phil mattingly, thank you so much. dana bash who used to run up and down those halls for years and years and years. phil has talked to folks on both sides of the aisle. confident that the house will get to this and nancy pelosi was so key in brokering this deal why is she standing there now for four-plus hours and saying no? i saw you write that down and because you re you, is why you picked up what you did about nancy pelosi. to people at home, it makes no sense. not at all. because she s getting attention for the issue she s upset is not in there. she understood because she is as sort of seasoned and tough as a legislator as they come, that at the end of the day, we saw what happened in the senate a few weeks ago. they tried to use the immigration issue as leverage for keeping the government open and it didn t work. shut the government down. it didn t work out so politically, at least in the short term, for democrats. nancy pelosi is making using the megaphone that she has by saying, you know what? i want to get a promise from the republicans that if the senate brings this up the house will as well. she s trying to shine a light on this issue. why? politically. phil touched on this. there are many people in her party who are furious about giving uch the leverage of immigration, giving up the leverage of the dreamer issue and letting this package that a lot of things a lot of people want from military spending, health community centers, disaster relief for hurricanes. lot of people in the conservative movement and even democrats who don t like it, because it is a lot of government spending which many of them campaigned for for years. at the same time they re taking baby steps. the question after this happens, and assuming it will ultimately pass the house and our government will stay open and there will be a two-year budget deal, then when the senate turns to immigration, which technically is supposed to be tomorrow when they start debate, how does that play out? that s a very big question. that s what we watch for tomorrow on immigration. more breaking news out of the white house. senior aide to president trump has resigned after two ex-wives went public with accusations of domestic abuse. i m talking about rob porter. trump s white house staff secretary. he denies these allegations but is stepping down anyway. dana is with me. i also want to bring in jeff zeleny, our stand-in senior white house correspondent. jeff, rob porter has denied this entirely but yet he chose he s left the white house. tell me more. indeed, brooke, fairly abrupt decision to announce his resignation. the white house staff secretary is a very important person in the west wing, largely because they handle the information flow into and utilize of the office. lot of proximity to the president. he was an aide fo orrin hatch and others on capitol hill. he did announce he was resigning today in the wake of that report of verbal and physical abuse of his two ex-wives. this is first reported by the daily mail. this is something that has been percolating a bit. yesterday several white house aides stood by him and said they were going to support him. and then today he resigns when some photographs were published also online of a black eye of one of his former wives. let s take a look at this statement. these allegations are false. i took the photos given to the media 15 years ago. and the reality behind them is nowhere close as to what s being described. he goes on to say i ve been transparent and truthful about these vile claims but i will not further engage publicly with a coordinated smear campaign. he is also having a personal relationship, we hear, with hope hicks, white house communications director, who, of course, is very close to the president. that was one of the reasons he was viewed so highly inside the west wing here. it was one of the reasons he was being protected. certainly interesting he announced he was resigning today. we re not certain the date of the resignation. it will happen some point in the future. if have you this photographic routine. everyone is hired at the white house. then they go through background checks for security clearance. that s when this was learned, some point last year about abuse allegations. it s all surfacing in the last couple of days at the daily mail.com report and then he decided to resign, rather abruptly, i would say, today, brooke. what are you thinking on this? he s saying he didn t do it, but he s leaving. a big job. a very big job. look, as jeff was saying, it s too early to know the real details. i don t know that we ll ever know the real deal. in talking to people who worked with rob porter in the white house and before that on the hill, but particularly in the white house, they re pretty surprised by this. those who interact with him as a colleague are pretty surprised. they call him extremely soft our mj lee was talking with senator hatch and he said his statement he says this. i m heartbroken by today s allegations and every action i ve had with rob, he has been courteous, professional and respectful. i do not know the details of his personal life. domestic violence in any form is abhorrent. i am praying for rob and those involved. however, the white house released a statement from senator hatch in his name saying it is incredibly discouraging to see such a vile attack on such a decent man. shame on any publication that would print this and shame on the politically motivated, morally bankrupt character as issins that would attempt to sully a man s good name. boy, that s trumpy. so was he saying that? his printed statement released by the white house in the senator s name. we are told that the senator, once his office learns more about this, wanted to release their own. interesting. the white house clearly trying to put a different light, blame the media light on this. and, again, we have to point out one of the people at the center of this is the white house communications director hope hicks in charge of messaging. we are told by multiple people familiar with the situation that she is having a personal relationship with rob porter. that one of the complicating dynamics but certainly orrin hatch wishing his former colleague well but stepping way back from what the white house is trying to say in his name. brooke? jeff, thank you very much. dana, thank you. next, marching orders, secretary of defense james mattis weighing in on president trump s request for a military parade as more and more veterans are speaking out, saying no to any sort of parade. one senator calling it cheesy. also, kim jong-un s youngest sister now being sent to lead the north korea delegation at the winter olympics in south korea. what we know about her background and the role she has in her family. keep in mind, this is happening as the vice president announces added pressure on north korea ahead of the olympic bes. 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[burke] that s one way to fire up the crowd. but we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we ve seen a thing or two. we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum what can a president [ do in thirty seconds? he can fire an fbi director who won t pledge his loyalty. he can order the deportation of a million immigrant children. he can threaten an unstable dictator armed with nuclear weapons. he can go into a rage and enter the nuclear launch codes. how bad does it have to get before congress does something? these are local, expert advisors that will partner with you to find the perfect place and determine the right level of care. whether that s just a helping hand or fulltime memory care. best of all it s a free service. there s never any cost to you. senior living has never been better. and there s never been an easier way to get great advice. call today. a place for mom. you know your family. we know senior living. a place for mom. you know your family. we know senior living. together we ll make the right choice. on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort your sleep number setting. and snoring? does your bed do that? right now during the ultimate sleep number event, our queen c2 mattress with adjustable comfort on both sides is only $699, save $200. ends soon. visit sleepnumber.com for a store near you. washington down pennsylvania avenue. i don t know. we ll have to try to top it. before we talk about the political implications of this parade, i want to take you back to the end of the gulf war. this is what was being broadcast right here on cnn the last time the u.s. held a military parade in 1991. announcer: this is cnn. the parade featured military equipment, the patriot missile got the loudest applause. you ll remember during the war it got the name scud buster. this parade meant we re finally home. this is finally over and the american people appreciated what we did. they, to me, meant that going through operation desert storm and desert shield was worth it. and made me realize just how much, you know, the people back here, you know, are standing up for us. and appreciated what we were doing. good to see the country showing their support. i think it s hey. it s good to see my daughter, you know. there was controversy over having a victory parade from anti-war activists to arab representatives who said there should be no celebration over the deaths of more than 100,000 iraqis. some even called this a campaign rally for george bush. let s have a conversation. former speaker for new york city council and steve lonagan former republican for the u.s. senate and he served in ted cruz s campaign. great to have both of you on. we talked to two veterans last hour. you said both your fathers served in the military. chris, just starting with you, do you think it is a great idea, honor our military, have a parade or too much of a trump show? i ll quote my father, larry quinn, 91, world war ii veteran in the navy. he think it s ridiculous, a waste of money. honestly, he believes and i believe him, victories are to be celebrated, and veteran s day. the president called for this parade because he had fun in france, liked all the big guns and troops parade in front of him. this really smacks of the president liking the way the north korean leader dictates a little too much. this seems about donald trump and making sure everyone knows he has the biggest button and not about veterans sacrifices. what do you think, steve? coming out of new york city, which gives america the biggest military parade every single year, called fleet week, where we parade our united states navy up the river and thousands enjoy seeing that, there s no reason we couldn t show the great job the president is doing rebuilding our military, sequestration, demilitary strength. it s on the mend, getting stronger every day. the world knows it. why not show off to our military how proud we are of that. steve just told the truth of what this parade is about, showcasing what republicans believe is donald trump s successes. that s very different than fleet week, a longstanding tradition to give the men and women of the navy and marines a break and celebration. longstanding parade, christine. longstanding parade. it s more of a gathering than a parade, fleet week, but longstanding, yes. that s about the men and women. as you said, steve, this parade the president proposing would be about saluting the president s so-called good work. political, serving and supporting military. saluting the greatness of our military, of sacrifice so much in this longstanding effort in the middle east. losing men and women every single year. enough is enough. let s tell the world we have the most powerful military on the planet earth and they should stand down. people shouldn t need a parade that salutes the president, as you said, the president s so-called successes to know that america is the greatest might morally and militarily in the world. we are losing that posture and that position and people seeing us that way because of the president s behavior. our military is getting stronger every day. we re building our military forces. isis is disintegrating because of this military. their morale is being reboosted after being demoralized under barack obama and sequestration efforts and it s about time we show the world what we re made of. the world knows. the world doesn t know. you think the world knows. let s listen to the secretary of defense who jumped in to the white house press briefing and offered this when asked about it. as far as the parade goes again, the president s respect, his fondness for the military, i think, is reflected in him asking for these options. we ve been putting together some options. we ll send them up to the white house for decision. general was on last hour who pointed out more of the sort of reticence. he was of your camp saying, listen, if our military is a bunch of bad asses, pardon, we don t need to show the world. we just know we are. let me add one more piece of sound. republican senator lindsey graham weighed in as well. i m not looking for a soviet-style hardware display. that s not who we are. that s cheesy and shows weakness, i think, quite frankly. a parade where can all say thank you and honor them would be fine. i would like to see kids marching, honor military families. okay. i just wanted to get those voices in the conversation as well. let s move on to our former vice president, joe biden, here at cnn last night. he was on with chris cuomo and offered this when it comes to the president. i just marvel at some of the things he says and does, like, what, two days ago, anybody that didn t stand up and clap for him was unamerican and maybe even treasonous? he said it was tongue in cheek. democrats can t take a joke. let me tell you, he s a joke. that s been the headline, coming from former vice president, calling the president a joke. coming from a guy who plagiarized an entire speech, people seem to forget. you have to question who the joke is. biden is irrelevant. nobody cares what he has to say. and the president, again, is presiding over the greatest economy we ve seen in decades, rebuilding of our american military, great economic growth, stock market growth despite recent corrections and an economy second to none over the last 30 years. wow! huh? so, obviously, bringing up the speech from the labor secretary is really having to reach back in history, to criticize joe biden. you learn from this. you do. but joe biden has moved on and served his country well. if you look at recent polling on the former vice president, it shows that many, many americans care what he has to say and what he thinks. let s stop for a second. there is all this upsetness that joe biden has said this about the president. let s remember all the horrible things that donald trump said and did regarding president obama s citizenship. he, in essence, called him an illegitimate american citizen, constantly, disrespectfully demanding his birth certificate, leading the so-called birther s movement. you want to talk about somebody being disrespectful to the president of the united states and to the office of the presidency, it is our present president, donald trump. not joe biden, a man who has dedicated his life to service to this country. he has sacrificed in the light that have. i hope joe biden runs for president trump, so donald trump can beat him and send him to retirement once and for all. i don t think that will be the outcome. thank you, steve and chris. appreciate both of you. kim jong-un s sister becomes the member of the dynasty to ever cross the border into south korea. what is behind her history-making trip to the olympics and what we actually know about her, coming up. for your heart. your joints. or your digestion. so why wouldn t you take something for the most important part of you. your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember. oooooooooh! you sleep on a poorly crafted mattress, you might find yourself sippin a hot cup of mud, too. you need a ghostbed™. the only mattress with cooling latex over gel memory foam to give you the deepest sleep. delivered to your door. in a box. at a great price. because you shouldn t have to pay a lot for a great night s sleep. order your ghostbed™ today and receive $100 off plus two free ghostpillows. ick! ghostbed™. amazing mattress. unreal sleep. high-profile delegation, his sister, kim jo-yung, first time any member of the kim dynasty has set foot on south korean soil. let s talk it over with i have a zillion questions for you. first and foremost, what do we even know about the sister? we know she s probably the youngest of kim jong-il s children. we don t even really know that. we don t know the number. of siblings? we don t even know? we don t know. most korea watcher think she is the most capable of kim jong-il s children. which means she would be the absolute ruler of north korea if she weren t a woman because it s a very male dominated society. so, therefore, that puts her out of the running. because it puts her out of the running, it also means she s not competition for her brother, kim jong-un, who is actually in charge. and that means she s become extremely influential. even, for instance, the number two in the regime. he s not that important. kim jong-un tells him what to do. he actually listens to his sister. with the sister, as we said, the first time someone in the family has set foot on south korean soil, are they worried about her interfacing with south koreans? would there be any danger? would they want to keep her, i don t know, if a private homestead of staying in some big hotel? i think both the south koreans and north koreans think the same way. they want to control all interactions that she has. you know, she could be talking to people like moon jae-in, the president of south korea, but it will be under very, very defined circumstances and they certainly don t want her talking to ordinary south koreans or to people who just go to the olympics. this will be one of the most closely choreographed items at the olympics. it s possible i was asking you in commercial break we know vice president pence will be over there for the opening ceremony. you could have we don t know the seating chart but you could have this sister and the u.s. vice president sitting certainly under the same roof. yeah. well, this is important because mike pence, the vice president, said look we re not ruling out discussions with north korea while he s at the olympics. he s not trying to set them up. moon jae-in, who does want to see a dialogue between north korea and the u.s. could very well try to arrange something, make it look accidental. all sorts of possibilities that can occur. you know, this is south korea, after all. anything can happen. especially at a very volatile time like this. and if pence does meet kim jong-il jo-yung, it will be one of the biggest stories this year. even korean language someone explained to me if she started talking to someone in south korea, it s almost like someone like us talking to someone from the 1950s. we speak the same language but there s a barrier. even more different than that. what s happened is that you have two koreas. they sit side by side. but they ve had very different developments since 1948. so, people the dialects are different. word usage is different. there are very difficult communications problems. we re seeing this now with the woman s ice hockey team fielded by both north korea and south korea, same team. they re having problems talking to each other. this is going to be you know, this is one of the most fascinating things. yeah, they re all koreans but they re two very different societies. so noteworthy. gordon chung, thank you so much. we ll watch this limp beings very closely. appreciate you. breaking news out of the white house. senior aide to president trump up and resigning after two ex-wives have gone public with accusations of domestic abuse. he is denying this, by the way. just in, was the white house aware of the allegations? 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[ clock ticking ] what can a president do in thirty seconds? he can fire an fbi director who won t pledge his loyalty. he can order the deportation of a million immigrant children. he can threaten an unstable dictator armed with nuclear weapons. he can go into a rage and enter the nuclear launch codes. how bad does it have to get before congress does something? he s a nascar champion who s she s a world-class swimmer who s stared down the best in her sport. but for both of them, the most challenging opponent was. pe blood clots in my lung. it was really scary. a dvt in my leg. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. my doctor and i choose xarelto® xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner. .that s proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt and pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. here s how xarelto works. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least six blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective. .targeting just one critical factor, interacting with less of your body s natural blood-clotting function. don t stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor as this may increase risk of blood clots. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling. if you ve had spinal anesthesia, watch for back pain or any nerve or muscle-related signs or symptoms. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures and before starting xarelto® about any conditions, such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. you ve got to learn all you can. .to help protect yourself from dvt and pe blood clots. talk to your doctor about xarelto®. there s more to know. investigation into russia meddling. informing schiff he will not voluntarily return before the committee, corey lewandowski. page peyton, good to see you. good to see you, brooke. bannon saving what he has to say for mueller and schiff says not so fast. now we re seeing the congressional investigations play out in many ways, the way we ve seen some of the special counsel s investigation play out. because subpoenas will now be served and presumably enforced if they do not come to terms and voluntarily appear in front of these committees and produce whatever documents are being requested. once the subpoena is served the lawyer force bannon, they can file an objection to that. it will eventually go to court for resolution, as to whether or not they actually have to appear and provide whatever documents are being requested. okay. that s those two guys. let s talk about the president. because the latest, you know, sort of strand on the story of will he, won t he talk to, you know, bob mueller, mueller s team, special counsel when they ask they haven t yet. his lawyer are trying to avoid that potentially. to me what s being overlooked here is the rationale to why trump wants to talk to him from our reporting page. it s because the president thinks he is a master at these sorts of things because of his experience with lawsuits and the fact that he has been in so many depositions. brooke, i have represented many people, high-level executives, political figures, never the president. but many people who were targets of a criminal investigation or subject of a criminal investigation. and they think if they just had the chance, they could go in there and explain it all to the investigators. they could talk themselves out of being charged. that makes absolutely no sense. especially in a case like this. this is not the beginning of the investigation where the special counsel s office is simply trying to gather they already have a lot of facts. the purpose is to confront him with those facts. the missing link is the intent of the president. the only way the special counsel s office really gets to that intent is to interview the president. so there s no legal reason for doing it. any lawyer worth his salt or her salt would never let the president go into an interview like that. so you talked about your different kinds of clients who went in and thought they could talk themselves out of it. in this case we re talking about the president. is it hubris? absolutely. what are you going to do? convince the special counsel s office that they re bronco whatever conclusions they ve made? we don t know what conclusions they ve made but they have reviewed a lot of evidence. they know things the president presumably does not know about what other witnesses like michael flynn may have said during his cooperation with the special counsel. so you don t go into an interview and think you can have a man to man showdown when you don t know what the other side has. there s a no win scenario for the president by going into a meeting like that. let me play one piece of sound. this is from congressman trey gowdy. he is blaming the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein for what he sees as bob mueller s overreach. fear that jurisdiction may wander a bit. i think it already has. it has already wandered a little bit but i would not blame bob mueller. i would blame whoever drafted the jurisdiction and the chart per empowered him. if you look at it, it says matters that may arise from the investigation. what in the heck does that mean? is that a bank robbery in topeka, kansas? and that came from rod rosenstein? yes, ma am. what s the root of the message? is that another example of trying to get out ahead and weaken the mueller investigation? i think so. if there is an obstruction charge or a money laundering charge or something that arises out of the investigation but is not directly related to the russia part of the investigation, then you may have trump and some of his supporters in the white house and in congress saying, wait a minute. this was something the special counsel was not even supposed to look at and because his direction was so poorly drafted and vague, he was able to, as representative gowdy said, wander into these areas. but that s necessary for an investigation like this. we don t know what evidence the special counsel will uncover during the investigation until the investigation is over. so you have to give the special counsel some leeway to pursue those leads and there s always a check. always a check by deputy attorney general who can say no. don t go there. thank you so much. coming up next, a search scandal that has now turned into an ethics investigation. have you heard about this nashville mayor s story? 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[mascot] hey-oooo! whoop, whoop! [crowd 1] hey, you re on fire! [mascot] you bet i am! [crowd 2] dude, you re on fire! [mascot] oh, yeah! [crowd 3] no, you re on fire! look behind you. [mascot] i m cool. i m cool. [burke] that s one way to fire up the crowd. but we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we ve seen a thing or two. we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum one, two, here we go i m alive, i m alive i m alive, i m alive i m alive, i m alive this is what it sounds like whoa-oh-oh, i m alive alive! gives you more vitamins and minerals than leading brands. i m alive, i m alive because when you start with more, you own the morning. alive! on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort, your sleep number setting. and snoring? does your bed do that? right now during the ultimate sleep number event, save 50% on the ultimate limited edition bed with adjustable comfort on both sides. ends soon. visit sleepnumber.com for a store near you. also under scrutiny, whether she used her power to get her lover s daughter a job. at this point she has said she isn t going anywhere. she plans to remain in her post despite the increasing pressure on her in the wake of having an extra-marital affair with the head of her security detail. part of that comes from the new special committee. that was established by the metro council last night. the resolution that formed committee passed overwhelmingly. the committee will be made up of xoums will investigate over whether mayor barry misused funds while having this affair. there have been various trim that s she took while the man she was having an affair with, sergeant rob forrest, was also on the trip. barry s spokesperson released a lengthy statement outlining each trip in question and detailing what was paid for by taxpayers and what was paid for personally by the mayor. now, in addition to her travel schedule, the hiring of sergeant forrest s daughter to the legal department is raising some legal questions. barry does admit that she personally recommended macy amos for the job but several other people also recommended her as well. he also said that it is his decision to make and that she was qualified and the department is completely independent from the player s office. in addition to the on special committee, the attorney general s office is looking into this, the tennessee bureau of investigations are all looking into the mayor s conduct. but there are some signs literally that she still has support in nashville. two billboards popped up on busy highways that said we love our mayor. and as if the scandal wasn t enough, the mayor and her family are still recovering from the tragic death of her 22-year-old son max of an apparent drug
