Contributor to nbc news. Ill begin with you, hugh. What happened . Hugh the republicans got wiped out in virginia, charlie. I do mean a total and complete wipeout. When you look at what happened in the Virginia House of delegates where they had a 6634 vote margin and at best will be tied for ahead by one when the vote counting is done, then people get a sense of the breadth and depth of the of theion republican brand yesterday. Ed gillespie had run recently in virginia so we have some metrics that we normally dont have. In loudoun county, a very wealthy county, the Median Income was 115,000 a year, one hour outside d. C. Ed gillespie won that county in 2014 in the senate race by 1200 500 votes. He lost it by 23,000 votes last night. That is still a stunning repudiation of something. Victory has many fathers. A loss is an orphan in this case. There is a paternity suit over who is the orphan. I think most people will agree it is president trump. Charlie we will get back to that. Susan page, what happened . Susan 34 of voters in virginia told exit polls they came out to vote against president trump. For them at least this was an election to send a message to the white house. The white house, the president has lost support of a lot of those key suburbanites, better educated white voters, asianamericans and others. That is what we saw in virginia and other places including new jersey. Charlie and Westchester County in new york. Gerry, what happened . Gerald i think we saw the emergence of an antitrump coalition and one that can actually win in some places. Upperincome whites, millennials, minorities, suburban women, and single women. The stunning figure i saw on the exit polls last night and this morning single women went for Ralph Northam over ed gillespie exit polls last night and this by 77 to 22 . That is a stunning margin for any demographic group. Amongst single women, 16 Percentage Points higher than Hillary Clinton did among that group just last year in the president ial campaign. What you see is an energized base for the democrats. The cautionary note i would say is that these figures represent big turnout in what should be blue areas of virginia where the democrats ran up big numbers. You still see a big swath of red in virginia, in central and southern virginia which still looks an awful like red trump democrats ran up big numbers. Country in the interior. Running up big numbers in areas democrats should win is great. There is still a question on country in the interior. Whether they can break through in other areas. Charlie did these democrats who won present a positive case rather than just a case against the president . Hugh i dont think so. I am a virginia voter. I voted for ed gillespie, full disclosure. The house of delegates, that is a measure of not much because it is a 30day job in one year and 60day job in another and pays 18,000 a year. It is not something on which a lot of effort, time or effort is vested. The northamgillespie campaign, it depended on where you were in the state what kind of campaign you saw. Up in the suburbs of virginia where i live, it was a campaign about tax rates and about traffic. In other places, about confederate memorials. It was a melange of different campaigns. I find it difficult to characterize governorelect northam other than a gentleman in the southern style and ed gillespie as other than a gentleman in the southern style. They are both very affable. Neither of them are trumpian. Neither of them are like secretary clinton with long and fixed images of them in the public. I dont think there is one campaign we can tee off on. Charlie what about the fact that the gillespie commercials in the last several weeks of the campaign seemed like trumpian commercials . Susan i think i think that ed gillespie was trying to be trumpian without being trump. Trying to get trumps issues out there without embracing the president too closely. It did not work for many. It worked to galvanize some of his voters. But it did not get him even near a majority of the vote. It turned off some people. Ed gillespies tough ads on immigration and gangs helped to galvanize democratic voters that in some ways were not that Ed Gillespies tough ads on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was not that enthused. Enthused about Ralph Northam who is a pretty moderate guy. He voted for george w. Bush twice for president. I think the fact ed gillespie used some of trumps cultural issues got some of those voters out. Charlie hugh, if gillespie had run as a moderate republican from a place that he came, moderate to conservative republican, would he have fared better . Hugh it was a nasty primary. He could not do it. He ran against a pure trumpian candidate. I interviewed ed gillespie and number of times on my show. He always talked about jobs, 50 tax cut or a 5 tax cut i cant remember. That is part of the problem probably. And in the military buildup possibly for northrup. It was a very a, b, c republican centerright campaign. There may have been other ads playing in other demographics but i think he ran as a traditional republican. Some of the trump critiques of him is that he did not embrace the president. The Republican Party as a whole has an image problem. They have not gotten anything done in the United States congress. Zero, zip. Other than the confirmation of justice gorsuch. This tax bill becomes a musthave if they want to avoid having what happened to the ir Republican Congress what happened to the Virginia House of delegates. Charlie has the president responded to these Election Results yet . Gerald well, he has responded this tax bill becomes a in somewhat typical fashion by essentially distancing himself from ed gillespie, the loser. The president does not embrace losers very much. Saying essentially ed gillespie did not really embrace me. He worked hard but not fully embrace me and that is the reason he lost and we republicans are going to win plenty more because the economy is great. And we will see how that works going forward. There may be something to that. The economy is great right now and that