All right, thank you very much. [applause] please fill out the evaluation for on your chairs editing theres a couple books back or if someone is interested in buying a book. Probably you will sign the book. Interested in American History . Watch American History television on cspan3 at the weekend 48 hours the people and events that help document the american story. Visit cspan. Org history for more information. Kenneth walsh was achieved correspondent for u. S. News world report. He discusses his book celebrity in chief. As long as its okay for you all. Were going to give it about another minute or two and then i will make the introduction. Okay. Hopefully well get a few more people coming in, but my name is Ingrid Bowers another Branch Manager at the Woodrow Wilson wn library. Want to thank you all for coming. Its kind of a dreary, gloomy night thomas of thank you for braving the weather. Tonight if it is part of the 17th annual all for the books literary festival. The festival runs through saturday october 3, and we are to be sure to pick up a program for more information about the programs out in the lobby about our other events throughout the region. It is a regionwide if it. Also afterwards that you can download the app. If you have not already done so, please silence your cell phone, help us improve the vessel furniture by tony out a survey at the end of the program tonight. We have cspan recording this evening so thats just what the cameras and the lights and everything i do for. At the end of this event books will available for sale and signing at the table right over there. Our guest today, kenneth walsh, has served as White House Correspondent for u. S. News world report since 1986. With an extensive contact list of washington insiders he has both historical and contemporary perspectives on events. He has covered five president , ronald reagan, george h. W. Bush, bill clinton, george w. Bush, and currently barack obama. Historian Douglas Brinkley wrote this about kenneth walsh. No trust today covers use of president ial politics with the same bedrock selfassurance, analytical thought a literary aplomb as kenneth walsh. A new york city native who received his bachelors in journalism from Rutgers University and masters in communication from american university. Just out of graduate school he spent two years as lieutenant in the u. S. Army. He has authored several books. s latest, celebrity in chief a history of the president s and the culture of stardom was published in march of this year. Please join me in welcoming ken walsh. [applause] spirit thank you very much, and thank you for coming. We picked a perfectly rainy night my wife is a gardener and shes very happy its raining but that doesnt make it any easier to get you. So thank you very much and im so glad that cspan is here to carry this talk to a wider audience. I always love when that happens. As you just are ive covered the white house since 1986 so im one of the longestserving White House Correspondent in history. Thats where i got the great in my beard, but when youre a White House Correspondent you are always looking for ways to see behind the curtain, to get some sense of what the president is like beyond the spin and Public Relations coming to get more insights into the president. So in the books ive written i tried to do that. I wrote a book about air force one look at president s and a very special habitat of air force one. The book about president s and their homes and retreats and giveaways, sort of what they are like in habitats that way. A book about president ial isolation and the current book which is celebrity in chief, and in that book i talk about the development of our celebrity culture in the United States and how president s need to not only be commander in chief and policymaker in chief, educating chief and so on but celebrity in chief. President s need to participate in Popular Culture more than ever and they cant just sort of the isa and the white house on of their own. And i distinguish between shallow celebrity and consequential celebrity, and my definition in the book is about a president has a consequential celebrity when he, or she someday, can channel and expand on the celebrity to enhance themselves personally and to call attention to their agendas. And the way they do that is really three ways, understand and participate in Popular Culture, representing values of the United States in special ways, values such as liberty or strength or peace or whatever. And some president s have done one of the other end of get back to that in a moment. And, finally, mastering the media of the time the president obama is certainly a celebrity president today, and i will get back to him in a moment but i also wanted to just look ahead a little bit so youre not completely surprised. One of the big celebrity moments we have, and its interesting because its help to call attention to my book, is that donald trump doctor. Heres a perfect example of a celebrity politician running for president. Welcome back to him in a little bit so well have our donald trump discussion in a little while. I wanted to start out with a little history. The first celebrity president was our first president , George Washington. He was elected unanimously by the Electoral College twice but i dont think we will ever have that they can or anything close to that again but he was the man who is considered the indispensable man, the person that gotten the United States through the revolution, who is considered above reproach, who was considered the only person who could lead the new country. And so he was elected president , and this is the image he had to this of course is a later depiction of Washington Crossing the delaware but he was depicted