A look at the latest news and headlines of the day features discussions of politics and culture, analysis of political correctness in Campus Craziness and. A look at the latest news and headlines of the day features discussions of politics and culture, analysis of political correctness in Campus Craziness and. want to enforce that. we are only allowed to talk about the same thing and only allowed to have the same perspectives on the same things. god bless the president for occasionally wanting to talk about something msnbc doesn t want to talk about. tucker: exactly, shut up and obey as their program. thank you for that, insightful as always. suisse had listed on the show we highlighted what is the remarkable and very sad story. more than a quarter-century after apartheid, south africa is becoming a place where an entire group of people is targeted for violence on their skin color. we opposed that obviously, it was wrong 25 years ago and it is wrong now. it is wrong wherever and whenever. it happens. we call the state department to get their view on what is happening in south africa, because the leadership does matter. they told us they didn t care. confiscating party without compensation is fine and effects because south africa was quote a strong democracy, whatever that means. pretty shocking. we are not the only ones who vomit hard to believe, the washington post insinuated that we made that up. unfortunately, we did not. the presidents are segment and he tweeted this response. i ve asked pompeo to study the south africa land and farm seizures. hope we did talk about those lt night but we did not address the killings. in any case, the state department elaborated. here s part of it. i should mention that the taking of land, our position is that would sent south africa down the wrong path. we continue to encourage a public debate about what we consider to be a very important issue in south africa. tucker: that was kind of tepid, it will not solve the problem but it is good news. pushing back against racial discrimination is always worth doing. and yet for some reason, luminaries in the media disagree. they were offended by that. they suggested it was racist to oppose the racist policies of the south african government, watch. he goes and what better way to give this neo-nazi propaganda than white farmers being killed in south africa when in fact that is not true, not based on them being white. tucker: show that clip to anybody who knows south africa or lives there and shows them that and they will laugh. the president of the country has pledged to change south africa s constitution in order to legalize the seizure of property without compensation. that is currently being debated in the parliaments. it would government is trying to take it to farms the owners continued to not sell after a fractured price. they racial attacks. questions, that is because they are insane questions. in the u.s. to be punished guilty. do not punish their descendants or everyone with the same hair and eye color. for more than 200 years, everybody in america agreed on those terms. now the people who run our country aren t so sure. increasingly they think that generational guilt is a fine standard. where does that end up? for preview let s go back to south africa. julius is the leader of the country s third largest political party, he is one of south africa s most famous figures. here s what he said two years ago about murdering people on the basis of their skin color, watch this. i am saying to you, it was not called for the killing of white people. you would understand someone watching that, they freak out. it sounds like a genocidal killing. tucker: he hasn t become any more moderate, he has become more radical and incidentally he s become more popular. here s what he said a few months ago. go after a white man. starting with this whiteness. cutting the throat of whiteness. he is not a french thinker and south africa, he is a pivotal thinker. he saw the president street and much like the washington post he was offended by it. notice how you make certain to blame for good measure, watch this this is from today. donald trump is not saying anything. there is a group of white right-wingers who been trained by to be snipers. only death will stop us. not trump. tucker: that right there is what our ruling class is now defending. it does make me wonder about their motives. christian is a former state department advisor under president trump and george w. bush and he joins us, great to see you. there are many levels here, south africa s the only modern country and africa. it s a great country. it is worth helping them not go to the zimbabwe territory. wise it s horribly state department to say that is wrong? this happens in the regional bureaus, east asia and in this case it is africa, too often they end up representing the interests of the government. as opposed to their real job which is to represent our interest to them. you so that in the original statement. very weak defending south africa, completely glossing over the murder. tucker: why would one of our producers as married to a south african who is working here. if you talk to anybody, why would you take statistics from the government at face value? that is insane. and yet are state department does. what are they not more sophisticated? i don t think they know, there is a lot of ignorance about this. this is one of the more unauthorized victim groups around the world. we have authorized ones that are allowed to be concerned about, the various minority groups but when it comes to the present or the people, the vice president defending christians in the middle east, even muslims, christians in burma. these are not the ordinary victims that the left cares about. that flows over to her state department bureaucracy at times. unfortunately you see not a lot of regard and interest for this. we don t have a political ambassador down there in south africa which means that our representation down there frankly is weak. tucker: by the way just to be totally clear, i am very wary of getting too involved in the internal dealings of any country unless it directly benefits the united states. i m not calling for any dramatic action. people listen to it are state department says and it feels like it would be low cost is a united states doesn t think that you should punish people on the basis of their appearance. also we can just tell a very topical historical lesson if you will. without the military, intelligence, just be honest about this, what is going on in south africa happened next door nearby in zimbabwe. beginning around 2,000, robert will grab a lunch around white farmers, a combination of blood glued to predation and violence by thugs. they pushed more and more white farmers out but has led to food shortages. spirit it became the poorest country on planet earth because of that. with the president going to keep up with this issue? across the board the president has been very good about the forgotten people, not only in the united states but people around the world. christians in the middle east, no one aside from trump is speaking up for them. not even the pope. i think they re going to see this. pompeo has been very focused, north korea, iran, syria. this is not an area where there are fundamental u.s. interests. tucker: we are doing a segment later with marco rubio on muslims being persecuted in china. i know the reaction is, this is tribalism. it does not appear there is a principle that is worth defending. we will continue. christian, think you very much. molly tibbets tragically became the face of illegal crime, those in power it did not even exist. the truth is different, we will investigate that after the break. to keep you both comfortable. it even helps with this. so you wake up ready to put your pedal to the metal. and now, all beds are on sale. save 50% on the new sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, 24-month financing and free home delivery. ends saturday. sleep number. proven, quality sleep. with advil liqui-gels, what bad shoulder? what headache? advil is relief that s fast strength that lasts you ll ask. what pain? with advil liqui-gels this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian s back? he doesn t get my room. he s only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40 s. tucker: a college student molly tibbet is dead, she was killed by an illegal alien. another reminder that our government class does refuse to do this. when called out on that they do not do anything wrong, some say we should be grateful that illegal aliens enter this country because they are more impressive than regular americans. last cent we spoke with alex from the institute in washington who argue despite breaking the law, illegal immigrants are far less criminal than people were born here. if you want to take a look nationwide at convictions and incarceration, you get. tucker: hold on. we don t have those data. the most conference of data we have are from the federal system it is true. not every state will say that. i know the answer. the state of texas. you and that is one. that is one among 50. tucker: the author of the book, second strike he joins us tonight. thank you very much for coming on. it seems like a simple question to answer because it is a databased question. to what extent do people here illegally add to our crime problem or smart we know the answer? speak with a pretty good understanding of it. you have to go through data because various organs of both federal and state government consciously avoid getting this data. you could probably find out for example how much norwegian prisoners there are in minnesota. it is difficult to disaggregate data with illegal aliens but it can be done. there s something called the state criminal aliens assistance program and you can extrapolate from that and get pretty reliable data. alex is very knowledgeable and that is why it is puzzling that you won t acknowledge the overwhelming data that proves that illegal aliens commit more crime and at a higher rate that is then lawful residence, but more serious crimes at a far higher rate. we are not talking about a little bit, he conveniently mentioned texas to claim that the homicide rate among illegal aliens is 46% lower. he chose the one state where it is true. the homicide rates are lower for illegal aliens, by 15, not 44%. if you look at every other state, it is significant how much more every other serious crime rate, assault, you name it. so much more for example. and new york, 27% of incarcerated incarcerated aliens are therefore murder, not jaywalking. we did a study, we suspect, the five largest states to see how many illegal aliens were incarcerated for homicide. texas, new york, florida, california and arizona. 5,400 illegal aliens are incarcerated for homicide. that is just homicide. there are over 300 illegal aliens incarcerated, billions of dollars and incarceration, and the base that open border advocates deal is that they don t count the millions of offenses and crimes committed by illegal aliens such as document theft, social security, but also legal appropriation of welfare benefits. we are talking about billions of dollars. let s put that aside and let s just talk about the more serious crimes, the most comprehensive examination of this by using arizona department of corrections data. he went over 30-year period. this was exhaustive and this is what he does, he is a scholar. what he showed is that illegal aliens don t just commit more crimes or more serious crimes by 5% more or 10% more than the lawful resident, but by 250% more. for a long time when i listen to for example, people on television, i am astonished by the fact that we have copious data on this. it appears as if there is a law to have been of entrenched entries that want to make us believe that this is not a serious issue. americans are being slaughtered. americans are suffering property damage for billions of dollars. americans are spending billions of tax dollars to address this problem, both for my law enforcement standpoint and incarceration standpoint. tucker: you would think we would have the right to know. maybe americans aside, it is worth it. i want more illegal aliens, maybe they wouldn t but we have a right to the information. that is why i m so grateful that you came tonight. thank you very much for that. we ll talk to an antiabortion activists with video with misconduct by planned parenthood. the release of those videos have been blocked by a highly political judge, joining us next to explain. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don t start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. tell you doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. needles. fine for some things. but for you, one pill a day may provide symptom relief. ask your doctor about xeljanz xr. an unjection™ . when the guy in frontd down the highway ask your doctor about xeljanz xr. slams on his brakes out of nowhere. you do, too, but not in time. hey, no big deal. you ve got a good record and liberty mutual won t hold a grudge by raising your rates over one mistake. you hear that, karen? 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what kind of compensation? tucker: look of the conversation, that is a clip from the old video but they could release many more like it. he could not legally thanks to a gag order placed by a federal judge and democratic donor. he says the video somehow posed a public safety risk. he joins us, david thank you for coming on. we are interested in hearing about this. how does a single judge have the right to end your first amendment right, your constitutional right to freedom of expression? he doesn t talk her and that is what is so blatantly unconstitutional about the gag order that judge william at planned parenthood lee national abortion center has issued against me in the center of medical progress will releasing be further extensive undercover videotapes that we have of top-level doctors and executives networking at the national abortion federation meeting. one of the biggest abortion trade shows in america that happen every single year. judge orrick, for his part as the founder of a planned parenthood clinic in san francisco. he helped open at enron and fondness planned parenthood clinic for many years. before he was a judge and now he is somehow the judge who is sitting in judgment over these lawsuits brought by planned parenthood and their proxy with the national abortion federation trying to shut down my freedom of speech, the freedom of speech of all pro-life americans and relieve any citizen journalists. these are some of the most incriminating videotapes that we have recorded undercover and they are being held back right now by this biased federal judge in san francisco. tucker: let me just say, you are always welcome to play them on the show. even if i didn t agree with you, but i do. even if i didn t, we are against censorship and you ve a right to say what you think. how quickly did this judge justify this? how are these videos a public safety threat? sure. what judge orrick basically just borrowing wholesale the gross defensive smears from the national abortion federation and planned parenthood, smearing millions of pro-life americans across the country saying that we are violent or that we somehow would threaten people. keep in mind of the past three years, they ve never released a single videotape that has caused harm to anyone, we asked people to talk to their elected representatives and officials. planned parenthood for their partly past three years have admitted in documents that we now have, none of their abortion doctors are under threat, none of them have come to any harm because of these videos. what they really worried about as they are afraid that when the public sees what these text payer funded abortion doctors are doing behind closed doors and are doing with taxpayer funding to unborn children, the kinds of transactions over body parts and the other kinds, they are afraid of their business being harmed. tucker: of course it is censorship. david, thank you very much for joining us. come back any time with us please. politician, journalist, called the president a dictator but few of them have anything to say about china were actually dictators rain and million minorities phase persecution. next with marco rubio of florida who was on that topic. a hotel can make or break a trip. and at expedia, we don t think you should be rushed into booking one. that s why we created expedia s add-on advantage. now after booking your flight, you unlock discounts on select hotels right until the day you leave. add-on advantage. discounted hotel rates when you add on to your trip. only when you book with expedia. uhp. i didn t believe it. again. ooh, baby, do you know what that s worth? 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woman 7: ask your rheumatologist about humira. man 1: what s your body of proof? tucker: another day passes where another person on the left because the president a dictator. for some reason i don t have much to say about china, home of actual dictators. whose human rights record remains atrocious as it grows more powerfully powerful econo. more than a million muslims have been detained in concentration camps while beijing have used research of laws to stamp out their native culture. christians mean well and other faiths as well, other american companies in china don t seem to care at all. they are happy to profit from all this. senator marco rubio is one of the few who does care and was recently talking to him about him. center that is a remarkable number. a million chinese muslims and camps because the chinese government cracked down on them because of their religion. why is that true and why don t we hear more about it? it is absolutely true. one of the outrages here is google earth, pictures from google earth shows us these camps and we read these reports looking up to partner with china, going back to china. it is their own pictures that have revealed this reality. they call them reeducation camps where they are forcing people to change their names and do all sorts of things. there is no history of radicalism among this community of leaders, that is the first points. here is the outrage, number one american companies and western companies that sold them surveillance technology that have allowed them to a sort of put people through some of this including an american dna company, they are collecting a dna of these individuals as well. using american technology to do it. what about the arab world and the muslim world? on a single one of them come and they are the first to stand up and speak when there is a ban on travel or this or that they ve been totally silent on this issue and the answer is money. there s all this chinese money flowing all over the world, they are talking to the governments in buying silence on this horrible human rights violation that gives us insight and featured nature of the regime. spoon that is remarkable. the governor of egypt, two of the largest arab governments, they have not pressure china to stop tracking down? it is not mentioned at all. last week finally for the first time they are confronted with that in the chinese were forced to answer some questions. not by some of these countries, many of whom have said very little money thing. if they have said it has been very benign, nothing forceful. there were a million people of any religion being rounded up in the world by a western nation, i assure you will be hearing all about it and rightfully so. in this case because these countries have leaders, many of whom would ve taken bribes from the chinese or there is chinese investment involved. they ve been able to buy their silence, as bridges, unacceptable. i m happy that this administration is looking to do some thing about his. tucker: you often hear democratic lawmakers stand up and say, this administration is mistreating muslims. they haven t said anything about this, why? there is a lack of awareness, second i think we talk about this before in your program, a significant percentage of the american people are starting to wake up to the reality that for the first time since i do 91 we have a near competitor in the world and that is china. they seek to overtake us, to replace us in the world on sadly we still have american corporations and companies that are so interested in doing business and making money in china that they don t care about it. tech companies that want partner with the pentagon on defense, who want us to cave. i call the president at least once a week and just continue to encourage him. the first time that any administration has finally stood up to china after years and years of abuse and looking the other way. tucker: senator, thank you for all the work. i appreciate it. thank you for the attention you pay to this issue. tucker: it is time for this week s final exam, he has been a whirlwind of a contestants. she has won eight times in a row. can she win tonight and tie shannon bream s all-time record? 