tends to work to the benefit of the party in power. There is one other issue we have not discussed yet which was important last night health care. It was on the minds of voters more than any other issue and it worked to Ralph Northams benefit. And it suggests there is a conundrum on health care for both parties, but more for republicans now than perhaps we thought. People dont like obamacare, it is unpopular. They are scared about the World Without obamacare at least as much. I think health care turned out once again much as in 2016 and 2012 to be a big issue and one that probably worked to the democrats benefit. Charlie does that mean the republican should not have touched health care until they had infrastructure, tax reform and maybe then turned to health care . Gerald i think you can certainly make an argument to that effect. I think you can also argue if they were going to touch health care, they should have gotten it taken care of and disposed of quickly and moved people into a place where they can feel comfortable and that clearly has not happened. We are basically in the middle of the river with republicans on health care and that is not a good place to be. The currents are pretty strong. So having engaged on health care and not having accomplished anything on health care is the worst of both worlds. In somewhat typical fashion by charlie some say it is also dangerous ground when you give something to somebody and they like it in part and then you take it away and they dont like you in part. Hugh that is absolutely true. They are facing this in ways and means as we speak, charlie. The markup is going late tonight. The divide over whether or not to get rid of the obamacare hugh that is absolutely true. Mandate ought not to be difficult. Republicans should get rid of a mandate that has been unpopular, on which they have promised to act on over eight years now. The senate is thinking about doing it led by tom cotton. The president has endorsed it. The perfectly executed half charge gets a kill in the middle of the hill. That is a variation on gerrys analogy. It is absolutely true. They have got to get their act together because they are not delivering which demoralizes the traditional republican electorate, at the same time that the Trump Campaign this is a coalition government. The Congressional Republicans and the trump republicans. Both sides are blaming each other tonight and not without good cause on both sides of that coalition. They both need wins. They both need to come together and win things. A year is a long time. Two more data points. The republican won handily in utah in an open congressional seat just like they have had in every other red, offyear congressional election. And ohio measure number one, the get tough on crime measure, won overwhelmingly, 8416. What you see, the constellation that appears depends on the stars you look at. Those are two more data points we should not pass by. Charlie what does this do for the democrats other than make them believe that something might be really, really possible in 2018 . Susan i dont think it solves all of the democrats problems. Democrats are still divided, but we did see progressive democrats turn out for a moderate candidate in virginia. Liberal turnout was up eight Percentage Points from four years ago even though the candidate was more moderate than the candidate who ran four years ago. That is something that is encouraging to democrats but that is not to say this is a party united. Charlie thats also a question on whether they were mobilized against something or for something. Susan yeah, thats right. History tells you you need to be for something, you cant just be against something. Gerald i would point to one other group that was mobilized millennials. There is always a question whether they vote in big numbers, midterms or offyear elections at all. There is a group called Nextgen America which picked nine precincts in virginia around College Campuses to see what happened to turnout yesterday. In all nine of the precincts, turnout was up over four years ago, the last gubernatorial election. And in most cases, up a lot. In a couple of the precincts in richmond around virginia commonwealth university, it was more than double four years ago. There are some signs that millennials got energized and did show up. Ralph northam was not their kind of guy necessarily. Millennials and progressives will want a party that moves to the left more than others in the party are going to be comfortable with. Charlie let me ask you about two people. Donald trump, what does he do now . Hugh i think the president has to take the message away from this that he is not winning the future elections. His style of governing is going to generate more turnout in the blue states and not as much turnout in the red states. It has been said that blue is getting darker blue and red is getting darker red. But there arent enough reds left demographically to win his congress. He could become a loser and he has got to emulate what he does abroad. He has given his best speeches in saudi arabia, poland and yesterday in south korea. And if the president imports into the United States a little bit of what he exports abroad, he would be a lot better president and the party would be in a lot better position. No way not to read this election as all about the president. Charlie say that again. Hugh no way to read the results of yesterday in virginia other than a referendum on the president. Charlie go ahead. Of yesterday in virginia other susan, before you say that, let me quote you from a column. You have said trump has changed washington more than washington has changed him. Susan this is not what we expect to happen with new president s, especially new president s without a lot of experience. This president has not been reshaped by this town but this town is a different place now than it was a year ago today when he won the election. It is faster, it is louder, it is fiercer. The divisions are wider. He has had a huge effect but not to the extent he has been able to deliver on the Campaign Promises he made. You