as a man who sort of rose above all the problems of the time, war, independence, squabbling former colonies and so on. And was able to lead the country. People really did revered George Washington an example of that is he was as they say a celebrity for his time. You can see that when he made his way up to new york which was the temporary capital of the United States at the time he was sworn income and this is a depiction of him arriving in new york everywhere he went, he went from mount vernon in virginia which, of course, you can visit and made his way up to new york and it took a much longer than he expected it at 40 when he was treated like to date we would think of as rockstar. Giant crowds, he felt an obligation to talk to everyday people. He felt thats what the president is supposed to do. He made his way to new york. This is an accurate depiction of what happened. People wrote him across the river in a part. Midwood yellowjackets especially made for the occasion. He made his way through new york and was sworn in. So he realized the speech in new york at his place called cooper union, the famous cooper unions speech about slavery, union, war and so on. And he decided hed needed a photo taken for his campaign, the 1860 campaign and he went into the studio, Matthew Brady who was later became that civil war photographer and Matthew Brady was appalled. This was not a goodlooking man and at the time they had head shots. At matthew decided he didnt want to do the headshot because lincoln first of all he showed up in a wrinkled suit and was not very attractive and you can see the wrinkles in circles under his eyes, so Matthew Brady pulled the camera back and came up with this picture. This is the picture they used in the campaign one of the early uses in american politics in the president ial campaign and this was distributed all of the country. , stiffer he looks now in this image. They took advantage of his stature in this picture and it made a big impact because people were used to just head shots of the candidates and here you have the full picture. You cant see the flaws, the wrinkled suit and what Matthew Brady did is he cleverly arranged to have a brook put on this little table and have lincolns hand resting on it, so if you look at the picture you naturally go down and your eye is drawn to the book. This was not a bumpkin, an educated smart man and it worked. He was elected in 1860. But, this was the early use of photography and image to enhance the celebrity of unamerican president ial candidate. This picture was used after he was elected and he grew a beard. This is elected president lincoln. This was taken sometime later, but that picture that i just showed you was used for the first year of his presidency and they jury a beard in, early photo shopping. This is the resolute ring lincoln, the image he had as a civil war leader. Lots of setbacks in the civil war as we all know and i like to show the contrast picture. Evil are so interested this is lincoln his first year in lincoln shortly before. He looks gaunt, spectral. The told office has taken on him, but this was part of his the legend of the man who gave himself for his country in the told the presidency took on him and when he was assassinated, his image just became embedded in the lower of the country and he became father abraham, the man who ended slavery in the man who had almost a spiritual appeal especially to africanamericans and people who had been enslaved admired lincoln. He became such a iconic figure in this was the kind of image he had after he passed away. Lincoln being greeted by George Washington and the angels, so this is the way people thought of lincoln. Again, sort of a largerthanlife figure particularly after he became a martyr. We fast forward a and a lot of people think that the first to celebrity couple may have been john and Jacqueline Kennedy, who i will get back to in a moment, but the first celebrity couple was Grover Cleveland and Frankie Cleveland. Grover cleveland lets much older. She is the daughter of one of his law partners and he actually babysat for her when she was a little girl. He married her in the white house in this is a picture of the ceremony. The media at the time were absolutely fascinated by this couple, serve as sensational aspect it. Over man, younger woman, very beautiful, very accomplished and the media at the time, the newspapers at the time give this enormous coverage when they were married and try to get away to a honeymoon about 100 basra white house. The night after their wedding, they woke up in their honeymoon cottage and opened the blinds and there were reporters in the trees, behind the bushes taking pictures of them and roman cleveland never forgave the media. Havent we heard that a lot in our lifetime . This is a depiction of the wedding and this is what frankie actually looks like, this is a very elegant picture. Sort of the Jacqueline Kennedy in fact, bringing glamour and excitement to the white house. It was really Grover Cleveland and Frankie Cleveland who pioneered this idea is the first liberty couple in the white house. I will fastforward a bit and take up theater roosevelt. In our history president s who have been war heroes tend to be more easily elected than others. Theodore roosevelt understood this and he was one of them. He led what they call the rough riders cavalry unit, the spanishamerican war. This is his posing with the rough riders. He seemed there in his suspenders and military uniform and the flag behind him. He felt were was something that toughened america and the character. He that sometimes it was good to have a work, in the american character and spirit. But, when he was elected president , of course, he succeeded William Mckinley who was