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you are rope done. tucker: everybody has a shot, you can t win if you don t play. here are the rules, i know you are familiar but for those were not. i asked the questions they first one who buzzes gets to answer the question. you must wait until i finish asking the question to answer. you can answer once i acknowledged by saying your name. each correct answer is worth a single point. if you get it wrong you lose a single point. simple math, are you ready? first question, until this week michael jackson s thriller was the best-selling musical album of all time. which fans album just surpassed it by going platinum platinum 38 times. was it bon jovi, rolling stones, eagles? see the eagles. absolutely. tucker: let s see if it is the eagles, . it is the new best-selling album of all time. the record has sold more than 38 million copies since it was released in 1976. tucker: how did you know that? because my parents were the biggest eagles fans on the planets. i grew up listening to them so i m also a fan. i m from new jersey so i m obligated to guess bon jovi. tucker: it works out just fine for me. question two, forbes just released its list of 2018 highest-paid actors. despite not putting out any movies, which start at the top spot due to a lucrative liquor deal, johnny depp, george clooney, tom hanks? rich? clooney. roll the tape. tucker: cooked tequila hat george clooney to the top of the list. ranking $38 million. a large portion came from selling his new tequila company for a billion dollars last year. tucker: is he spending money at that point? everything is free to him. tucker: question three, a kind woman with a special job is on the internet after she threw out a wicked first pitch, what is the women s occupation and real life? she is a nun. tucker: are you sure? play the tape. call her the holy thrower, this nun is going viral for her first pitch at the white sox game over the weekend. they know what they are doin doing. [laughs] tucker: 2-1, question four. there is a company in minnesota that is offering paid leave to workers to look after new pets. what is the name of this type of benefit? is it fraternity leave, sickattle or b. it is fraternity leave. it allows employees to welcome home after adopting a new animal. the company said they project the work of families. tucker: if i was running a business. i would fire them on the spot. i would give someone leave for paternity leave, i would. thank you so much, i appreciate that. tucker: final question, politically, which 38-year-old resident of the white house now wants to run for office despite rejecting the idea multiple times in past years? current resident? tucker: 38-year-old resident. is at chelsea clinton? last year chelsea clinton said she would run for office and nobody believed her, turns out all of us were life. tucker: now she said she is a definite may be to run for office. the real message of the 2,060 election is that americans want a permanent hereditary politically class drawn from the same three or four families. coming up a point short. doing so with honor and dignity, it was a nice ending. i can t say that about all the people she has crushed. thank you. that was great. katie, yet another. this month of course, memorializes his appearance, has only appearance on the show. we will never forget. tucker: you now are tied with shannon bream. we should have a showdown. that is it for the exam, pay attention to the news all week. see if you can out with the experts, meeting katie and possibly shannon bream. we ll be right back. getting in their way. meningococcal group b disease, or meningitis b, is real. bexsero is a vaccine to help prevent meningitis b in 10-25 year olds. even if meningitis b is uncommon, that s not a chance we re willing to take. meningitis b is different from the meningitis most teens were probably vaccinated against when younger. we re getting the word out against meningitis b. our teens are getting bexsero. bexsero should not be given if you had a severe allergic reaction after a previous dose. most common side effects are pain, redness or hardness at the injection site; muscle pain; fatigue; headache; nausea; and joint pain. bexsero may not protect all individuals. tell your healthcare professional if you re pregnant or if you have received any other meningitis b vaccines. ask your healthcare professional about the risks and benefits of bexsero and if vaccination with bexsero is right for your teen. moms, we can t wait. it s about delivering a more comfortable shave every time. invented in boston, made and sold around the world. order now at gilletteondemand.com. gillette. the best a man can get. jushis local miracle ear t at helped andrew hear more of the joy in her voice. just one hearing test is all it took for him to hear more of her laugh. and less of the background noise around him. for helen, just one visit to her local miracle-ear is all it took to learn how she can share more moments with her daughter. just one free hearing test could help you hear more. laughter.music.life. call now for your free hearing test from an industry leader: miracle-ear. a peaceful night sleep without only imagine. frequent heartburn waking him up. now that dream is a reality. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? tucker: the purge of thought crime continues across the major tech platforms. has thought-provoking videos on a lot of topics, but they generally leading right of center, nothing crazy. facebook has been suppressing their videos because it is just too much for them. including this one defending the virtues of masculinity. when you try to make men more like women, you don t get less toxic flexibility. you get more. the evaluation of masculinity will not end well because feminine, passive men do not stop evil. passive men do not protect or provide. healthy families and strong communities depend on the leadership and bravery of goodman. yet the current trend is to feminize young men in the hopes of achieving some utopian notion of equality. it is not masculinity that is toxic. it is the lack of it. tucker: by the way, that is totally true. that was the sum total of it, there was no graphic violence, no threats, no burning crosses. yet facebook blocked its users from seeing that video. they apologized after there was an outcry, but it says a lot. the host joins us. was there something we did not play? was there more that was deeply offensive? no, that was it. you played the most radical part, this idea that good, strong men make for a good, strong society. several of the videos were censored, like you said. only two of them were taken down, this was one of them. the reason for this was that it constitutes hate speech. after they brought this up on twitter, they apologized and said it was a mistake and put it back up. you have to wonder how many mistakes facebook can make exclusively at the expense of conservative voices before it is delivered. tucker: did they define hate speech? they throw the turnaround, do they define it? no, that is the troubling part of this. there orwellian monopoly on terms like love, hate, right, wrong. that is what we are seeing from facebook, exclusively censoring conservative. tucker: unbelievable. i know it with they censored other prager you videos. they told you this was a mistake, we have no idea how this happened? today have a rational explanation? no, they didn t at all because once prager u brought it up on twitter i got thousands of retweets. i guess facebook realized it was going to be a bigger deal and they wanted to address, they said it was a mistake. they put them video back up. by then a lot of damage had been done. it probably lost millions of views at that point. it was a new video. they never explained their justification for deleting it. tucker: it will be nice if congress acted to protect the rest of us from this. i guess they are too busy doing something else. that is an amazing story, thank you for telling it to us. thanks, talk a call or. tucker: we are completely out of time. we ll be back tomorrow, we hope
grandfather, father, and i think you will be remembered while ine history of this country. shannon: i think you ares ast and director of central intelligence, among many other things. tonight he is gone. shannon: if you are joining us, breaking news coverage of the death of president george h.w. bush. i m shannon bream at fox news world headquarters in new york. president bush 41 has died. he was 94, the oldest president in u.s. history. bush 41 spent the summer at his home in kennebunkport, maine. condolences and fond memories are pouring in from presidents, former advisors, and well wishes from around the world. he s being remembered as a statesman, an icon of the greatest generation, and one-of-a-kind. bret baier looks back at the life of this american hero. for a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn, for in man s heart, if not, in fact, the day of the dictator is over. bret: george bush as hard as test as president was giving the green light for operation desert storm. but he is credited with rescuing the tiny, oil-rich nation of kuwait from saddam hussein s million man army of iraq. the forge george herbert walker bush took his first step into the white house, he learned to walk in kennebunkport, maine. during to born june 12th, 1924, and the town of milton, massachusetts, to a family alrey deeply involved in public service, he was the second of five children to dorothy and senator prescott bush. with high school behind him, george was accepted at yale university, but put his education on hold. the start of the second world war beckoned him to serve his country instead. in 1942, george bush celebrated his 18th birthday by enlisting in the u.s. naval reserve. within a year, he was ensign bush, the youngest fighter pilot in the navy. taking part in 58 combat missions in the pacific theater, bush was flying his plane on a special bombing mission over china when he was shot down by the japanese and was forced to bail out at sea. he survived, though his crew did not. i m floating around in his raft, paddling, and then all of a sudden, saw this tower come up and saw the submarine service. bret: by the end of the war inside, bush set his sights on barbara peers. the two wed in 1945 while bush was still in the navy. they would have six children, including our 43rd president, george w. bush, and popular florida governor, jeb. bush left the navy and graduated yale before he and barbara moved to texas to find his dreams on an oil field. by the age of 30, he was cofounder and president of zapata offshore, which pioneered experimental drilling equipment. but just like his father, bush was attracted to public service and politics. after losing his first political race for a senate seat in 1964, he was elected to the house of representatives two years later, serving two terms, encouraged by richard nixon to run again for the senate in 1970, he was defeated a second time. he moved on to high government positions. in 1971, richard nixon appointed him ambassador to the united nations, and in 1973, he became chairman of the republican national committee at the height of the watergate scandal. in that role, bush urged nixon to resign for the good of the party. i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. bret: president gerald ford sent bush to china as chief of the u.s. liaison office. a short time later, he called him home to be director of the cia, and bush was credited with bringing morale back to that agency. bush left in 1977, when president carter entered the white house. by 1979, he was ready to get back into the political ring. ladies and gentlemen, i am a candidate for president of the united states. [applause] bret: bush was seen as a moderate alternative to ronald reagan, but dropped out of the presidential campaign after poor primary performances. a short time later, he accepted reagan s offer to be his running mate. reagan won in a landslide. during his eight years as vice president, bush was credited with softening reagan s view of the soviet union and pressed hard on issues like deregulation and the war on drugs. international progression, bush became the republican party nominee in 1988 with senator dan quayle from indiana as his running mate. the republican team defeated massachusetts governor michael dukakis and texas senator lloyd benson. i, george herbert walker bush, do solemnly swear. bret: during his president, the soviet union dissolved, the berlin wall fell, and manuel noriega was arrested, securing the panama canal. everything came to a head when iraq s saddam hussein invaded neighboring kuwait. we are not walking away until our mission is done, until the invader is out of kuwait! bret: president bush reacted quickly, committing over 400,000 u.s. troops, and building a strong coalition of allies. operation desert storm had begun. the majority of america supported the president s decision to throw saddam hussein back into iraq and bush s popularity rating hit an all-time high. most thought he was unbeatable for a second term. but a broken campaign promise. read my lips: no new taxes: to. bret: would come back to haunt the 41st president. in the fall of 1992, with the war a distant memory, george bush lost reelection to former arkansas governor bill clinton. bush traveled to kuwait to commemorate the gulf war in 1993. an assassination plot on his life was uncovered by bush was unharmed. it was later discovered the part of poorly orchestrated plan was the work of the iraqi intelligence service. the kuwaiti court would convict all but one of the defendants. bush retired to texas with barbara, getting in a few rounds of horseshoes and celebrating countless birthdays buy birthdays by parachuting out of planes. spending time with her family in maine and reliving memories of when he was a boy. i can honestly say that the three most rewarding titles bestowed upon me are the three that i have got to left: husband, father, and granddad. bret: while retired, his life was active until the end. joining forces with former political flow bill clinton to raise money for the victims of their 2004 indian ocean tsunami, and hurricane katrina in 2005. the former presidents formed a close friendship, continuing their charity work and enjoying annual lunches at busch s home in kennebunkport and using his experience and insights to serve as a quiet advisor to his eldest son, the 43rd president. here, attending george w. bush s presidential library dedication in 2013, and sharing a few words. glad to be here. god bless america and thank you very much. [applause] bret: bush even kept up with public debate by joining twitter, where he often shared photos of his colorful socks that began part of his signature look. each brought health challenges, of course. a form of parkinson s disease that left him in a wheelchair, and brief hospital stays in his 90s for pneumonia, bronchitis, and a fall in his home. but not enough to keep them out of the limelight, throwing out the first pitch before a 2016 baseball game, and pregame ceremonies months later at the super bowl in his houston home town. reuniting with his former running mate and vice president dan quayle in july, and then catching a glimpse of the rare eclipse that crossed the country alongside his family in maine in august. one of bush s last public appearances was that his beloved wife, barbara, a part of his funeral, where he met with former presidents, first ladies, and the current first lady, melania trump. he recently returned to his vacation home town of kennebunkport, maine, joining fellow veterans with a pancake breakfast before he was hospitalized. this was the first time in decades that neither he nor his wife attended the annual memorial day parade. he wrote in a tweet, i am forever grateful not only to those patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, but also the gold star families heritage is imbued with their honor and heroism. known for his maturity and straightforward approach, george h.w. bush called this country to be better in hopes of inspiring the people to be great. i think historians are going to say that we did pretty well, and that s all right for me. i m not in any rush. in heaven, let down and let them make that determination. shannon: tonight, bret baier is with us, anchor of special report in the geopolitical anchor. bret, you think about that, he talks about being in heaven, and we are all thinking about him and his reunion that he is having with his wife and their young daughter that they lost many, many decades ago. bret: shannon, tonight i m at the reagan presidential library ahead of the reagan national defense forum this weekend. behind me, air force one, where president reagan took it around the world on his vice president, george h.w. bush. i think the world will probably, as the president said, smiled down. history will tell how the world remembers the term of president george h.w. bush. but what i am struck by is the family relationship. i mean, think about this, 17 grandchildren, eight grandchildren. his oldest daughter, robin, died when she was four years old in 1953. when barbara bush died, his wif wife, there was that moment where, at the funeral, president bush was sitting in his wheelchair, doro bush, his daughter, behind him, and he is looking at the casket. it was a moment that really, i think, captured the feeling of this family, as he was saying goodbye to his wife of so many years. the other thing that captured the imagination, i think, of the american people, was a cartoon actually that barbara bush is seen going to heaven and reuniting with her daughter, 4-year-old daughter, who died, robin. now, as you look at these pictures, you think about that reunification, and you think about the love of his life who he is now with, and obviously, with robin as well. i think history will look back at president george h.w. bush is an honorable, decent man, and as a good president, who change the trajectory of the united states. shannon: certainly on the world stage. with the cold war in his foreign policy as well. we will bring in chris wallace. we want to read a tweet from jeb bush. nothing gave him his leadership taught us to be kinder and gentler, true love each other. we will miss him dearly. chris, that is going to be a very interesting conversation for this country to have. as we talked about, it will likely be very bipartisan over the next couple of days, as we remember the life of this very special man and former presiden president. chris: absolutely. there is a sense in the country now that it s a zero-sum game, that one side wins, the other side loses, and that was not the way that george h.w. bush view to life and certainly not the way he viewed politics, as i said earlier, he was very competitive, very tough, fought hard for a variety of positions, fought hard to become president, and was certainly crossed for a short time when he lost in 1992 to bill clinton. but he had a sense of the community that this country is, and there is much more that unites us than divides us, and boy, if we can have more of that conversation over the next few days as we celebrate his life and observe his death, that will be a very his last contribution to this country. i wanted to mention, shannon, there was a lot of talk today amongst people that president bush might be in trouble. we have heard this a variety of crimes, that he might be near death. he was a tough bird, and a number of times, he was hospitalized. things seemed serious. i wrote to a couple of his top staff people, one of them, jim mcgrath, his press spokesman, and i said, i hate to ask this question but is he in trouble? and he wrote a note back and basically said, it yes, he s having a tough week but he s haa lot of tough weeks and he bounces back and he then said, this morning, less than 24 hours ago, he had three eggs for breakfast and is at home resting comfortably. so the people closest to him were not at all convinced that this was going to be the end for george w. bush. i also wrote a note to a wonderful woman, really, who s been so close to him, his chief of staff, and one of the things i always got a kick out of, and i have been in touch with her over the years, since he left office, we arranged a variety of interviews, the president and all of his staff s email address was flfw.com. i always wondered what that meant. i finally figured out, former leader of free world.com. that was kind of the light way in which george h.w. bush obviously, he took the presidency seriously, but he didn t take himself seriously. the idea flfw.com was his email address. shannon: very lighthearted. we talk about just how much he loved to joke, a good punch line, even if it was that as his expense. he accomplished so much on the world stage that it s impossible to go through his entire resume and to remind people about all the things he did domestically and internationally, and what a brave navy aviator he was, going straight into the war, getting up on his dedication, getting through yale into an half years, and accomplishment for anyone. but he just kept charging and we talked about how he was a risk-taker and people remember him as somebody as we are showing him skydiving, which he loved to do, too he was somebody who was not afraid to strike out and business, and family, government. he was always, it seems, rising to a new challenge, chris. chris: i asked him about skydiving, and his decision to do that. even loud, he put not just as a lark or a personal adventure, but as a public service. he said, i am trying to send a message to old folks like him at that point, he was in his 80s. he said, you don t have to sit i remember he put it this way drool in the corner. you can get up, you can do something, maybe not skydiving with the golden nights, but you can do something, and don t put yourself in the grave before you are really there. you talk about his sense of humor, i had the great opportunity one time after i had interviewed him in houston that he invited me, and my producer, to go off and have lunch with him. and we were talking remember in 2005 after the terrible tsunami in asia, he and his son, bush 43, assigned him and bill clinton to go tour the area, and part of it was to raise money. now george h.w. bush and bill clinton did not seem like a natural fit, among other things, bill clinton had beaten bush and the 92 election. in addition, their personalities could not have been more different. president bush 41 regaled us at lunch about their trip together through southeast asia. one of the things he said was, we are so different. he loves to talk and opines about everything, and i am more measured. but a lot of what he said was very interesting and among other things, if i was having trouble talking about something, i knew that bill would fill the space. another thing that, frankly, drove him crazy about bill clinton was the fact that bill clinton, and anybody who s ever covered him do this, was always late. he would get involved in a conversation, and we always talked about operating on clinton time. they agreed that they would get up and go at let s say, 9:00 in the morning, and their trip to southeast asia, and bush would be in the car at 9:00 or maybe 8:57, and clinton ritual but he did and he said, it is clearly it clearly bothered quentin that he was always keeping bush waiting so one day at about 8:55, he came downstairs like he was going to beat bush into the limousine, taking them around, but bush, not knowing this, not doing it on purpose, had gotten in the car at 8:50. the look of disappointment on bill clinton s face when he looked in the car and he thought, this guy beat me again. the one thing that bush very much respected, they were traveling around on the presidential jet, was the deference that bill clinton showed him, and that clinton, obviously, bush considerably older, always insisted that george h.w. bush had to the presidential cabinet, sleep in the presidential bed, and clinton would find a couch on air force one, or sleep on the floor, but always paid respect. went to great pains to make sure that bush 41 was comfortable. shannon: as we watch this treasure trove of memories that we have, all these pictures and we think about you see they are the banners the kuwaiti people, and that of course was a big moment in his presidency, the coalition that the u.s. was involved within there, going into defeat the iraqis, a flash point in that region, so much that he accomplished on the international stage. we see him there with the troops, obviously having served himself, he always had a great fondness for the men and women in surveys, and he continued throughout his life to do things with the wounded warriors, well into his retirement, and ways that he hoped would inspire other people. bret, it seems that what us what he was always about, to give more, serve more, and to be better. bret: shannon, listen, you look back at his life and legac legacy, and you see these pictures of him shaking hands with troops there. think about that moment. remember that it was at that point defense secretary dick cheney, it was luminaries in his white house, george h.w. bush, rallying around him, forming a coalition that really had not been formed before on the international stage when it came to a goal number one. he was the template by which other presidents looked out and said, if i can get the world to rally around me like george h.w. bush did with gulf war one compass will be a success. if chris is still on the phone, i would love to ask him about the transition from president reagan, as we are standing here in the reagan library with air force one, where reagan traveled the world to all kinds of places. the transition from president reagan to then- then-president george h.w. bush. their relationship and how it may be, chris, you perceived that? chris: i can t say that they were close friends, and, in fact, the very fact that bush was named as vice president, if you remember, back in 1980, reagan was enamored with what i think everybody ended up thinking was a terrible idea, of a kind of copresidency was gerald ford. he was involved in negotiations in detroit at the republican national convention, and then it all fell apart. suddenly, wednesday night, they don t have a vice president. obviously, bush had run the strongest race, had gotten the most delegates, second only to reagan, and reagan come at the last minute decided, let s go with bush. so it was not his first choice but i think that they had a close political partnership, if not a close personal partnership. and lord knows, george h.w. bus george h.w. bush, and eight years, there was never a hint of any dissent, of any separate agenda, he was just utterly loyal, at least to what the public could see to ronald reagan, and reagan, i think, one, was certainly respected him, and thought, i think presidents always feel that the vice president is the one who, because of the amendment that they can only serve to regrow terms, can carry on their legacy, and at that if you get somebody from the opposite party, in this case it would have been michael dukakis, they will undo a lot of what that president has accomplished in his eight years. so reagan was very supportive of george h.w. bush, bush 41, and it was a kind of seamless transition from one to the other. it was interesting, though, there was one question, you pointed out earlier, bret, reagan