look at what happened yesterday, democrats are encouraged after being spooked by Donald Trumps victory a year ago, they are increasingly convinced they will be possibly able to win control of the house. Donald trump does not know what trouble is like until the house or the senate is under Opposition Party control. That is a different landscape for him. Charlie when you look at tax reform, gerry, is it likely to pass . For him. Is it going to be that close . What has to happen for it to pass . Whatever you want to call it tax cuts, tax reform. Gerald all predictions have been perilous for the last two years so i go there with great trepidation. I think the imperative to do something on taxes is so high for republicans. It was high before yesterday and higher now. I think they will find a way to get something done. What that something is i dont know exactly. It may in the end more look just like a plainvanilla tax cut than real tax reform. It might not happen by the end of this year. I do think that in the end they have to get something done on this and i think they are on a path to accomplish something probably almost entirely on party lines, but at this stage in the game, that would be fine for republicans. In the game, that would be fine for republicans. If i had to put money on the line, i would say they will get something done. Charlie will this result in a challenge to donald trump or was there going to be a challenge to donald trump in the primaries regardless . Hugh what a great question. Yes, i think john kasich will run against him one way or another. I want to add this comes after three deadly hurricanes, fires that were deadly, after the las vegas massacre, after the new york terrorism act, after the Sutherland Springs massacre. I dont think we ever had an election after two months of sequential disasters of this sort and after the confrontation and collisions that susan described and the stakes that gerry laid out there. I think the prediction business is a dangerous thing to be in. The republicans have to pass this tax plan but as a former member of Congress John campbell said to me and the confederacy had to win gettysburg. Sometimes you lose what you have to win. Charlie thank you, hugh. Thank you, susan. Thank you, gerry. We will be right back. Charlie Donna Brazile is here. She has worked on every president ial campaign from 1976 through 2000. She served as al gores campaign manager. She has twice served as interim chair of the Democratic National committee. Her new book takes a critical look at the 2016 president ial campaign. It is called hacks the inside story of the breakins and breakdowns that put donald trump in the white house. Im pleased to have Donna Brazile back at this table. Welcome. Donna it is good to be back. Charlie i dont know where to start. I want to come to the book in just a moment, but what is the state in your judgment of the Democratic Party today . Donna you know, you cannot separate the state of the Democratic Party from the state of our democracy. For two reasons one, what we saw in 2016 was a disruptive political season. It was a season in which voters were taking a stand against the establishment in both political parties. Inside the Democratic Party, we had Bernie Sanders who was an outsider taking on the democratic insider Hillary Clinton. Likewise in the Republican Party, you saw donald trump take on many of the socalled insiders. I think we are at a point in the Democratic Party similar to the Republican Party where the party needs to sit down and figure out not just what are our core values, what are we saying to the American People . How do we get rankandfile democrats to get back on board . More importantly, we need to look ahead in terms of the 2018 midterm elections and 2020 elections to ensure that we have new voices and fresh blood to the table. Charlie whats happened . The table. Charlie whats happened . You had barack obama for eight years. You had bill clinton for eight years. We had george bush for eight years in between the two of them. But you have had democrats constantly losing state legislatures and state houses. Some people say that is redistricting, but it is evidently something about the message. Donna it is gerrymandering. It is also the republicans investing in down ballot races. Not just focusing on the socalled battleground states or the 18 states and the district of columbia that leads to 270 electoral votes. The difference in my judgment is that the republicans spend money not just recruiting but training candidates at every level, while on the democratic side charlie they had a plan. Donna the democrats, we have failed to move beyond what i call beltway politics. We focus all of our attention on winning back the house or the senate and winning the white house, but not focusing on winning legislative seats across the country. Charlie so the Democratic National committee has failed the Democratic Party . Donna well, look, howard dean had a 50state strategy. Once president obama got into office, we dropped that. That was a huge mistake because we didnt have resources to go into states like mississippi and louisiana. Look at what happened earlier this year where we had congressional candidates in georgia and kansas, South Carolina and montana. They did very well but over the last four years, we probably put less than 30,000 or 40,000 in those states. We put more in georgia because georgia became an expansion state. I think the party tom perez we put more in georgia because is doing a good job, the new chairman of the dnc i believe the party has to invest in critical races, down ballot races in the future. Charlie how could barack obama be such a good politician and be so unsuccessful . Donna barack obama came up against the establishment too. He was an outsider. He was not a democratic insider. Charlie but barack obama, in 2009, when he began governance. Donna right. I remember that. Charlie you should. He won by a huge majority. Donna thats correct. Charlie he had defeated the clintons. Donna that is correct. Charlie showed some Political Savvy there . Donna thats