assassinated in 1901. Teddy roosevelt took over. Our youngest president was not expected to do much. He was expected to be lost in the vice presidency because a lot of people the republicans in new york where to get rid of him. He succeeded the president of the United States after mckinley died. But, he understood the importance of celebrity and adding to his celebrity and channeling it and call in attention to in positive ways into his agenda. There were many impacts he had on Popular Culture. We seem to have stalled here. Anyway, the wheel of fortune on my little gizmo is not working. When you do it. Im not sure. Thats it. Do you want to just stay up here in case it was on the blink again. Anyway, this is a depiction of a famous incident from it Teddy Roosevelt era. Of this . This is where we get the teddy bear from. What happened was he was a big game hunter he was out hunting in mississippi and he was not able to shoot a bear, so his guide brought to the camp bear cub that he had captured and said, mr. President , you want to shoot a bear, here it is for you. So, this is a depiction of him dressed in his rough riders uniform waving away the guide saying i will not shoot the little bear. There is a dispute about whether they let the bear geico or kept and shot it later. Teddy roosevelt made this into a wonderful story about him and his sportsmanship and doing the right thing. Some enterprising Business People started producing little plush teddy bear for sales in the United States that caught on and we still have teddy bears, thats what comes from. You can see roosevelts commitment to the celebrity nature of his office. Another way he did this, he traveled all around the country visiting National Parks and this is him in yosemite. This is where he is calling attention to himself and he let reporters cover him on these events. He would do this and called attention to his desire to save the great open spaces of the United States and so on. Next, please. This is a wonderful picture of Teddy Roosevelt and capturing his spirit and personality and his self as a celebrity for the time and i think his daughter alice captured him in his all of his majesty when she said her father always wanted to be the baby at every christening, the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral, so that was sort of a nice summary of Teddy Roosevelt. s cousin, franklin, became president in 1932 and he was the picture of optimism, sort of capture the notion of optimism. We will get to the depression later in world war ii. He was sort of had that notion of capturing this one large value we have the United States, which is thinking things will get better and and be optimistic about it. He also was able to capture the interest in endorsements are many people from hollywood. And this was the first time this happened. He had an enormous number of hollywood stars went into a themselves to him because he was so popular and he wanted to attach himself to them because at that time movies were becoming so popular and this would also enhance his own celebrity. This is him with katharine hepburn. That, please. This is an example of the kind of thing he did and its common today, but they would have hollywood celebrities gather at the white house on his birthday every year to raise money for the march of dimes. It was Polio Research because he had polio. If you are the picture, some of you might recognize some of the major stars of the time and you can see all of her and haryana there, stan, over and hardy sitting down on the lot is james cagney, bob hope. So, its really the celebrity upon celebrity. He was able to bring that into his orbits and it was very effective. Another thing he did is he captured talk about this in the book quite a bit he understood sports was so important in the country, so he attached himself to sports, particularly based off. This is him on the way to a baseball game in washington. Sports has become a way for president s to hit their celebrity. Franklin roosevelt did this as well. He understood the media of his time, typically radio, which was a coming medium of the time you have fireside chats. Repelling his agenda to new heights of popularity. He had a distinctive voice. Whenever he gave the fireside chats he was designed to speak like to the country and people would have him on and through many accounts people walking down the street in the city or in town or wherever and people had their windows open and he would not miss a word of roosevelt fireside chat because everyone was listening and you could hear it from inside the buildings and be on the windows and these were tremendously popular. He understood the importance of communicating directly with the country. This is roosevelt as he moved on in his presidency and he was elected to four terms. His fourth term he did not serve out because he passed away, but he was such a celebrity at the time and was able to convince the people to accept the new deal. Now, when he died there was tremendous grief around the country and he had to train his body was taken from warm springs georgia, where he died to hyde park, new york, where his estate was. There was tremendous morning along the train route and it always struck me how there was one incident where a reporter came up to a man who is weeping uncontrollably at a train station at the train was passing through in the reporter said to the man, i see how emotionally moved you are. Did you know president roosevelt and the man said i did not know him, but he knew me and i think thats a wonderful poignant moment that any president would love to have and be remembered that way and thats really the way it was with Franklin Roosevelt. This is an interesting moment with harry truman. I dont know how may