was so much larger than life, in a way that bush would have admitted he wasn t, that he needed to establish a separate identity and one of the things that he did at that new orleans convention in 1988 when he became the nominee, was to talk about a kinder, gentler presidency and approach to thing prayed that that thousand points of light, to sort of establish what his agenda was going to bet different than but as something of a departure, something of a turn from reagan s agenda. bret: a lot of people, chris, don t remember the assassination attempt in april of 1993 after president h.w. bush left the white house, he went to kuwait to be commemorated for his role in the first gulf war, and there was an assassination attempt. kuwaiti authorities arrested eventually 17 people they felt were around this conspiracy to kill than the former president using a car bomb. there was a a lot of talk about possibly who was behind this. united states sent to various personnel to kuwait to investigate on their own, and they eventually came to the intelligence of the united states government concluded that iraq was behind the attempted car bombing. when we talk about president george h.w. bush we often don t talk about the assassination attempt after he leaves the white house, but it was real. chris: correct my memory, but as we are talking about this, i believe that bill clinton, his successor, then had a missile strike on baghdad on a couple of installations there as punishment for this attempt. bret: that s exactly right. chris: there was always some thought that when bush 43, his son, got involved in a rock, that there was a census obviously wasn t the prime reason, but of envision s business, like saddam hussein wt after his father, and that was perhaps in the background a motivation for bush 43. bret: i should point of that they are cleaning up for the national defense forum dinner here. so as you hear the glasses clanking behind me, that is the cleanup crew behind me for the reagan national defense forum, as they are preparing for tomorrow for you to speed when you get a little ambient noise they are a very busy night. chris, thank you very much for joining us. i want to bring in more folks with close ties to the president. we have dana perino, a former advisor to president george w. bush, and juan williams joining us now. juan, i want to start with you. we talked about the bipartisan appeal of bush 41, and he worked across the aisle, and he was willing to compromise to get things done. your thoughts on him tonight? juan: the emotion flows out of me because i was the white house correspondent during the reagan years, and one of my jobs was to travel around the country with george w. bush, especially in the 84 cycle when president reagan was up for reelection. as you have heard, they weren t particularly close, but george h.w. bush was a great, great emissary for the reagan administration, because he had been head of the republican national committee. so he knew people all across the country in every state, he could tell me names of people in an unbelievable fashion. just incredible. and we would sit together, and i remember one thing he told me, shannon, was that i should write notes to people. he would write notes, five and ten notes a day out of habit, just to stay in touch with people. certainly with all the prominent republicans around the country, but he would write to friends and people, and everybody would respond to him, not as the vice president at the time, but as george h.w. bush, somebody that they knew and felt a very personal connection to. when i had the chance to travel with him, to talk with him, i was so to this day, so impressed with him, among all the politicians i have ever met, because he was not only a war hero, but remember, he had been our first envoy sent by richard nixon to china. when i went to the olympics, i guess it was 2008 in china, i remember talking to him about china, and remember, his son, george w. bush, spent a lot of time in china because his dad had been there as the envoy. and then of course he goes on and heads the cia, the republican national committee, vice president, having previously served as a congressman, and then president of the united states. i don t think we see, if you look at it in historical terms, anybody with that level of public service commitment, experience, and, as i said to you, the greatest measure would be his personal connection to people, especially republicans come across the country. people in the party, hardworking, to build party structure throughout. he really had that kind of personal connection, that kind of political connection that i think is extraordinary in these times. people just loved him. one of the things that happen for me tonight as i heard about president bush s death as i just went to the wall, and i don t know if you can see this, but i brought with me a picture of a young version of me, and a fairly young version of president bush. and here we are on what was then air force two, traveling around the country, as i said, going to all kinds of picnics and festivals in order to help ronald reagan win reelection in 1984. and then recently, five years ago, i sent him a note and i say he was such a great note writer, and he sent me back a note. this one came from maine, from kennebunkport, and he wrote about remembering the good old days, traveling on air force two, as he said, and just wrote to some kind words to me. this was really very special. this hangs on the wall and my home here in washington. the other thing that strikes me at this moment, so emotional about him, he was one tremendous baseball player. he was captain of the yale team. as you know, his son went on to own the rangers but he is a big houston astros fan to the end. we would talk baseball now he is a left-hander, shannon. you know something about baseball, i know you were a baseball fan, and george h.w. bush was an astute i don t say this lightly, i am not trying to, you know, celebrate him in some way that is unearned but george h.w. bush could tell you about major-league players on a level that i don t think any other politician i have ever met could do. i don t think general manager manager is good talk about baseball and baseball players with the depth of understandingf the game that george h.w. bush had. so for me, it was, like, people would say, i would come back from a trip with george h.w. bush, and my wife would say, what is going on, how are you doing? i would say, here s the latest on what we can expect from the orioles and the astros and the yankees, from the very top of american political life. this guy was so extraordinary, such a statesman, and such a friend. as you said, able to work across the aisle. we have heard from bret and chris about his work with bill clinton, but you should know that even recently, you had barack obama going down to houston and stopping in to visit. and that kind of relationship, again, so extraordinary in these days, utterly polarized politics. shannon: a beautiful statement for both the obamas tonight. i want to jump in here we ll come back to the panel, and bret standing by, but because you mention the love of sports, we want to bring in sportscaster jim gray, he interviewed the former president more than 20 times. you know, jim, may be more than the rest of us, just how much he loved sports and had such a depth of knowledge, especially about the game of baseball. he loved it, he followed it. in fact, one of the great things that he used to talk about, he met babe ruth in 1948, and he used to carry around a little card from time to time and he gave me one of the signed cardst there on the screen. unfortunately at that time, mr. mr. ruth was ravaged with cancer but he was able, as the captain of the yale baseball team to be able to meet him, and it was a proud moment for him, and you saw that pitch he throughout and it always bothered president bush that he bounced that ball. he was a great baseball player in college and so when his son, george w. bush, throughout the first pitch after the terrorist attacks of september 11th, 2001, he always remembered that his father bounced the ball and how much it bothered him so when derek jeter came in and told them, don t bounce the ball, mr. president, it refresh all of those memories and president bush 43 went out and threw a perfect strike to help lift the nation to get onto some sense of normalcy. president bush sr. he also loved golf. he was a terrific fan of the game of golf. he would show up and i would interview him regularly at the ryder cups and the president,s, and his father, his grandfather, george herbert walker, created h come along with the ryder cup, one of the staples and traditions of golf. i also got to see him and play golf with president bush, 1995, a tremendous story when he golfed with president clinton and president ford. they joined bob hope and he won that day. he shot a 92. he also hit two fans that day, one off the first tea required 14 stitches and the 14th t hit a woman in the rear end. it was funny on the first one but not so funny on the 14th. it was so funny because bob hope made a living commenting how many times president ford would hit people but he beat president clinton by a stroke and president ford by seven strokes a day. let me share a little story with you from spain. we were there for the ryder cup in 1997. it was a homecoming and he came over to watch the american team, and it was pouring rain one day, and we were all scattering to get off the court, and i was in my golf cart along with the technician, the sound man, a man name jun came from nbc sports and we were driving and we saw three guys standing, one guy had a glad trash bag over his head and was soaking wet and there were two men standing behd him. i got a little bit closer and i said, that is president bush, he was standing in the pouring rain all by himself, wasn t asking anybody else for help, we gave them a ride in on the golf cart and i ll never forget he had this trash bag over him and just the humility and the decency that he had and the next day, he came back to the golf course, and on his own, was seeking out joon kim to hand him a pair of presidential cufflinks. i thought, what a remarkable, amazing man, did you something like that, because he got a ridn the golf cart. he was wonderful to be around and he loved to play golf, and fast golf. in fact, he was so touched and love the fact that all arnold palmer told him that he had been a great contributor to the game of golf, that not everyone is like jack nicklaus, who can play for hours and hours, and president bush love the fact tht arnold palmer told him it was great for the game that he played in two hours or two and half hours. bret: hey, jim, it s bret baier. you are right, the bushes played fast. i only played with them once, brit hume used to play with them a lot in maine. they could move it on the golf course. they did. it was boom, boom, boom. they enjoyed it but they wanted to do it fast. he would concentrate, and those split seconds, and he could hit some good golf shots, but to hi, it was a form of relaxation, a form of a challenge, and he used to always tell me how much he could learn about other people by playing golf with them and if they were really slow, they didn t get an invitation back again. i was also honored, bret, in 1999 at brookline at the country club, and nbc, we were televising the ryder cup, and president bush had come on many times with me to do interviews and i saw him. they were there to support ben crenshaw because he was from austin, texas, and they were living in texas, obviously, and i ask, could i interview president bush and he said, sure. barbara bush walked up to me and said, why are you i was interviewing the old man? get over the old man. she pointed over to george w and she said, that guy is going to be running for president, the governor of texas. why don t you put him on? i said, sure, can we do the whole family? so we did the whole family. it was kind of fun to be told, or kidded no more prodded by mrs. bush, and so we interviewed them both together, and jeb was also part of it, and president george w. bush was able to speak to the team, and they rallied for the greatest comeback in history of the ryder cup. he was the governor at the time, and ben crenshaw and the guys came back and won at brookline and president george h.w. bush the other day, i ask him the next day if, in fact, he was the one that was able to rally them and he was way too humble, and said, i just gave them a few words of encouragement, i will not take credit for those. bret: listen, this is a sports family. obviously, talking about golf, baseball, president h.w. bush s prolific baseball career in college, george w. bush owns a baseball team. there was pride in sports. it meant a lot to them. did you ever get a sense when you were talking to him about these moments, throwing out the first pitch, flipping the coin of the super bowl, how much these things meant to him? it meant an awful lot to him. i remember talking to him at the final four in houston and he was a great friend and such a mentor and a confidant with jim nantz, the greatest broadcaster from cbs, and he wrote about him extensively in his book and they spent countless hours and days together and i believe he had come in part to some of these final fours because he wanted to spend some time with jim nantz. he was always agreeable and i remember john thompson, the great basketball coach from georgetown, had never met president bush, even though he had coached at georgetown during the time that president bush was in office and it was like a hole that he did not have because he did not have that one photograph with president bush, so i walked him over at halftime, and president bush was just so instead of the honor being for john thompson, it was the honor for president bush to be able to receive him and to spend five or 6 minutes before he had to go back on the air. sports meant an awful lot to him. in 2005, i got to interview both president clinton and president bush on the field in jacksonville before they flipped a coin for the game, the super bowl game in jacksonville, they went out and flipped it together. they had worked on the hurricane relief efforts together, and the earthquake efforts that they had gone and become a team and so they teamed up and came and flipped the coin. you could just tell that president bush really, really cared about sports. he called me one time after the mike tyson ear biting, and he wanted to know what kind of a guy mike tyson was. i said, he s wonderful to be around, and he had made a despicable, horrible mistake and incident that night, but a just break into so much that i thought that tyson was wonderful and he said, i don t want to judge him. he s a great boxer. he was really interested in so many different sports, and had a genuine love. it was great to be around. i asked him how many games he would watch in the white house and he said we have a pretty good satellite system, bret and shannon. i watched quite a bit of it. shannon: one of the perks of being in the white house. bret: your reflections are great. thank you. he was a wonderful man. i was lucky to spend the time with him and he was a joy, he was a joyous guy who was very, very humble. decency beyond belief. shannon: quite a combination, along with all the leadership and accomplishment. i want to show you briefly a video coming into us a short time ago for my neighbor who stopped by the gates to the bush neighborhood there. they placed an american flag and flowers. the neighbors said they wanted to come by, saying she was saddened by the loss. they spoke very highly of the bush family, and talked about the fact that she said there were people who were good people, they knew them as neighbors, had the utmost respect for them, and just wanted to stop by and play something there at the gate. we can only imagine in the coming days, that will ramp up even more. we want to bring dana perino back end, and we ve gotten reaction from former secretary of state condoleezza rice tonight. she talked about the deep, broad legacy of president h.w. bush, and she says, he s finished his race with honor and dignity tonight, dana. dana: had a chance to see condoleezza rice a couple of weeks ago and she relayed a story about working for him in the white house, if you ll recall, shannon, she was a national security advisor not the head advisor, but she was on the nsc, and she was responsible for all things soviet union. when it was announced the wall was going to be coming down, they all went to him and said, mr. president, we have to get ready, you must go to europe, you must have this moment, and he said, i m not going. they said, but sir, you were leading this charge, and they said, what am i going to do there? dance on the wall? this is their moments. let them have this moment. i m not going to go and try and hog the spotlight out there. it was decisions like that, maybe at the moment might sound, oh, he s being modest, but i think there was a strategy also to the modesty. and juan williams brought up the writing of the notes, the other thing condoleezza rice talked about at that event was how george w. bush found it important and easy to make friendships with leaders all over the world. he would congratulate them about things he read in the news, and the reason he did that is because when he needed them to rally around them, around the united states, building a coalition, they would always take the call, they would show up and help america, and i think a lot of that had to do with a personal diplomacy. it s a really good lesson for all of us to remember. he used to say, don t ever let your first call to somebody be when you ask for something. that is one of the lessons that i took away from him, shannon. shannon: the fact that juan went on and on, about the personal notes, i got one wants, and it is something that you savor. at such an old-fashioned, beautiful courtesy, and it is ultra-special thing that takes a moment of your time but will change someone s life, that you would do something so personal. i want to bring in anita mcbrien, you worked for more than one bush administration, many capacities, you oversaw personnel for this president, bush 41. your thoughts tonight? my heart is just broken and crushed but we knew this day was coming. he always sort of rallied and got past, difficult times with his health, but what a remarkable life, and for all of us that had the great privilege to work in the white house with him, and with president reagan. these are two incredible examples for young people, like myself, my husband who i met, and his personal aide as vice president, they drove a million miles together. he typed a lot of the notes on the plane, my old children have notes from him when they were born. he just touched us all, not only as young professionals learning from these incredible leaders of such dignity and service, but also how he so personally touched each of our lives. shannon: we ve got bret baier with us, too. i think he has a question for fr you. bret: listen, i think you talk about it, anita, the service to the country, and think about that this was the last living former president who was a world war ii vet, someone who served their country for all of his life, volunteered after pearl harbor, decided not to go to college, to get into the military, after the attack on pearl harbor. talk about, i guess, in the wake of his life, what do you think his legacy will be and perhaps what people should take from it. it is such a great point that you raise, bret. i think when you think about george h.w. bush, you think you picture that photograph of him as that young naval aviator, and him being rescued, of course, when has plane went down, and how young he was to take on that level of responsibility and devotion to the country, that it was just so natural for him, without a doubt, growing up of course, and a family that was a family of service. also a family of great humility, and you know how he often said how his mother would always tell him, don t brag about what you do, just do it. and i think that is such a wonderful as i said to shannon a wonderful example for those of us who work in washington, worked in the white house, work in public service, that i hope is something that they treasure and now is remarkable and people who take up the leadership mantle of our country. bret: brad blakeman is with us, i go back to the world war ii time, the youngest aviator, brad, in the u.s. navy, 1944, september 2nd, his plane shot down, rescued in the pacific ocean. he rejoins his squadron. he received several honors from the military and from his country and often times, as we talk about george h.w. bush, we focus on his time as president. but it was much more than that. it was. i was with him, we had one of our largest sea battles, the first time he had been back to that area probably since he was shot down. one of the few times i saw him shed a tear as he stood there at the flagpole honoring those who died on those beaches, and as you can see the resting troop carrier still in the water. i was with him at the 50th anniversary of pearl harbor. we had several events that day, and surrounded by survivors. sadly, so many of them are gone but the president had a deep sense of service, and part of that service in his life was the legacy of his personal service in the military, and having been shot down. duty, service, honor, country, family, that is what george h.w. bush will be most remembered for, and he will be a role model, and has been for so many. shannon: we are just getting a statement into night from former president clinton as well. we talked a great deal about how in retirement president bush 41 reached out and made sure that he connected with people across the political aisle where they could help in disasters and relief efforts in that kind of thing. he talks about being a young governor invited into bush s home in the kennebunkport and was struck by the kindness to chelsea and his decency. he went on to say, few americans have been or will ever be able to match president bush match president bush s record of service to the united states and the joy he took every day from it, from his military service in world war ii to his work in congress, the united nations, china, the central intelligence agency, the vice presidency, and the presidency, where he moved the post-cold war world to peace, unity, and freedom. dana, that stands out to me, he took a lot of tough jobs, but he seemed to be a joyful person in the midst of it. if we have lost dana dana: shannon, i m loving your coverage so much that i had the tv turned up too loud and didn t hear the call. [laughter] these tributes are just wonderful and wholesome. did you ask me a specific question? shannon: i was talking about the statement from the clintons, talking about the joy that president trump took from his service every day, and all the positions that he served in, and that really strikes me, these are difficult jobs, he was forced into difficult situations, as any president as, and he did seem like a joyful person. dana: one of the things that he said to president bush president bush 43 after he lost in that 92 raise, 43 ask him, dad, where did you get the strength to be so gracious after that loss, it was so excruciating, the family is so heartbroken. he said, i had no choice. and i think that what he learned as a young boy growing up with a mother who apparently was one of the angels that walked the earth, she basically said, every day that you wake up and it s a choice. your choice and attitude and what you say, how you conduct yourself, and one of the things that he showed us in a post-presidency, really how to be a former president. he was a gracious winner and a gracious loser. he lived quite a long life after he finished the presidency. jimmy carter also. he really set a good example for bill clinton, for barack obama, and for his own son, george w. bush, because there is a lot of life and after you have had this job as the leader of the free world, the most powerful person on the planet, what are you going to do in those next years? and he chose to do lots of different things. he continued to do speaking but i think one of his great lasting legacies is at college station, texas a&m, where the bush library is, and where, to this day, people learn about his leadership, and leadership is really part of that curriculum at the library. he also stayed active as 43 put together at the presidential leadership scholars series, and that is the libraries of 41, 43, bill clinton, and lyndon johnson. and they all worked together to help create this new generation of leaders. and i do think, though, shannon, to get back to your original question, this idea of a choice, how you will live your life, one of the things bill clinton also said is that in many ways, 41 became like a second father to him. i think that might ve been anita, might maybe she can talk more about that, because that is important. when barbara bush died, we talk to about her as america s grandmot. 