right. Charlie the majority in the house and in the senate. And so you would assume, therefore, that this was a time to build, to spread out, to organize your message. Donna consolidate your gains. Charlie consolidate your power. Donna as you come up. Charlie why didnt he do that . Donna he faced a terrific head win as a leader of the country, and also as, i believe, the leader of our political party. Because it wasnt just the policies and the obama agenda and obama coalition. I think the party after his victory decided that they wanted to go back to doing things the old ways, and as a result of that, we started losing political seats. Charlie he was the leader of the party. Donna i understand. But he was invested, and the team was invested in osa. His own version of the democrats grassroots apparatus. That split the party. That caused a lot of divisions within the party. But nevertheless, he won reelection in 2012. Charlie but, see, thats the point. Some will argue that what he did was, in fact and also be true, you know, with bill clinton, i assume, and george bush when he was reelected. If you are running again, your primary focus is to get reelected. Donna absolutely. Charlie you dont get reelected nothing happens. Donna to get back to 270. Charlie and you assume that the more the bigger your victory is, the more democrats youll pull in. Donna thats correct. Charlie so thats and if youre out there using the most modern political techniques, that should help you as well. Above all that. Donna yeah. But if you recall, in 2014, because i was out there, again, helping my party, Many Democrats ran and they ran away from president obama. They told him not to campaign. Charlie that was the last two midterms that he faced. Donna that was in 2014. So, i think president obama faced a dilemma in helping the Democratic Party. He encouraged the party to take out loans to help the dccc, the Democratic Congressional campaign committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign committee. I dont want to sound like im an insidethebeltway person, but i am. But he took out loans charlie you sound like it. Im guilty. Donna yeah. Im guilty as charged. But he took out loans to help the party, to rebuild the party, to restaff the party. But at the end of the day, it left the party in a lot of debt. Charlie heres my point about the book. This is a fascinating book, hacks the inside story of the breakins and breakdowns that put donald trump in the white house. You have a couple things here, and this appearance this morning on my show with my wonderful colleagues were trying to get you to confirm what you had said in book. Donna right. Charlie they could not get you to confirm. Gail thought you were walking away from the book. Nora was raising questions as to what, in fact, about the Democratic Party, and whether it was not a fair primary election. Donna right. Charlie do you believe it was fair or not . Was the question nora asked you. Donna the primary is run and maintained by the State Government and the state party, and i concluded when i told bernie i would figure out if the system was rigged, i concluded that i found no evidence that it was rigged. Although, some people from bernie camp believed it was rigged. I also concluded that there was a cancer inside the party. Charlie what was the cancer, which was a question that was not asked this morning. Donna well, the cancer was the joint fundraising agreement that had an addendum or memorandum that gave secretary clinton, who by the way, and i said it this morning, she bailed the party out. She helped to raise sufficient money to put the dnc back on what i call back on its course. Charlie but youre saying the cancer made it more favorable to her. Donna well, the cancer was taking away of the power of the chair of the party and the office of the party. I was an officer of the party. Charlie giving the power to the person who is providing the money. Donna thank you. And hiring a staff. Charlie yeah. I found that to be odious. Youre saying the party needed money. It favored, by giving power to secretary clinton, right . I mean is that a fair statement . Donna its a fair statement. Charlie is that what youre saying in the book . Donna thats what i said. I said in the book that i found that to be odious and that i wanted to get rid of the cancer, but i could not kill the patient. Charlie but the cancer made it an unfair primary election for intenders, and you did find the evidence. Donna i found the cancer that i believed would have led people to believe that the dnc was tilting the scales for one candidate over the other. But i found no evidence of rigging, no evidence that dnc staffers rigged the california primary or rigged the charlie what does rigged the primary mean to you . Donna well, to rig is a term that donald trump used. Charlie it sounds like a criminal term. Donna so it sounds like no, its a term that donald trump used. And because donald trump was out there saying, the process is rigged. Now let me tell you what is rigged. Charlie but he also basically said that, in fact, he wouldnt necessarily accept the judgment of the vote because it might be rigged. Donna thats correct. And so the word rigged came from donald trump. Charlie exactly. Donna and what i said in the book was i found no evidence of rigging. What i did find evidence was a cancer that i would not because charlie but the cancer was something that gave more power to the clinton people than to the Bernie Sanders people because they loaned them more money raised more. Donna well, they were able to get the dnc out of debt, and they put the dnc on ill use in the book, i describe it as the starvation diet. And i didnt like it. Charlie yeah. So today today now, go back to my first question. Is there a fundamental battle for the soul of the Democratic Party taking place now, and if there is, who is on what side . Donna i do believe, internally, the party has to come out of this, the 2016 election stronger. We have to unite. And i think the place to start is with a Unity Commission that tom perez has put together. I was not able to put