Good evening. Welcome. My name is ed mcmap and i want to welcome no, im kidding. Im mitchell cap lynn on. Behalf of all at the book fair i want to welcome you to the 33rd Miami Book Fair. How many of you is this your third night here . Quite a few of you. This has been a remarkable become fair and couldnt come at a better time to be honest. We had trevor noah, then we had James Carville and if you didnt see allen coming culping he was remarkable remarkable and then Jerald Geraldine books who was track and tonight we have a special guest. As many of you know it takes a village to put this book fair on, and i want to thank everybody here at this remarkable college of Miamidade College for owning their doors and sponsoring this and being the heart and soul of this become fair. So lets give them a pick rousing applause. [applause] i was going to say we also have a journalist two journalists speaking with one another. Also want to thank the remarkable coverage that all the journalist have given us, particularly the miami herald led by n book critic, connie, and i want to thank connie. Its not easy these days being a journalist where you have to file three our stories, an online story, print story, and do it all before like 11 00. Its crazy but we thank her for the great coverage we have gotten. I also want to say that we have started a group called the literotti society and that been a very, very important part of the book fair. If any of you want to learn about it you can speak to lisa better or you can speak to the whom whom im below about to introduce who will be introducing our guest. She is a seasoned real estate professional with significant project management and strategy skills honed over 20 years while leading organizations in both professional and volunteer capacities and also has a deep knowledge of travelhospitality, harts and culture industries. Prior to her own firm, she owned her strategy and marketing expertise in rolls at nonprofits, economic institutions, startups and for fortune 500 companies and mentors starups and participates as a 10 entrepreneur. An avid cheer led nor citys business and cultural scene and is committed to helping shape the citys changing landscape. Having emerged as a legal in many local arts, education and civic organizations. She is also been, as i said, the proud founder of Miami Book Fairs literotti society and has been a huge supporter of everything we do in this literary world of us so give here a big, big Miami Book Fair welcome. Thank you so much. Mother. Thank you so much i sunday 0 much better on paper nine in my head. Good evening. Welcome again to the third night of the book fair, or what i like to call the best week in miami. Applause applause. That deserves a round of applause. As mitch said my names flreenca and im here representing the literott i society. It miss great pleasure to introduce maureen dowd. Best selling author, Pulitzer Prize winner and columnist. Its safe to say nat any of our author here this week would be frilled to have one those titled. The signature style and schapp credit sharp critique of both said my have not made her friends politically but have brought her acclaim. We are lucky to have her with ups one week after us were counting votes and we were with my eightyearold dour and she had blue and red pencils we colored in the Electoral College map and has a lot of questions. And maureens a latest book is pie the year of voting dangerously. A collection of her insend area takes and take downsom the president ial race, which i think we can all agree was probably the most bizarre, disruptive and divisive race of modern political history. She is hear in conversation tonight with map we all recognize by name and by voice, if not by face, mr. Tom hudson, who runs the wrn florida roundup. Know we have lot of of gonzalez our audience tonight, not just cecelias so mess hem me welcome the incomparable maureen dowd. [applause] welcome battie become fair0. A year of vote dangerously ill we survive. I dont know. William goldman, famous screen writer did bush cassidy and the sun dance kid, hat a famous line about hollywood, nobody knows anything. Thats the line we have to think of when we think of washington now because we have a lot of people on tv, 24 hours a day, trying to tell us what is going on, but trust me, no one knows what is going on. Nobody knows what is coming, especially donald trump. He doesnt he i dumbfounded, stunned to find himself there. He you can see it in his face. And so were all in for an incredible ride here. Ive heard it described as the dog who caught the bus. Now what does he do . Hold on . Its interesting you bring up the dog metaphor because one of trumps biographers, tim obryan, used to work with me at the times, had a wonderful metaphor for why trump won this week. He said that a lot of people on the left think that the press didnt explain who donald trump was or wasnt hard enough on him, but that wasnt it. What happened was, as tim said, all of these voters in hardhit swaths of the country really wanted a rottweiler to rip the face off washington. So, sometimes when donald trump had unsavery characteristics, that just persuaded these vote he was more of a rottweiler. So they loathed washington more than they didnt like his behavior. You know, i think it was i wish i had brought this in the high 60s disapproved of he had an when he won the presidency, his unpopularity rating was historic in the high 60s, over 70 . Host which president . Guest is this trump when he won. Over 70 disapproved of how he treated women in the 60s but didnt have the temperment to be president but they voted for million anyway, not because they didnt know who he was but he knew whoa he was and he was their rottweiler. They decide it takes a chief to catch a thief. I describing thats as a repudiation of 30 years of the political class. You have seen this with your own brother and sister hospital. Do they explain more than my brother and sister. All my nephews. I come from a very conservative family, and in the book, before we knew this was going to be the outcome, i had