41 had so many roles, he made everyone feel special, but what do grandparents do? they teach you about how to conduct yourself. life is hard but you make choices based on the values that have been instilled in you and if it is gratitude, dignity, humility, patriotism, and the number one thing is unconditional love for your family, and that is something that i really learned from them and have tried to keep in mind as the days get hard, you get busy, you get irritated, this is a time of incivility, but it s a choice, and he taught us how to make it well. bret: i just want to touch really quickly on the bipartisan nature of all this. juan williams, george h.w. bush could reach across the aisle. he just could. in the post-presidency time, he did it during his presidency, and there are people who look at it and say, why is he doing it with bill clinton or when george w. bush hands a mentor to michelle obama at the funeral, don t they know? and we are in this age where it is such a partisan time, that this moment seems like it cuts through all of that, doesn t it? juan: it really does. it stands in stark contrast to this moment. i just want to emphasize something you said, bret, that while he was president, this is someone, given his experience on capitol hill, who was regularly going up to capitol hill, and talking to democrats. today, the way things are so separate, we don t even have those conversations between republicans and democrats, sometimes not even among people of the same party. but imagine that the president of the united states would talk with members of congress, the house specifically, he was a real admirer of the house, i think in keeping with the idea that the founding fathers saw the house as the house of the people, he was able to develop relationships, i think, and specific, i would say here that ronald reagan also had this capacity. ronald reagan would have tip o neill, the massachusetts democrat, and do deals, make deals, compromise. george h.w. bush was a master of that kind of political relationships. you have heard this now said by many people. the way that he developed relationships, and the relationships then would lead to having deals and compromises that would result in political solutions for america. that was his highest goal, political solutions as opposed to political confrontations. and for me, it was a lesson, what a statesman, because he had such an accumulation of tremendous public service going back to the war, but even after the war, in the congress, leading the republican party, leading the central intelligence agency, and i think also, people looking at ronald reagan, of course, all eyes would go to reagan in terms of the charisma, the presence, the like, but you have to understand for him, it was public service to be ronald reagan s vice president, he saw, in that moment, that he was, in fact, lining up with someone who was going to be a two term president and he was totally loyal, faithful to president reagan, and a great servant in terms of trying to advance his political agenda. shannon: anita mcbride with me quickly dig it, give us a final word? the relationship between george w. bush and bill clinton. for those of us that worked in the right house during the very painful election of 1992, and we all thought that this person of george w. bush was diminished in our eyes through some of the rhetoric of that campaign, and when they became such friends later, i asked george h.w. bush this question on the plane to the funeral of john paul ii, and bill clinton was there, i said how about this relationship between the two of you? what is it? he said, i think he s the father i never had. it really says everything about who he is as an individual, that it is service over anything that is personal. the other point that juan williams made, as a staffer in the white house, i would never i saw democratic congress meant to be guests on the tennis court or to play horseshoes or a movie or a cocktail, a regular way that george h.w. bush worked as a president. shannon: it was very effective. anita mcbride, thank you very much. juan williams, brad blakeman, dana perino, thank you very much. bret, we just got something in, jim gray, wonderful sports memories, something has just come in, i think you mentioned earlier, the cartoon that came in the wake of the passing of the first lady, barbara bush, and this joyous time of her walking through the heavenly gates, and their own daughter, robin, who died at the age of four, who are looking like a little angel, and running to each other, tonight, that same cartoonist has put out another image. it is of a plane, like the one that george h.w. bush flew, back in world war ii. i think it s on our screen, you can skim coming into the clouds and all three of them now holding hands and it says, we waited for you. that is so touching and heartbreaking. bret: that really is how we should probably end this armor, as that memory of this family because when mrs. bush died, april of 2018, they had been married 73 years, and i think that that, more than anything else, is how george h.w. bush wants to be remembered, as a
a loyal husband, great grandfather, father and i think he will be remembered well in the history of this country. shannon: i think you are right. we leave with that beautiful cartoon. ings. tonight he is gone. shannon: if you are joining us, breaking news coverage of the death of president george h.w. bush. i m shannon bream at fox news world headquarters in new york. president bush 41 has died. he was 94, the oldest president in u.s. history. bush 41 spent the summer at his home in kennebunkport, maine. condolences and fond memories are pouring in from presidents, former advisors, and well wishes from around the world. he s being remembered as a statesman, an icon of the greatest generation, and one-of-a-kind. bret baier looks back at the life of this american hero. for a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn, for in man s heart, if not, in fact, the day of the dictator is over. bret: george bush as hard as test as president was giving the green light for operation desert storm. but he is credited with rescuing the tiny, oil-rich nation of kuwait from saddam hussein s million man army of iraq. the forge george herbert walker bush took his first step into the white house, he learned to walk in kennebunkport, maine. during to born june 12th, 1924, and the town of milton, massachusetts, to a family alrey deeply involved in public service, he was the second of five children to dorothy and senator prescott bush. with high school behind him, george was accepted at yale university, but put his education on hold. the start of the second world war beckoned him to serve his country instead. in 1942, george bush celebrated his 18th birthday by enlisting in the u.s. naval reserve. within a year, he was ensign bush, the youngest fighter pilot in the navy. taking part in 58 combat missions in the pacific theater, bush was flying his plane on a special bombing mission over china when he was shot down by the japanese and was forced to bail out at sea. he survived, though his crew did not. i m floating around in his raft, paddling, and then all of a sudden, saw this tower come up and saw the submarine service. bret: by the end of the war inside, bush set his sights on barbara peers. the two wed in 1945 while bush was still in the navy. they would have six children, including our 43rd president, george w. bush, and popular florida governor, jeb. bush left the navy and graduated yale before he and barbara moved to texas to find his dreams on an oil field. by the age of 30, he was cofounder and president of zapata offshore, which pioneered experimental drilling equipment. but just like his father, bush was attracted to public service and politics. after losing his first political race for a senate seat in 1964, he was elected to the house of representatives two years later, serving two terms, encouraged by richard nixon to run again for the senate in 1970, he was defeated a second time. he moved on to high government positions. in 1971, richard nixon appointed him ambassador to the united nations, and in 1973, he became chairman of the republican national committee at the height of the watergate scandal. in that role, bush urged nixon to resign for the good of the party. i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. bret: president gerald ford sent bush to china as chief of the u.s. liaison office. a short time later, he called him home to be director of the cia, and bush was credited with bringing morale back to that agency. bush left in 1977, when president carter entered the white house. by 1979, he was ready to get back into the political ring. ladies and gentlemen, i am a candidate for president of the united states. [applause] bret: bush was seen as a moderate alternative to ronald reagan, but dropped out of the presidential campaign after poor primary performances. a short time later, he accepted reagan s offer to be his running mate. reagan won in a landslide. during his eight years as vice president, bush was credited with softening reagan s view of the soviet union and pressed hard on issues like deregulation and the war on drugs. international progression, bush became the republican party nominee in 1988 with senator dan quayle from indiana as his running mate. the republican team defeated massachusetts governor michael dukakis and texas senator lloyd benson. i, george herbert walker bush, do solemnly swear. bret: during his president, the soviet union dissolved, the berlin wall fell, and manuel noriega was arrested, securing the panama canal. everything came to a head when iraq s saddam hussein invaded neighboring kuwait. we are not walking away until our mission is done, until the invader is out of kuwait! bret: president bush reacted quickly, committing over 400,000 u.s. troops, and building a strong coalition of allies. operation desert storm had begun. the majority of america supported the president s decision to throw saddam hussein back into iraq and bush s popularity rating hit an all-time high. most thought he was unbeatable for a second term. but a broken campaign promise. read my lips: no new taxes: to. bret: would come back to haunt the 41st president. in the fall of 1992, with the war a distant memory, george bush lost reelection to former arkansas governor bill clinton. bush traveled to kuwait to commemorate the gulf war in 1993. an assassination plot on his life was uncovered by bush was unharmed. it was later discovered the part of poorly orchestrated plan was the work of the iraqi intelligence service. the kuwaiti court would convict all but one of the defendants. bush retired to texas with barbara, getting in a few rounds of horseshoes and celebrating countless birthdays buy birthdays by parachuting out of planes. spending time with her family in maine and reliving memories of when he was a boy. i can honestly say that the three most rewarding titles bestowed upon me are the three that i have got to left: husband, father, and granddad. bret: while retired, his life was active until the end. joining forces with former political flow bill clinton to raise money for the victims of their 2004 indian ocean tsunami, and hurricane katrina in 2005. the former presidents formed a close friendship, continuing their charity work and enjoying annual lunches at busch s home in kennebunkport and using his experience and insights to serve as a quiet advisor to his eldest son, the 43rd president. here, attending george w. bush s presidential library dedication in 2013, and sharing a few words. glad to be here. god bless america and thank you very much. [applause] bret: bush even kept up with public debate by joining twitter, where he often shared photos of his colorful socks that began part of his signature look. each brought health challenges, of course. a form of parkinson s disease that left him in a wheelchair, and brief hospital stays in his 90s for pneumonia, bronchitis, and a fall in his home. but not enough to keep them out of the limelight, throwing out the first pitch before a 2016 baseball game, and pregame ceremonies months later at the super bowl in his houston home town. reuniting with his former running mate and vice president dan quayle in july, and then catching a glimpse of the rare eclipse that crossed the country alongside his family in maine in august. one of bush s last public appearances was that his beloved wife, barbara, a part of his funeral, where he met with former presidents, first ladies, and the current first lady, melania trump. he recently returned to his vacation home town of kennebunkport, maine, joining fellow veterans with a pancake breakfast before he was hospitalized. this was the first time in decades that neither he nor his wife attended the annual memorial day parade. he wrote in a tweet, i am forever grateful not only to those patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, but also the gold star families heritage is imbued with their honor and heroism. known for his maturity and straightforward approach, george h.w. bush called this country to be better in hopes of inspiring the people to be great. i think historians are going to say that we did pretty well, and that s all right for me. i m not in any rush. in heaven, let down and let them make that determination. shannon: tonight, bret baier is with us, anchor of special report in the geopolitical anchor. bret, you think about that, he talks about being in heaven, and we are all thinking about him and his reunion that he is having with his wife and their young daughter that they lost many, many decades ago. bret: shannon, tonight i m at the reagan presidential library ahead of the reagan national defense forum this weekend. behind me, air force one, where president reagan took it around the world on his vice president, george h.w. bush. i think the world will probably, as the president said, smiled down. history will tell how the world remembers the term of president george h.w. bush. but what i am struck by is the family relationship. i mean, think about this, 17 grandchildren, eight grandchildren. his oldest daughter, robin, died when she was four years old in 1953. when barbara bush died, his wif wife, there was that moment where, at the funeral, president bush was sitting in his wheelchair, doro bush, his daughter, behind him, and he is looking at the casket. it was a moment that really, i think, captured the feeling of this family, as he was saying goodbye to his wife of so many years. the other thing that captured the imagination, i think, of the american people, was a cartoon actually that barbara bush is seen going to heaven and reuniting with her daughter, 4-year-old daughter, who died, robin. now, as you look at these pictures, you think about that reunification, and you think about the love of his life who he is now with, and obviously, with robin as well. i think history will look back at president george h.w. bush is an honorable, decent man, and as a good president, who change the trajectory of the united states. shannon: certainly on the world stage. with the cold war in his foreign policy as well. we will bring in chris wallace. we want to read a tweet from jeb bush. nothing gave him his leadership taught us to be kinder and gentler, true love each other. we will miss him dearly. chris, that is going to be a very interesting conversation for this country to have. as we talked about, it will likely be very bipartisan over the next couple of days, as we remember the life of this very special man and former presiden president. chris: absolutely. there is a sense in the country now that it s a zero-sum game, that one side wins, the other side loses, and that was not the way that george h.w. bush view to life and certainly not the way he viewed politics, as i said earlier, he was very competitive, very tough, fought hard for a variety of positions, fought hard to become president, and was certainly crossed for a short time when he lost in 1992 to bill clinton. but he had a sense of the community that this country is, and there is much more that unites us than divides us, and boy, if we can have more of that conversation over the next few days as we celebrate his life and observe his death, that will be a very his last contribution to this country. i wanted to mention, shannon, there was a lot of talk today amongst people that president bush might be in trouble. we have heard this a variety of crimes, that he might be near death. he was a tough bird, and a number of times, he was hospitalized. things seemed serious. i wrote to a couple of his top staff people, one of them, jim mcgrath, his press spokesman, and i said, i hate to ask this question but is he in trouble? and he wrote a note back and basically said, it yes, he s having a tough week but he s haa lot of tough weeks and he bounces back and he then said, this morning, less than 24 hours ago, he had three eggs for breakfast and is at home resting comfortably. so the people closest to him were not at all convinced that this was going to be the end for george w. bush. i also wrote a note to a wonderful woman, really, who s been so close to him, his chief of staff, and one of the things i always got a kick out of, and i have been in touch with her over the years, since he left office, we arranged a variety of interviews, the president and all of his staff s email address was flfw.com. i always wondered what that meant. i finally figured out, former leader of free world.com. that was kind of the light way in which george h.w. bush obviously, he took the presidency seriously, but he didn t take himself seriously. the idea flfw.com was his email address. shannon: very lighthearted. we talk about just how much he loved to joke, a good punch line, even if it was that as his expense. he accomplished so much on the world stage that it s impossible to go through his entire resume and to remind people about all the things he did domestically and internationally, and what a brave navy aviator he was, going straight into the war, getting up on his dedication, getting through yale into an half years, and accomplishment for anyone. but he just kept charging and we talked about how he was a risk-taker and people remember him as somebody as we are showing him skydiving, which he loved to do, too he was somebody who was not afraid to strike out and business, and family, government. he was always, it seems, rising to a new challenge, chris. chris: i asked him about skydiving, and his decision to do that. even loud, he put not just as a lark or a personal adventure, but as a public service. he said, i am trying to send a message to old folks like him at that point, he was in his 80s. he said, you don t have to sit i remember he put it this way drool in the corner. you can get up, you can do something, maybe not skydiving with the golden nights, but you can do something, and don t put yourself in the grave before you are really there. you talk about his sense of humor, i had the great opportunity one time after i had interviewed him in houston that he invited me, and my producer, to go off and have lunch with him. and we were talking remember in 2005 after the terrible tsunami in asia, he and his son, bush 43, assigned him and bill clinton to go tour the area, and part of it was to raise money. now george h.w. bush and bill clinton did not seem like a natural fit, among other things, bill clinton had beaten bush and the 92 election. in addition, their personalities could not have been more different. president bush 41 regaled us at lunch about their trip together through southeast asia. one of the things he said was, we are so different. he loves to talk and opines about everything, and i am more measured. but a lot of what he said was very interesting and among other things, if i was having trouble talking about something, i knew that bill would fill the space. another thing that, frankly, drove him crazy about bill clinton was the fact that bill clinton, and anybody who s ever covered him do this, was always late. he would get involved in a conversation, and we always talked about operating on clinton time. they agreed that they would get up and go at let s say, 9:00 in the morning, and their trip to southeast asia, and bush would be in the car at 9:00 or maybe 8:57, and clinton ritual but he did and he said, it is clearly it clearly bothered quentin that he was always keeping bush waiting so one day at about 8:55, he came downstairs like he was going to beat bush into the limousine, taking them around, but bush, not knowing this, not doing it on purpose, had gotten in the car at 8:50. the look of disappointment on bill clinton s face when he looked in the car and he thought, this guy beat me again. the one thing that bush very much respected, they were traveling around on the presidential jet, was the deference that bill clinton showed him, and that clinton, obviously, bush considerably older, always insisted that george h.w. bush had to the presidential cabinet, sleep in the presidential bed, and clinton would find a couch on air force one, or sleep on the floor, but always paid respect. went to great pains to make sure that bush 41 was comfortable. shannon: as we watch this treasure trove of memories that we have, all these pictures and we think about you see they are the banners the kuwaiti people, and that of course was a big moment in his presidency, the coalition that the u.s. was involved within there, going into defeat the iraqis, a flash point in that region, so much that he accomplished on the international stage. we see him there with the troops, obviously having served himself, he always had a great fondness for the men and women in surveys, and he continued throughout his life to do things with the wounded warriors, well into his retirement, and ways that he hoped would inspire other people. bret, it seems that what us what he was always about, to give more, serve more, and to be better. bret: shannon, listen, you look back at his life and legac legacy, and you see these pictures of him shaking hands with troops there. think about that moment. remember that it was at that point defense secretary dick cheney, it was luminaries in his white house, george h.w. bush, rallying around him, forming a coalition that really had not been formed before on the international stage when it came to a goal number one. he was the template by which other presidents looked out and said, if i can get the world to rally around me like george h.w. bush did with gulf war one compass will be a success. if chris is still on the phone, i would love to ask him about the transition from president reagan, as we are standing here in the reagan library with air force one, where reagan traveled the world to all kinds of places. the transition from president reagan to then- then-president george h.w. bush. their relationship and how it may be, chris, you perceived that? chris: i can t say that they were close friends, and, in fact, the very fact that bush was named as vice president, if you remember, back in 1980, reagan was enamored with what i think everybody ended up thinking was a terrible idea, of a kind of copresidency was gerald ford. he was involved in negotiations in detroit at the republican national convention, and then it all fell apart. suddenly, wednesday night, they don t have a vice president. obviously, bush had run the strongest race, had gotten the most delegates, second only to reagan, and reagan come at the last minute decided, let s go with bush. so it was not his first choice but i think that they had a close political partnership, if not a close personal partnership. and lord knows, george h.w. bus george h.w. bush, and eight years, there was never a hint of any dissent, of any separate agenda, he was just utterly loyal, at least to what the public could see to ronald reagan, and reagan, i think, one, was certainly respected him, and thought, i think presidents always feel that the vice president is the one who, because of the amendment that they can only serve to regrow terms, can carry on their legacy, and at that if you get somebody from the opposite party, in this case it would have been michael dukakis, they will undo a lot of what that president has accomplished in his eight years. so reagan was very supportive of george h.w. bush, bush 41, and it was a kind of seamless transition from one to the other. it was interesting, though, there was one question, you pointed out earlier, bret, reagan was so much larger than life, in a way that bush would have admitted he wasn t, that he needed to establish a separate identity and one of the things that he did at that new orleans convention in 1988 when he became the nominee, was to talk about a kinder, gentler presidency and approach to thing prayed that that thousand points of light, to sort of establish what his agenda was going to bet different than but as something of a departure, something of a turn from reagan s agenda. bret: a lot of people, chris, don t remember the assassination attempt in april of 1993 after president h.w. bush left the white house, he went to kuwait to be commemorated for his role in the first gulf war, and there was an assassination attempt. kuwaiti authorities arrested eventually 17 people they felt were around this conspiracy to kill than the former president using a car bomb. there was a a lot of talk about possibly who was behind this. united states sent to various personnel to kuwait to investigate on their own, and they eventually came to the intelligence of the united states government concluded that iraq was behind the attempted car bombing. when we talk about president george h.w. bush we often don t talk about the assassination attempt after he leaves the white house, but it was real. chris: correct my memory, but as we are talking about this, i believe that bill clinton, his successor, then had a missile strike on baghdad on a couple of installations there as punishment for this attempt. bret: that s exactly right. chris: there was always some thought that when bush 43, his son, got involved in a rock, that there was a census obviously wasn t the prime reason, but of envision s business, like saddam hussein wt after his father, and that was perhaps in the background a motivation for bush 43. bret: i should point of that they are cleaning up for the national defense forum dinner here. so as you hear the glasses clanking behind me, that is the cleanup crew behind me for the reagan national defense forum, as they are preparing for tomorrow for you to speed when you get a little ambient noise they are a very busy night. chris, thank you very much for joining us. i want to bring in more folks with close ties to the president. we have dana