the Unity Commission because i was an interim chair. I was not a permanent chair, and i wanted the permanent chair. This table now includes people from both the sanders campaign, as well as the clinton campaign. Theyre going to take a more forensic examination of what the party is doing. Thats number one. Number two, on the message side, i think the party has to come up with something that is clear, concise, and compelling so that ordinary americans understand what the Democratic Party you say, what does the Republican Party stand for . Well, lets just say the Republican Party before donald trump, we knew, you know, less government, you know, less taxes, etc. The Democratic Party charlie and defense spending. Donna and defense spending. The Democratic Party has to, you know, get it down to opportunity, opportunity, opportunity. But we have to come up with a message that is compelling, concise, that people charlie its primarily an economic message, isnt it . Donna its always going to be an economic message, a fairness message, a message about opportunity, about fairness, and level the playing field, so that every american, regardless of your zip code, has an opportunity to live out his or her life. Charlie steve bannon said to me in an interview that anybody who plays identity politics rather than economic politics will lose. You probably agree with him. Donna i agree with him, to a certain point. But as a black woman who grew up in the segregated south, in my lifetime ive seen the doors of opportunity finally open. And it is my charlie because we recognized the termination and realized that we had to take the responsibility. Donna right. And also as a black woman growing up in the segregated deep south, it took us until 1965 for people of my generation and my parents generation to have access to the ballot box. And so identity politics is rooted in our history, but its not rooted in such a way that we we dont use it in the Democratic Party to divide. We use it to say that you are welcome, that you have a place at the table, that you are part of this american family. So, i disagree with mr. Bannon in terms of is that the only message . No. We have i thought hillary had a good strong economic message, but nobody heard it because everybody was talking about her damn emails. Charlie is that right . So thats what happened. Donna they heard it, and the russians made charlie her whole email controversy has since prevented about what she would do for the middle class and the lower middle class. Donna every day, i heard her message. I heard it on the conference calls. I heard it through the material that was being put out. But you never heard it on tv. Charlie there seems to be, clearly and once you wrote this book and all these things came out and we all were on twitter over the weekend, in one way or another, because of things that you had said, and they, therefore, the democrats, who work for Hillary Clinton, probably mook and john podesta, and some 70 or 80 others said shes talking about a campaign we dont know. Donna well, write your own book. I mean, they were in the campaign. I didnt run that campaign. Charlie they say you dont know what her campaign their campaign was and the campaign that you ascribed to them was not their campaign. Donna well, then, they should write their postmortem. It was a campaign. Charlie well, it is a postmortem shattered. Donna well let me just let me just say this. Campaigns, 19al state and local campaigns, seven president ial campaigns, 49 states, i know campaigns. I may not know a lot about, you know, anything else, but i know campaigns. Charlie right. Donna when you walk into a campaign and you are told that everything is under control, is under control, that madam chair, you dont have to worry. Charlie is that what they said to you. Donna were going to win this, yeah. A year ago, charlie, i was up here in new york, and i was up here saying that we have problems. Im already hearing from voters who are at the who are at the polls and their names have been taken off the list. Im hearing from voters in detroit that they still need yard signs because theyre trying to build up enthusiasm. And i would go to brooklyn, i would come up to brooklyn and say we need help. Charlie brooklyn is the headquarters of the clinton campaign. Donna i used to call it the high command of brooklyn. Because, look, i worked in nashville for al gore. And i said, we need help, we need money, we need resources. And you know what they would tell me . Dont worry, madam chair, dont worry. And im like, i am worried. I am worried. I worried every time i left washington, d. C. To travel to florida, colorado, pennsylvania. I worried. I worried when i heard from my family all across the country, there are no yard signs. Charlie youre saying they were too complacent. They took it for granted . Donna i think they believe they had it wrapped up. I do believe that. I think they looked at their computer models and they said, its fine. See, i come from the old school where i want to know. I want to know charlie rose, and i want to know talk to you. Charlie right. Donna i want to hear from you. Charlie you want to hear where im going to be on election day, if, in fact, im a democrat. Donna right but also independents. I want to know. I want to hear from you. I dont want to look at some computer and determine that charlie rose is going to vote for me. Im old school. Im old fashioned. I plead guilty. I want to say, will you vote for me . Will you support my candidate . Charlie did you think she was going to win . Or did you think the outcome was in doubt or questionable or not necessarily wrapped up . Donna heres what i believe. When i left the set of abc that morning, and got a phone call two hours later to become chair, i was excited about helping Hillary Clinton. Ive known Hillary Clinton for over 30 years. Charlie you wanted to see donna wanted to see it . I gave up everything. I gave up everything but teaching my students at georgetown, because i thought it was unfair to quit. But i gave up everything. I traveled. I cant tell you, i just traveled