Telephone companies headquartered in denver in modernizing the soviet and then russian telephone system. Starting in 1988 or 1989, all of the way through until about 2003 and 2004. Through the coup, and the collapse of the soviet union. It was an extraordinary adventure. Brian now, you are a representative to Northern Ireland. Gary john kerry whom i supported when he ran for president , asked if i would look into Northern Ireland. Unlike george mitchell, i was not appointed by the president. I did not have the title of special envoy. But from august of 2014 until last month, i was secretary kerrys personal representative, trying to help the factions in Northern Ireland get back together. They were not talking last summer. We made progress through the british and irish governments, bringing the five parties in Northern Ireland together. Happily, virtually on christmas eve, last december, all of the parties negotiated with a lengthy agreement on budgets and welfare reform and flags in parades and a variety of legacy issues. That agreement stuck through the rest of december, january, february, and into march. And then one of the parties, sinn fein pulled out of the agreements because of the welfare cuts and there is still a stalemate. I took a leave of absence from that position when this book was published because i did not want secretary kerry to be held accountable for my views in this book. If im asked to go back, i would be happy to do that. Brian you were on an Advisory Committee for the state department. What kind of work . Gary at the defense department, the committee was called the Threat ReductionAdvisory Committee. 25 experts, more expert than i, including by the way, professor ernest moni who became secretary of energy and at the table with the iranian negotiations. And our job was to advise the secretary on threats over the horizon. A cyber security, biological threats and so forth. I did that for two years and then secretary kerry asked me to chair a committee at the state department called the International Security advisory board. Once again, 2530 experts from military service, diplomacy, former ambassadors, and policymakers we again are looking from the standpoint of diplomacy at many of the same kinds of issues. And advising secretary kerry and the other secretaries in the department on what lies ahead, 510 years in the future. Brian going back to your book, and corruption in government, what is the difference between you serving on these boards and representing companies in colorado to some international body. They look at you and they say he has access. Gary i am not handsomely compensated. Service on the board is voluntary and uncompensated. I am scrupulous on keeping a line between Public Service here in this city and anything i do internationally. The two companies i am helping right now are a Health Care Company and a Water Engineering company. Both of them are national companies. I frankly have turned down advisory positions for companies that are doing activities that i cannot support. I think exporting health care and Water Engineering in africa and other places are worthy endeavors. Brian the reason we ran the video clip, while i was reading your book on the 13th of july, the Washington Post had an article saying patton boggs push on after merger. He was acquired by sanders. Brian just one of many. Was that going on when you were in the senate . Gary no, not the first term. It began to happen sometime in the 1980s, certainly the late 1980s when i left. It became acceptable and then it became almost a dam breaking where once two former senators and members of congress made the leap and made a great deal of money doing so, others followed right thereafter. Brian in this article, it talks about lott it grew to a 12 million business. They sold it. Later on, it gets more intricate. Since december, they have recruited new hires in the Public Policy practice including david. Brian christine blackwood, a Deputy Director from the department of health and Human Services and jim matheson, democrat from utah. What has this kind of thing done to our system . Gary the worst thing it has done is caused widespread public mistrust in government. I think Everyday Americans on the streets in denver and elsewhere see this as just a revolving door. To use a cliche. Of people going into government either by elected or appointed office. Former cabinet officers and others, also migrated to the lobbying industry. They think it is a closed deal. Once you are on the inside, you can get whatever you want through legislation or changes in regulations. The story in the papers today about the auto industry, lobbying against increased safety regulations and winning even though some of their failures have caused deaths. And they are so powerful, they can stop Public Safety regulation of their industry. And that is what people see every day. Brian in your book, you talked several times about a historian named gordon wood. You call him an eminent historian. Here is a little bit of gordon wood talking about the things youre talking about. [video clip] we have this marvelous country which is held together by ideology, by a set of beliefs that came out of the revolution. It keeps us together. You do not have to to be someone, you do not have to have a certain ancestor. You can learn to be an american by coming to believe in these things, liberty, equality, constitutionalism. You do not have to come from a certain race, ethnicity. That is not true in most of the world. Gary i have come to know him. He has written a library of books on Early American History. I think he is widely believed to be the dean of Early American History historians. He taught at brown and has written monumental books about the American Revolution and the themes of the revolution. I have learned an enormous