perino, a former advisor to president george w. bush, and juan williams joining us now. juan, i want to start with you. we talked about the bipartisan appeal of bush 41, and he worked across the aisle, and he was willing to compromise to get things done. your thoughts on him tonight? juan: the emotion flows out of me because i was the white house correspondent during the reagan years, and one of my jobs was to travel around the country with george w. bush, especially in the 84 cycle when president reagan was up for reelection. as you have heard, they weren t particularly close, but george h.w. bush was a great, great emissary for the reagan administration, because he had been head of the republican national committee. so he knew people all across the country in every state, he could tell me names of people in an unbelievable fashion. just incredible. and we would sit together, and i remember one thing he told me, shannon, was that i should write notes to people. he would write notes, five and ten notes a day out of habit, just to stay in touch with people. certainly with all the prominent republicans around the country, but he would write to friends and people, and everybody would respond to him, not as the vice president at the time, but as george h.w. bush, somebody that they knew and felt a very personal connection to. when i had the chance to travel with him, to talk with him, i was so to this day, so impressed with him, among all the politicians i have ever met, because he was not only a war hero, but remember, he had been our first envoy sent by richard nixon to china. when i went to the olympics, i guess it was 2008 in china, i remember talking to him about china, and remember, his son, george w. bush, spent a lot of time in china because his dad had been there as the envoy. and then of course he goes on and heads the cia, the republican national committee, vice president, having previously served as a congressman, and then president of the united states. i don t think we see, if you look at it in historical terms, anybody with that level of public service commitment, experience, and, as i said to you, the greatest measure would be his personal connection to people, especially republicans come across the country. people in the party, hardworking, to build party structure throughout. he really had that kind of personal connection, that kind of political connection that i think is extraordinary in these times. people just loved him. one of the things that happen for me tonight as i heard about president bush s death as i just went to the wall, and i don t know if you can see this, but i brought with me a picture of a young version of me, and a fairly young version of president bush. and here we are on what was then air force two, traveling around the country, as i said, going to all kinds of picnics and festivals in order to help ronald reagan win reelection in 1984. and then recently, five years ago, i sent him a note and i say he was such a great note writer, and he sent me back a note. this one came from maine, from kennebunkport, and he wrote about remembering the good old days, traveling on air force two, as he said, and just wrote to some kind words to me. this was really very special. this hangs on the wall and my home here in washington. the other thing that strikes me at this moment, so emotional about him, he was one tremendous baseball player. he was captain of the yale team. as you know, his son went on to own the rangers but he is a big houston astros fan to the end. we would talk baseball now he is a left-hander, shannon. you know something about baseball, i know you were a baseball fan, and george h.w. bush was an astute i don t say this lightly, i am not trying to, you know, celebrate him in some way that is unearned but george h.w. bush could tell you about major-league players on a level that i don t think any other politician i have ever met could do. i don t think general manager manager is good talk about baseball and baseball players with the depth of understandingf the game that george h.w. bush had. so for me, it was, like, people would say, i would come back from a trip with george h.w. bush, and my wife would say, what is going on, how are you doing? i would say, here s the latest on what we can expect from the orioles and the astros and the yankees, from the very top of american political life. this guy was so extraordinary, such a statesman, and such a friend. as you said, able to work across the aisle. we have heard from bret and chris about his work with bill clinton, but you should know that even recently, you had barack obama going down to houston and stopping in to visit. and that kind of relationship, again, so extraordinary in these days, utterly polarized politics. shannon: a beautiful statement for both the obamas tonight. i want to jump in here we ll come back to the panel, and bret standing by, but because you mention the love of sports, we want to bring in sportscaster jim gray, he interviewed the former president more than 20 times. you know, jim, may be more than the rest of us, just how much he loved sports and had such a depth of knowledge, especially about the game of baseball. he loved it, he followed it. in fact, one of the great things that he used to talk about, he met babe ruth in 1948, and he used to carry around a little card from time to time and he gave me one of the signed cards that he had with him pictured with babe ruth, as you see right there on the screen. unfortunately at that time, mr. mr. ruth was ravaged with cancer but he was able, as the captain of the yale baseball team to be able to meet him, and it was a proud moment for him, and you saw that pitch he throughout and it always bothered president bush that he bounced that ball. he was a great baseball player in college and so when his son, george w. bush, throughout the first pitch after the terrorist attacks of september 11th, 2001, he always remembered that his father bounced the ball and how much it bothered him so when derek jeter came in and told them, don t bounce the ball, mr. president, it refresh all of those memories and president bush 43 went out and threw a perfect strike to help lift the nation to get onto some sense of normalcy. president bush sr. he also loved golf. he was a terrific fan of the game of golf. he would show up and i would interview him regularly at the ryder cups and the president,s, and his father, his grandfather, george herbert walker, created h come along with the ryder cup, one of the staples and traditions of golf. i also got to see him and play golf with president bush, 1995, a tremendous story when he golfed with president clinton and president ford. they joined bob hope and he won that day. he shot a 92. he also hit two fans that day, one off the first tea required 14 stitches and the 14th t hit a woman in the rear end. it was funny on the first one but not so funny on the 14th. it was so funny because bob hope made a living commenting how many times president ford would hit people but he beat president clinton by a stroke and president ford by seven strokes a day. let me share a little story with you from spain. we were there for the ryder cup in 1997. it was a homecoming and he came over to watch the american team, and it was pouring rain one day, and we were all scattering to get off the court, and i was in my golf cart along with the technician, the sound man, a man name jun came from nbc sports and we were driving and we saw three guys standing, one guy had a glad trash bag over his head and was soaking wet and there were two men standing behd him. i got a little bit closer and i said, that is president bush, he was standing in the pouring rain all by himself, wasn t asking anybody else for help, we gave them a ride in on the golf cart and i ll never forget he had this trash bag over him and just the humility and the decency that he had and the next day, he came back to the golf course, and on his own, was seeking out joon kim to hand him a pair of presidential cufflinks. i thought, what a remarkable, amazing man, did you something like that, because he got a ridn the golf cart. he was wonderful to be around and he loved to play golf, and fast golf. in fact, he was so touched and love the fact that all arnold palmer told him that he had been a great contributor to the game of golf, that not everyone is like jack nicklaus, who can play for hours and hours, and president bush love the fact tht arnold palmer told him it was great for the game that he played in two hours or two and half hours. bret: hey, jim, it s bret baier. you are right, the bushes played fast. i only played with them once, brit hume used to play with them a lot in maine. they could move it on the golf course. they did. it was boom, boom, boom. they enjoyed it but they wanted to do it fast. he would concentrate, and those split seconds, and he could hit some good golf shots, but to hi, it was a form of relaxation, a form of a challenge, and he used to always tell me how much he could learn about other people by playing golf with them and if they were really slow, they didn t get an invitation back again. i was also honored, bret, in 1999 at brookline at the country club, and nbc, we were televising the ryder cup, and president bush had come on many times with me to do interviews and i saw him. they were there to support ben crenshaw because he was from austin, texas, and they were living in texas, obviously, and i ask, could i interview president bush and he said, sure. barbara bush walked up to me and said, why are you i was interviewing the old man? get over the old man. she pointed over to george w and she said, that guy is going to be running for president, the governor of texas. why don t you put him on? i said, sure, can we do the whole family? so we did the whole family. it was kind of fun to be told, or kidded no more prodded by mrs. bush, and so we interviewed them both together, and jeb was also part of it, and president george w. bush was able to speak to the team, and they rallied for the greatest comeback in history of the ryder cup. he was the governor at the time, and ben crenshaw and the guys came back and won at brookline and president george h.w. bush the other day, i ask him the next day if, in fact, he was the one that was able to rally them and he was way too humble, and said, i just gave them a few words of encouragement, i will not take credit for those. bret: listen, this is a sports family. obviously, talking about golf, baseball, president h.w. bush s prolific baseball career in college, george w. bush owns a baseball team. there was pride in sports. it meant a lot to them. did you ever get a sense when you were talking to him about these moments, throwing out the first pitch, flipping the coin of the super bowl, how much these things meant to him? it meant an awful lot to him. i remember talking to him at the final four in houston and he was a great friend and such a mentor and a confidant with jim nantz, the greatest broadcaster from cbs, and he wrote about him extensively in his book and they spent countless hours and days together and i believe he had come in part to some of these final fours because he wanted to spend some time with jim nantz. he was always agreeable and i remember john thompson, the great basketball coach from georgetown, had never met president bush, even though he had coached at georgetown during the time that president bush was in office and it was like a hole that he did not have because he did not have that one photograph with president bush, so i walked him over at halftime, and president bush was just so instead of the honor being for john thompson, it was the honor for president bush to be able to receive him and to spend five or 6 minutes before he had to go back on the air. sports meant an awful lot to him. in 2005, i got to interview both president clinton and president bush on the field in jacksonville before they flipped a coin for the game, the super bowl game in jacksonville, they went out and flipped it together. they had worked on the hurricane relief efforts together, and the earthquake efforts that they had gone and become a team and so they teamed up and came and flipped the coin. you could just tell that president bush really, really cared about sports. he called me one time after the mike tyson ear biting, and he wanted to know what kind of a guy mike tyson was. i said, he s wonderful to be around, and he had made a despicable, horrible mistake and incident that night, but a just break into so much that i thought that tyson was wonderful and he said, i don t want to judge him. he s a great boxer. he was really interested in so many different sports, and had a genuine love. it was great to be around. i asked him how many games he would watch in the white house and he said we have a pretty good satellite system, bret and shannon. i watched quite a bit of it. shannon: one of the perks of being in the white house. bret: your reflections are great. thank you. he was a wonderful man. i was lucky to spend the time with him and he was a joy, he was a joyous guy who was very, very humble. decency beyond belief. shannon: quite a combination, along with all the leadership and accomplishment. i want to show you briefly a video coming into us a short time ago for my neighbor who stopped by the gates to the bush neighborhood there. they placed an american flag and flowers. the neighbors said they wanted to come by, saying she was saddened by the loss. they spoke very highly of the bush family, and talked about the fact that she said there were people who were good people, they knew them as neighbors, had the utmost respect for them, and just wanted to stop by and play something there at the gate. we can only imagine in the coming days, that will ramp up even more. we want to bring dana perino back end, and we ve gotten reaction from former secretary of state condoleezza rice tonight. she talked about the deep, broad legacy of president h.w. bush, and she says, he s finished his race with honor and dignity tonight, dana. dana: had a chance to see condoleezza rice a couple of weeks ago and she relayed a story about working for him in the white house, if you ll recall, shannon, she was a national security advisor not the head advisor, but she was on the nsc, and she was responsible for all things soviet union. when it was announced the wall was going to be coming down, they all went to him and said, mr. president, we have to get ready, you must go to europe, you must have this moment, and he said, i m not going. they said, but sir, you were leading this charge, and they said, what am i going to do there? dance on the wall? this is their moments. let them have this moment. i m not going to go and try and hog the spotlight out there. it was decisions like that, maybe at the moment might sound, oh, he s being modest, but i think there was a strategy also to the modesty. and juan williams brought up the writing of the notes, the other thing condoleezza rice talked about at that event was how george w. bush found it important and easy to make friendships with leaders all over the world. he would congratulate them about things he read in the news, and the reason he did that is because when he needed them to rally around them, around the united states, building a coalition, they would always take the call, they would show up and help america, and i think a lot of that had to do with a personal diplomacy. it s a really good lesson for all of us to remember. he used to say, don t ever let your first call to somebody be when you ask for something. that is one of the lessons that i took away from him, shannon. shannon: the fact that juan went on and on, about the personal notes, i got one wants, and it is something that you savor. at such an old-fashioned, beautiful courtesy, and it is ultra-special thing that takes a moment of your time but will change someone s life, that you would do something so personal. i want to bring in anita mcbrien, you worked for more than one bush administration, many capacities, you oversaw personnel for this president, bush 41. your thoughts tonight? my heart is just broken and crushed but we knew this day was coming. he always sort of rallied and got past, difficult times with his health, but what a remarkable life, and for all of us that had the great privilege to work in the white house with him, and with president reagan. these are two incredible examples for young people, like myself, my husband who i met, and his personal aide as vice president, they drove a million miles together. he typed a lot of the notes on the plane, my old children have notes from him when they were born. he just touched us all, not only as young professionals learning from these incredible leaders of such dignity and service, but also how he so personally touched each of our lives. shannon: we ve got bret baier with us, too. i think he has a question for fr you. bret: listen, i think you talk about it, anita, the service to the country, and think about that this was the last living former president who was a world war ii vet, someone who served their country for all of his life, volunteered after pearl harbor, decided not to go to college, to get into the military, after the attack on pearl harbor. talk about, i guess, in the wake of his life, what do you think his legacy will be and perhaps what people should take from it. it is such a great point that you raise, bret. i think when you think about george h.w. bush, you think you picture that photograph of him as that young naval aviator, and him being rescued, of course, when has plane went down, and how young he was to take on that level of responsibility and devotion to the country, that it was just so natural for him, without a doubt, growing up of course, and a family that was a family of service. also a family of great humility, and you know how he often said how his mother would always tell him, don t brag about what you do, just do it. and i think that is such a wonderful as i said to shannon a wonderful example for those of us who work in washington, worked in the white house, work in public service, that i hope is something that they treasure and now is remarkable and people who take up the leadership mantle of our country. bret: brad blakeman is with us, i go back to the world war ii time, the youngest aviator, brad, in the u.s. navy, 1944, september 2nd, his plane shot down, rescued in the pacific ocean. he rejoins his squadron. he received several honors from the military and from his country and often times, as we talk about george h.w. bush, we focus on his time as president. but it was much more than that. it was. i was with him, we had one of our largest sea battles, the first time he had been back to that area probably since he was shot down. one of the few times i saw him shed a tear as he stood there at the flagpole honoring those who died on those beaches, and as you can see the resting troop carrier still in the water. i was with him at the 50th anniversary of pearl harbor. we had several events that day, and surrounded by survivors. sadly, so many of them are gone but the president had a deep sense of service, and part of that service in his life was the legacy of his personal service in the military, and having been shot down. duty, service, honor, country, family, that is what george h.w. bush will be most remembered for, and he will be a role model, and has been for so many. shannon: we are just getting a statement into night from former president clinton as well. we talked a great deal about how in retirement president bush 41 reached out and made sure that he connected with people across the political aisle where they could help in disasters and relief efforts in that kind of thing. he talks about being a young governor invited into bush s home in the kennebunkport and was struck by the kindness to chelsea and his decency. he went on to say, few americans have been or will ever be able to match president bush match president bush s record of service to the united states and the joy he took every day from it, from his military service in world war ii to his work in congress, the united nations, china, the central intelligence agency, the vice presidency, and the presidency, where he moved the post-cold war world to peace, unity, and freedom. dana, that stands out to me, he took a lot of tough jobs, but he seemed to be a joyful person in the midst of it. if we have lost dana dana: shannon, i m loving your coverage so much that i had the tv turned up too loud and didn t hear the call. [laughter] these tributes are just wonderful and wholesome. did you ask me a specific question? shannon: i was talking about the statement from the clintons, talking about the joy that president trump took from his service every day, and all the positions that he served in, and that really strikes me, these are difficult jobs, he was forced into difficult situations, as any president as, and he did seem like a joyful person. dana: one of the things that he said to president bush president bush 43 after he lost in that 92 raise, 43 ask him, dad, where did you get the strength to be so gracious after that loss, it was so excruciating, the family is so heartbroken. he said, i had no choice. and i think that what he learned as a young boy growing up with a mother who apparently was one of the angels that walked the earth, she basically said, every day that you wake up and it s a choice. your choice and attitude and what you say, how you conduct yourself, and one of the things that he showed us in a post-presidency, really how to be a former president. he was a gracious winner and a gracious loser. he lived quite a long life after he finished the presidency. jimmy carter also. he really set a good example for bill clinton, for barack obama, and for his own son, george w. bush, because there is a lot of life and after you have had this job as the leader of the free world, the most powerful person on the planet, what are you going to do in those next years? and he chose to do lots of different things. he continued to do speaking but i think one of his great lasting legacies is at college station, texas a&m, where the bush library is, and where, to this day, people learn about his leadership, and leadership is really part of that curriculum at the library. he also stayed active as 43 put together at the presidential leadership scholars series, and that is the libraries of 41, 43, bill clinton, and lyndon johnson. and they all worked together to help create this new generation of leaders. and i do think, though, shannon, to get back to your original question, this idea of a choice, how you will live your life, one of the things bill clinton also said is that in many ways, 41 became like a second father to him. i think that might ve been anita, might maybe she can talk more about that, because that is important. when barbara bush died, we talk to about her as america s grandmot. 41 had so many roles, he made everyone feel special, but what do grandparents do? they teach you about how to conduct yourself. life is hard but you make choices based on the values that have been instilled in you and if it is gratitude, dignity, humility, patriotism, and the number one thing is unconditional love for your family, and that is something that i really learned from them and have tried to keep in mind as the days get hard, you get busy, you get irritated, this is a time of incivility, but it s a choice, and he taught us how to make it well. bret: i just want to touch really quickly on the bipartisan nature of all this. juan williams, george h.w. bush could reach across the aisle. he just could. in the post-presidency time, he did it during his presidency, and there are people who look at it and say, why is he doing it with bill clinton or when george w. bush hands a mentor to michelle obama at the funeral, don t they know? and we are in this age where it is such a partisan time, that this moment seems like it cuts through all of that, doesn t it? juan: it really does. it stands in stark contrast to this moment. i just want to emphasize something you said, bret, that while he was president, this is someone, given his experience on capitol hill, who was regularly going up to capitol hill, and talking to democrats. today, the way things are so separate, we don t even have those conversations between republicans and democrats, sometimes not even among people of the same party. but imagine that the president of the united states would talk with members of congress, the house specifically, he was a real admirer of the house, i think in keeping with the idea that the founding fathers saw the house as the house of the people, he was able to develop relationships, i think, and specific, i would say here that ronald reagan also had this capacity. ronald reagan would have tip o neill, the massachusetts democrat, and do deals, make deals, compromise. george h.w. bush was a master of that kind of political relationships. you have heard this now said by many people. the way that he developed relationships, and the relationships then would lead to having deals and compromises that would result in political solutions for america. that was his highest goal, political solutions as opposed to political confrontations. and for me, it was a lesson, what a statesman, because he had such an accumulation of tremendous public service going back to the war, but even after the war, in the congress, leading the republican party, leading the central intelligence agency, and i think also, people looking at ronald reagan, of course, all eyes would go to reagan in terms of the charisma, the presence, the like, but you have to understand for him, it was public service to be ronald reagan s vice president, he saw, in that moment, that he was, in fact, lining up with someone who was going to be a two term president and he was totally loyal, faithful to president reagan, and a great servant in terms of trying to advance his political agenda. shannon: anita mcbride with me quickly dig it, give us a final word? the relationship between george w. bush and bill clinton. for those of us that worked in the right house during the very painful election of 1992, and we all thought that this person of george w. bush was diminished in our eyes through some of the rhetoric of that campaign, and when they became such friends later, i asked george h.w. bush this question on the plane to the funeral of john paul ii, and bill clinton was there, i said how about this relationship between the two of you? what is it? he said, i think he s the father i never had. it really says everything about who he is as an individual, that it is service over anything that is personal. the other point that juan williams made, as a staffer in the white house, i would never i saw democratic congress meant to be guests on the tennis court or to play horseshoes or a movie or a cocktail, a regular way that george h.w. bush worked as a president. shannon: it was very effective. anita mcbride, thank you very much. juan williams, brad blakeman, dana perino, thank you very much. bret, we just got something in, jim gray, wonderful sports memories, something has just come in, i think you mentioned earlier, the cartoon that came in the wake of the passing of the first lady, barbara bush, and this joyous time of her walking through the heavenly gates, and their own daughter, robin, who died at the age of four, who are looking like a little angel, and running to each other, tonight, that same cartoonist has put out another image. it is of a plane, like the one that george h.w. bush flew, back in world war ii. i think it s on our screen, you can skim coming into the clouds and all three of them now holding hands and it says, we waited for you. that is so touching and heartbreaking. bret: that really is how we should probably end this armor, as that memory of this family because when mrs. bush died, april of 2018, they had been married 73 years, and i think that that, more than anything else, is how george h.w. bush wants to be remembered, as a