nonstop. I wanted her to win. The last thing i wanted, and i said this in the book, the last thing i wanted was to see donald trump in the white house. I knew if hillary got into the white house that she would take on the russians, she would clean up our democracy, and, yes, clean up her political party. I wanted her to win. Charlie why did he win . Donna they saw him as the outsider who would go into come to washington, d. C. And remove the establishment. They wanted the same type of leader that they saw in barack obama. Change. They saw him as a change agent. They saw her as part of the status quo. I also believed that the russian interference played a role in meddling in our election, so discord. It kept our primary going on, and charlie do you believe it affected the outcome of the election . Donna you know, thats still in doubt, because the corruption i also identify in the book that we didnt get the russians out of our system until october 21, october 21. They kept coming back. Charlie you mean they kept hacking and hacking and hacking. Donna they kept hacking. I mean, they had a sophisticated militarystyle cyberattack. Charlie so, if president obama had been more aggressive based on what he knew to say that the russians, we have evidence from the normal authorities that i look to, the fbi and the cia and the National Security agency, we have evidence that the russians are trying to affect our democracy. Donna he went to the congressional leadership, and it was my understanding that they told him not to tip the scales. Charlie Hillary Clinton believed he did not do enough. Said so in her book. Donna well, again, see, shes right to say that. I believed that more should have been done to protect our democracy. And, personally, as someone who had to go to work every day with Death Threats, to get up every morning knowing that i had to protect my staff, my colleagues, my friends charlie Death Threats . Donna Death Threats. I mean, people who charlie from . Donna who knows where these trolls and bots came from. You know, i charlie these were internet Death Threats . Donna they were internet. They were personal. They were on my phone. They came every which way. And, you know, charlie, i worked on enough campaigns. Ive been called a lot of things in my life, but i used to say to myself, now that doesnt sound like what americans say. And i didnt know at the time why many of us were targeted by some of the trolls and the bots. Now we know. They were on twitter. They were on facebook. They were paid with rubles, and they created Fake Identities and they came after us. And once your email is out there ive been had by both the chinese and the russians. And if theres one thing i want to leave with your viewers, i want to work hard so the north koreans, iranians, or anyone else who hates america dont come after our country again. Charlie you ever think about what america how america might have been different if al gore, your candidate, had been elected . Donna i think about that a lot. And i also think about what the country would be like today if hillary was in the white house. I still believe that i would be out there trying to clean up the Democratic Party, clean up the mess that the hacking left. Charlie you were the chair of the Democratic Party. Heres what i dont understand. You described i mean, youve said some really tough things about lots of people in this book. Donna of course. Charlie you literally said that barack obama and Hillary Clinton had left the Democratic Party that was weak and in debt, and weak and not in positions of leadership. Donna correct. Charlie thats what you and you said that the Campaign Staff of Hillary Clinton was subsatisfied and had a feeling of inevitability. Weak and not in positions of donna they did. Charlie thats not how you win. Selfsatisfaction and feeling but my point is, couldnt you pick up the phone . Couldnt you, Donna Brazile, with all that you have done and with the title of chairperson of the Democratic National committee, and say, secretary clinton, ive got to talk to you . Donna let me tell you, the one thing i did was i screamed. I shouted. Probably did a little cursing. Charlie yeah. Thing i did was i screamed. I shouted. Donna and i found myself, like, talking to an empty room. Charlie nobody would take your calls. Donna well, put it this way, i was not running her campaign. And no matter how many times i complained and said people are not getting yard signs, people are not, you know, hearing your message on the radio, etc. , etc. , the campaign kept telling me and this was the way they not getting yard signs, people treated me madam chair, its going to be ok. Charlie a little bit paternalistic. Donna oh, it was so condescending. I screamed every night, every day. And you know what i finally did, i stopped moaning and whining and went out and raised money and tried to do my very best to help her. Charlie the book is called hacks the inside story of the breakins and breakdowns that put donald trump in the white house. Donna brazile, thank you. Donna god bless. Thank you. Charlie Bruce Dickinson is here. He is best known as the lead singer in one of the most successful heavy metal bands of successful heavy metal bands of all time, iron maiden. Successful heavy metal bands of all time, iron maiden. Throughout their 40plusyear career, the band has sold over 100 million albums, they have played more than 2000 shows around the world. Their most recent tour took them to 39 countries across six continents. They traveled in a custom boeing 747 piloted by dickinson himself. Heres a look at iron maiden performing speed of light from the newest album the book of souls live chapter. Charlie dickinsons solo career has spanned 15 years and six albums. He writes about everything from being a front man to flying in his new book called what does this button do . I am pleased to have Bruce Dickinson at this table for the first time. Welcome. Bruce thank you very much. Charlie so many people i know thought if i could have one thing, if i can have all of this success, all of these accomplishments, all this money but