my sister and brother write essays about why they were voting for trump or trying to vote for trump, and its very interesting to read them because you can tell what paul ryan must have been thinking through the campaign. That he was muzzled and will stay muzzled now for quite some time. But if you read their essays you can see because my brother, after the khan, the gold star family when trump inset assaulted them he called me and said is it too late to kill my essay in and my brother thinks he is the ernest hemming we were of the right so for him to want to kill an essay is rare. Said, no, its already shipped to book stores. Then my sister kept jumping on and off every time he insulted heidi crews, she heidi cruz and she said she wouldnt vet for him and i told him and he apologize for that. Then she decided he couldnt vote for him again when the stayed up all night tweeting about miss universe, after the debate. She is like, why isnt he talking about the economy or terrorism . Why is he talking bat woman who gained 12pounds . And so then in the end, she went back and forth but she didnt vote for him but my brother and nephews did vote for him. This is what ive said to people. My fellow columnists have gone out on these kind of Margaret Mead expelled expeditions to find this rare creature known as the trump voter and try and understand them and reason with them, and they always all end up at the same coffee shop in paris, kentucky. And one of them actually put out an open letter, trump voter, please come forward, so i can read e reason with you. And now theyre saying, when you go home for thanksgiving, you have to reason with them and obviously they dont know these people because my family has never asked my opinion bullet politics in my whole life. Not at thanksgiving of any other time so its going to be tough for those who think theyre growing to bring people around with one conversation. I want to ask you about donald trump. You covered him for many, many years. There was a column you include in this book written one year before election days, written on november 8, 2015. And it relates to a lunch you shared with trump in the trump tower, and you quote him as saying to you, im a solid stable person. Im a man of great achievement. I win, maureen. Always win. Not october knock on wood i win. I beat people, i win. Who is the trump you know . Well, trump from the time he got to he so he has been his father was a builder of middle class housing in queens and brooklyn, and as a young man trump always looked across at manhattan and saw it as oz. He wanted the skyscraper and the super model wisdom sky, high legs. Thats what wanted so the came expert stead hanging out at Yankee Stadium with George Steinbrenner lee iacocca and this goo who was the fur er to a stars and another guy who was the limousine king, all larger than life new york figures, roy cohen and cary grant so he fashioned this larger than life fishing on them but in day he was polite and he can go tis stick cal in this group offing egos and that is when he created that character. Then the created another character on the apprentice of the judicious boss who made wise but firm editions and then on the campaign trail he heard the roar of the crowder when he heard first with the bigger thing and then with his bigots statements about mexicans and building the wall and he heard the roar of the crowd and he followed that. I asked him once, this person i see in the primary is nothing like the person i covered in new york all those years. And he thought about and it he said, well, i guess i got to number one by saying these things so i thought i should keep saying them. And so basically he is a salesman and he found this vietnam vacuum in the this vacuum in the market and created the product for that vacuum. Thats why none ourself know where he is going now because his only value is winning. His ideology is his ego. I want you to describe his office. To this crowd ump ive seen his office and interviewed donald trump. Want you to describe that. You describe it in a few of the columns. Because that could be perhaps an indication of that personality, of which character he wants to portray. Well, you know, as you know im from washington. I was born there. So, ive seen plenty of narcissists. But i have never seen narcissism at a level of donald trump. So you go in his office and every single wall space is covered with magazine covers. Framed magazine covers of himself, and the only thing on his desk is a stack of magazine covers of himself. And jut u just paint the picture. Space between the frame is that much. Its not as if it were family photos. Its as if it were wall paper. He has some sports pair fer nailan has mike tysons championship built but its mostly and like an infinity mirror of his face, and so i did ask him in an interview once, i said, this summer, said when you get to the white house, that brings out a lot of narcissism because theres the photographer who follows the president around and takes pictures of him every minute of every day. And then they put those pictures all over the walls of the white house, and now they have digital frames so theyre running pictures in loops and said youre already like that. So when you get there, and its more intense than youre surround by sick sick opants even more do you then there would be a narcissist explosion we could all see on pennsylvania avenue. How would that work . Thats when he said, i know how to behave when guy to palm beach, at maralago and can go to din with mat trains and they think im a politically correct young man. Theyre older than he is. Youre save to sea do save to say that in miamidade. What about the coffee shop in paris, kentucky. Can re go there . Well, you know, donald trump won for the oldest of political reasons. He listened to the voters. When he listened he heard that anxiety and paid attention it. Its interesting because its come out now that bill clinton tried to warn the Clinton Campaign for more than a year. He is the worlds living expert on this group of voters, that his wife lost and he tried to