of the country. we are going to continue in our coverage tonight of the life and death of president george h.w. bush. our 41st president who served eight years as vice president and director of central intelligence, among many other things. tonight he is gone. shannon: if you are joining us, breaking news coverage of the death of president george h.w. bush. i m shannon bream at fox news world headquarters in new york. president bush 41 has died. he was 94, the oldest president in u.s. history. bush 41 spent the summer at his home in kennebunkport, maine. condolences and fond memories are pouring in from presidents, former advisors, and well wishes from around the world. he s being remembered as a statesman, an icon of the greatest generation, and one-of-a-kind. bret baier looks back at the life of this american hero. for a new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn, for in man s heart, if not, in fact, the day of the dictator is over. bret: george bush as hard as test as president was giving the green light for operation desert storm. but he is credited with rescuing the tiny, oil-rich nation of kuwait from saddam hussein s million man army of iraq. the forge george herbert walker bush took his first step into the white house, he learned to walk in kennebunkport, maine. during to born june 12th, 1924, and the town of milton, massachusetts, to a family alrey deeply involved in public service, he was the second of five children to dorothy and senator prescott bush. with high school behind him, george was accepted at yale university, but put his education on hold. the start of the second world war beckoned him to serve his country instead. in 1942, george bush celebrated his 18th birthday by enlisting in the u.s. naval reserve. within a year, he was ensign bush, the youngest fighter pilot in the navy. taking part in 58 combat missions in the pacific theater, bush was flying his plane on a special bombing mission over china when he was shot down by the japanese and was forced to bail out at sea. he survived, though his crew did not. i m floating around in his raft, paddling, and then all of a sudden, saw this tower come up and saw the submarine service. bret: by the end of the war inside, bush set his sights on barbara peers. the two wed in 1945 while bush was still in the navy. they would have six children, including our 43rd president, george w. bush, and popular florida governor, jeb. bush left the navy and graduated yale before he and barbara moved to texas to find his dreams on an oil field. by the age of 30, he was cofounder and president of zapata offshore, which pioneered experimental drilling equipment. but just like his father, bush was attracted to public service and politics. after losing his first political race for a senate seat in 1964, he was elected to the house of representatives two years later, serving two terms, encouraged by richard nixon to run again for the senate in 1970, he was defeated a second time. he moved on to high government positions. in 1971, richard nixon appointed him ambassador to the united nations, and in 1973, he became chairman of the republican national committee at the height of the watergate scandal. in that role, bush urged nixon to resign for the good of the party. i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. bret: president gerald ford sent bush to china as chief of the u.s. liaison office. a short time later, he called him home to be director of the cia, and bush was credited with bringing morale back to that agency. bush left in 1977, when president carter entered the white house. by 1979, he was ready to get back into the political ring. ladies and gentlemen, i am a candidate for president of the united states. [applause] bret: bush was seen as a moderate alternative to ronald reagan, but dropped out of the presidential campaign after poor primary performances. a short time later, he accepted reagan s offer to be his running mate. reagan won in a landslide. during his eight years as vice president, bush was credited with softening reagan s view of the soviet union and pressed hard on issues like deregulation and the war on drugs. international progression, bush became the republican party nominee in 1988 with senator dan quayle from indiana as his running mate. the republican team defeated massachusetts governor michael dukakis and texas senator lloyd benson. i, george herbert walker bush, do solemnly swear. bret: during his president, the soviet union dissolved, the berlin wall fell, and manuel noriega was arrested, securing the panama canal. everything came to a head when iraq s saddam hussein invaded neighboring kuwait. we are not walking away until our mission is done, until the invader is out of kuwait! bret: president bush reacted quickly, committing over 400,000 u.s. troops, and building a strong coalition of allies. operation desert storm had begun. the majority of america supported the president s decision to throw saddam hussein back into iraq and bush s popularity rating hit an all-time high. most thought he was unbeatable for a second term. but a broken campaign promise. read my lips: no new taxes: to. bret: would come back to haunt the 41st president. in the fall of 1992, with the war a distant memory, george bush lost reelection to former arkansas governor bill clinton. bush traveled to kuwait to commemorate the gulf war in 1993. an assassination plot on his life was uncovered by bush was unharmed. it was later discovered the part of poorly orchestrated plan was the work of the iraqi intelligence service. the kuwaiti court would convict all but one of the defendants. bush retired to texas with barbara, getting in a few rounds of horseshoes and celebrating countless birthdays buy birthdays by parachuting out of planes. spending time with her family in maine and reliving memories of when he was a boy. i can honestly say that the three most rewarding titles bestowed upon me are the three that i have got to left: husband, father, and granddad. bret: while retired, his life was active until the end. joining forces with former political flow bill clinton to raise money for the victims of their 2004 indian ocean tsunami, and hurricane katrina in 2005. the former presidents formed a close friendship, continuing their charity work and enjoying annual lunches at busch s home in kennebunkport and using his experience and insights to serve as a quiet advisor to his eldest son, the 43rd president. here, attending george w. bush s presidential library dedication in 2013, and sharing a few words. glad to be here. god bless america and thank you very much. [applause] bret: bush even kept up with public debate by joining twitter, where he often shared photos of his colorful socks that began part of his signature look. each brought health challenges, of course. a form of parkinson s disease that left him in a wheelchair, and brief hospital stays in his 90s for pneumonia, bronchitis, and a fall in his home. but not enough to keep them out of the limelight, throwing out the first pitch before a 2016 baseball game, and pregame ceremonies months later at the super bowl in his houston home town. reuniting with his former running mate and vice president dan quayle in july, and then catching a glimpse of the rare eclipse that crossed the country alongside his family in maine in august. one of bush s last public appearances was that his beloved wife, barbara, a part of his funeral, where he met with former presidents, first ladies, and the current first lady, melania trump. he recently returned to his vacation home town of kennebunkport, maine, joining fellow veterans with a pancake breakfast before he was hospitalized. this was the first time in decades that neither he nor his wife attended the annual memorial day parade. he wrote in a tweet, i am forever grateful not only to those patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, but also the gold star families heritage is imbued with their honor and heroism. known for his maturity and straightforward approach, george h.w. bush called this country to be better in hopes of inspiring the people to be great. i think historians are going to say that we did pretty well, and that s all right for me. i m not in any rush. in heaven, let down and let them make that determination. shannon: tonight, bret baier is with us, anchor of special report in the geopolitical anchor. bret, you think about that, he talks about being in heaven, and we are all thinking about him and his reunion that he is having with his wife and their young daughter that they lost many, many decades ago. bret: shannon, tonight i m at the reagan presidential library ahead of the reagan national defense forum this weekend. behind me, air force one, where president reagan took it around the world on his vice president, george h.w. bush. i think the world will probably, as the president said, smiled down. history will tell how the world remembers the term of president george h.w. bush. but what i am struck by is the family relationship. i mean, think about this, 17 grandchildren, eight grandchildren. his oldest daughter, robin, died when she was four years old in 1953. when barbara bush died, his wif wife, there was that moment where, at the funeral, president bush was sitting in his wheelchair, doro bush, his daughter, behind him, and he is looking at the casket. it was a moment that really, i think, captured the feeling of this family, as he was saying goodbye to his wife of so many years. the other thing that captured the imagination, i think, of the american people, was a cartoon actually that barbara bush is seen going to heaven and reuniting with her daughter, 4-year-old daughter, who died, robin. now, as you look at these pictures, you think about that reunification, and you think about the love of his life who he is now with, and obviously, with robin as well. i think history will look back at president george h.w. bush is an honorable, decent man, and as a good president, who change the trajectory of the united states. shannon: certainly on the world stage. with the cold war in his foreign policy as well. we will bring in chris wallace. we want to read a tweet from jeb bush. nothing gave him his leadership taught us to be kinder and gentler, true love each other. we will miss him dearly. chris, that is going to be a very interesting conversation for this country to have. as we talked about, it will likely be very bipartisan over the next couple of days, as we remember the life of this very special man and former presiden president. chris: absolutely. there is a sense in the country now that it s a zero-sum game, that one side wins, the other side loses, and that was not the way that george h.w. bush view to life and certainly not the way he viewed politics, as i said earlier, he was very competitive, very tough, fought hard for a variety of positions, fought hard to become president, and was certainly crossed for a short time when he lost in 1992 to bill clinton. but he had a sense of the community that this country is, and there is much more that unites us than divides us, and boy, if we can have more of that conversation over the next few days as we celebrate his life and observe his death, that will be a very his last contribution to this country. i wanted to mention, shannon, there was a lot of talk today amongst people that president bush might be in trouble. we have heard this a variety of crimes, that he might be near death. he was a tough bird, and a number of times, he was hospitalized. things seemed serious. i wrote to a couple of his top staff people, one of them, jim mcgrath, his press spokesman, and i said, i hate to ask this question but is he in trouble? and he wrote a note back and basically said, it yes, he s having a tough week but he s haa lot of tough weeks and he bounces back and he then said, this morning, less than 24 hours ago, he had three eggs for breakfast and is at home resting comfortably. so the people closest to him were not at all convinced that this was going to be the end for george w. bush. i also wrote a note to a wonderful woman, really, who s been so close to him, his chief of staff, and one of the things i always got a kick out of, and i have been in touch with her over the years, since he left office, we arranged a variety of interviews, the president and all of his staff s email address was flfw.com. i always wondered what that meant. i finally figured out, former leader of free world.com. that was kind of the light way in which george h.w. bush obviously, he took the presidency seriously, but he didn t take himself seriously. the idea flfw.com was his email address. shannon: very lighthearted. we talk about just how much he loved to joke, a good punch line, even if it was that as his expense. he accomplished so much on the world stage that it s impossible to go through his entire resume and to remind people about all the things he did domestically and internationally, and what a brave navy aviator he was, going straight into the war, getting up on his dedication, getting through yale into an half years, and accomplishment for anyone. but he just kept charging and we talked about how he was a risk-taker and people remember him as somebody as we are showing him skydiving, which he loved to do, too he was somebody who was not afraid to strike out and business, and family, government. he was always, it seems, rising to a new challenge, chris. chris: i asked him about skydiving, and his decision to do that. even loud, he put not just as a lark or a personal adventure, but as a public service. he said, i am trying to send a message to old folks like him at that point, he was in his 80s. he said, you don t have to sit i remember he put it this way drool in the corner. you can get up, you can do something, maybe not skydiving with the golden nights, but you can do something, and don t put yourself in the grave before you are really there. you talk about his sense of humor, i had the great opportunity one time after i had interviewed him in houston that he invited me, and my producer, to go off and have lunch with him. and we were talking remember in 2005 after the terrible tsunami in asia, he and his son, bush 43, assigned him and bill clinton to go tour the area, and part of it was to raise money. now george h.w. bush and bill clinton did not seem like a natural fit, among other things, bill clinton had beaten bush and the 92 election. in addition, their personalities could not have been more different. president bush 41 regaled us at lunch about their trip together through southeast asia. one of the things he said was, we are so different. he loves to talk and opines about everything, and i am more measured. but a lot of what he said was very interesting and among other things, if i was having trouble talking about something, i knew that bill would fill the space. another thing that, frankly, drove him crazy about bill clinton was the fact that bill clinton, and anybody who s ever covered him do this, was always late. he would get involved in a conversation, and we always talked about operating on clinton time. they agreed that they would get up and go at let s say, 9:00 in the morning, and their trip to southeast asia, and bush would be in the car at 9:00 or maybe 8:57, and clinton ritual but he did and he said, it is clearly it clearly bothered quentin that he was always keeping bush waiting so one day at about 8:55, he came downstairs like he was going to beat bush into the limousine, taking them around, but bush, not knowing this, not doing it on purpose, had gotten in the car at 8:50. the look of disappointment on bill clinton s face when he looked in the car and he thought, this guy beat me again. the one thing that bush very much respected, they were traveling around on the presidential jet, was the deference that bill clinton showed him, and that clinton, obviously, bush considerably older, always insisted that george h.w. bush had to the presidential cabinet, sleep in the presidential bed, and clinton would find a couch on air force one, or sleep on the floor, but always paid respect. went to great pains to make sure that bush 41 was comfortable. shannon: as we watch this treasure trove of memories that we have, all these pictures and we think about you see they are the banners the kuwaiti people, and that of course was a big moment in his presidency, the coalition that the u.s. was involved within there, going into defeat the iraqis, a flash point in that region, so much that he accomplished on the international stage. we see him there with the troops, obviously having served himself, he always had a great fondness for the men and women in surveys, and he continued throughout his life to do things with the wounded warriors, well into his retirement, and ways that he hoped would inspire other people. bret, it seems that what us what he was always about, to give more, serve more, and to be better. bret: shannon, listen, you look back at his life and legac legacy, and you see these pictures of him shaking hands with troops there. think about that moment. remember that it was at that point defense secretary dick cheney, it was luminaries in his white house, george h.w. bush, rallying around him, forming a coalition that really had not been formed before on the international stage when it came to a goal number one. he was the template by which other presidents looked out and said, if i can get the world to rally around me like george h.w. bush did with gulf war one compass will be a success. if chris is still on the phone, i would love to ask him about the transition from president reagan, as we are standing here in the reagan library with air force one, where reagan traveled the world to all kinds of places. the transition from president reagan to then- then-president george h.w. bush. their relationship and how it may be, chris, you perceived that? chris: i can t say that they were close friends, and, in fact, the very fact that bush was named as vice president, if you remember, back in 1980, reagan was enamored with what i think everybody ended up thinking was a terrible idea, of a kind of copresidency was gerald ford. he was involved in negotiations in detroit at the republican national convention, and then it all fell apart. suddenly, wednesday night, they don t have a vice president. obviously, bush had run the strongest race, had gotten the most delegates, second only to reagan, and reagan come at the last minute decided, let s go with bush. so it was not his first choice but i think that they had a close political partnership, if not a close personal partnership. and lord knows, george h.w. bus george h.w. bush, and eight years, there was never a hint of any dissent, of any separate agenda, he was just utterly loyal, at least to what the public could see to ronald reagan, and reagan, i think, one, was certainly respected him, and thought, i think presidents always feel that the vice president is the one who, because of the amendment that they can only serve to regrow terms, can carry on their legacy, and at that if you get somebody from the opposite party, in this case it would have been michael dukakis, they will undo a lot of what that president has accomplished in his eight years. so reagan was very supportive of george h.w. bush, bush 41, and it was a kind of seamless transition from one to the other. it was interesting, though, there was one question, you pointed out earlier, bret, reagan was so much larger than life, in a way that bush would have admitted he wasn t, that he needed to establish a separate identity and one of the things that he did at that new orleans convention in 1988 when he became the nominee, was to talk about a kinder, gentler presidency and approach to thing prayed that that thousand points of light, to sort of establish what his agenda was going to bet different than but as something of a departure, something of a turn from reagan s agenda. bret: a lot of people, chris, don t remember the assassination attempt in april of 1993 after president h.w. bush left the white house, he went to kuwait to be commemorated for his role in the first gulf war, and there was an assassination attempt. kuwaiti authorities arrested eventually 17 people they felt were around this conspiracy to kill than the former president using a car bomb. there was a a lot of talk about possibly who was behind this. united states sent to various personnel to kuwait to investigate on their own, and they eventually came to the intelligence of the united states government concluded that iraq was behind the attempted car bombing. when we talk about president george h.w. bush we often don t talk about the assassination attempt after he leaves the white house, but it was real. chris: correct my memory, but as we are talking about this, i believe that bill clinton, his successor, then had a missile strike on baghdad on a couple of installations there as punishment for this attempt. bret: that s exactly right. chris: there was always some thought that when bush 43, his son, got involved in a rock, that there was a census obviously wasn t the prime reason, but of envision s business, like saddam hussein wt after his father, and that was perhaps in the background a motivation for bush 43. bret: i should point of that they are cleaning up for the national defense forum dinner here. so as you hear the glasses clanking behind me, that is the cleanup crew behind me for the reagan national defense forum, as they are preparing for tomorrow for you to speed when you get a little ambient noise they are a very busy night. chris, thank you very much for joining us. i want to bring in more folks with close ties to the president. we have dana perino, a former advisor to president george w. bush, and juan williams joining us now. juan, i want to start with you. we talked about the bipartisan appeal of bush 41, and he worked across the aisle, and he was willing to compromise to get things done. your thoughts on him tonight? juan: the emotion flows out of me because i was the white house correspondent during the reagan years, and one of my jobs was to travel around the country with george w. bush, especially in the 84 cycle when president reagan was up for reelection. as you have heard, they weren t particularly close, but george h.w. bush was a great, great emissary for the reagan administration, because he had been head of the republican national committee. so he knew people all across the country in every state, he could tell me names of people in an unbelievable fashion. just incredible. and we would sit together, and i remember one thing he told me, shannon, was that i should write notes to people. he would write notes, five and ten notes a day out of habit, just to stay in touch with people. certainly with all the prominent republicans around the country, but he would write to friends and people, and everybody would respond to him, not as the vice president at the time, but as george h.w. bush, somebody that they knew and felt a very personal connection to. when i had the chance to travel with him, to talk with him, i was so to this day, so impressed with him, among all the politicians i have ever met, because he was not only a war hero, but remember, he had been our first envoy sent by richard nixon to china. when i went to the olympics, i guess it was 2008 in china, i remember talking to him about china, and remember, his son, george w. bush, spent a lot of time in china because his dad had been there as the envoy. and then of course he goes on and heads the cia, the republican national committee, vice president, having previously served as a congressman, and then president of the united states. i don t think we see, if you look at it in historical terms, anybody with that level of public service commitment, experience, and, as i said to you, the