i would have loved to have been a rock n roll star. And you have both. Bruce yeah. Charlie the Business Success which came first . Bruce no, no. The singing, the iron maiden success was absolutely the first thing that happened. It is still the ongoing thing that is happening to me. Charlie that is where the passion is. Bruce the passion is everywhere. I dont do things i am not passionate about. Obviously, passion sometimes varies. You think i really dont want to get out of bed this morning but that is just being a normal human being. I the book, what does this button do . , my father always told me have a go at everything, when you are a kid. You never know what is going to stick. The other thing that i got from him was finish what you start. And so, when i have started on things that i feel really passionate about like flying little airplanes, i never had any idea. It was not an endgame that i was going to be captain of a 747. If you asked me, no, that is never going to happen. The same thing when i started singing. Little airplanes, i never had i had no endgame that i was going to be one of the biggest rock n roll bands in the world, age 59. What, are you kidding me . That is not credible. Just one thing happens after another and suddenly you end up on lifes biggest roller coaster. Charlie what is your definition of heavy metal . Bruce i have not got one. I have given up. There is no prerogative in trying to define it. It is defined more by other people that it is defined by me. Because when i started out listening to music, there was no such thing as heavy metal. It was a term coined by a journalist actually. Metal came out of something that was called heavy rock. Heavy rock was simply an offshoot of blues rock. Led zeppelin, deep purple, free all of those bands werent heavy metal, but they came into heavy metal orbit. The whole world of music became polarized. It became very niche. Everyone was put in their little silos. That was as much a fact of life because of the media, because the media did that. The Record Companies figured out they could market it and yada yada yada, so on and so forth. We have managed to survive, not just survive but to thrive outside of that system. People call us heavy metal and we say fine, we are. Charlie how have you been able to survive and prevail . Bruce first of all, we dont ally ourselves to the media. We are not part of the cult of celebrity. Hopefully, if we end up having any kind of notoriety it is because we have actually done something. As opposed to having Plastic Surgery or whatever or being famous for being famous, exactly. So, we do what we say. We do it with integrity. We do a lot of touring. We tour fairly intensely and we hope to do really good shows and be engaged as much as possible with our audience, which is increasing. Years ago in the 1980s, we did one show in the new york area, maybe two. We are now doing four. It is a global band. Our niche has grown. I like to say our fans are like plywood. We grow a new laminate of them every generation and they stick to each other. Charlie what is the size of the venues you do now . Bruce anywhere from 10,000 to 80,000. Charlie so stadiums too . Bruce yeah. We tend now, i think out of preference if we had a preference, i loved this most recent american tour because a lot of it was indoors. It just makes the show more effective. Outdoors is always a compromise with the lights and the sound. Whatever special effects you have. Indoors, you get much more impact with a show. We are a very theatrical band. It is as i describe in the book, when i started doing music, i was this curious mixture. I started out doing theater and doing acting and then i discovered i could sing after it is as i describe in the book, deciding i didnt want to be a drummer. Charlie you discovered you were a singer because somebody listened to you and said you could sing . Bruce thats right. That person, that one little moment it is a spark that just gives you that enthusiasm. It can be one thing in your life in childhood that flips the switch and you think yes, i can. I was really underconfident for a long time because being a singer, there is nowhere to hide. You dont have a plank to hide behind that you can blame. If you play a wrong note the if you play a wrong note the guitarist, they play a wrong note and they look at the guitar, how dare you . You did it. People throw tomatoes at you if you sing bum notes. You have to have this confidence. You have to grow a thick skin. Charlie tell me about this. Bruce that is the new live album. I only listened to it myself a couple of days ago. I was surprised how good it sounded. I really like it actually. Ill be honest with you. Live albums, for me, they are mementos for fans honestly. That is the way i think about it. Weve done the bootleg work for you hopefully and done it quite well because we record every show. We have access to hundreds of as a singer, you got nowhere. Hours of tapes to put what should be the best performances together. Charlie you consider yourself more now as a front man or solo artist . Bruce i am the lead singer for iron maiden. I quit the band for five years. And i did that because i was having my little artistic dark night of the soul and i was in l. A. Doing a solo album and i realized i had no idea how to be creative outside of the framework of iron maiden. It terrified me. I think i am in an institution. I will die in this institution if i dont do something about it. What can i do . There was a quote from henry miller in the l. A. Times, just the thought for the day charlie do you remember the quote . Bruce it is in the book, but it is Something Like all growth is an unpremeditated leap in the dark with effectively no idea where you are going to land. And i went god, hes right. Every bit of my life that has ever produced anything of any worth has been that hanging by your fingernails going oh, i hope this works out. And somehow it does. Like you throw a cat out of the window and it always lands right side up. I realized that i had to do that to figure out whether or not i actually belong in the universe