say to them, you have to pay more attention, and robby mook, hillarys campaign guy, a 35yearold big data guy and he they laughed at bill clinton and they said, oh, hes the paging thats the old way. The new way is obamas voter base and so on. And now we have had two democrats who lost basically because they d. Listen to bill clinton. When are they going to start listening to him . So what does secretary clinton do next . What what does she say to the mesh people beyond the concession speech if she should say anything at all . Guest i dont know. Im sure she can she is going to have a whole new chapter, and im sure shell have a wonderful job. She is going to end up winning the popular vote by a couple million. Two million plus right now. And as al gore, saving the planet, im sure she will take her passions and do Something Wonderful with them. And someone our chief Political Correspondent was saying today the fact that she is winning the popular vote, by so much, will make it hard for trump because hell always be seen by a lot of people as a little bit illegitimate. [applause] just a little bit. Just a little bit. You told charlie rose that you used to call strategists, political strategists to understand campaigning but this campaign as forced in your word to tall them shrinks. What have they told you . Well, trump has done something we have never seen and this is why a lot of people are scared partly in the field of foreign affairs, because he zubaydah jew gaited subjugated the history of the Republican Party on russia, the evil empire, to his own evil. So he got a compliment from putin and then hey changed his stance of the Republican Party and you would see republicans going on tv trying to grapple with this and not knowing how to, and we have a wonderful reporter called steven lee mires who did a great biography of putin and said the word putin used when he complimented trump was mistranslated. The whooshed died not mean brilliant. It meant gaudy. So trump changed the entire stance upsidedown of his party based on a mistranslation. And now he and putin and he and assad are Going Forward based on this weird thing where he can be completely malleable if he is given a compliment. Sun was saying after the got in a fight if with Kellyanne Con away during a campaign, how should she get back on his good side and someone who knew him said you just give him seven compliments in a row really fast. So the dynamic youre going to see in washington with Mitch Mcconnell and with putin and assad is they all think they can influence trump, and even president obama is doing this by flattering him and so everyone is going to be platterring him flattering him and trying to lead him as though he is a host body for their plans, so thats what youre going to see in the coming months. That mistranslation, was its big league mistranslation or a big lead mistran layings, im not sure which. Lets talk about what we are slowly learning about a trump administration. The soon to be former chairman of the Republican National exit rebe his chafe of staff, steve ban ban nona what does it say about this relationship with calon hill. So the times news site has this thing, transition thing where all the reporter chime in and give their latest news little news bites and its honestly one of this mow Amazing Things ive ever read. You just cant believe what youre reading. So, the latest thing, as i was coming over here, is that because they ditched Chris Christie and gave the transition to mike pence he has to sign some official piece of paper he needs to sign, so the obama people arent really allowed to give him all the information they need to give. So, basically, the Defense Department and the National Security apparatus has had no contact with the trump transition people. So, we are operating in this weird limbo. And so many things about this. I dont even know where to begin. Take the moment to tray to start to make any sense of it. Yeah we are less than 70 days away from inauguration. During the campaign trumps son went to john kashich ask said were thinking but you as Vice President and if we did that you would be running the white house, and my father would be floating so in essence trump was thinking of it as one of his licensing deals. Like, steak or wine or something. So, his name would be on it but he would be back in trump tower. And so the way that was reported is governor case sick said what would i be responsible for and the response back was policy and he said, what policy, foreign or smoke yes. Foreor domestic . Right. Now youre seeing that happen with mike pence so trump is basically licensing it to mike pence at the moment, and mike pence is taking on all the policy. Which digs into the question of how engaged he is going to be. What can the American Public expect from a President Trump and engagement . He wave seen the campaigner trump, the character you describe in the book. Youve seen potentially this other business character trump that has been able to ruin, build, ruin, build, companies. How is this person now going to engage with the electorate, with the legislature . Is this person going to govern differently than he campaigned . Well, at the very beginning, before it turned really ugly, he would say things that he would he wanted to go and negotiate and spend a lot of time with congress and try and get some deals, and he said the wanted to negotiate a middle east peace contract because he his ultimate real estate deal and he thought he could do it. So i like the idea of the more elbow grease, putting into some intractable things, but i dont think we can know, and he doesnt know. And some of the things like on the 60 minutes thing, some of what he said was reassuring, when they talked about gay marriage and he is like, that settled. Then when they talk about womens rights on abortion, he was, like, less that was a scarier thing because he was saying he would send it back to the states and women might have to go to a different state. Then it kind of evoked this image of going back to back alley abortions and so some of his appointments that he is