greatest measure would be his personal connection to people, especially republicans come across the country. people in the party, hardworking, to build party structure throughout. he really had that kind of personal connection, that kind of political connection that i think is extraordinary in these times. people just loved him. one of the things that happen for me tonight as i heard about president bush s death as i just went to the wall, and i don t know if you can see this, but i brought with me a picture of a young version of me, and a fairly young version of president bush. and here we are on what was then air force two, traveling around the country, as i said, going to all kinds of picnics and festivals in order to help ronald reagan win reelection in 1984. and then recently, five years ago, i sent him a note and i say he was such a great note writer, and he sent me back a note. this one came from maine, from kennebunkport, and he wrote about remembering the good old days, traveling on air force two, as he said, and just wrote to some kind words to me. this was really very special. this hangs on the wall and my home here in washington. the other thing that strikes me at this moment, so emotional about him, he was one tremendous baseball player. he was captain of the yale team. as you know, his son went on to own the rangers but he is a big houston astros fan to the end. we would talk baseball now he is a left-hander, shannon. you know something about baseball, i know you were a baseball fan, and george h.w. bush was an astute i don t say this lightly, i am not trying to, you know, celebrate him in some way that is unearned but george h.w. bush could tell you about major-league players on a level that i don t think any other politician i have ever met could do. i don t think general manager manager is good talk about baseball and baseball players with the depth of understandingf the game that george h.w. bush had. so for me, it was, like, people would say, i would come back from a trip with george h.w. bush, and my wife would say, what is going on, how are you doing? i would say, here s the latest on what we can expect from the orioles and the astros and the yankees, from the very top of american political life. this guy was so extraordinary, such a statesman, and such a friend. as you said, able to work across the aisle. we have heard from bret and chris about his work with bill clinton, but you should know that even recently, you had barack obama going down to houston and stopping in to visit. and that kind of relationship, again, so extraordinary in these days, utterly polarized politics. shannon: a beautiful statement for both the obamas tonight. i want to jump in here we ll come back to the panel, and bret standing by, but because you mention the love of sports, we want to bring in sportscaster jim gray, he interviewed the former president more than 20 times. you know, jim, may be more than the rest of us, just how much he loved sports and had such a depth of knowledge, especially about the game of baseball. he loved it, he followed it. in fact, one of the great things that he used to talk about, he met babe ruth in 1948, and he used to carry around a little card from time to time and he gave me one of the signed cards that he had with him pictured with babe ruth, as you see right there on the screen. unfortunately at that time, mr. mr. ruth was ravaged with cancer but he was able, as the captain of the yale baseball team to be able to meet him, and it was a proud moment for him, and you saw that pitch he throughout and it always bothered president bush that he bounced that ball. he was a great baseball player in college and so when his son, george w. bush, throughout the first pitch after the terrorist attacks of september 11th, 2001, he always remembered that his father bounced the ball and how much it bothered him so when derek jeter came in and told them, don t bounce the ball, mr. president, it refresh all of those memories and president bush 43 went out and threw a perfect strike to help lift the nation to get onto some sense of normalcy. president bush sr. he also loved golf. he was a terrific fan of the game of golf. he would show up and i would interview him regularly at the ryder cups and the psident,s, and his father, his grandfather, george herbert walker, created h come along with the ryder cup, one of the staples and traditions of golf. i also got to see him and play golf with president bush, 1995, a tremendous story when he golfed with president clinton and president ford. they joined bob hope and he won that day. he shot a 92. he also hit two fans that day, one off the first tea required 14 stitches and the 14th t hit a woman in the rear end. it was funny on the first one but not so funny on the 14th. it was so funny because bob hope made a living commenting how many times president ford would hit people but he beat president clinton by a stroke and president ford by seven strokes a day. let me share a little story with you from spain. we were there for the ryder cup in 1997. it was a homecoming and he came over to watch the american team, and it was pouring rain one day, and we were all scattering to get off the court, and i was in my golf cart along with the technician, the sound man, a man name jun came from nbc sports and we were driving and we saw three guys standing, one guy had a glad trash bag over his head and was soaking wet and there were two men standing behd him. i got a little bit closer and i said, that is president bush, he was standing in the pouring rain all by himself, wasn t asking anybody else for help, we gave them a ride in on the golf cart and i ll never forget he had this trash bag over him and just the humility and the decency that he had and the next day, he came back to the golf course, and on his own, was seeking out joon kim to hand him a pair of presidential cufflinks. i thought, what a remarkable, amazing man, did you something like that, because he got a ridn the golf cart. he was wonderful to be around and he loved to play golf, and fast golf. in fact, he was so touched and love the fact that all arnold palmer told him that he had been a great contributor to the game of golf, that not everyone is like jack nicklaus, who can play for hours and hours, and president bush love the fact tht arnold palmer told him it was great for the game that he played in two hours or two and half hours. bret: hey, jim, it s bret baier. you are right, the bushes played fast. i only played with them once, brit hume used to play with them a lot in maine. they could move it on the golf course. they did. it was boom, boom, boom. they enjoyed it but they wanted to do it fast. he would concentrate, and those split seconds, and he could hit some good golf shots, but to hi, it was a form of relaxation, a form of a challenge, and he used to always tell me how much he could learn about other people by playing golf with them and if they were really slow, they didn t get an invitation back again. i was also honored, bret, in 1999 at brookline at the country club, and nbc, we were televising the ryder cup, and president bush had come on many times with me to do interviews and i saw him. they were there to support ben crenshaw because he was from austin, texas, and they were living in texas, obviously, and i ask, could i interview president bush and he said, sure. barbara bush walked up to me and said, why are you i was interviewing the old man? get over the old man. she pointed over to george w and she said, that guy is going to be running for president, the governor of texas. why don t you put him on? i said, sure, can we do the whole family? so we did the whole family. it was kind of fun to be told, or kidded no more prodded by mrs. bush, and so we interviewed them both together, and jeb was also part of it, and president george w. bush was able to speak to the team, and they rallied for the greatest comeback in history of the ryder cup. he was the governor at the time, and ben crenshaw and the guys came back and won at brookline and president george h.w. bush the other day, i ask him the next day if, in fact, he was the one that was able to rally them and he was way too humble, and said, i just gave them a few words of encouragement, i will not take credit for those. bret: listen, this is a sports family. obviously, talking about golf, baseball, president h.w. bush s prolific baseball career in college, george w. bush owns a baseball team. there was pride in sports. it meant a lot to them. did you ever get a sense when you were talking to him about these moments, throwing out the first pitch, flipping the coin of the super bowl, how much these things meant to him? it meant an awful lot to him. i remember talking to him at the final four in houston and he was a great friend and such a mentor and a confidant with jim nantz, the greatest broadcaster from cbs, and he wrote about him extensively in his book and they spent countless hours and days together and i believe he had come in part to some of these final fours because he wanted to spend some time with jim nantz. he was always agreeable and i remember john thompson, the great basketball coach from georgetown, had never met president bush, even though he had coached at georgetown during the time that president bush was in office and it was like a hole that he did not have because he did not have that one photograph with president bush, so i walked him over at halftime, and president bush was just so instead of the honor being for john thompson, it was the honor for president bush to be able to receive him and to spend five or 6 minutes before he had to go back on the air. sports meant an awful lot to him. in 2005, i got to interview both president clinton and president bush on the field in jacksonville before they flipped a coin for the game, the super bowl game in jacksonville, they went out and flipped it together. they had worked on the hurricane relief efforts together, and the earthquake efforts that they had gone and become a team and so they teamed up and came and flipped the coin. you could just tell that president bush really, really cared about sports. he called me one time after the mike tyson ear biting, and he wanted to know what kind of a guy mike tyson was. i said, he s wonderful to be around, and he had made a despicable, horrible mistake and incident that night, but a just break into so much that i thought that tyson was wonderful and he said, i don t want to judge him. he s a great boxer. he was really interested in so many different sports, and had a genuine love. it was great to be around. i asked him how many games he would watch in the white house and he said we have a pretty good satellite system, bret and shannon. i watched quite a bit of it. shannon: one of the perks of being in the white house. bret: your reflections are great. thank you. he was a wonderful man. i was lucky to spend the time with him and he was a joy, he was a joyous guy who was very, very humble. decency beyond belief. shannon: quite a combination, along with all the leadership and accomplishment. i want to show you briefly a video coming into us a short time ago for my neighbor who stopped by the gates to the bush neighborhood there. they placed an american flag and flowers. the neighbors said they wanted to come by, saying she was saddened by the loss. they spoke very highly of the bush family, and talked about the fact that she said there were people who were good people, they knew them as neighbors, had the utmost respect for them, and just wanted to stop by and play something there at the gate. we can only imagine in the coming days, that will ramp up even more. we want to bring dana perino back end, and we ve gotten reaction from former secretary of state condoleezza rice tonight. she talked about the deep, broad legacy of president h.w. bush, and she says, he s finished his race with honor and dignity tonight, dana. dana: had a chance to see condoleezza rice a couple of weeks ago and she relayed a story about working for him in the white house, if you ll recall, shannon, she was a national security advisor not the head advisor, but she was on the nsc, and she was responsible for all things soviet union. when it was announced the wall was going to be coming down, they all went to him and said, mr. president, we have to get ready, you must go to europe, you must have this moment, and he said, i m not going. they said, but sir, you were leading this charge, and they said, what am i going to do there? dance on the wall? this is their moments. let them have this moment. i m not going to go and try and hog the spotlight out there. it was decisions like that, maybe at the moment might sound, oh, he s being modest, but i think there was a strategy also to the modesty. and juan williams brought up the writing of the notes, the other thing condoleezza rice talked about at that event was how george w. bush found it important and easy to make friendships with leaders all over the world. he would congratulate them about things he read in the news, and the reason he did that is because when he needed them to rally around them, around the united states, building a coalition, they would always take the call, they would show up and help america, and i think a lot of that had to do with a personal diplomacy. it s a really good lesson for all of us to remember. he used to say, don t ever let your first call to somebody be when you ask for something. that is one of the lessons that i took away from him, shannon. shannon: the fact that juan went on and on, about the personal notes, i got one wants, and it is something that you savor. at such an old-fashioned, beautiful courtesy, and it is ultra-special thing that takes a moment of your time but will change someone s life, that you would do something so personal. i want to bring in anita mcbrien, you worked for more than one bush administration, many capacities, you oversaw personnel for this president, bush 41. your thoughts tonight? my heart is just broken and crushed but we knew this day was coming. he always sort of rallied and got past, difficult times with his health, but what a remarkable life, and for all of us that had the great privilege to work in the white house with him, and with president reagan. these are two incredible examples for young people, like myself, my husband who i met, and his personal aide as vice president, they drove a million miles together. he typed a lot of the notes on the plane, my old children have notes from him when they were born. he just touched us all, not only as young professionals learning from these incredible leaders of such dignity and service, but also how he so personally touched each of our lives. shannon: we ve got bret baier with us, too. i think he has a question for fr you. bret: listen, i think you talk about it, anita, the service to the country, and think about that this was the last living former president who was a world war ii vet, someone who served their country for all of his life, volunteered after pearl harbor, decided not to go to college, to get into the military, after the attack on pearl harbor. talk about, i guess, in the wake of his life, what do you think his legacy will be and perhaps what people should take from it. it is such a great point that you raise, bret. i think when you think about george h.w. bush, you think you picture that photograph of him as that young naval aviator, and him being rescued, of course, when has plane went down, and how young he was to take on that level of responsibility and devotion to the country, that it was just so natural for him, without a doubt, growing up of course, and a family that was a family of service. also a family of great humility, and you know how he often said how his mother would always tell him, don t brag about what you do, just do it. and i think that is such a wonderful as i said to shannon a wonderful example for those of us who work in washington, worked in the white house, work in public service, that i hope is something that they treasure and now is remarkable and people who take up the leadership mantle of our country. bret: brad blakeman is with us, i go back to the world war ii time, the youngest aviator, brad, in the u.s. navy, 1944, september 2nd, his plane shot down, rescued in the pacific ocean. he rejoins his squadron. he received several honors from the military and from his country and often times, as we talk about george h.w. bush, we focus on his time as president. but it was much more than that. it was. i was with him, we had one of our largest sea battles, the first time he had been back to that area probably since he was shot down. one of the few times i saw him shed a tear as he stood there at the flagpole honoring those who died on those beaches, and as you can see the resting troop carrier still in the water. i was with him at the 50th anniversary of pearl harbor. we had several events that day, and surrounded by survivors. sadly, so many of them are gone but the president had a deep sense of service, and part of that service in his life was the legacy of his personal service in the military, and having been shot down. duty, service, honor, country, family, that is what george h.w. bush will be most remembered for, and he will be a role model, and has been for so many. shannon: we are just getting a statement into night from former president clinton as well. we talked a great deal about how in retirement president bush 41 reached out and made sure that he connected with people across the political aisle where they could help in disasters and relief efforts in that kind of thing. he talks about being a young governor invited into bush s home in the kennebunkport and was struck by the kindness to chelsea and his decency. he went on to say, few americans have been or will ever be able to match president bush match president bush s record of service to the united states and the joy he took every day from it, from his military service in world war ii to his work in congress, the united nations, china, the central intelligence agency, the vice presidency, and the presidency, where he moved the post-cold war world to peace, unity, and freedom. dana, that stands out to me, he took a lot of tough jobs, but he seemed to be a joyful person in the midst of it. if we have lost dana dana: shannon, i m loving your coverage so much that i had the tv turned up too loud and didn t hear the call. [laughter] these tributes are just wonderful and wholesome. did you ask me a specific question? shannon: i was talking about the statement from the clintons, talking about the joy that president trump took from his service every day, and all the positions that he served in, and that really strikes me, these are difficult jobs, he was forced into difficult situations, as any president as, and he did seem like a joyful person. dana: one of the things that he said to president bush president bush 43 after he lost in that 92 raise, 43 ask him, dad, where did you get the strength to be so gracious after that loss, it was so excruciating, the family is so heartbroken. he said, i had no choice. and i think that what he learned as a young boy growing up with a mother who apparently was one of the angels that walked the earth, she basically said, every day that you wake up and it s a choice. your choice and attitude and what you say, how you conduct yourself, and one of the things that he showed us in a post-presidency, really how to be a former president. he was a gracious winner and a gracious loser. he lived quite a long life after he finished the presidency. jimmy carter also. he really set a good example for bill clinton, for barack obama, and for his own son, george w. bush, because there is a lot of life and after you have had this job as the leader of the free world, the most powerful person on the planet, what are you going to do in those next years? and he chose to do lots of different things. he continued to do speaking but i think one of his great lasting legacies is at college station, texas a&m, where the bush library is, and where, to this day, people learn about his leadership, and leadership is really part of that curriculum at the library. he also stayed active as 43 put together at the presidential leadership scholars series, and that is the libraries of 41, 43, bill clinton, and lyndon johnson. and they all worked together to help create this new generation of leaders. and i do think, though, shannon, to get back to your original question, this idea of a choice, how you will live your life, one of the things bill clinton also said is that in many ways, 41 became like a second father to him. i think that might ve been anita, might maybe she can talk more about that, because that is important. when barbara bush died, we talk to about her as america s grandmot. 41 had so many roles, he made everyone feel special, but what do grandparents do? they teach you about how to conduct yourself. life is hard but you make choices based on the values that have been instilled in you and if it is gratitude, dignity, humility, patriotism, and the number one thing is unconditional love for your family, and that is something that i really learned from them and have tried to keep in mind as the days get hard, you get busy, you get irritated, this is a time of incivility, but it s a choice, and he taught us how to make it well. bret: i just want to touch really quickly on the bipartisan nature of all this. juan williams, george h.w. bush could reach across the aisle. he just could. in the post-presidency time, he did it during his presidency, and there are people who look at it and say, why is he doing it with bill clinton or when george w. bush hands a mentor to michelle obama at the funeral, don t they know? and we are in this age where it is such a partisan time, that this moment seems like it cuts through all of that, doesn t it? juan: it really does. it stands in stark contrast to this moment. i just want to emphasize something you said, bret, that while he was president, this is someone, given his experience on capitol hill, who was regularly going up to capitol hill, and talking to democrats. today, the way things are so separate, we don t even have those conversations between republicans and democrats, sometimes not even among people of the same party. but imagine that the president of the united states would talk with members of congress, the house specifically, he was a real admirer of the house, i think in keeping with the idea that the founding fathers saw the house as the house of the people, he was able to develop relationships, i think, and specific, i would say here that ronald reagan also had this capacity. ronald reagan would have tip o neill, the massachusetts democrat, and do deals, make deals, compromise. george h.w. bush was a master of that kind of political relationships. you have heard this now said by many people. the way that he developed relationships, and the relationships then would lead to having deals and compromises that would result in political solutions for america. that was his highest goal, political solutions as opposed to political confrontations. and for me, it was a lesson, what a statesman, because he had such an accumulation of tremendous public service going back to the war, but even after the war, in the congress, leading the republican party, leading the central intelligence agency, and i think also, people looking at ronald reagan, of course, all eyes would go to reagan in terms of the charisma, the presence, the like, but you have to understand for him, it was public service to be ronald reagan s vice president, he saw, in that moment, that he was, in fact, lining up with someone who was going to be a two term president and he was totally loyal, faithful to president reagan, and a great servant in terms of trying to advance his political agenda. shannon: anita mcbride with me quickly dig it, give us a final word? the relationship between george w. bush and bill clinton. for those of us that worked in the right house during the very painful election of 1992, and we all thought that this person of george w. bush was diminished in our eyes through some of the rhetoric of that campaign, and when they became such friends later, i asked george h.w. bush this question on the plane to the funeral of john paul ii, and bill clinton was there, i said how about this relationship between the two of you? what is it? he said, i think he s the father i never had. it really says everything about who he is as an individual, that it is service over anything that is personal. the other point that juan williams made, as a staffer in the white house, i would never i saw democratic congress meant to be guests on the tennis court or to play horseshoes or a movie or a cocktail, a regular way that george h.w. bush worked as a president. shannon: it was very effective. anita mcbride, thank you very much. juan williams, brad blakeman, dana perino, thank you very much. bret, we just got something in, jim gray, wonderful sports memories, something has just come in, i think you mentioned earlier, the cartoon that came in the wake of the passing of the first lady, barbara bush, and this joyous time of her walking through the heavenly gates, and their own daughter, robin, who died at the age of four, who are looking like a little angel, and running to each other, tonight, that same cartoonist has put out another image. it is of a plane, like the one that george h.w. bush flew, back in world war ii. i think it s on our screen, you can skim coming into the clouds and all three of them now holding hands and it says, we waited for you. that is so touching and heartbreaking. bret: that really is how we should probably end this armor, as that memory of this family because when mrs. bush died, april of 2018, they had been married 73 years, and i think that that, more than anything else, is how george h.w. bush wants to be remembered, as a