as a singer anymore. So i quit. It was a little bit difficult explaining i had quit because of a newspaper clipping out of the l. A. Times. I got various things like he has gone mad. I did. I flailed around for a year or so not knowing what to do. Finally, i came out with pretty good stuff. I did six albums and finally they asked me to rejoin the band. So at that Point Charlie that was an easy decision . Bruce yeah, it was relatively easy. I was with a band at the time who i loved. I adored these guys. They were from l. A. , they were from the valley. Wed done like three albums together. And we really had a bond. I had to sit them down and say look, guys, they asked me to rejoin iron maiden. I know whats going to happen. Im going to rejoin iron maiden and my feet are not going to touch the floor. Im going to be busy, busy, busy. We are not going to be able to make any more music, in practical terms. What do you think . And one of the bass players said to me youve got to do it. I said, yeah, but why do you say that . Selfinterest . He said no, man, you are putting iron maiden back together. The world needs iron maiden. I went, this sounds like the blues brothers, we are putting the band back together but you know what, you are right. Charlie why do you think he would say that . Bruce because he was a big iron maiden fan. And we people underestimate what the band means to people. We are a band that really means something. People come up to me and say this band changed my life or saved my life. The really deep and extraordinary experiences people have had listening to the band. It is difficult to explain that to people who think people only have those kinds of experiences listening to u2. We do have that effect on people and it is amazing. Charlie do you understand what it is . Bruce not necessarily. Charlie you know it is a fact, but do you understand what it is . Bruce not necessarily. It is because different songs speak to different people at different times in individual ways. You cannot fathom it. We dont design the songs that way. It is like different songs speak to me in different ways at different times. You cant design it that way. When i was at boarding school, there was a song that always used to be playing. I felt i was beaten up, bullied, i felt really lonely. I would hear that song for years afterwards and i would be right back with that set of feelings. So, songs really have a massive power to recall emotions and powerful moments of your life. Charlie did you ever imagine you would be a rock n roll star when you approached your 60th birthday . Bruce no. No. Charlie that is incredible, isnt it . Bruce i never imagined i would be a rock n roll star, period. I was thinking as far away as maybe a 3000seat theater would be like oh, my god. I was a kid underneath the bed sheets with a torch and drawing little fantasy stage sets in an exercise book when i was 16. And then i got into iron maiden and like i said, the worlds biggest roller coaster except the roller coaster never got to the bottom. Charlie why the title what does this button do . Bruce funny you should say that. The book is being released in germany. The german publishers had a real problem with the title. Charlie why . Bruce they said we dont like the title. Whats wrong with the title . They said we dont understand it. What dont you understand about the title . What does this button do . Lets press the button and see what happens. Yeah, you dont do that in germany. You only push the button if you know what it does. [laughter] bruce we need to talk. Charlie did you change the title in germany . Bruce no. We said the book is going to be called what does this button do . In english and then underneath you can put whatever it is. That is what we have gone with. I think it is a bit of a nonsense they dont understand that concept. Yeah, it is very much have a go at everything, what does this button do . And there is a little bit of mischief about it as well. Mystery and mischief. Dont push the red button. Well, every child on the planet is immediately going to push the red button. Charlie did you like this writing . Bruce i did enjoy writing it actually and i strangely enough did write it. There was not a ghost writer. Charlie i was looking there is no as told to. Bruce no, i hand wrote it on seven a4 pads. I did 160,000 words of handwritten script. Im a hunt and peck typist. I cannot stand spelling mistakes. They really upset me. There would be loads of them if i typed it and it would interrupt the flow. That was it. I did 160,000 words, we took 40,000 out otherwise the book would have been a doorstep, not a book. And it is me. Thats it. I tried to cover all the bases from getting rid of throat cancer at the end of it. That was a good stopping point. The starting point of the rest of my life. Charlie total remission . Bruce yeah. The word on the scan was total clinical response and i said to the oncologist, i went, it is gone . Yeah, its gone. Its gone . Yeah, gone, gone, gone. I went wow, thats good. Charlie some of the best words you ever heard in your life. Bruce it is very hard to encompass it. You almost get survivors guilt. Charlie the book is called what does this button do . Bruce dickinson an autobiography. As well as iron maidens live album. Thank you. Bruce cheers. Thank you very much. Charlie pleasure. Thank you joining us. See you next time. Retail. Under pressure like never before. And its connected technology thats moving companies forward fast. Ecommerce. Real time inventory. Virtual changing rooms. Thats why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent Network Speed across multiple locations. Every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. Leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. Comcast business outmaneuver. 8 a. M. Here in hong kong. Im yvonne man. On friday is declines. The biggest oneday swing in a year. Traders are concerned about the great tax debate in washington. A capital uphill battle. And i am betty liu here in new york. Just after 7 p. M. On this thursday evening. President trump taking his message to aipac