amount from him. This is an aspect of that corruption that our founders were so concerned about that would lead and he cites in some of his works, the division in england that they left. The 17th century. Division between the court and the country. The country was farmers and shopkeepers and Small Business people. The court in london had all of the power, all of the prerogative, and patronage. It was a closed system. That conflict between the court and the country, i see replaying in early 21st century america. Brian for all of the positive things that we got out of the british, they did not create an empire. How does that kind of system now, they are very small compared to what they used to be. Gary we flirted with them with the invasion of iraq. I think that invasion was to impose a democracy, get rid of saddam hussein, create a democracy which would be like that, because that is what the people wanted. And that would be our political and probably military base in the middle east, through which we could control events and surrounding countries. There have been i would not say imperialism, but people in various administrations since world war ii who have had quite extravagant ambitions for this country. That the founders never foresaw. They of course warned against entanglements in europe and elsewhere. Brian you also praised Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and George Washington for going back home after they were in office. And not passing it on to the next generation. None of them had a next generation to pass it on to. Gary that was their misfortune. Brian when did that start . Gary probably with the adams family. There have been great families that have made great contributions to this country. I am not against legacies, involved in public life. I do think we have to have more than two family for the presidency, and we will see if that is how the 2016 campaign shapes up. Part of the networking and the rolodex empire in question is about relationships and, i would not say deals as such, but shared interest, shared special interest, narrow interests, personal interest, and, to me, that is not healthy for the country. Again, i go back to the 1970s, it was not considered healthy by the people i served with in those days. I trace this serious transformation to the last 30 years. I know you asked why and i am still puzzled as to how all of this happened. I think money. Brian you ran for president twice and you ran a campaign, and you ran for senate twice and won. Did you ever feel the impact of money in that process . Gary nothing like today. When i was preparing for the Second National race in 1987, we began to think about the campaign budget. A fraction of what people are talking about. In 1984 race, 50 states, something between 2025 million. That is Walking Around money in one state now. My first senate race in a contested primary of six democrats against a wealthy twoterm incumbent cost 350,000. Average contribution was 17. Six years later, i raised three times that and was outspent. In 2014, in the senate race in colorado, 5 million people, moderate sized state. Each candidate spent more than 25 million and that did not count the new thing on the horizon. The unlimited Political Action committees sanctioned by the supreme court, tragically. Brian have you been involved at all in the 2016 campaign . Gary no. I never believed much in endorsements. I dont think they mean very much. I had a young man working for me in 1984. He became mayor of baltimore twice. Became governor of maryland twice. He is running for president , martin omalley. I feel obligated to martin and i try to help him on issues, foreign policy, National Security issues. I think i have helped to very little but having no money, i cannot make major contributions. Brian he is running against a person who was interviewed by diane sawyer. [video clip] we came out of the white house dead broke. We had no money when we got there and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for chelseas education, it was not easy. Bill has worked really hard and it has been amazing to me, he has worked very hard. We had to pay off all of our debts. He had to make double the money because of taxes and pay off the debts and take care of family members. You think america will understand fivetime Median Income in this country for one speech . Mrs. Clinton i thought making speeches for money was a much better thing than getting connected with any one group or company as so many people who leave Public Office do. Brian there was a story that a lot of the people that contributed to the Clinton Foundation were bundling money with the Clinton Campaign. Gary it remains to be seen. To the degree that i i write in this book about spreading public distrust about politics generally and national politics, particularly, it would have to have some affect. I know what people say to me they not only asked my opinion about things but they express their own. Going from, as mrs. Clinton says, no money to quite a bit of money, personally and for the foundation, makes people wonder how all of this happened. I think she will continue to be plagued with this. I am reminded that there was a kennedy dynasty as well. If you add all three brothers up, only one of them got elected and that one served only 2. 5 years in the white house. It is not as if a patriarch service, two terms, which begins to look a lot like oligarchy in latin america. Brian in your book, you talk about the National Security act from 1947. Gary it was a hinge of history for america. It signaled a Permanent Military presence around the world. Now, the theory behind it was not solid. We mobilized and went to europe in 1917. We mobilized and went to europe in 1941. We do not want to have to do that again. We have all of these troops around the world and as y